World War Three has started

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:16:01 +0100, Eeyore
> wrote:

>
>
wrote:
>
>> Eeyore wrote:
>>
>> > For comparison, the heavily utilised Channel Tunnel service costs *from* ~ $90 one
>> > way for a ~ 30 mi trip. Ok, there's the cost of the tunnel too but would you pay,
>> > say, $1 a mile to get your car from A to B on a train ?
>> >
>> > Graham
>>
>> Again, the knee jerk reaction applied to _anything_ unusual, that "It's
>> too expensive". Maybe it is, maybe it ain't, but U don't know that and
>> neither do I.
>
>Of course it's expensive. You have to duplicate a simple infrastructure ( roads ) with a
>complex one ( railways ). If you can't understand something as basic as that you're a
>total cretin.
>
>Compare the cost of a mile of road with a mile of railway.
>
>Graham

Well, such comparison can't really be done now, as there's no railroad that
would be built like this.

Current railroads have to have a lot of cost associated with controls and
signals and things like that, for the engineer to see and react to. Since this
would be all computer controlled, these signals would not be necessary, and the
cost for them could be saved. And if there's one thing that consistently gets
cheaper, its computers, so the controls on each railcar could be really not all
that expensive.

But yeah, it's going to be expensive. How expensive is the question, and how
you measure it is also a factor. While a highway can carry 4 people in a car
at about 60 - 70 mph, the cars must be about 2 seconds apart for reasonable
safety. Not so for the computerized railcar system - railcars cars would roll
to their destinations while touching. So, for, say, a 30 foot long railcar
going 80 mph, there would be about a 3.9 railcar per second thruput, compared
to slightly less than 1 car per every 2 seconds for a highway. And, of course,
if you're going to buy right of way anyway, you might as well build 2, 3, or 4
sets of tracks going in each direction - load the inner tracks up with the long
haul stuff that doesn't have to be handled very often, and progress to the
local rails at the outside.

And comparing this with highways is futile in terms of solving the original
problem, which is getting the transport system running on electricity. Rails
can, highways can't. So, yeah its expensive, but it solves pollution
problems, energy independence problems, highway death toll problems, and that's
just for starters. What's that worth, anyhow?

Dave Head

Dave Head > wrote in
:

> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 09:11:11 -0700, Bill Funk >
> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:06:53 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:
>>
>>>So, what's the problem? You get in your (battery powered, hydrogen
>>>powered, diesel, whatever) van, drive to the nearest rail terminal,
>>>drive your vehicle on it, select a destination rail terminal closest
>>>to your 1st jobsite, and get there at high speed without having to
>>>drive. Then, when going to the next destination, repeat the process.
>>> Do it all day - you might only actually drive your vehicle for 20 -
>>>30 miles, and cover a distance that would otherwise be 300 miles of
>>>conventional driving.
>>
>>Just try to imaging the web of rails this would take. Then try to
>>imaging he costs of this rail web.
>>Then multiply this by every city that tries to implement it.
>>Kyoto would be cheaper.
>
> Again, what's the problem? I don't have to imagine very hard - I only
> have to think of highways, and then imagine steel rails there. We
> built the highways, so I imagine we could build the rails.
>
> Dave Head
>

It might be more beneficial to return much commercial shipping to
rail,rather than personal travel.How much non-commercial traffic is between
cities,compared to everyday driving to work and local errand running?

The traffic problems are mostly urban,not interstate or intrastate.
And that's where most of the fuel savings would occur,from local traffic.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:16:01 +0100, Eeyore
> wrote:

>
>
wrote:
>
>> Eeyore wrote:
>>
>> > For comparison, the heavily utilised Channel Tunnel service costs *from* ~ $90 one
>> > way for a ~ 30 mi trip. Ok, there's the cost of the tunnel too but would you pay,
>> > say, $1 a mile to get your car from A to B on a train ?
>> >
>> > Graham
>>
>> Again, the knee jerk reaction applied to _anything_ unusual, that "It's
>> too expensive". Maybe it is, maybe it ain't, but U don't know that and
>> neither do I.
>
>Of course it's expensive. You have to duplicate a simple infrastructure ( roads ) with a
>complex one ( railways ). If you can't understand something as basic as that you're a
>total cretin.
>
>Compare the cost of a mile of road with a mile of railway.
>
>Graham

OK, Lets:

-------------------------

A new report by the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board
(TRB) found high-speed rail to be feasible for the near-term. High-speed rail
would cost approximately $10 million per mile in open, straight spaces, as
compared to mag-lev's $15 million per mile. This makes high-speed rail more
attractive in the open areas of the midwest. Mag-lev is thought to be more cost
efficient in urban areas.

From this google-cached site:

http://tinyurl.com/qqqeh

-------------------------

and we have

-------------------------

In 1996 dollars, the Federal Highway Administration has calculated the
"weighted rural and urban combined" costs per mile of interstate highway to be
$20.6 million.(9) Other highway construction normally ranges from $1 million to
$5 million per mile,

From this site:

http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html

-------------------------

So, how much more is it really. $10 million a mile for HIGH SPEED rail, which
this wouldn't necessarily be at 80 mph, against $1 - $5 million a mile for
regular interstate highway.

Now, the rail isn't limited to carrying 1 car with 2 seconds of spacing for
safety - the railcars run nose-to-tail, so thruput is maybe 8 times the thruput
of a highway. Add to that, you can electrify the rails to run on coal or
nuclear, and save the public maybe $2.40 a gallon in transportation costs by
running at about $0.60 / a gallon equivalent cost, and the rail system is going
to be _cheap_ by comparison, over time.

We would end up _rich_ if we built this...

Dave Head

Dave Head wrote:
> I'd really want to see this thing operate safely for a long time, too, before I
> was convinced that the computers controlling it could handle deer intrusion,
> tell the difference between a paper bag that is laying in the roadway and can
> be hit, and a 4 inch by 4 inch block of wood that would bust a tire if it was
> hit. There's lots about driving that I'm skeptical that a computer could
> handle. Computer's acilles heel right now is pattern recognition - they don't
> do it all that well. But you have to do that to figure out whether the road is
> safe or not.

I think your concerns are legitimate, but the flip side is 42,643
traffic deaths and 2.9 million injuries during 2003 in the United
States alone, and every single one of them involved human drivers.

The machines clearly do not need to be perfect to improve on the human
safety record.


-Will Dwinnell
http://will.dwinnell.com



See:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whati.../AdminStmt.htm

Dave Head wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 09:11:11 -0700, Bill Funk > wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:06:53 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:
> >
> >>So, what's the problem? You get in your (battery powered, hydrogen powered,
> >>diesel, whatever) van, drive to the nearest rail terminal, drive your vehicle
> >>on it, select a destination rail terminal closest to your 1st jobsite, and get
> >>there at high speed without having to drive. Then, when going to the next
> >>destination, repeat the process. Do it all day - you might only actually drive
> >>your vehicle for 20 - 30 miles, and cover a distance that would otherwise be
> >>300 miles of conventional driving.
> >
> >Just try to imaging the web of rails this would take. Then try to
> >imaging he costs of this rail web.
> >Then multiply this by every city that tries to implement it.
> >Kyoto would be cheaper.
>
> Again, what's the problem? I don't have to imagine very hard - I only have to
> think of highways, and then imagine steel rails there. We built the highways,
> so I imagine we could build the rails.

The cost in railways isn't so much the rails as the required associated
infrastructure. Roads work on their own in comparison !

Graham

On 2 Aug 2006 23:54:30 GMT, Jim Yanik > wrote:

>Dave Head > wrote in
:
>
>> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 09:11:11 -0700, Bill Funk >
>> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:06:53 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:
>>>
>>>>So, what's the problem? You get in your (battery powered, hydrogen
>>>>powered, diesel, whatever) van, drive to the nearest rail terminal,
>>>>drive your vehicle on it, select a destination rail terminal closest
>>>>to your 1st jobsite, and get there at high speed without having to
>>>>drive. Then, when going to the next destination, repeat the process.
>>>> Do it all day - you might only actually drive your vehicle for 20 -
>>>>30 miles, and cover a distance that would otherwise be 300 miles of
>>>>conventional driving.
>>>
>>>Just try to imaging the web of rails this would take. Then try to
>>>imaging he costs of this rail web.
>>>Then multiply this by every city that tries to implement it.
>>>Kyoto would be cheaper.
>>
>> Again, what's the problem? I don't have to imagine very hard - I only
>> have to think of highways, and then imagine steel rails there. We
>> built the highways, so I imagine we could build the rails.
>>
>> Dave Head
>>
>
>It might be more beneficial to return much commercial shipping to
>rail,rather than personal travel.

While getting commerce back on rail should be a near-term goal, the goal of
getting _cars_ off of _roads_, for a wide variety of reasons some of which are
safety, environment, fossil fuel consumption, and energy independence, none of
which are going to be solved via cars on roads, I think makes getting as much
of _any_ sort of transport onto rail as we can a really good idea.

>How much non-commercial traffic is between
>cities,compared to everyday driving to work and local errand running?

Don't know, but the cars and trucks are almost equal in lotsa places. There's
usually more cars than trucks most places, tho.

>The traffic problems are mostly urban,not interstate or intrastate.

Oh, I disagree. There are serious traffic problems on the interstates outside
of cities now. The trucks are pounding the pavement into dust, which causes
the DOT to set up roadblocks (construction zones) in order to fix 'em. I lost
40 minutes to just _1_ such construction zone on I-81 NB last Sunday, and
dodged a bullet on another one in Kentucky. I can now _usually_ count on
having to get off the interestate and take back roads around a big backup
_somewhere_ along any long trip of 500 miles or more. The congestion is
extreme, and its mostly trucks that are at the bottom of it.

>And that's where most of the fuel savings would occur,from local traffic.

Well, that would be good news, because hybrid technology could be also applied
to railcars. Running trains around town with stop-and-go duty cycles would
benefit from hybrid tech a lot.

Dave Head

On 2 Aug 2006 19:06:52 -0700, "Predictor" > wrote:

>
>Dave Head wrote:
>> I'd really want to see this thing operate safely for a long time, too, before I
>> was convinced that the computers controlling it could handle deer intrusion,
>> tell the difference between a paper bag that is laying in the roadway and can
>> be hit, and a 4 inch by 4 inch block of wood that would bust a tire if it was
>> hit. There's lots about driving that I'm skeptical that a computer could
>> handle. Computer's acilles heel right now is pattern recognition - they don't
>> do it all that well. But you have to do that to figure out whether the road is
>> safe or not.
>
>I think your concerns are legitimate, but the flip side is 42,643
>traffic deaths and 2.9 million injuries during 2003 in the United
>States alone, and every single one of them involved human drivers.
>
>The machines clearly do not need to be perfect to improve on the human
>safety record.
>
>
>-Will Dwinnell
>http://will.dwinnell.com
>
>
>
>See:
>http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whati.../AdminStmt.htm


While that is true, there would be the problem of getting people to willingly
use such a system, when reports start coming in that say a computer failed to
compensate for X, Y, or Z condition that each driver is _sure_ that he could
have done better with. While it may or may not be true, the problem will still
be to get that driver to cooperate and use a computer controlled vehicle that
is known to make deadly mistakes.

Dave Head

On Thu, 03 Aug 2006 03:44:13 +0100, Eeyore
> wrote:

>
>
>Dave Head wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 09:11:11 -0700, Bill Funk > wrote:
>>
>> >On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:06:53 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:
>> >
>> >>So, what's the problem? You get in your (battery powered, hydrogen powered,
>> >>diesel, whatever) van, drive to the nearest rail terminal, drive your vehicle
>> >>on it, select a destination rail terminal closest to your 1st jobsite, and get
>> >>there at high speed without having to drive. Then, when going to the next
>> >>destination, repeat the process. Do it all day - you might only actually drive
>> >>your vehicle for 20 - 30 miles, and cover a distance that would otherwise be
>> >>300 miles of conventional driving.
>> >
>> >Just try to imaging the web of rails this would take. Then try to
>> >imaging he costs of this rail web.
>> >Then multiply this by every city that tries to implement it.
>> >Kyoto would be cheaper.
>>
>> Again, what's the problem? I don't have to imagine very hard - I only have to
>> think of highways, and then imagine steel rails there. We built the highways,
>> so I imagine we could build the rails.
>
>The cost in railways isn't so much the rails as the required associated
>infrastructure. Roads work on their own in comparison !
>
>Graham

Well, again, this is a different sort of railway we're talking about here - one
where autonomous vehicles navigate a set of rails on their own. BTW, the
switching mechansim is built into each railcar - the switch site on the track
is just a static structure - so signal lights, switching mechanisms, etc. etc.
do not come into play with this system. There might be communications
equipment that helps keep railcar computers talking to each other, and maybe
some aids to help railcar sensors be sure to detect other railcars on the
trackage that's near them, but not the elaborate control structures that we
have for moving trains sharing trackage right now.

It should be significantly cheaper than anything we've seen that is "rail" in
the past.

Dave Head

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:40:28 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:

>>Yet, problems I haven't seen addressed remain. For example, a *HUGE*
>>number of cars must be made available, so the users can find them when
>>and where they need them.
>
>Yes, there'd have to be a lot of them, alright. There'd probably be people
>making money writing software to predict where the railcars were needed at what
>times, and how best to get enough supplies in the right places so as to
>minimize the necessity to build more than is really necessary. You'd have
>railcars taking people to work, but then immediatly joining a train going the
>other way, probably while empty (although FedEx and UPS and USPS probably would
>have a way to fill 'em up for the return trip) to make itself available for the
>next commuter going to work at a later time.

The cars would need to get to the loading place for FedEx or UPS to
use them, plus the extra sorting would cost them more, and the
delivery costs would go up. Not much of a business plan there.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:40:28 GMT, Dave Head > wrote:

>>Having a motor and control system on each
>>car makes for a truly vast maintenance problem; all it takes to block
>>the entire main line is one malfunction, which would be made worse
>>with the isolated geography the vastness of the US provides.
>
>Of course this problem would need to be attacked with redundancy. Just as you
>don't go caving with just 1 source of light, you'd probably have 3 computers
>running essentially the same program, and voting on the correct responses to
>inputs.

Co$t. Remember, this would need to be paid for with taxes.
>
>The failure that would cripple a railcar would likely be mechanical, and if the
>car could still roll, it could be pushed to the next station by a car behind
>it. And, if the rails are made with 2 sets of tracks in each direction, the
>2nd set of tracks could dispatch a work crane to lift the crippled railcar off
>the tracks and dolly it back to the maintenance shed on the 2nd set of tracks.

More cars, double tracking, more co$t.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"