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Sunday Train: Economic Independence will Help Pay For Itself by: BruceMcF Sun Mar 14, 2010 at 20:52:59 PDT (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Last week I presented a draft of a national Steel Interstate plan. The focus was on the Institutional Framework required to be able to build it, including the source for the interest subsidy to finance its up front capital cost. Possibly lost in the wall of words was an important point, which was focused on by some commentary: the users are paying the capital construction cost. As a country, we need it, so as a country, it makes sense to find a way to jumpstart it and have it available for the oil prices shocks that are coming in this next two decades. ... but once it starts getting used, that's what will cover the original construction cost. One way we can tell we are heading toward Economic Freedom is that it helps pay for itself. There's More... :: (1 Comments, 1896 words in story)

Sunday Train: A Nationwide Freight and Passenger Regional HSR System by: BruceMcF Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 18:12:43 PST (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Energy Independence It often seems there is a deep canyon lying between what we can do and what needs to be done as a community, as a local region, as a state, as a national region, or as a nation. But the Steel Interstate is a national program that a coalition of determined groups of advocates scattered across the country could get going. It bridges regional interest conflicts, and offers a way to advance some of the interests of so many - Interstate motorists, advocates of freedom from cars, organized labor, the largely disorganized army of the unemployed, advocates of ecological sustainability, advocates of mitigating climate chaos, and Progressive Patriots, to name just a few. Of course, I want to talk process, but it seems to be network maps that catches people's interest. So how I will go about this is alternating Map and Process. There's More... :: (9 Comments, 3670 words in story)

Sunday Train: Going to Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Other Adventures by: BruceMcF Sun Jan 31, 2010 at 16:03:15 PST (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Huh, seems me that whatever the state of my various concerns, the agenda of the Sunday Train has been taken over by the White House ... funny how announcing the recipients of a total of $8b will do that. The Transport Politic (aka Yonah Freeman and the TTP commentariat) has a very complete rundown. The allotments over $200m are: California, $2,344m Florida: $1,250m Illinois: $1,236m Wisconsin: $822m Washington: $590m North Carolina: $545m   Ohio: $400m So, what's the money for? Join me below the fold. There's More... :: (13 Comments, 1641 words in story)

Sunday Train: A Train Running A Profit is Charging Too Much by: BruceMcF Sun Jan 24, 2010 at 16:10:42 PST (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Note that the statement is abbreviated for the title. The full statement is, a common carrier like a train, bus, or plane that running a profit based on passenger revenue while paying its full operating and capital cost is charging too much for its tickets. The radical abbreviation of the title is in part because of the radical abbreviation of the lie that is commonly used as a frame. The lie is that a common carrier like a train, bus or plane that is paying for its full operating and capital costs out of passenger revenue ought to run a profit, commonly expressed as a charge of, "SERVICE_XYZ is losing money, it needs to be reformed!", which assumes that Service_XYZ is supposed to be making a profit. And, of course, in the sense described above, if its a common carrier transport service, of course it shouldn't be making a profit. And further, if under the above conditions, if its making a profit, you're doing it wrong. In the sense given above, PROFIT=FAIL. There's More... :: (7 Comments, 1175 words in story)

Sunday Train: Freight and Passenger Trains Should Be Friends by: BruceMcF Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 15:08:36 PST ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Flying home from the Economist's national conference Atlanta (see note1) my brilliant entertainment plan to pass the day lost flying home from Atlanta fell apart. I could not attend even the 8am session on Tuesday, because the flight left at 11:15, and I was warned about TSA security theater delays. So I got on the MARTA train around 8:30, to stand in line to check-in, to stand in line to get through screening, to get to the gate and wait, to get on the plane which waited in line for a runway. It was, however, only half an hour in the air, so that fact that with a 125mph train to Charlotte I could have gone to the morning conference session and arrived in Charlotte sooner is neither here nor there. Then I had a 3hr+ layover in Charlotte until the plane back home to NE Ohio. But I had my Netflix and some FullMetal Alchemist DVD's, so no problem. Except my portable DVD player decided to stop working (see note2), so there were no DVD's. Which meant I was forced to fall back on a "pbook" (paper book) I had brought with me - Waiting on a Train, which meant that I finally finished it (and still had several hours to wait after I had done so). And in particular read the fascinating discussion of the touchy relationship between freight and passenger trains. Regular readers will know that this is a critical point: indeed, the entire Steel-Interstate strategy to getting Higher Speed Rail for Appalachia rests on passenger trains running on infrastructure provided in support of 100mph electric freight trains. There's More... :: (14 Comments, 1505 words in story)

Sunday Train: Doctor Dan prescribes High Speed Rail for Kentucky by: BruceMcF Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 15:50:48 PST (11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Doctor Dan Mongiardo, Kentucky's Lieutenant Governor, has announced that he is running for the Democratic nomination for the Kentucky Senate race, to take on whoever wins the Republican nomination to challenge for the seat that Senator Bunning (R-Big$$$) has announced he is giving up. Lots of politics to unwrap in that paragraph, which I'll leave to the political wise-guys. The Sunday Train today is about Dr. Dan's Rail Plan. As far as I can tell, Dr. Dan's Rail Plan has four main parts, and regular readers of the Sunday Train will recognize much from each of the four parts: Support for expanding Kentucky's existing and potential Amtrak routes into 110mph Emerging Higher Speed Rail corridors Support for regional rail services to complete the above state rail map "Hybrid Light Rail" to provide cross-metropolitan local rail services, principally to Louisville Heavy investment in complementary local transit, including bus rapid transit and a high frequency driverless monotrain system for Kentucky. Act Blue Page For those looking to send some snake oil Doctor Dan's way: Daniel Mongiardo's Act Blue Page. There's More... :: (3 Comments, 1489 words in story)

Sunday Train: Hey, Joe, I still want a Sustainable High Speed Electric Train for Christmas by: BruceMcF Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 16:14:15 PST (11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Last year, I told VP Joe Biden about the Sustainable Electric High(er) Speed Rail I wanted for Christmas (cf. links below). It involved electrifying the 30,000+ miles of STRACNET, and establishing 100mph Rapid Freight Rail paths, including support for running 110mph or 125mph long haul electric passenger services on the Rapid Freight paths. In short, I wanted Joe Biden to take Alan Drake's plan and just fracking DO it. I didn't get it for Christmas last year - but then, I guess he was only VP-elect last 25DEC08. The post today is to look at the progress toward the goal. The answer, surprisingly, is that we have made substantial progress. Certainly we are not halfway there, yet, but we are much further along than I expected to see. There's More... :: (6 Comments, 1732 words in story)

Build Steel Interstates with $1/barrel and 1% of the Carbon Fee by: BruceMcF Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 09:54:11 PST (11 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) crossposted from Agent Orange The Steel Interstate concept (tagpage) is one that I have been discussing, off and on, in my Sunday Train series. The basic idea is to electrify the Department of Defense STrategic RAil Corridor NETwork, STRACNET (right), and establish 100mph Rapid Freight Rail paths, to allow an estimated (Millenium Institute pdf) half of long haul trucking to shift to electric freight rail at a saving of about 10% of our current oil imports. This diary is about how to overcome the only thing standing in its way: Public Finance. And that is to impose a $1/barrel tax on imported petroleum and petroleum products, and allocate 1% of any Carbon Fee to financing construction. There's More... :: (6 Comments, 2066 words in story)

Sunday Train: Leveraging Pittsburgh / Cleveland for Canton/Akron / UPDATED by: BruceMcF Sun Oct 25, 2009 at 16:50:21 PDT (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence crossposted from ProgressiveBlue, also available in Orange One of the stories that came out into the press this week was the pledge by the US Department of Transport to look into extending the designated HSR corridors to include Pittsburgh/Cleveland. This would extend the Cleveland/Chicago route via northern Indiana and connect with the Triple-C route at Cleveland (both currently competing for HSR Stimulus funding). This is a 145 mile alignment that would offer a 2:10 Express trip between these two cities as a 110mph corridor, for a 67mph route speed - and faster, of course, if later upgraded to a 125mph Regional HSR corridor. The focus today is not, however, High Speed Rail - it is conventional rail. The focus is on how to take this alignment that hit the top northeast corner of Akron's Summit County and leverage it into effective rail service for the Canton-Akron area. There's More... :: (3 Comments, 2186 words in story)

Sunday Train: The Pay-To-Grow Financial Model for Regional HSR by: BruceMcF Sun Oct 18, 2009 at 16:17:10 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence also Agent Orange Let construction or upgrade of a rail corridor be proposed, and almost immediately the cry goes up, "but we can't afford it! It costs too much!". Confusing the response to this cry is that there are two quite different types of "cost too much" - real, and financial. There first "cost of rail" question is the real cost question: what is the full economic benefit, including all material and energy impacts saved versus other alternative, versus the full economic cost. ___________ Note: The first kind of "cost versus benefit" question is the kind that Ed Gleaser fumbled so badly when he assumed Zero Population Growth in east Texas, no congestion today between Houston and Dallas on the intercity road network, either deliberately or through negligence bypassed important intercity transport demands along the route of his corridor, and presumed that the only available option was the most capital-intensive type of rail corridor, the all-new, all-grade separated, Express High Speed Rail corridor. ____________ The second "cost of rail" question is the financial cost - given the complex, sometimes ad hoc, and often inconsistent sets of rules we have established for allocating resources for both investment in transport infrastructure and paying for transport operations, how do we "pay for" construction or upgrade of those rail corridors that our best analysis of cost and benefit indicate are wise investments. That second question is what I am looking at today. There's More... :: (1 Comments, 2917 words in story)

Sunday Train: Supporting Rail Electrification with the Climate Bill by: BruceMcF Sun Oct 11, 2009 at 13:14:30 PDT (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence crossposted from ProgressiveBlue Transport For America (t4america.org) has a call to action out on the Climate Change Bill. "ACES" passed the House, and the corresponding (but of course not identical) legislation is presently up for consideration in the Senate. The basis of the call for action is straightforward: 1% of the revenues raised by the Carbon Fee is permitted to be used for clean energy transport - not even mandated, but optionally may be used for that among a range of other options. Transport is responsible for 30% of the CO2 emitted thus, "You can't solve 30% of the problem with 1% of the funds Now, about 14% of carbon fee revenue is dedicated to emissions reduction, so that is 7.2% of the emissions reduction budget allocated that is the maximum allowed to be spent on installing existing clean energy transport. Based on CBO estimates of carbon fees, the maximum amount that states would be allowed to devote to clean energy transport is: $391m in 2011; rising to $1.3b ($1,323m) in 2019 By contrast, the bill authorizes utilities to tax customers by $1b-$1.1b a year over 10 years to finance the installation of Carbon Sequestration Technology, which is the excuse given for permitting continued construction of coal-fired generating plants. (source: 1Sky analysis, pdf) This means: The most promising single opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport inside a decade, electrification of the STRACNET long haul rail freight network, is entirely out of bounds for any funding Funding for electric rail and trolley bus passenger transport requires first gaining approval through Federal programs that discriminate against energy-efficiency There's More... :: (6 Comments, 2649 words in story)

Sunday Train: Breaking Free of the Population Density Myth by: BruceMcF Sun Oct 04, 2009 at 13:28:34 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence crossposted from The Hillbilly Report Today, the focus is on one lovely rhetorical ploy used by anti-rail advocates to try to put one over on people with limited experience with trains. This relies on the false framing that "trains is trains", and uses something that is true about a particular kind of local rail transport to mislead people about 110mph Emerging High Speed Rail in particular. Randall O'Toole, working for The Cato Institute (Sourcewatch), recently completed another of his series of propaganda pieces against High Speed Rail, for the "Show-Me Institute". Sourcewatch does not have much on the "Show-Me Institute", but it does note that in 2006, a contribution of $50,000 to the "Show-Me Institute" appeared in the annual report ... of the Cato Institute. And what is this shell game? High capacity, high frequency local mass transit rail systems yhtive best with high population densities Therefore the higher the population density, the better for High Speed Rail Therefore the Northeast Corridor shows the best that is possible for High Speed Rail Didja catch it? Local mass transit rail and intercity High Speed Rail share people sitting in carriages with steel wheels running on steel rails - nowhere near enough in common to support the weight of the "therefore". In reality, the Northeast Corridor could well be over the threshold where population density starts to undermine High Speed Rail operating ratios. There's More... :: (6 Comments, 1708 words in story)

Sunday Train: Rapid Streetcars and Suburban Retrofit by: BruceMcF Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 12:26:13 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence crossposted to Agent Orange The people's choice award in the Re-Burbia "Rethinking Suburbia" design competition was the entry titled Urban Sprawl Repair Kit: Repairing The Urban Fabric. But I want to adapt these ideas from the repair of the urban fabric to the original creation of a healthy suburban fabric. From further below: After all, no matter how much one may love big cities - big cities have never been the be-all and end-all of settlement. Part of a healthy big city economy is a healthy network of relationships to a surrounding network of healthy smaller cities. And part of what makes them healthy is a healthy network of relationships to healthy small towns and villages. And that is the foundation of the Suburban Town and Village design pattern, using the Rapid Streetcar as its transport infrastructure backbone: providing suburban Towns and Villages that work in their own right, replacing the two-dimensional movie-set facade of Town and Village life offered by most suburban sprawl communities. There's More... :: (1 Comments, 3740 words in story)

Sunday Train: Growing Green Transport by: BruceMcF Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 15:00:00 PST (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) See Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence for crosspost links On Thursday, djrekluse at the Daily Kos said: Despite considerable tension and even aversion in green communities to the subject, we cannot talk about "going green" without making it a discussion about growth through various hierarchies of human development.  Really, the subject of growth should come as second nature to "green" thinkers and communities-after all, a blade of grass must grow to two inches before it can grow to six; a tree must grow from acorn to sapling before it can someday become a mighty oak.  In much the same way, our consciousness, our values, and our cultures must also move through several distinct stages of growth before we can even begin to even see the problem, let alone care enough to do anything about it. In other words, "going green" really means "growing green," and represents the crux of almost all the global issues we presently face: it's not a problem of human imagination, technological innovation, or even political will-it's a problem of human growth Consciousness, Culture, and Climate: Growing Green This provides a frame for thinking about growing an energy independent transport system, and about the multiple ways that local, regional, and inter-regional rail systems can help in that growth. There's More... :: (3 Comments, 3821 words in story)

Sunday Train: 21st Century Steel Interstate by: BruceMcF Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 12:16:14 PDT (noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck) crossposted from MyLeftWing Having lost sight of our goals we redoubled our efforts - Mark Twain I have blogged on this topic before (links below the fold), and the concept is both powerful and simple. Electrify main rail corridors and provide the capacity to support 100mph Rapid Freight Rail. The points are direct: Electric rail freight needs under 10% the energy of diesel truck freight Even with short-haul trucking to origin railhead and from destination railhead, 100mph Rapid Freight Rail is faster door to door freight than long-haul trucking In underused Rights of Way, rail capacity is decreasing cost, with additional capacity cheaper than existing capacity As a side-effect benefit, any system that supports high reliability scheduled freight delivery automatically support substantially upgrade passenger rail services With the focus on Long-Haul Freight, this proposed system has been dubbed the "Steel Interstate" (pdf). Virginia is facing a Dinosaur Economy proposal to expand I-81 to  eight lanes to cope with the combination of truck and car traffic. RAIL Solutions has turned to the Steel Interstate that: is a lower cost alternative is not addicted to oil, and takes semi-truck traffic off I-81, rather than imposing more semi-truck traffic on the motorists using I-81. There's More... :: (3 Comments, 2728 words in story)

Sunday Train: The Appalachian Hub, Part 1 by: BruceMcF Sun Aug 30, 2009 at 12:33:59 PDT Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence , crossposted from The Hillbilly Report It is widely remarked that the US Department of Transport map of High Speed Rail Corridors leaves a lot of obvious holes. Often, this reflects a misunderstanding of what the DoT is mapping. This is not a "Master Plan". There is no HSRail planner division inside the Federal Rail Administration inside the Department of Transport that is working away at deciding which corridor should be added to the corridor. Instead, what they have mapped are the corridors that are eligible for HSRail funding. The way that things are set up is that a state or group of states do some planning, petition Congress be designated as a HSRail corridor, or added to a corridor, or for less sweeping changes petition the Department of Transport to revise an existing corridor, and {*voila*}, that's a designated corridor. There's More... :: (25 Comments, 1920 words in story)

Sunday Train: Ed Morris Duped by Libertarian HSR Hackery by: BruceMcF Sun Aug 23, 2009 at 08:48:53 PDT (10 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence Freakonomist Eric Morris finishes up his tag-team attack with Ed Glaeser on the HSR policy with a post that confesses to the hack jobs both are doing on HSR policy - but works hard to spin the confession into a defense of the hackery. Eric Morris's efforts have been clearly the weaker of the two, to the point where Ryan Avent, who wrote blog posts to pick apart the analytical flaws of Ed Glaeser's four part series as well as the first posts by Eric Morris, responded to Eric Morris' last effort via twitter: @ryanavent: Eric Morris closes HSR series by referring readers to Randal O'Toole. You know, in case you thought he and Glaeser were aiming for an honest critique The main takeway point from below? So the bait and switch is as follows. By overstating the costs and understating the benefits of Express HSR, "it costs too much", or is only useful in a very few special cases, and therefore we cannot afford its "transformative benefits". And by ignoring the fact that the benefit of investing in Emerging HSR is greater than the cost, and focusing on dismissing the quality of the benefits, the Emerging HSR is "unworthy" of investment because it is not "transformative" enough. There's More... :: (1 Comments, 2451 words in story)

How To Build a National High Speed Rail system by: BruceMcF Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 11:56:12 PDT (1 pm. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence ... A Four Step Program Step 1. Give states a framework to develop plans, either individually or in groups, and present them to the Federal government for vetting, approval, and funding support. Step 2. States do that. Step 3. Fund a substantial number of seed corridors, so that a large number of metro areas (House) and States (Senate) have a stake in maintaining ongoing Federal HSR funding. Step 4. Keep funding the construction of more. That is my plan. But, OTOH, I'm just an obscure Development Economist with a field specialization in Regional Economics, so the fact that its my plan is neither here nor there. More newsworthy, it seems to be the plan of the Obama administration. So, unlike the Bank Bail-out, I find myself on the "cheerleader" side of Administration activity. Give Me an H! Give Me an S! Give Me an R! What's It Spell? One Piece of the Energy Independent Transport Puzzle! YEAH!!!! There's More... :: (9 Comments, 1948 words in story)

An HSR Station Grows at Transbay (SF), Grand Finale (pt 3) by: BruceMcF Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 12:14:03 PDT (10 am. - promoted by ek hornbeck) Crosspost links collected at: Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence In Part 1, the testimony representing the Transbay Joint Power Authority, managing the Transbay project, resulted in such a pile of red herring left behind that it seemed that there was something fishy going on. What that something fishy seemed to be was whether the Transbay Terminal "train box" was suited for serving as the main northern terminus for both California High Speed Rail (HSR) services and for Caltrain services. But ... what if the Transbay Terminal is not the terminus of the HSR services? In that case, the problem turns from physical limits ... to legal requirements that the design has to meet. A garbled version of that is showing up in the newspapers ... join me beyond the fold as I try to ungarble the story. There's More... :: (1 Comments, 3993 words in story)

Dear Joe, I want a Sustainable High Speed Electric Train for Christmas (Part 3) by: BruceMcF Fri Dec 12, 2008 at 21:30:15 PST (6:30PM EST - promoted by Nightprowlkitty) Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence, also available in Orange This series started with the following clip: And I have asked for Electric Trains (Part 1) and High Speed Electric Trains (Part 2). But I am greedy, so I want it all. What I really want is SUSTAINABLE High Speed Electric Trains. First, it appears that Electric Trains, and Electric High Speed Trains, offer an important step in that direction already, since they offer substantial energy efficiencies ... the most sustainable Watt is intelligent design that eliminates the need for that Watt. Second, the foundation of the nationwide Electric Train system, the electrification of STRACNET, could be the "donkey that carries its own lunch" ... there may be an opportunity to use the program to cost effectively accelerate harvesting of our nation's sustainable renewable energy resources. So, yes, I want a coast to coast, 100mph, electric freight and passenger train system. Yes, I want the break through the bottlenecks for the Acela in the NEC, establishment of the Empire Corridor, Keystone Corridor, Ohio Hub, Midwest Hub, Southeast Corridor, Gulf Corridor, T-Bone Corridor, Front Range Corridor, Cascadia Corridor, and the CA-HSR. And, being greedy, powered sustainably. There's More... :: (7 Comments, 2813 words in story)

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