Trains are uneconomic?

Question

do you agree and why

Answer 1

They are extremely economic.  You can move 200+ tractor trailers of freight to a distribution center on one freight train.

Unfortunately, we're digging up train tracks for nature trails and putting those trucks on the road.

Answer 2

Oh, Mally, Mally.   Incomplete question, crazy answers.

You have to fully define your question.  Some people think you are talking about freight trains.  Other people assume you mean passenger trains.  Some people assume you mean the US market.  Others have a more global view.

Freight trains are very economic.  Passenger trains are generally not.  That being said, in some parts of the world, passenger trains make a lot of sense, based on their high population density and the cost of maintaining competing modes of transportation.

Answer 3

NO!!!  A locomotive runs off of electricity.  The fuel is just for the generator.  Very economical

Answer 4

ummmm no

considering they use rughly 1/4 the fuel of a truck per ton mile

Yesterday my crew assistant and I took 16,000 tons of coal 280 miles, and our horsepower to ton ration was .8, not a typo, 8/10s of a horsepower per ton, that would be like putting your lawnmower engine in a 3/4 ton pickup and driving down the highway.

A train crew of two can move hundreds of truckloads at a time

And the railroads have to rebuild their own roadbed when it wears out instead of the highway department at your tax dollars.

Railroads are heavily taxed, whereas trucks pay roughly 70% of the road dmage they cause, the rest is subsidized.

Trains are the most efficient, economical and environmentally friendly form of land transport there is.

Answer 5

Ohhhhh Mally T. That statement is soooo false. For a automobile to drive the way we expect it to, it must have at least 70 horsepower. That's 70 hp per ton of automobile. A train moves one ton of freight on 4 horsepower. Now that's economical.

Answer 6

old trains were economic, it was costing in coal the freight that had to be transported. But now they are very economically friendly and some have been recognised for their extreme speeds. Like the one in japan for instance. It's magnetic.

Answer 7

I don't know anyone who is informed who would agree with that statement.

Answer 8

The problem with this question is that there is not a level competitive playing field.

Interstate highways, local roads, airports, canals . . . all built and subsidized by the government.  All exempt from local property taxes, all given tax-free bonding while railroads build their own infrastructure with money from the capital markets (banks, etc) which means a 9% cost of capital.

So for railroads to be "economic" in the current circumstances, they actually have to be considerably superior.

And that's not even getting into the costs off-loaded onto the public and our children because of the cost of pollution and global warming (which is staggeringly higher for trucks, cars and planes, in comparison to rail) and the cost of the military used to protect our sources of oil (which would double the price of gas, according to some things I've read).

Besides all this . . . railroads move more freight and passengers using less land than an interstate.

Answer 9

Trains are not self-sustaining,  but then again, neither is the Interstate system, or any other type of transport for that matter.  Every single type of transport in the country depends on subsidies of some type.

Answer 10

No, I don't agree that they are uneconomical.

The data on freight is already CLEAR, trains move it FAR more economically... even BEFORE you calculate the funds required to maintain the highways (which we are NOT doing in the USA).

My experience regarding passenger travel is ONLY on short and long-run commuter rail... the 86 mile trip from San Jose to Stockton is a $20 round-trip ticket, yet the same trip via CAR would cost in excess of $30 for gas alone in a 25mpg car.  The TIME required is only 15 minutes longer, yet the STRESS disappears.

YES, the commuter rail is tax-subsidized, BUT it operates and full capacity (good planning and promotion), moved into the BLACK last year after only 8 years in operation, and is planning expansions