Post by jgalt on May 5, 2010 12:04:38 GMT -5
Highways didnt kill rail because commuters started buying cars, they killed rail because people stopped shipping with rail. That had a much greater effect. Airlines had less do with it because up until recently (80s) airlines couldn't support major shipping because of plane designs.
Its also not fair (though no one has made this point yet) to compare modern rail times and costs to what they could have been had rail remained the primary mode of shipping as more capital investment would have lead to the advances that we now see in Europe and Asia. It would not be hard with modern technology to build a rail line that transported more goods than a fleet of airplanes across the country in less time for less money- it is the eminent domain issues and cost of constructing such a line (and some practicality issues)
Anyway the reason i think this relates to this oil spill is that by increasing road traffic oil became cheaper as OPEC (along with Exxon, BP, etc) rushed to increase oil production. TC is right that oil was already cheap and that incentive's people to buy cars but shipping by rail has always been more fuel efficient.
Its also not fair (though no one has made this point yet) to compare modern rail times and costs to what they could have been had rail remained the primary mode of shipping as more capital investment would have lead to the advances that we now see in Europe and Asia. It would not be hard with modern technology to build a rail line that transported more goods than a fleet of airplanes across the country in less time for less money- it is the eminent domain issues and cost of constructing such a line (and some practicality issues)
Anyway the reason i think this relates to this oil spill is that by increasing road traffic oil became cheaper as OPEC (along with Exxon, BP, etc) rushed to increase oil production. TC is right that oil was already cheap and that incentive's people to buy cars but shipping by rail has always been more fuel efficient.