A Vibrant US Train Industry Would Employ More People Than Car Makers Do Now

[Towntalk]

When you see 80 car trains with half the cars hauling double load trailors its encouraging.

[rusty river]

They make a compelling argument, and I'm sure we'll see more industries and businesses utilize freight trains for their transportation needs. But with this country's "gotta have it now" mentality, don't expect a significant decrease in trucking.

[Towntalk]

Right you are and here's a link you might explore.

Association of American Railroads
http://www.aar.org/Environment/Environment.aspx

Railroads move 43 percent of the nation's freight and are the "greenest," most fuel-efficient form of ground transportation today. We have the numbers to prove it:
·   A freight train can move a ton of freight an average of 436 miles on a single gallon of fuel. That's close to four times as far as it could move by truck.
·   A train can take the load of 280 trucks off the road. That's like removing 1,100 cars from the road.
·   Each ton-mile of freight moved by rail rather than highway reduces greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds or more.
·   Freight trains are three or more times more fuel-efficient than trucks.
·   If only 10 percent of freight currently moved by highway switched to rail, national fuel savings would exceed one billion gallons of fuel a year and greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 12 million tons.
·   By improving their fuel efficiency, freight railroads have, in effect, reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 million tons every year since 1980.
Our country demands more affordable, efficient and environmentally-responsible transportation and our railroads provide it. The solution to a cleaner, greener future for America? It's freight rail.

[rusty river]

CSX could take 12 people from Youngstown to Chicago on less than a gallon of fuel.

If those 12 people were to go by car, they would need 3 vehicles and about 38 gallons of fuel.

[Towntalk]

That is per train, but when you total up all the trains that run in the U.S. including excursion trains just how much fuel are you talking about?

On a History Channel program on trains they showed a rail yard in Texas where trains fuel up and the amount that was needed was huge.

[rusty river]

CSX advertises it can move 1 ton of freight 423 miles on 1 gallon of fuel...

[sfc_oliver]

Nuclear engines? Subs have operated with them for 30 years or so now.

[Towntalk]

A question:

Trains run on thousands of gallons of fuel, and use hundreds of pounds of grease.

Electric trains also use diesel fuel as backup in case of power outage, and also use hundreds of pounds of grease.

I would love to see rail passanger return, but how would we cut back on the amount of oil that would be needed?

Moving parts of trains can't be lubed on vegetable oil.

[Oldmill]

The only way mass transit would work in this country is if fuel costs would rise dramatically. Hmmm Yes I believe our illustrious government could make that happen !  It may be a fight against us that are used to driving ourselves to & fro. dig deep into those pockets

[Towntalk]

Allow me to put on my history hat for a trip down memory lane.

The valley has a history of building railroad cars. At one time there was a company located in East Youngstown (Campbell) and another I believe in Niles, and of Course there was Youngstown Steel Door in Austintown.

The plant in Niles also built Street Cars.

It would be nice to bring back some of those industries to the valley.

[jay]

The newly formed American Railcar Company is looking for suitable manufacturing facilities.  I wonder if the company would consider a location in Youngstown?

I hope city council and the mayor are checking on this.

[irishbobcat]

A Vibrant US Train Industry Would Employ More People Than Car Makers Do Now
Posted on Tuesday May 19th by Yonah Freemark

Everyone knows America's passenger train system is pathetic by international standards, so President Obama's $13 billion commitment to build a national high-speed rail network has come as a wonderful surprise.

It also raises the question of whether a reinvigorated rail industry could, with the car industry and several airlines drifting into bankruptcy, be the next great hope for keeping people employed in this country?

Though the U.S. is the world's largest economy, the market for passenger rail vehicles and services has shrunk dramatically over the past several decades. European and Asian countries have invested heavily in expanding their rail offerings but Washington has done little more than keep national operator Amtrak on life support. As a result, rail accounts for only 0.3% of total transportation usage in the U.S., compared to 6% in the U.K., 10% in Austria, and 27% in Japan. Because of the lack of adequate train services, automobiles and airplanes provide the only medium-to-long distance commuting choice for the majority of Americans.

This has meant that US companies have largely missed out on participating in a major global industry. The competitive market for rail manufacturing and services in Europe accounted for more than 20 billion euros in 2005. The market in the Nafta zone of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico was only one-quarter as large, even though the two areas have equivalent populations.

There has been some increased recent investment in urban rail networks in the US: there are several foreign factories that make vehicles for commuter and light rail systems in stateside facilities. But there are no plants making intercity trains, as Amtrak hasn't ordered new rolling stock in a decade and no passenger rail manufacturers are headquartered in America.

In the world passenger rail market, three companies currently dominate: the Canadian Bombardier, the French Alstom, and the German Siemens. In Germany, railway manufacturers collectively employ 45,000 individuals who produce new trainsets for large markets in that nation and abroad. Bombardier alone provides jobs for 34,000 people in the rail industry.

But none of these companies employs the mammoth 200,000-plus person workforce of a major auto company like Ford or GM.

Even in fully-developed rail markets such as those in Europe, train production doesn't create as many jobs as making cars. Yet rail vehicles, unlike automobiles, need a staff to operate them, and that's where a passenger rail industry could prove its value in creating new jobs.

France's TGV high-speed trains, which criss-cross that country, carried 100 million people in 2008, and the national rail company employs about 200,000 people (that number includes people working on commuter trains). France is 1/5th the size of the U.S. in population.

One can extrapolate: an equivalent American rail network could transport 500 million passengers a year on fast rail and provide jobs for one million people operating trains, maintaining track, and serving customers. There are about as many people working in motor vehicle and part manufacturing in the U.S. today. A vibrant rail industry would mostly be a service-oriented one, rather than a manufacturing one.

The U.S. isn't close to providing anything of the sort today: Amtrak's 18,000 employees served only 29 million passengers in 2008. It's hard to imagine an $8 billion dollar investment from Washington being enough to stimulate the 20-fold expansion of a transportation sector, but it's a start.

Perhaps America should look for an example in its success in transporting freight by rail. Since 1980, the railroad industry has invested $420 billion of its own funds for locomotives, rail cars, tracks, bridges, and tunnels, and today freight companies like CSX and Norfolk Southern manage more than 140,000 miles of track and transport more goods than do truckers. More than 180,000 people work in the field.

There's no reason equivalent success couldn't arise from a passenger rail industry.
____________ ________

Yonah Freemark is an independent researcher currently working in France on comparative urban development as part of a Gordon Grand Fellowship from Yale University, from which he graduated in May 2008 with a BA in architecture. He writes about transportation and land use issues for The Transport Politic and The Infrastructurist.


The New GM.......GENERAL MASS TRANSIT....the way of the future!

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/