That's a function of two developments: highway construction and improved maintenance/reliability of cars after the fifties. Into the sixties, you had garages in small towns with 24-hour mechanics in gas stations. When we compare cars to trains we often forget the reliability issues of cars in earlier generations. With reliability and highway quality (slow speed limits in towns), sleeper rail cars looked attractive even after World War II. There's a big difference between 400 mile trips and 1000 mile trips, too, and others have mentioned the corridors in the eastern half of the country where the primary cities are not so far apart.
US Rail System Transportation?
- Thread starter Modern Imperialism
- Start date
And yet railroad companies were trying to dump passenger trains ASAP during that time. As pointed out they were money losers.
It depends on the year. The supply of cars did not really catch up until close to 1950. Air travel wasn't big until the mid fifties. The Boeing 707 jet went into service in 1958. The postal service still used the passenger railroads until 1968, when traditional passenger rail collapsed. Air lines were not deregulated until well into the seventies. So if you start upgrading in the late forties, shorter distance rail service could remain more viable. By 1958, it would have been too late, especially with funds going to Interstate highways.
marathag
Banned
Otherway around.
Mail Contracts were pulled, and without the RPO car in the Consist, every run was a money loser for that train--which is why every railroad shed as many routes as the law allowed
OK, I stand corrected. The postal service used the passenger railroads until 1968, quickly leading to the collapse of passenger rail service.
My point is that it would take discrete effort between 1945 and 1955 to shore up the railroads in order to keep short runs viable. I guess maintenance lagged during WW2, slowing the trains down, making them profitable for freight much more so than passengers.
My point is that it would take discrete effort between 1945 and 1955 to shore up the railroads in order to keep short runs viable. I guess maintenance lagged during WW2, slowing the trains down, making them profitable for freight much more so than passengers.
marathag
Banned
Deferred maintenance was more a late '60s-70s thing. Average speed for Passenger runs didn't really slow till the '60s, where RRs wanted to appear more profitable
Freight was always more profitable than passengers. You can fill boxcars to the ceiling with goods, you can't with passengers. To put it bluntly, you have a lot of wasted space in passenger trains.
Passenger travel has not been profitable for most lines sense the 1920s that is why railroads started dropping it as fast as the government would allow. It was considered good if the route paid for itself.
As for the fancy named trains often times those where also not profitable but were viewed as an advertising expense. Kind of a business to business sort of thing. I get you on my nice train and you use my railroad to ship your stuff.
So the profit is in the freight and that does not need to go 100+mph. So it does not need elevated crossings and all the other expensive stuff high speed needs.
But the big problem with high speed rail is that You are still failing to find ways to pay for these various ideas and that is the BIG stumbling block.
Using Detroit aaa an example we have a grid system of roads with on average one main road every mile (mile grid) and a secondary road every 1/2 most of which we can not just cut. I live over 35 MILES from downtown and the roads go farther then me. So you are looking at between 40 and 80 grade crossings that need to be eliminated to get out of downtown.
I image that other cities such as Chicago are similar. Add in a road every 4 miles or so between the two cities and you get another 50 or so. Thus you are at 130 to 210 grade crossings that you need to elevate (either the road or the train). At a few million a pop this adds up fast.
So you have a multi billion dollar rail system that the tax payer has to foot the cost of. But why would a congressman from Montana vote for it? He/she won’t unless they get a couple billion.
So we are right back to the central problem. The US is took big to do this. Everywhere else is earthier a much physically smaller country (the size of a regional system in the US) or is basically a dictatorship. France with its fancy system (that does not go everywhere nor does it go all the time) is really the size of a two or three state regional system. So you can’t ever get too far from the system. And eventhenthis system is still somewhat limited in lines and times ran.
So getting Colorado to agree to pay for a Detroit to Chicago system is like asking England to pay for a line in Austria.
As for the fancy named trains often times those where also not profitable but were viewed as an advertising expense. Kind of a business to business sort of thing. I get you on my nice train and you use my railroad to ship your stuff.
So the profit is in the freight and that does not need to go 100+mph. So it does not need elevated crossings and all the other expensive stuff high speed needs.
But the big problem with high speed rail is that You are still failing to find ways to pay for these various ideas and that is the BIG stumbling block.
Using Detroit aaa an example we have a grid system of roads with on average one main road every mile (mile grid) and a secondary road every 1/2 most of which we can not just cut. I live over 35 MILES from downtown and the roads go farther then me. So you are looking at between 40 and 80 grade crossings that need to be eliminated to get out of downtown.
I image that other cities such as Chicago are similar. Add in a road every 4 miles or so between the two cities and you get another 50 or so. Thus you are at 130 to 210 grade crossings that you need to elevate (either the road or the train). At a few million a pop this adds up fast.
So you have a multi billion dollar rail system that the tax payer has to foot the cost of. But why would a congressman from Montana vote for it? He/she won’t unless they get a couple billion.
So we are right back to the central problem. The US is took big to do this. Everywhere else is earthier a much physically smaller country (the size of a regional system in the US) or is basically a dictatorship. France with its fancy system (that does not go everywhere nor does it go all the time) is really the size of a two or three state regional system. So you can’t ever get too far from the system. And eventhenthis system is still somewhat limited in lines and times ran.
So getting Colorado to agree to pay for a Detroit to Chicago system is like asking England to pay for a line in Austria.
Even Canadian Pacific, which always had a tourist focus in the Canadian Rockies used the trains as loss leaders- the real profits were to be made in CPR hotels and the CPR telegraph service, along with RPO and package express equipment attached to trains like The Dominion. Trying to make a functioning luxury hotel on wheels doesn't work unless it is prohibitively expensive- in which case, it also doesn't work.
Granted, it did look pretty fantastic in operation...
The Dominion c. 1952 ^
The Canadian c. 1957 v
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I'm thinking it was more complex than that. Klein in his 800+ page outline of the US industrial mobilization for WWII, described first how the US railways in 1940 we're running at less than 80% capacity. & The 1940 capacity represented perhaps 75% of the peak capacity of 1910 - 1920. Klien goes on to describe a massive reconstruction effort of better than 75% of the track and service support through 1945. He also remarks on this reconstruction effort carrying on after 1946. Of course a increase of 20, 40, or 60 % in traffic will offset some of that, but wholesale replacement of structure dating back to the 19th Century does a lot to sustain capacity.
Re: Freedoms Forge. Klein.
That's true. But it applies in spades to interstate highways, which are much wider.
Trains often averaged 40-50 mph over long distances, figuring slow-downs and stops. Of course, autos had to slow down as well and were lucky to average 40. The Interstates sped up the cars, and given the width and placement of rail right-of-ways, elevated bypasses could have been placed in key areas. Why should North Dakota pay for overpasses in Detroit? The same reason we all pay for ports and Interstates, especially in key manufacturing areas like Detroit (in the fifties). From what I saw on passenger rail schedules, they were healthy in 1950 and didn't not look at scaling back until after 1955-58 when cars and planes factored in. Also, labor unions kept up staffing that could have been reduced after diesel conversion, making the profit difference for freight more substantial.
SsgtC
Banned
Except interstates also run through the Dakotas so the people in those States see a direct benefit from their construction. Hell, Hawaii and Alaska have "interstates" in them, despite being physically disconnected from the rest of the country. As for ports, again, direct benefit. Businesses in those States ship and receive goods via normal freight rail to and from the ports. That's a direct benefit to the state. A regional HSR system linking Chicago with St Louis provides NOTHING to the other 48 States in the country. No matter how you slice it, the majority of States in the country will get NOTHING out of funding regional HSR
As railroads covered the country after the civil war, they were given government subsidies and land grants to build to a standard gauge. If mail order houses in Chicago can make faster deliveries nationwide, everyone will benefit. In OTL, the Santa Fe Super Chief made it from Chicago to Los Angeles in 63 hours. So, elevated HSR upgrades might only be practical in the east coast and great lakes corridors in congested areas. But that's where American manufacturing was concentrated in the railroad years. So why should a customer in Arkansas support a great lakes rail upgrade? Because repair parts from upstate New York will get there faster without the cost of air travel.
HSR does not carry freight because it is not cost-efficient for freight trains to travel faster due to increased capital and fuel costs. If ground freight needs to travel faster than trains, it goes on a truck.
The most important part of getting people to switch from cars to trains is making sure that the trains travel at the same average speed as cars making the same journey. Urban and suburban trains do this because traffic moves so slowly in and around cities, especially during commute hours. Because the Interstate system sped up car travel so much, intercity rail would have to keep up to remain competitive. This is why the 110 mph maximum speed is so important; a train that can reach a maximum speed of 110 to 125 mph can make stops while making the same overall trip time as a car moving continuously at 70 to 80 mph.
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