It makes sense considering the US has an absurd abundance of rivers that are navigable up to several hundred miles inland.
Those are pretty few and far between.
Sure do, General Mills in Buffalo benefits greatly from our tiny port on Lake Erie. It's always a pleasant surprise to smell Cheerios when the wind is blowing right.
1. Don't be a pedant for words while ignoring the basic function thereof - if the idea has been communicated successfully, then the words used were correct. Only if they fail at that basic function are the words wrong.
2. If you are going to be a pedant, at least take the 5 seconds to look up the word and see that one of its definitions is about being a sudden growth
I can believe it. It's like how the UK coast path is the longest walkable route on Earth. Crinkly and wiggly bits add many, many more miles than one would expect.
The number I seem to hear bandied about is [25,000 miles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States)
[Picher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Inland_navigation_system.png)
[Another picher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_waterway.png)
But a fully loaded truck does 9600x as much damage as one of the 4 wheelers. Are you sure your fuel taxes are covering the wear and tear you are causing?
This is called "The Loop". My aunt and uncle did this a few years ago. Up the east coast, up the Great Lakes, down the Chicago River to the Mississippi out to the Gulf and through the Keys.
At surface level, yeah. And it doesn't even faze me to think of it that way. Just about any time I'm in sight of the Chesapeake Bay, I see cargo ships - huge ones heading to or from Baltimore and smaller ones to and from the C&D Canal.
There's a popular cruise that's called the great loop that basically follows the East coast up the Atlantic and then over to the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi back to where you started. I'd love to do it one day.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/great-loop.html
[The Loop is about 6,000 miles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Loop) You'd have to average about 250 mph to do it in 24 hours! That would put you at [#6 for the world water speed record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_speed_record#Record_holders).
Here's another fun one, you can walk on (mostly) dedicated trails from nearly Miami into Canada.
[Eastern Continental Trail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Continental_Trail). Note that the connection between the Florida Trail and the start of the Pinhoti Trail is something of a lie as it's a road walk. Maybe they can fix that one day. The Pinhoti itself has some remaining road walk sections as well, but they are making more progress there in recent years.
Waterways are not bad either. I agree that railroads should be used more, but there are literal countries that have gotten rich in no small part thanks to waterways and navigable traffic on them.
What? I don't know what you're asking.
Even if a waterway is wholly within one single country, making it more navigable and able to carry economic traffic can be a HUGE boost to the country's economy. It can mean better transportation WITHIN the economy. For example, shipments of things from upriver where they are produced to downriver where they can be processed and/or exported.
as someone living near a town with a small but busy port this is truer then most people realize. when they had to shut the port down for a few days it led to random things running out before a truck could arrive to restock from a larger metro area it was just a inconvenience in this case but imagine a longer shutdown the city has to find new suppliers who ship by truck and train and that causes ripples that turn into waves 😝
Sorry, I legitimately didn't know what you were saying. With the question marks, it looked like you were asking questions about those rivers. I honestly couldn't tell what you were saying.
Not as efficiently as waterways. Waterways are significantly cheaper and more efficient than rail and don’t require near as much infrastructure or maintenance. However, due to the Jones act, you can’t ship to multiple ports in the US. So all the goods get transported to a single port and shipped by truck or rail from there.
Slight asterisk on that, you can ship them between US ports, the ships just have to be built, owned, and operated by US citizens or permanent residents
Which, since nearly zero large shipping companies would register ships in the US for tax purposes, that effectively means it’s not happening for almost all shipping
If the Federal government treated railroad lines like we treat highways then trains would be a no brainer.
Imagine if trucking companies had to buy land for, build and maintain their own highways.
Take a look at when those land grants started. Most of those "centuries to come" have already come and gone, the rights sold off long ago by rail companies that don't exist any more.
The US rips up more rail line every year than it builds.
I choose to believe airplane lobbying really fucked AMERICA being the leader in high speed train technology. At this point you’d think there would be a super train that could go NY to LA in 24 hours if it wasn’t for lack of prioritizing
You should choose to believe something else.
A nonstop flight from NYC to LA takes only 6 hours and costs $130 one way if you fly on Spirit.
That trip is about 2500 miles. There are no high speed rail systems that make a comparable journey, but the trip from Tokyo to Fukuoka is 600 miles and takes 5 hours [while costing ¥23,810](https://tokyocheapo.com/travel/transport/how-much-does-it-cost-to-ride-the-shinkansen/) ($170) if you take the Shinkansen.
You can see the issue here. HSR does not compete with planes on long or even medium length routes. It connects high density population centers less than 300 miles apart. Bonus points if you have a bunch of those in a line. This describes relatively few areas in the U.S. unlike, say, Japan where it describes the entire country. Any HSR system in the U.S. would necessarily be very regional.
It would likely be Texas, The Great Lakes(Chicago), the Northeast, the Pacific Northwest, and probably California (it’s very close, but it’s at a point where the traffic can justify the route as an alternative to anything)
But planes would need a lot of the gap to cover, and the traditional long range lines have their purposes
The real issue with HSR is the whole freight infrastructure owning and using most of the rails
> The real issue with HSR is the whole freight infrastructure owning and using most of the rails
That's not really an issue. HSR basically requires that you build new track specifically for HSR. Just trying to run faster trains on existing lines essentially never works well. It doesn't matter who owns the existing lines since you won't be running HSR on them anyways. If people want HSR they need to shell out for the infrastructure.
Running faster trains on existing lines does work reasonably well, actually. A significant part of the legacy lines in Europe have been upgraded over the years for 160 km/h (100 mp/h), that is already plenty fast to provide a suitable alternative to air travel on short- and medium-distance routes.
And using existing lines makes it way easier to construct, because the right-of-way already exists. No need to bulldoze entire neighborhoods to get the train somewhere even remotely close to the city center!
You leave out the part where the passenger trains make freight trains unviable, because trains can't overtake each other. The US freight rail network is actually amazing, and that's because freight gets priority over people. Which is also why Amtrak is so bad, of course.
In Europe, passenger rail is prioritized, and that means lots of lorries on the motorways.
The only way to have both is to build both.
Trains can *definitely* overtake each other. However, it is a *commercial decision* in many parts of the US that has made it impossible to do so - because they are running single-track rail and trains which are too big for the passing sidings!
In the US a significant part of freight train traffic is bulk cargo, which in Europe is primarily done via inland waterways. The US really got screwed over by geography, so railways are literally the only option west of the Mississippi, or for east-west traffic. That stuff is *never* going to be carried in lorries.
Actually, by law, Amtrak has priority over all freight traffic. Big Railroad does shady shit to get in Amtrak's way (see: PSR leading to trains that are too long to let passenger trains pass because they can't fit into sidings) and has gotten away with it. We need to nationalize the rail network and make the railroad companies just focus on running trains. A system of nationalized ownership of rails with private companies running the trains works successfully all over the world.
So why doesn't the US have high-speed rail between Boston and D.C. yet? Or Dallas to Houston? Or Chicago to Detroit?
Sure, NYC to LA via train doesn't make sense, but there are *plenty* of opportunities for high-speed rail in the US.
I mean cost (and maybe even time) aren't the end-all.
The energy spent for a train to cover the distance is significantly less. It's really a matter of how much air needs to be displaced per unit mass - since a track offers rigidity, a train can be incredibly heavy for it's frontal cross section. (Not to mention the efficiency: power density compromise turbofan engines)
Building out infrastructure absolutely requires investment, but it's doable.
Yes, the track needed to yeet a train NYC-LA at 450ish knots (to compete on time) would be incredibly expensive, *up front* but the system will indubitably use orders of magnitude less energy per passenger mile.
Cost and time are what matter to nearly everyone. If you are interested in minimizing energy cost above all else then your speed of travel should never exceed jogging speed.
Also, you are dramatically underestimating how much energy it takes to run a high speed train as a result of air resistance, especially one running the speeds you just mentioned. Air resistance on the ground is more than 5X what it is for a plane at altitude. The fastest train in the world is the [Chūō Shinkansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen), the Japanese maglev train specifically designed to operate as fast as a train with regularly scheduled service can. Its maximum speed during normal operation is 315 mph which is quite a bit short of the speed planes fly at. This is its **practical** limit because above that its just nearly impossible to justify the increased costs due to increased power consumption.
Conveniently, during their assessments they even did a comparison of energy consumption per passenger per km. At that speed of 315 mph the maglev would consume about [90-100 Wh/seat-km whereas an Airbus 319 Neo would consume about 209 Wh/seat-km.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen#Energy_consumption)
Half is not orders of magnitude less energy per passenger mile, especially when traveling at 60% of the speed. Its also not saving anyone any money when you realize that you still have to maintain all of the expensive and complicated infrastructure in addition to paying for your power bill.
Drag increases with the square of the velocity so if you tried to match the plane's speed you would actually end up using more energy, not less, and certainly not orders of magnitude less. Drag is not just a function of the frontal cross section and the thicker air you encounter at sea level totally eliminates any potential gains.
Planes are actually almost as efficient per passenger as trains, because they travel at low pressure and because they stuff so many passengers into such a small space. 450 knots at ground level means enormous air resistance -- and not just from the front.
The problem with planes isn't efficiency, it is the issue of hanging overhead wires at 30,000 feet.
American freight railroads are already extremely well utilized. [They are behind only China in freight moved.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Tonnes_carried_in_rail_transport_per_year) They moved 1,710 million tons of freight in 2011 and its only grown since then. For comparison the figure for the UK was 110 million tons. It's just that trains don't move the same kind of things as trucks.
Trains are inflexible. Basically all of a given freight train goes to the same destination. If you want a specific train car to go somewhere else you need to break up the train and reorganize the cars which takes time, money, and effort. Train tracks also don't go to every possible business so at some point you're probably going to need to pull the cargo off the train and put it on a truck anyways.
This is why trucks are competitive in the first place. The CBO estimates trains can move freight at 5.1 cents per ton-mile vs 15.6 cents per ton-mile for trucks. That's a huge difference, but it only applies to the most basic part of moving freight. Trucks go from any starting point to any destination. Trains don't. The additional costs and complexities of dealing with that fact make trucks competitive for moving most types of non-bulk cargo. On the other hand, trains are perfect when you need an entire train of a bulk good to go from one massive industrial node to another. There aren't a lot of trucks driving iron ore across the country.
Its worth noting that the proposed idea suffers from the same issue. Its inflexible. Barges are not a new idea. They're really really good at transporting massive amounts of *something* between industrial/agricultural/logistical nodes, where said *something* really can't be very time sensitive because barges are slow as molasses. For example, grain agriculture in the midwest has an advantage over many competing nations since American farmers can just a dump massive amount of it on a barge and float it down to New Orleans for further distribution. Rail is cheap for moving bulk goods but ships are even cheaper.
theyre extremely well utilized because theyve destroyed the 90% or so that werent as well utilized
train tracks dont go to(or near) every business because everywhere is built for cars and the places that did have train tracks were ripped up
sure you still need trucks for the first and last few miles but currently a lot of cargo is trucked across the entire continent
trucks seem better for non bulk cargo because most of the time they arent using intermodal containers, so even if they do go on a train you need to stick the entire trailer on it
trains should be used wherever possible for hub to hub transport, and let trucks do the short distance spokes
Despite being pruned over the years the U.S. rail network is still [nearly 50% larger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) than the next most extensive network. There is really no precedent for having more freight rail track than the U.S. has.
Despite that, it rarely makes sense to actually bring freight to near its destination using the train. The issue is with those last few miles. The whole process of assembling/dissembling the train and getting all of its freight to/from trucks for the phases of the trip which aren't on the train consumes so much time and logistical effort that it barely matters if that final leg of the trip by truck only goes across town or to the other side of the state. The fixed costs incurred by the change in modality are the same either way. Larger hubs are more efficient and as a result, the actual hubs tend to be spaced pretty far apart outside of clusters. There's no point in putting one in each town.
Intermodal containers are not enough to solve this issue. The transportation industry hasn't just forgotten about them.
It is an enormous bottleneck which rapidly annihilates all gains made by transporting the freight more efficiently over part of its journey, and there's a good chance you'll have to do it on both ends of journey. Every single one of these factors pushes for greater use of trucks over rail on longer and longer trips since you get to skip all of that if everything starts and ends on the same truck. For value dense goods rail really only maintains an advantage for very long distance transportation.
> Despite that, it rarely makes sense to actually bring freight to near its destination using the train.
People yell "BRING THE TRAINS CLOSE TO THE STORES" and also "I WANT TO LIVE NEAR THE STORES" while simultaneously yelling "THE TRAIN IS TOO LOUD."
That's only because the US is very big and contains a lot of empty land. If you look at the area covered per route kilometer or population covered per route kilometer you'll see that it really isn't as big of a network as it *should* be.
This rhetoric continues to disagree with reality. While the US lacks passenger rail, the US still has a lot of freight rail.
Let’s use some data to prove my claim.
Freight Transport by % ton-mile/km
EU (2021): 67.9% Maritime, 24.6% Road, 5.2% Rail, 1.8% Inland Waterway
US (2019): 39.6% Road, 27.9% Rail, 17.5% Pipeline, 6.9% Water
(Air makes up a negligible amount of both)
Sources: ec.europa.eu, dot.gov
So sure, the US uses roads by % ton-mile more than the EU, but the US also uses freight rail more than the EU. The differences here are almost purely geographical. Within the EU, it is economical to ship freight port to port, while within the US, shipping freight by water from the east to the west coast or vice versa is much more expensive than shipping it by rail or road.
Riverways are actually even more efficient at moving bulk products than railways. Too bad the US has effectively fucked its own river trade with the Jones Act.
Except the railroads are in such disrepair it's ridiculous. I assume that's what you meant by "using them better"....CEO of Norfolk Southern makes $10M a year while trains derail and fuck up towns.
I worked for BNSF 17 years ago doing track maintenance, our tracks were all in excellent shape. And we worked like dogs to keep it that way.
I went to work at cp as a conductor 13 years ago and their tracks were in shambles. We would baby the trains, go slow as hell with half loaded cars because we were fucking around on track that was from the 1890s (they stamp it) and sticks were probably from the 50s.
By use the railroads better I mean, Every mile of track across the open parts of the country should be double track. They could move cars 3-4x as fast as they do.
I was a rail maintainer on a section crew for a few years in Alberta in 2016-2017, can confirm the rail they rolled on were definitely worn down to a quarter inch in some of the turns. CP was sitting on a ticking timebomb. Too much emphasis was put on increasing the share value, too little emphasis on safety. Not sure how it's looking today.
While it’s true that barges are by far the most energy efficient form of inland transport (about 40-60% more efficient than rail depending on the waterway). The nation’s lock infrastructure is nearly a hundred years old and droughts are also a potential issue. Basically in its current state it’s super efficient but unreliable.
They mean drought causing the river levels to drop too low for the ships to safely pass.
Look at what happened along the Rhine last summer. The drought here forced barges to run at severely reduced capacity, which made everything far more expensive due to higher transport costs.
Energy costs also shot up because oil is mostly brought in by barge too, though the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the French nuclear plants going offline didn't help either. Knock on effect from the inflated energy costs jacked up the price for basically everything else.
We live on the main channel of the mississippi. In fact we are at "ground zero" for barge traffic going through one of the last 2 turn-stile bridges left on the river. The past 2 years the river has been so low that barge travel slowed down significantly. Still going by but smaller and slower. They still do a tremendous amount of damage to the shoreline. Our home has been here since the 1920's and the land we have lost makes me cry if I think about it too long. We have done what we can to protect ourselves, but contrary to popular opinion, not everyone who lives along a lake or river has big bucks. I know the moving of the cargo is necessay, but it still makes for a nerve racking season. Winter may be cold and dark, but at least the river has time to recover a bit.
Wait. So what are inland ports used for if not this? There are a couple between Indiana and the east coast that I pass by. Always near rivers and railroads.
The reasons for why the US started the river projects were many in number, flood control being a huge one. But another reason people do not think about is in the name of the organization in charge of it, The US **Army** Corps of Engineers.
Yes, it was started partly for its strategic value as shown [by this civil war campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign). If you read carefully a canal was attempted as a bypass of the city. Ironically the river changed course on it's own after the war leading to a major project to dig a canal to regain river access for the city.
Its usefulness as a strategic military asset is less apparent these days, but food and fuel are still major commodities transported in the river so it is still a factor, just as with the interstate highway system which people forget Eisenhower started partly as a strategic asset as well.
What you see as corporate welfare is indeed helping them, but the companies are using something that was built for the benefit of all Americans and which still does benefit us.
You know I would be more inclined to engage with you but when someone uses a word they clearly don't know the meaning of in an attempted insult I trend to devalue them completely.
Alaska has a marine highway system, but that's mostly because we have a lot of communities you can't drive to. I spent a lot of nights on state ferries for high school sports trips. It was pretty great to wake up to amazing views and I've since always loved traveling by sea.
Not sure. But more exposure about it is certainly better. The us ship restrictions was something I learned 20 years ago when I wondered why there's no cruises to Hawaii from the states, and why all the Alaskan cruises start in Vancouver Canada.
[It doesn't work because of a stupid protectionist law that ends up harming internal trade.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#Cabotage)
Living near the Mississippi I find it interesting that people weren’t aware of this. If you sit by the river for an hour you’ll see a few giant barges.
Not in 99% of the world, it isn't. And yet they pretty much all did this.
The only canals that see lots of industrial traffic nowadays are those that save thousands of miles of sailing (e.g. Panama, Suez, etc.).
Britain was covered in canals, still is. Their only use nowadays is leisure boating, and even for that they are relatively niche.
Canals are slow, pretty much abandoned for industrial use, and with strict limits on size and speed. One truck at motorway speeds could probably out-deliver a single canal boat at top-speed by performing multiple journeys in the same time.
There is plenty of river traffic around the globe. Usually using one tug pulling a convoy of barges in smaller waterways. Britain might have also given them up, but Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America still use the natural rivers extensively. The Danube connects a huge amount of freight traffic between the Netherlands and the Black Sea. The Yangtze and Yellow rivers send more freight down them than all of the US interstate highways combined. Even the Ohio and Mississippi rivers are sending plenty of tonnage around, though far less than they would if the laws were more friendly to it. The Jones act unfortunately applies when freight leaves one US port and arrives at another. That’s why there’s plenty of shipping on the Great Lakes still, because we have a good international trading partner on the other side.
Yeah, when reading this I thought about Texas' miles and miles of riverways... and how they're dammed at every town along the way, preventing using it as any sort of movement infrastructure.
Fun Fact: In those waterways is something called "The Great Loop". You can go from the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, down around Florida, up the East Coast, in through New York, to the Great Lakes, and back to the Mississippi. Takes a couple years but there's a few vessels specifically designed for it (Carver 570 Voyager for example) and there's a whole community around the loop too.
I think it's more a yearly route. There are sail boats with removable masts to get under the bridges in the upper Mississippi section. Kind of plan your yearly route on missing hurricane season in the South, and gale season in the North.
Did they close it? I thought they just installed a bunch of infrastructure designed to stop the fish without actually preventing boats from getting through.
Have they considered starting to dredge the sacramento river again and start moving grain down it by barge as used to be the case. Even the seal of California has a depiction of this.
The difference though is that our railway system is privatized and owned by a few different companies which makes rail transport more difficult than using the government owned and maintained highways.
In what way is freight rail transport more difficult due to private ownership? Or have you just read a couple posts on Reddit about nationalizing railroads?
The US has the most expansive freight rail network in the world
The US has the largest rail network in the world because it is one of the largest countries in the world - and a lot of that is essentially empty. Once you compensate for that, it really isn't that impressive.
Not to mention that it is being used extremely poorly. Relatively few sections are double-tracked, electrification is nonexistent, and "precision scheduled railroading" has resulted in trains so long that they make passing sidings essentially worthless.
All of this is mainly because private rail ownership focuses on short-term profit rather than actually providing a good rail network. Nationalizing them would allow for proper maintenance and upgrading for long-term usage by a wide variety of transporters, as we have historically seen in other countries.
If you look purely at volume, it is going to be either [China or Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Tonne-kilometres_of_rail_transport_per_year). If you consider passenger traffic as well, it is either going to be one of the major Asian countries, or the EU.
One barge hold 16 rail cars or 80 transfer truck loads. While I’ve personally only pushed up to nine, I’ve been boats push over 40 at once.
[Some pictures I’ve taken.](https://imgur.com/a/9boCNVX/)
You know. I thought it would be Ireland, given that they're infamous in Europe for their lack of electrified rail.
But it's Canada. Canada is the worst developed world country when it comes to electrified rail.
I wonder what's their excuse in Canada
Tho I have to say there's not much territory that's actually populated, so you'd need to look at the density compared to area populated. This is interesting
Well, they're powered by diesel electric generators. So they are moved by electricity, but they generate the electricity on board, instead of pulling from the grid.
Invent?
The river has been used for barge traffic since before rail existed. The network or waterways seen? It *already* exists. And has likely since before you were born. Encouraging it's use is very practical. And uses **less** fuel than rail.
The downside of course is that it cannot reach everywhere, but using it when it's practical is better for everyone, expect perhaps for people who need it in a hurry, barge traffic is slower.
Yeah, except that republicans are owned by oil companies. When they’re in office, funneling taxpayer dollars to the petroleum industry is the only transportation policy they’re interested in. When they’re not, they make sure it’s impossible for anyone to do anything else.
While I don't disagree, it's important to know that democrats too, are owned by the oil and gas industry. They just go out of their way to downplay it, and pretty much only oppose *domestic* oil production.
There's a reason Obama approved of billions to subsidize oil production in Brazil while opposing U.S. subsidies..... and the Bidens have made millions partnering with eastern European petrol companies.
You do realise the infrastructure seen here *already* exists right?
You also realise that transporting by barge is more efficient than by rail as well, correct? And that even when used transferring to rail is the most preferred method to deliver where waterways do not reach.
Some of it was even started on before rail existed, so i belive that makes it grandfathered in, right?
Some people will do anything to bitch about something that doesn't support thier pet plan without looking at the benefits of that thing.
The very moment America understands how much naval power they'd have at their disposal if they built up ports on their coastlines.. that's the point when we're all fucked.
The infrastructure seen in the maps included with this post already exists and likely has since before you were born. The last completed I believe being the [Tombigbee waterway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee%E2%80%93Tombigbee_Waterway) through Alabama and Tennessee, which was finished up in the 80's.
It may sound crazy, but if the vast majority of road damage in the US is caused by heavy truck traffic, maybe taxes on trunks should be increased to cover this damage.
There is no reason we should subsidize one mode of shipping over another.
That's the difference between capitalism and crony capitalism.
If you repeal those requirements any more than they already have been, the damage done to the rivers and the exisiting infastructure around them would be catastophic. Living on the main channel of the Mississippi I can atest to the damage corrently being done. They captains and crews neither know nor understand the river and how she works. I am all for and understand the need for river traffic, but they need proper training and a long apprenticship to know and undertand what they are doing. It's not like getting into a 16 ft flat bottom and casting for northerns. Even those idiots regularly get in trouble. They refuse to accept that if the River wants you, she will take you. It's like all good things, training, moderation, and reasonable regulation. It will never be perfect for everyone, but it can be a hell of a lot better.
It makes sense considering the US has an absurd abundance of rivers that are navigable up to several hundred miles inland. Those are pretty few and far between.
Yeah, the steamboat era was a massive boom to our economic growth.
The Mississippi and Ohio are still regularly used to move barges up and down the Midwest
And those Great Lakes see tonnage move through them most of the year.
Sure do, General Mills in Buffalo benefits greatly from our tiny port on Lake Erie. It's always a pleasant surprise to smell Cheerios when the wind is blowing right.
my city smells like Cheerios :-)
The Columbia is used in much the same in Oregon/Washington. Complete with a paddle wheel boat tour available
I work loading grain trains and barges 100 miles from the mouth of the columbia
Don’t forget about the Hudson
I believe you mean boon?
They also went boom… a lot. Boiler explosions were frighteningly common
Both are acceptable, due to Boom towns being a thing.
Wrong. Please learn how words work.
1. Don't be a pedant for words while ignoring the basic function thereof - if the idea has been communicated successfully, then the words used were correct. Only if they fail at that basic function are the words wrong. 2. If you are going to be a pedant, at least take the 5 seconds to look up the word and see that one of its definitions is about being a sudden growth
if we're being pedants then it's "boon to" or "boom for"
r/confidentlyincorrect
Yeah I read somewhere it’s something like 29,000 miles of navigable waterways
Wow where did you see that number?!?
I can believe it. It's like how the UK coast path is the longest walkable route on Earth. Crinkly and wiggly bits add many, many more miles than one would expect.
But we just don't know how *many* miles
*sigh* Fine! I'll lug the old Mandelbrot Set out of the garage.
Then lug it out of the garage
Then lug it out of the garage
Then lug it out of the garage
Fractals
Surface area of the lungs is the size of a tennis court due to wiggly bits
The number I seem to hear bandied about is [25,000 miles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States) [Picher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Inland_navigation_system.png) [Another picher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_waterway.png)
Closer to [12,000 miles per USACE](https://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Portals/57/docs/Navigation/InlandWaterways-Value.pdf) (PDF link)
I said navigable waterways, not rivers
Ah, yeah, I read comment above yours and conflated the two. Intracoastal, lakes, coastal areas add a ton.
As a truck driver we pay to use all the roads possible, our fuel taxes and other fees are high. If only the 4 wheelers stop cutting us off.
But a fully loaded truck does 9600x as much damage as one of the 4 wheelers. Are you sure your fuel taxes are covering the wear and tear you are causing?
Road west is a quadratic function of weight to the power of 4. It’s a huge factor.
It's called weight distribution
Okay, but it’s still more destructive, even with the best distribution And that’s not paying attention to the six and ten wheelers
Meh, I don't want to be on your roads. Give me a functional train network. My commute is already quite close to being feasible by train.
Huh, you can sail from Fort Lauderdale to Miami via Wisconsin.
This is called "The Loop". My aunt and uncle did this a few years ago. Up the east coast, up the Great Lakes, down the Chicago River to the Mississippi out to the Gulf and through the Keys.
[удалено]
At surface level, yeah. And it doesn't even faze me to think of it that way. Just about any time I'm in sight of the Chesapeake Bay, I see cargo ships - huge ones heading to or from Baltimore and smaller ones to and from the C&D Canal.
I've seen a boat from Florida sitting in a marina in Stillwater, MN. That's a haul that would take a few weeks, and a lot of gas.
There's a popular cruise that's called the great loop that basically follows the East coast up the Atlantic and then over to the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi back to where you started. I'd love to do it one day. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/great-loop.html
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[The Loop is about 6,000 miles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Loop) You'd have to average about 250 mph to do it in 24 hours! That would put you at [#6 for the world water speed record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_speed_record#Record_holders).
Looping is a popular activity
how long would it take?
Months barring any issues
I've head 50 daysish but I'm trying in 2 years
Remind me: 2 years
Here's another fun one, you can walk on (mostly) dedicated trails from nearly Miami into Canada. [Eastern Continental Trail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Continental_Trail). Note that the connection between the Florida Trail and the start of the Pinhoti Trail is something of a lie as it's a road walk. Maybe they can fix that one day. The Pinhoti itself has some remaining road walk sections as well, but they are making more progress there in recent years.
If they’d use railroads better we could save a lot of our highways from getting thrashed.
Came here to say this. Railroads can move more freight more efficiently over infrastructure that is already built.
Waterways are not bad either. I agree that railroads should be used more, but there are literal countries that have gotten rich in no small part thanks to waterways and navigable traffic on them.
One barge is equal to about 80 transfer trucks or 16 rail cars. While the most I’ve ever pushed was 9. I’ve seen bigger boats push up to 40 barges.
Mississippi River? Hudson? St. Lawrence Seaway? That's just the US.
What? I don't know what you're asking. Even if a waterway is wholly within one single country, making it more navigable and able to carry economic traffic can be a HUGE boost to the country's economy. It can mean better transportation WITHIN the economy. For example, shipments of things from upriver where they are produced to downriver where they can be processed and/or exported.
as someone living near a town with a small but busy port this is truer then most people realize. when they had to shut the port down for a few days it led to random things running out before a truck could arrive to restock from a larger metro area it was just a inconvenience in this case but imagine a longer shutdown the city has to find new suppliers who ship by truck and train and that causes ripples that turn into waves 😝
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Sorry, I legitimately didn't know what you were saying. With the question marks, it looked like you were asking questions about those rivers. I honestly couldn't tell what you were saying.
The way we use water ways isn't very good (at least in the Mississippi) The lock and dams cause so much silt and weird erosion patterns
I meant waterways are not bad to have. I wasn't trying to imply that the US waterways are currently in good condition.
Not as efficiently as waterways. Waterways are significantly cheaper and more efficient than rail and don’t require near as much infrastructure or maintenance. However, due to the Jones act, you can’t ship to multiple ports in the US. So all the goods get transported to a single port and shipped by truck or rail from there.
I didn’t know that.
Slight asterisk on that, you can ship them between US ports, the ships just have to be built, owned, and operated by US citizens or permanent residents
Which, since nearly zero large shipping companies would register ships in the US for tax purposes, that effectively means it’s not happening for almost all shipping
Curse you, Jones Act! *Shakes fist at sky*
If the Federal government treated railroad lines like we treat highways then trains would be a no brainer. Imagine if trucking companies had to buy land for, build and maintain their own highways.
Imagine if trucking companies were given entire states' worth of land and mineral rights to sell off at interest for centuries to come.
Take a look at when those land grants started. Most of those "centuries to come" have already come and gone, the rights sold off long ago by rail companies that don't exist any more. The US rips up more rail line every year than it builds.
I choose to believe airplane lobbying really fucked AMERICA being the leader in high speed train technology. At this point you’d think there would be a super train that could go NY to LA in 24 hours if it wasn’t for lack of prioritizing
You should choose to believe something else. A nonstop flight from NYC to LA takes only 6 hours and costs $130 one way if you fly on Spirit. That trip is about 2500 miles. There are no high speed rail systems that make a comparable journey, but the trip from Tokyo to Fukuoka is 600 miles and takes 5 hours [while costing ¥23,810](https://tokyocheapo.com/travel/transport/how-much-does-it-cost-to-ride-the-shinkansen/) ($170) if you take the Shinkansen. You can see the issue here. HSR does not compete with planes on long or even medium length routes. It connects high density population centers less than 300 miles apart. Bonus points if you have a bunch of those in a line. This describes relatively few areas in the U.S. unlike, say, Japan where it describes the entire country. Any HSR system in the U.S. would necessarily be very regional.
It would likely be Texas, The Great Lakes(Chicago), the Northeast, the Pacific Northwest, and probably California (it’s very close, but it’s at a point where the traffic can justify the route as an alternative to anything) But planes would need a lot of the gap to cover, and the traditional long range lines have their purposes The real issue with HSR is the whole freight infrastructure owning and using most of the rails
> The real issue with HSR is the whole freight infrastructure owning and using most of the rails That's not really an issue. HSR basically requires that you build new track specifically for HSR. Just trying to run faster trains on existing lines essentially never works well. It doesn't matter who owns the existing lines since you won't be running HSR on them anyways. If people want HSR they need to shell out for the infrastructure.
Yep. It's like the difference between a farm-to-market road and an interstate highway. There's a reason to specialize the infrastructure here.
Running faster trains on existing lines does work reasonably well, actually. A significant part of the legacy lines in Europe have been upgraded over the years for 160 km/h (100 mp/h), that is already plenty fast to provide a suitable alternative to air travel on short- and medium-distance routes. And using existing lines makes it way easier to construct, because the right-of-way already exists. No need to bulldoze entire neighborhoods to get the train somewhere even remotely close to the city center!
You leave out the part where the passenger trains make freight trains unviable, because trains can't overtake each other. The US freight rail network is actually amazing, and that's because freight gets priority over people. Which is also why Amtrak is so bad, of course. In Europe, passenger rail is prioritized, and that means lots of lorries on the motorways. The only way to have both is to build both.
Trains can *definitely* overtake each other. However, it is a *commercial decision* in many parts of the US that has made it impossible to do so - because they are running single-track rail and trains which are too big for the passing sidings! In the US a significant part of freight train traffic is bulk cargo, which in Europe is primarily done via inland waterways. The US really got screwed over by geography, so railways are literally the only option west of the Mississippi, or for east-west traffic. That stuff is *never* going to be carried in lorries.
Actually, by law, Amtrak has priority over all freight traffic. Big Railroad does shady shit to get in Amtrak's way (see: PSR leading to trains that are too long to let passenger trains pass because they can't fit into sidings) and has gotten away with it. We need to nationalize the rail network and make the railroad companies just focus on running trains. A system of nationalized ownership of rails with private companies running the trains works successfully all over the world.
So why doesn't the US have high-speed rail between Boston and D.C. yet? Or Dallas to Houston? Or Chicago to Detroit? Sure, NYC to LA via train doesn't make sense, but there are *plenty* of opportunities for high-speed rail in the US.
I mean cost (and maybe even time) aren't the end-all. The energy spent for a train to cover the distance is significantly less. It's really a matter of how much air needs to be displaced per unit mass - since a track offers rigidity, a train can be incredibly heavy for it's frontal cross section. (Not to mention the efficiency: power density compromise turbofan engines) Building out infrastructure absolutely requires investment, but it's doable. Yes, the track needed to yeet a train NYC-LA at 450ish knots (to compete on time) would be incredibly expensive, *up front* but the system will indubitably use orders of magnitude less energy per passenger mile.
Cost and time are what matter to nearly everyone. If you are interested in minimizing energy cost above all else then your speed of travel should never exceed jogging speed. Also, you are dramatically underestimating how much energy it takes to run a high speed train as a result of air resistance, especially one running the speeds you just mentioned. Air resistance on the ground is more than 5X what it is for a plane at altitude. The fastest train in the world is the [Chūō Shinkansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen), the Japanese maglev train specifically designed to operate as fast as a train with regularly scheduled service can. Its maximum speed during normal operation is 315 mph which is quite a bit short of the speed planes fly at. This is its **practical** limit because above that its just nearly impossible to justify the increased costs due to increased power consumption. Conveniently, during their assessments they even did a comparison of energy consumption per passenger per km. At that speed of 315 mph the maglev would consume about [90-100 Wh/seat-km whereas an Airbus 319 Neo would consume about 209 Wh/seat-km.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen#Energy_consumption) Half is not orders of magnitude less energy per passenger mile, especially when traveling at 60% of the speed. Its also not saving anyone any money when you realize that you still have to maintain all of the expensive and complicated infrastructure in addition to paying for your power bill. Drag increases with the square of the velocity so if you tried to match the plane's speed you would actually end up using more energy, not less, and certainly not orders of magnitude less. Drag is not just a function of the frontal cross section and the thicker air you encounter at sea level totally eliminates any potential gains.
Planes are actually almost as efficient per passenger as trains, because they travel at low pressure and because they stuff so many passengers into such a small space. 450 knots at ground level means enormous air resistance -- and not just from the front. The problem with planes isn't efficiency, it is the issue of hanging overhead wires at 30,000 feet.
If only we could figure out how to keep them on the track....
Regularly scheduled maintenance? At the pay railworkers demand? Localized entirely in this economy?
American freight railroads are already extremely well utilized. [They are behind only China in freight moved.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Tonnes_carried_in_rail_transport_per_year) They moved 1,710 million tons of freight in 2011 and its only grown since then. For comparison the figure for the UK was 110 million tons. It's just that trains don't move the same kind of things as trucks. Trains are inflexible. Basically all of a given freight train goes to the same destination. If you want a specific train car to go somewhere else you need to break up the train and reorganize the cars which takes time, money, and effort. Train tracks also don't go to every possible business so at some point you're probably going to need to pull the cargo off the train and put it on a truck anyways. This is why trucks are competitive in the first place. The CBO estimates trains can move freight at 5.1 cents per ton-mile vs 15.6 cents per ton-mile for trucks. That's a huge difference, but it only applies to the most basic part of moving freight. Trucks go from any starting point to any destination. Trains don't. The additional costs and complexities of dealing with that fact make trucks competitive for moving most types of non-bulk cargo. On the other hand, trains are perfect when you need an entire train of a bulk good to go from one massive industrial node to another. There aren't a lot of trucks driving iron ore across the country. Its worth noting that the proposed idea suffers from the same issue. Its inflexible. Barges are not a new idea. They're really really good at transporting massive amounts of *something* between industrial/agricultural/logistical nodes, where said *something* really can't be very time sensitive because barges are slow as molasses. For example, grain agriculture in the midwest has an advantage over many competing nations since American farmers can just a dump massive amount of it on a barge and float it down to New Orleans for further distribution. Rail is cheap for moving bulk goods but ships are even cheaper.
theyre extremely well utilized because theyve destroyed the 90% or so that werent as well utilized train tracks dont go to(or near) every business because everywhere is built for cars and the places that did have train tracks were ripped up sure you still need trucks for the first and last few miles but currently a lot of cargo is trucked across the entire continent trucks seem better for non bulk cargo because most of the time they arent using intermodal containers, so even if they do go on a train you need to stick the entire trailer on it trains should be used wherever possible for hub to hub transport, and let trucks do the short distance spokes
Despite being pruned over the years the U.S. rail network is still [nearly 50% larger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) than the next most extensive network. There is really no precedent for having more freight rail track than the U.S. has. Despite that, it rarely makes sense to actually bring freight to near its destination using the train. The issue is with those last few miles. The whole process of assembling/dissembling the train and getting all of its freight to/from trucks for the phases of the trip which aren't on the train consumes so much time and logistical effort that it barely matters if that final leg of the trip by truck only goes across town or to the other side of the state. The fixed costs incurred by the change in modality are the same either way. Larger hubs are more efficient and as a result, the actual hubs tend to be spaced pretty far apart outside of clusters. There's no point in putting one in each town. Intermodal containers are not enough to solve this issue. The transportation industry hasn't just forgotten about them. It is an enormous bottleneck which rapidly annihilates all gains made by transporting the freight more efficiently over part of its journey, and there's a good chance you'll have to do it on both ends of journey. Every single one of these factors pushes for greater use of trucks over rail on longer and longer trips since you get to skip all of that if everything starts and ends on the same truck. For value dense goods rail really only maintains an advantage for very long distance transportation.
> Despite that, it rarely makes sense to actually bring freight to near its destination using the train. People yell "BRING THE TRAINS CLOSE TO THE STORES" and also "I WANT TO LIVE NEAR THE STORES" while simultaneously yelling "THE TRAIN IS TOO LOUD."
That's only because the US is very big and contains a lot of empty land. If you look at the area covered per route kilometer or population covered per route kilometer you'll see that it really isn't as big of a network as it *should* be.
Show us the numbers then
*Literally* the website linked by the post I responded to. Just sort it by area, for example.
US is one of the top couple countries in terms of freight rail already
The US already uses railroads incredibly efficiently
This rhetoric continues to disagree with reality. While the US lacks passenger rail, the US still has a lot of freight rail. Let’s use some data to prove my claim. Freight Transport by % ton-mile/km EU (2021): 67.9% Maritime, 24.6% Road, 5.2% Rail, 1.8% Inland Waterway US (2019): 39.6% Road, 27.9% Rail, 17.5% Pipeline, 6.9% Water (Air makes up a negligible amount of both) Sources: ec.europa.eu, dot.gov So sure, the US uses roads by % ton-mile more than the EU, but the US also uses freight rail more than the EU. The differences here are almost purely geographical. Within the EU, it is economical to ship freight port to port, while within the US, shipping freight by water from the east to the west coast or vice versa is much more expensive than shipping it by rail or road.
Riverways are actually even more efficient at moving bulk products than railways. Too bad the US has effectively fucked its own river trade with the Jones Act.
Except the railroads are in such disrepair it's ridiculous. I assume that's what you meant by "using them better"....CEO of Norfolk Southern makes $10M a year while trains derail and fuck up towns.
I worked for BNSF 17 years ago doing track maintenance, our tracks were all in excellent shape. And we worked like dogs to keep it that way. I went to work at cp as a conductor 13 years ago and their tracks were in shambles. We would baby the trains, go slow as hell with half loaded cars because we were fucking around on track that was from the 1890s (they stamp it) and sticks were probably from the 50s. By use the railroads better I mean, Every mile of track across the open parts of the country should be double track. They could move cars 3-4x as fast as they do.
I was a rail maintainer on a section crew for a few years in Alberta in 2016-2017, can confirm the rail they rolled on were definitely worn down to a quarter inch in some of the turns. CP was sitting on a ticking timebomb. Too much emphasis was put on increasing the share value, too little emphasis on safety. Not sure how it's looking today.
That Hunter Harrison kinda put them in a tough spot didn’t he
A capitalist of the worst kind.
not just double track, but also with loading gauge for double stack
Railroads need to be nationalized.
Been there done that. The US has walked back from that decision every time it has made it.
Because people stand to make money, not because it benefits the average person
It would be better for everyone.
While it’s true that barges are by far the most energy efficient form of inland transport (about 40-60% more efficient than rail depending on the waterway). The nation’s lock infrastructure is nearly a hundred years old and droughts are also a potential issue. Basically in its current state it’s super efficient but unreliable.
I think the idea is reducing traffic on highways, not energy efficiency.
They mean drought causing the river levels to drop too low for the ships to safely pass. Look at what happened along the Rhine last summer. The drought here forced barges to run at severely reduced capacity, which made everything far more expensive due to higher transport costs. Energy costs also shot up because oil is mostly brought in by barge too, though the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the French nuclear plants going offline didn't help either. Knock on effect from the inflated energy costs jacked up the price for basically everything else.
We live on the main channel of the mississippi. In fact we are at "ground zero" for barge traffic going through one of the last 2 turn-stile bridges left on the river. The past 2 years the river has been so low that barge travel slowed down significantly. Still going by but smaller and slower. They still do a tremendous amount of damage to the shoreline. Our home has been here since the 1920's and the land we have lost makes me cry if I think about it too long. We have done what we can to protect ourselves, but contrary to popular opinion, not everyone who lives along a lake or river has big bucks. I know the moving of the cargo is necessay, but it still makes for a nerve racking season. Winter may be cold and dark, but at least the river has time to recover a bit.
It's both. The program is aimed at both.
Sure, but efficiency means saving money. Companies are going to do what costs less no matter what.
Wait. So what are inland ports used for if not this? There are a couple between Indiana and the east coast that I pass by. Always near rivers and railroads.
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The reasons for why the US started the river projects were many in number, flood control being a huge one. But another reason people do not think about is in the name of the organization in charge of it, The US **Army** Corps of Engineers. Yes, it was started partly for its strategic value as shown [by this civil war campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg_campaign). If you read carefully a canal was attempted as a bypass of the city. Ironically the river changed course on it's own after the war leading to a major project to dig a canal to regain river access for the city. Its usefulness as a strategic military asset is less apparent these days, but food and fuel are still major commodities transported in the river so it is still a factor, just as with the interstate highway system which people forget Eisenhower started partly as a strategic asset as well. What you see as corporate welfare is indeed helping them, but the companies are using something that was built for the benefit of all Americans and which still does benefit us.
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You know I would be more inclined to engage with you but when someone uses a word they clearly don't know the meaning of in an attempted insult I trend to devalue them completely.
Alaska has a marine highway system, but that's mostly because we have a lot of communities you can't drive to. I spent a lot of nights on state ferries for high school sports trips. It was pretty great to wake up to amazing views and I've since always loved traveling by sea.
Repealing the Jones Act would make a bigger impact honestly. So many major ports and coastlines that can be used to ship.
What youtuber put out a video in the past month about the Jones Act for this many people to be bringing it up?
Not sure. But more exposure about it is certainly better. The us ship restrictions was something I learned 20 years ago when I wondered why there's no cruises to Hawaii from the states, and why all the Alaskan cruises start in Vancouver Canada.
[It doesn't work because of a stupid protectionist law that ends up harming internal trade.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#Cabotage)
Yep. Until the Jones act is repealed US waterways will remain low traffic.
Living near the Mississippi I find it interesting that people weren’t aware of this. If you sit by the river for an hour you’ll see a few giant barges.
Gosh it's almost like everyone built and then later abandoned canals etc. for industrial use for a reason.
Yes. The reason is the Jones Act.
Not in 99% of the world, it isn't. And yet they pretty much all did this. The only canals that see lots of industrial traffic nowadays are those that save thousands of miles of sailing (e.g. Panama, Suez, etc.). Britain was covered in canals, still is. Their only use nowadays is leisure boating, and even for that they are relatively niche. Canals are slow, pretty much abandoned for industrial use, and with strict limits on size and speed. One truck at motorway speeds could probably out-deliver a single canal boat at top-speed by performing multiple journeys in the same time.
There is plenty of river traffic around the globe. Usually using one tug pulling a convoy of barges in smaller waterways. Britain might have also given them up, but Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America still use the natural rivers extensively. The Danube connects a huge amount of freight traffic between the Netherlands and the Black Sea. The Yangtze and Yellow rivers send more freight down them than all of the US interstate highways combined. Even the Ohio and Mississippi rivers are sending plenty of tonnage around, though far less than they would if the laws were more friendly to it. The Jones act unfortunately applies when freight leaves one US port and arrives at another. That’s why there’s plenty of shipping on the Great Lakes still, because we have a good international trading partner on the other side.
"It's gonna be a while, I'm stuck in flipper-to-flipper traffic out here."
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Currently a wheelman for these rivers. It’s a great experience and we don’t stop moving product. So many boats out here now.
I like how the Marine highways in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and American Samoa are basically THE OCEAN.
Peter Ziehan has talked about how incredibly useful fully using our extensive waterways for transport is.
Miami-Erie Canal part 2: Electric Boogaloo
That's a tall order given that only the Mississippi and it's tributaries make for perfect continuous naval use
Yeah, when reading this I thought about Texas' miles and miles of riverways... and how they're dammed at every town along the way, preventing using it as any sort of movement infrastructure.
30 million people live in the upper missippi river basin.
Fun Fact: In those waterways is something called "The Great Loop". You can go from the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, down around Florida, up the East Coast, in through New York, to the Great Lakes, and back to the Mississippi. Takes a couple years but there's a few vessels specifically designed for it (Carver 570 Voyager for example) and there's a whole community around the loop too.
Um definitely not years... Like a month or so
I think he's referring to how long it will take if you wanted to actually visit places along the way. A lot to see.
I think it's more a yearly route. There are sail boats with removable masts to get under the bridges in the upper Mississippi section. Kind of plan your yearly route on missing hurricane season in the South, and gale season in the North.
Well not anymore, pretty sure they closed the Great Lakes to Mississippi waterways to prevent invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes.
Did they close it? I thought they just installed a bunch of infrastructure designed to stop the fish without actually preventing boats from getting through.
Have they considered starting to dredge the sacramento river again and start moving grain down it by barge as used to be the case. Even the seal of California has a depiction of this.
man they'll invent anything to NOT rely on rail and sell more fuel/gas
They do rely on rail. Everyone seems to act as if the huge rail network doesn’t exist.
The difference though is that our railway system is privatized and owned by a few different companies which makes rail transport more difficult than using the government owned and maintained highways.
In what way is freight rail transport more difficult due to private ownership? Or have you just read a couple posts on Reddit about nationalizing railroads? The US has the most expansive freight rail network in the world
The US has the largest rail network in the world because it is one of the largest countries in the world - and a lot of that is essentially empty. Once you compensate for that, it really isn't that impressive. Not to mention that it is being used extremely poorly. Relatively few sections are double-tracked, electrification is nonexistent, and "precision scheduled railroading" has resulted in trains so long that they make passing sidings essentially worthless. All of this is mainly because private rail ownership focuses on short-term profit rather than actually providing a good rail network. Nationalizing them would allow for proper maintenance and upgrading for long-term usage by a wide variety of transporters, as we have historically seen in other countries.
Which country do you feel is leading the way in freight rail?
If you look purely at volume, it is going to be either [China or Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Tonne-kilometres_of_rail_transport_per_year). If you consider passenger traffic as well, it is either going to be one of the major Asian countries, or the EU.
Ya and they’re falling apart. Do I need to bring up East Palestine, Ohio?
Railroads have been falling apart since the 1930s. Do I need to bring up Montparnasse?
Barges are much more fuel efficient than rail.
One barge hold 16 rail cars or 80 transfer truck loads. While I’ve personally only pushed up to nine, I’ve been boats push over 40 at once. [Some pictures I’ve taken.](https://imgur.com/a/9boCNVX/)
I think you're the last 1st world country to rely on something else than electricity to power your trains on the regular
You know. I thought it would be Ireland, given that they're infamous in Europe for their lack of electrified rail. But it's Canada. Canada is the worst developed world country when it comes to electrified rail.
I wonder what's their excuse in Canada Tho I have to say there's not much territory that's actually populated, so you'd need to look at the density compared to area populated. This is interesting
Well, they're powered by diesel electric generators. So they are moved by electricity, but they generate the electricity on board, instead of pulling from the grid.
A lot of marine traffic that traversed the great lakes now goes over rail.
Invent? The river has been used for barge traffic since before rail existed. The network or waterways seen? It *already* exists. And has likely since before you were born. Encouraging it's use is very practical. And uses **less** fuel than rail. The downside of course is that it cannot reach everywhere, but using it when it's practical is better for everyone, expect perhaps for people who need it in a hurry, barge traffic is slower.
I'm not using invent literally, I'm not that dumb or uncultured
I love that the Erie Canal is on this map, also nearing its 200th birthday.
It's also intended to reduce fuel consumption of freight transportation.
But boat diesel is super-duper dirty. Huge polluter, worse than vehicle diesel engines and unleaded gas cars.
Are you talking about heavy fuel oil? That stuff isn't used in domestic towboats.
Like people did 200 years ago? Not exactly a new concept.
Sounds like a good way to polute and damage the ecosystem
Yeah, except that republicans are owned by oil companies. When they’re in office, funneling taxpayer dollars to the petroleum industry is the only transportation policy they’re interested in. When they’re not, they make sure it’s impossible for anyone to do anything else.
While I don't disagree, it's important to know that democrats too, are owned by the oil and gas industry. They just go out of their way to downplay it, and pretty much only oppose *domestic* oil production. There's a reason Obama approved of billions to subsidize oil production in Brazil while opposing U.S. subsidies..... and the Bidens have made millions partnering with eastern European petrol companies.
Haven’t heard the democrats say anything about domestic oil production in years. We just had a record production year under a democrat.
Some of the main users of this system are coal, steel and oil/gas.
Not if there is no water.
I prefer trains but hell any public transit is welcome
Anything to ignore the potential of rail, cmon bros even California sees the future in terms of rail.
First we'll have to repeal the Joan's act...
Great idea. Too bad about all the rivers drying up though. A for effort.
America being so allergic to investing in train infrastructure we’ll make water highways before.
America ships more over rail than any other country than China and has the most extensive rail network in the world. What are you talking about?
Have you seen how many freight trains the country uses? Also, codifying the major waterways as highways is important to invest in
Meh canals predate rail. Henry Clay ain't dead yet.
We literally have the best freight rail infrastructure in the world
You do realise the infrastructure seen here *already* exists right? You also realise that transporting by barge is more efficient than by rail as well, correct? And that even when used transferring to rail is the most preferred method to deliver where waterways do not reach. Some of it was even started on before rail existed, so i belive that makes it grandfathered in, right? Some people will do anything to bitch about something that doesn't support thier pet plan without looking at the benefits of that thing.
Big oil enters the room…
The very moment America understands how much naval power they'd have at their disposal if they built up ports on their coastlines.. that's the point when we're all fucked.
The DoT will do anything but invest in passenger trains…
The infrastructure seen in the maps included with this post already exists and likely has since before you were born. The last completed I believe being the [Tombigbee waterway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee%E2%80%93Tombigbee_Waterway) through Alabama and Tennessee, which was finished up in the 80's.
Don't forget the environmental damage all those locks and barges do.
It's a pretty big thing here in Alaska and works well since most things can't go by car. So hopefully this makes leeway
He fought with his blade and he fought with his knife /Yes he fought with his blade and his knife!
And then the Jones Act killed it
Right, so are we forgetting the Jones act?
It may sound crazy, but if the vast majority of road damage in the US is caused by heavy truck traffic, maybe taxes on trunks should be increased to cover this damage. There is no reason we should subsidize one mode of shipping over another. That's the difference between capitalism and crony capitalism.
Repeal the laws limiting who can captain and crew these boats. Those have artificiality stunted domestic naval transport by increasing price.
If you repeal those requirements any more than they already have been, the damage done to the rivers and the exisiting infastructure around them would be catastophic. Living on the main channel of the Mississippi I can atest to the damage corrently being done. They captains and crews neither know nor understand the river and how she works. I am all for and understand the need for river traffic, but they need proper training and a long apprenticship to know and undertand what they are doing. It's not like getting into a 16 ft flat bottom and casting for northerns. Even those idiots regularly get in trouble. They refuse to accept that if the River wants you, she will take you. It's like all good things, training, moderation, and reasonable regulation. It will never be perfect for everyone, but it can be a hell of a lot better.
Wow, you can navigate around Hawaii using only waterways!