Sunday Train: Heritage Opposes Freedom to Choose High Speed Rail

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Front paged at Docudharma, Hillbilly Report and at ProgressiveBlue, also available in Orange.

I'm shocked, shocked I say, that a belief tank partly funded by Big Oil and Union Busters would issue a piece attacking High Speed Rail. But they did, claiming that there is a "Coming High Speed Rail Financial Disaster".

Less shocking is that the argument in the piece is tissue-thin, relying on shell games and appeal to stereotype in lieu of evidence.

Of course, just because its an empty argument does not mean its a pointless one. When you are trying to prevent solutions to problems, FUD ... Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt ... can sometimes be as effective as genuine argument.

Well, I hope someone out there is able to frame great counter-arguments that are useful in cracking into Dr. Utt's (Economics) target audience of those with short attention spans and limited access to information. What I can offer here is raw material for those counter-arguments.
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Attack what you can, even if its not the policy on offer

The first red flag that the Heritage piece does not intend a serious consideration of current US Department of Transportation High Speed Rail policy is when the author blithely announces:

Although there is no fixed rule as to what constitutes HSR, a common definition is a rail line that operates at an average speed of at least 125 miles per hour (mph).

If talking about bullet trains alone, this number is low - the very first bullet trains half a century ago were going at these speeds, but there have been a lot of improvements since then. If talking about appreciably faster than what is available at present through the United States ... its high.

What "at least 125mph" means is the speed where a rail corridor has to be completely grade separated. That's why the Express HSR corridors are not built to be a little bit above 125mph: there is a substantial capital cost to cross over that hurdle, and once crossed, substantial benefit to operating at 170mph, 190mph, or 220mph.

As regular readers of the Sunday Train may be aware, outside the Northeast Corridor, the common maximum speed on US rail mainlines is 79mph. If it sounds odd that the speed limit is set exactly one mph below a normal US "count by 5's" speed limit ...
... as James McCommons recounts in "Waiting on a Train", over half a century ago, the Federal Railroad Authority mandated that all railway corridors supporting traffic at 80mph or higher must provide Positive Train Control signal systems for safety. These are systems that can automatically stop trains if a train is going into a track that is already occupied, or if the engineer is incapacitated.

And the railways mostly responded by setting speed limits of 79mph in their corridors. So while the US has the biggest and brawniest trains with massive heavy freight loads compared to most nations worldwide ... by international standards, that's big and brawny and slow.

In nations that already had regular Interurban Express services running 90mph~100mph, the improvements in technology that allow these trains to maintain that speed when going around curves were incremental improvements. "High Speed" was going substantially faster than that.

And so the first Japanese bullet trains in the 1960's went 125mph, and the first French TGV's in the 1980's went 168mph, with the second generation at 186mph ... and the most recent generation of bullet trains is reaching 220mph around the world.

Now, I'm sure Dr. Utt (Economics) knows perfectly well that the High Speed Rail policy that he is pretending to critique involves all three classes of speed that are higher than conventional US passenger rail. He is just setting the bar to create the frame for the very weakest part of his argument, when he considers the 110mph and 125mph classes of Higher Speed Rail.

To sustain these speeds over long routes requires a substantial investment in a secure and exclusive roadbed built to precise standards and tolerances, using equipment that meets the same high standards. As a result, an HSR line costs much more to build and operate than an ordinary passenger rail line. It is believed that only two HSR lines in the world earn enough revenue to cover operating and capital costs: Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Osaka

Of course, as I've discussed before, "enough [passenger] revenue to cover operating and capital costs" really means, "pay all operating and capital costs by a fraction of the economic benefit, with everyone else benefiting getting a free ride."

And if we were to apply that same standard to the status quo, Interstate Highways ... Interstate Highways cannot even cover their maintenance alone out of gas taxes paid by traffic on the highways, but have always required cross-subsidy by gas taxes paid to drive on city streets. And now, even that cross-subsidy is not enough, and the shortfall is now being made up out of the General Fund.

So its (1) an absurd standard and (2) an absurd standard that High Speed Rail comes closer to meeting than the Interstate Highway status quo.

The cost of alternative Interstate Highway spending is no mere theoretical comparison. The only two 150mph+ Express HSR systems funded in February were in California and Florida, both in areas projected to have growing population and demand for intercity transport, and both of which present a choice between spending less money to provide transport capacity with High Speed Rail, and more money to provide transport capacity with long distance highways and investment in airport expansions.

So one freedom the Heritage Foundation is fighting against is the freedom to spend public capital subsidies in a cost-effective way.


Deficit Errorism Strikes at Rail Projects!

In addition to the high costs that the HSR program will impose on taxpayers during a period of economic hardship and slow recovery,

When applications made for funding, those applications include a cost and benefit analysis that does indeed claim that the total economic benefit exceeds the total cost. Yet Dr. Utt (Economics) has not to this point even pretended to dispute these claims. He simply jumps from "not profitable for a private business to pursue" to "a net cost to taxpayers".

That logical leap is lubricated by bullshit. If the projects yield economic benefits that are substantially greater than the costs, there is no net "cost imposed on taxpayers". Construction of those HSR corridors would impose:

• job opportunities on unemployed and underemployed workers, and
• demand for the product of supplier businesses

... but not net costs on future taxpayers. Instead, the investment in more capital efficient transport more easily powered by domestic sustainable energy yields a net benefit for future taxpayers.

And of course, if there is a particular corridor where the cost of an Express HSR corridor is not justified by the full economic benefit, build a less expensive system ... because Express HSR is just one option.


What there's no argument to make, hope for an ignorant audience

Of course, after criticizing Express HSR for being too expensive, without bothering trying to prove the point, the next step is to argue that the much less expensive Regional HSR projects are no good either. But I wonder how you could attack Regional HSR for being so much cheaper per mile than Express HSR, after resting your whole argument on the high cost per mile of Express HSR? I wonder ...

One has to wonder what exactly motivated the FRA review team to endorse the proposed $1.1 billion investment in the Kansas City-St. Louis-Chicago route, which would allow customers to reach their destinations 10 percent faster than they could by driving between Chicago and St. Louis.

Actually, no, nobody has to wonder. After existing improvements in bottlenecks with freight, even according to SubsidyScope's attack on Amtrak, the Chicago/St. Louis corridor recovers 80% of its operating costs from operating revenues at Amtrak speeds.

And that is a service that is slower than driving, which means there are trips that are day trips when driving but overnight trips by train.

It puzzling why a fellow economist would have to "wonder" why more people will make a choice when more people gain the freedom to make that choice. Indeed, on the demand side, its the growing freedom to choose that defines the three tiers of High Speed Rail:

• Become time-competitive with driving, and people who would rather spend their trip doing something other than driving, have the freedom to make that choose.
• Become faster than driving, and some people who wanted something faster than driving, especially for inner urban, outer suburban, and rural destinations without a convenient airport, will start choosing the train for the speed.
• Become time-competitive with flying, and some people will choose the train for the greater comfort and the smaller portion of the trip spent waiting for the trip to start.

Given the willingness that Dr. Utt (Economics) has to engage in misleading framing and deceptive shell game arguments, when he has to resort to simply bluffing by "wondering why" for a question with a perfectly obvious and straightforward answer, he must be on very weak ground indeed.


And then cross-reference to fellow HSR deniers

However extravagant this commitment to jazzed-up 19th century technology may be, the ultimate costs of bringing HSR to the 13 corridors already approved by the FRA will be staggering. California received a $2.3 billion grant toward an HSR rail system with an official cost of $50.2 billion (in 2006 dollars), but independent analysts contend that it will more likely cost $81.4 billion.[6]

There's another shell game here:

• shell one is the actual policy
• shell two is the talking point that 110mph diesel and 125mph electric tilt trains, first successfully put into service in the 1950's and not gaining wide use until after active tilt was mastered in the 1980's is "1800's technology"
• shell three is putting the cost of the California system immediately after the reference to the 110mph and 125mph speed classes ... even though California is a 220mph speed service.

But note the description of a cost quote from what is described as an "independent source". Is it a peer reviewed academic paper? A genuinely independent third party that takes no position on HSR pro or con? No, of course not, its the output of another partly Big Oil funded belief tank, the [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reason_Foundation "Reason" Foundation]:

[6]Wendell Cox and Joseph Vranich, "The California High Speed Rail Proposal: A Due Diligence Report," Reason Foundation Policy Study No. 370, September 2008, at http://reason.org/files/1b544eba6f1d5f9e8012a8c36676ea7e.pdf (March 11, 2010).

... by Wendell Cox, who makes much of his living as being the "transport expert" who can be relied upon to deliver the pro-road-lobby conclusion.

Dr. Utt is lying about the independence of that source. Its the output of a belief tank that opposes High Speed Rail. That's not an independent source.

Dr. Utt then surveys the "overseas experience" while conveniently avoiding the fact that every system that he talks about, even the over-priced, badly managed UK investment in HSR, dogged by the politically imposed burden of "public private partnerships", generate operating surpluses. The bedrock foundation of this survey is the demand that everyone else who benefits from a transport service must be given a free ride on the back of passenger fares.

After all this time with shell game arguments, misleading frames, and "one wonders" questions where even a misleading argument must not be available, Dr. Utt saves the lie for very near the end. Blink and you would miss it ... especially for those who believe the lie to be true:

Most taxpayers will continue to travel by more cost-effective and largely self-financed modes, such as cars and airplanes.

Of course, the "self-finance" claim for roads is patent nonsense. Interstate Highways have always been cross-subsidized by people driving on city streets that receive no federal gas tax money, by zoning requirements to provide "free parking", and by a host of other explicit and hidden public subsidies. Unlike High Speed Rail, which can cover its own operating costs, intercity transport by road has been provided both capital and operating subsidy ever since the Interstate Highway System was first established.


None of this is surprising

It we cast our eye back across American Economic History, a watershed event that can be used to divide the Fordist period the followed WWII from the Second Gilded Age that started to gain full speed under Ronald Reagan is American Peak Oil ... and even more specifically, March, 1971, when the Texas Railroad Commission removed the quota on oil production.

When oil prices in the US were regulated through production quotas to remain relatively stable in dollar terms, which means falling prices when corrected through inflation, the interests of Big Oil were lined up with strong income growth. The side-effect that this provides a favorable economic setting for organizing workforces was, for capital-intensive corporations such as big oil, a regrettable but tolerable evil.

When the balance of pricing power passed from an elected Commission in the US to the major oil exporting nations, the interests of oil companies and the economic interests of the United States began to diverge. An over-valued US$ provides US-headquartered transnationals with added economic power when pursuing the rights to exploit non-renewable natural resources overseas. Depressed economic conditions in low-income countries are more appealing than rapid economic development.

When any industry has interests that diverge strongly from the national interest, it becomes useful to invest in propaganda mills to help promote argument frames and talking points that are favorable to their interest and help obscure the national interest.

Each of these propaganda mills are, of course, organizations that chase funding from various foundations and corporations ... so when a single right wing propaganda mill adopts a particular position, it would well be a matter of personal conviction by a group of propagandists wihin the mill. But when the Heritage Foundation, Reason Foundation, Cato Institute all take up the case (see Libertarians Against Choice: The Attack on Obama's HSR Policy and the Midwest HSR Association's HSR Fact versus Fiction) ... well, coming up with arguments that serve the interests of those who pay their bills is the common job of all three.

And so this last week, my "HSR" search tag caught mention after mention of the newest Heritage Institute "argument" against the present High Speed Rail policy.


Your Mission, if you Choose to Accept It ...

So, given what is clearly an effort at deceptive propaganda posing as a serious argument, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to propose simple, clear, fact based responses to this kind of nonsense. While you ponder that, I'll pass the stage on to the headliners.


Midnight Oil: Truganini

Sunday Train: Economic Independence will Help Pay For Itself

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Last week I presented a draft of a national Steel Interstate plan. The focus was on the Institutional Framework required to be able to build it, including the source for the interest subsidy to finance its up front capital cost.

Possibly lost in the wall of words was an important point, which was focused on by some commentary: the users are paying the capital construction cost. As a country, we need it, so as a country, it makes sense to find a way to jumpstart it and have it available for the oil prices shocks that are coming in this next two decades.

... but once it starts getting used, that's what will cover the original construction cost. One way we can tell we are heading toward Economic Freedom is that it helps pay for itself.
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STRACNET Map:

I'll be talking about "STRACNET" below, the Department of Defense STrategic RAil Corridor NETwork, which is the system they developed for protecting their logistical needs in the half century that railroads were shedding track and corridors. The map is to the right. For those playing the home game, draw your own Steel Interstate system by selecting corridors from the red lines in this map.


Parasite Capitalism versus Economic Independence
Indeed, the focus of the Institutional Framework is ensuring that User Fees and Access Fees will refund the original capital cost, while at the same time ensuring that we do not have to dilly dally and delay on getting the process started.

So, yes, its a public investment in Economic Independence. But its a public investment, and part of the return actually is financial return. The Economic Independence helps to pay for itself. In that sense, it is closer to a Tollway than to the Free Rider type of Interstate.

What I want to argue, however, is that this is not unusual.


Parasite Capitalism and Oil Addiction

Certainly much of the "Great U-Turn" political economy that was established starting in the 1970's built upon the existing institutions of the Great American Middle Class economy that preceded it. However, it was very selective in the institutions it focused on: it focused on the art of taking the free ride.

Of course, there is no such thing as a genuinely free ride - what "free ride" means is simply that one party receives the benefit and a second party bears the cost. And the single word that encapsulates that relationship is "parasite". So we can call the economy of the 1970's to the present day, "Parasite Capitalism".

For instance, consider the Housing Bubble economy. This was just the most extreme elaboration of the standard sprawl property development system. And what is the standard sprawl property development system?

• Get the right to "develop" an undeveloped greenfield site
• Get someone to subsidize some road infrastructure
• Get someone to subsidize utility support infrastructure
• Get permission to do the development
• Build it and sell it
• Reap the reward of all your individualistic hard work

And the Highways based transport that the sprawl development relies upon itself relies on the art of the successful parasite. All highway users benefit from gas taxes paid by people driving on city streets that do not qualify for highway funding. The Federal Gas Tax helps people believe the myth that they are "paying" for the road and that its "their" road, when various state and local taxes cover the cost of the roads that generate the traffic on "non-highway" streets that generates the cross-subsidy to Interstate, US, State, County and Township Highways.

Note the last ... its not just Interstates. Lots of little country roads are subsidized by urban motorists.

With urban drivers as the parasite hosts and suburban drivers as the parasites, of course, growing numbers over time have moved to the suburbs, to get from the cost side to the benefit side. Which is great for short term windfall gains for property "developers", because that props up demand in the suburban areas where they have a well entrenched parasite capitalism system in place.

But its not long-term sustainable. Eventually, as the number of hosts dwindles and the number of parasites increases, the benefit available per parasite starts to drop. So it becomes harder and harder to meet all the demands on the highway trust fund with the proceeds of the gas tax that funds it. Add on top the decision to not index the tax rate for inflation ... which could be seen as a short-sighted measure to offset the ongoing increases in the real price of crude oil ... and there is less and less free riding opportunity.


What Did You Call Me?!!

To avoid confusion, I must stress that this is not a moral argument. One of the big shell games of the Great U-Turn is to moralize arguments, so that public consideration of problems does not involve looking at problems and looking for solutions, but instead involves looking at problems and looking for scapegoats.

This is the way the system is built. Its not the product of unconstrained individual personal choice. Looking to place individual blame in each individual suburban resident is like looking for the square of the checkerboard gives it the checkerboard pattern.

We definitely have to rebuild the system, but good people for many years have been fighting the fact that the system is built this way, and its just a hard fight, with no guarantees of victory.

Economic Independence is a big part of advancing from Parasite Capitalism to a system that is sustainable, and Energy Independence is a critical part of that.


Tailoring the Steel Interstates

This is the target of the Steel Interstate system: the long haul truck freight loads. That's where there is massive energy waste to be mined, since a long haul diesel semi truck requires over 10 times the energy to haul a ton of freight as Rapid Electric Rail Freight.

And the users are going to be paying its up-front capital costs, that's the financial value that the private railroads are going to be chasing in order to provide the payments. They are a bunch of corporations, after all, and like any other psychopathic corporation, they will provide precisely as much public benefit as the chase of dollars leads them to do.

Lots of points jump out that demand changes in the map that I drew last week:

• First, the most important southwesterly line of freight in the Eastern US is the Shenandoah Valley extending into the Tennessee Valley, running inland of the population concentrations on the eastern seaboard
• Second, there are important southern seaboard ports, and the line I draw, taken directly from the Southeastern HSR corridor plan, does not provide direct access for most of them.
• Third, the first Stage ought to have lots of length to it, because until the network starts building up, its the longer runs that will be most vulnerable to competition from Steel Interstate rail ... and the more business the Steel Interstate rail wins, the more quickly they pay the capital cost of the line

I also thought that it makes more sense to start up all the four lines on a project development and planning basis, and the launch each with an increment of the interest subsidy funding from the imported oil tariff. So that is four stages rather than five, with all four Development Banks receiving $0.0025 from the initial penny per gallon, and then the four stages each hitting high gear as they get their additional penny in each following year.

So this is what I've done. I've started in Boston at the extreme Northeastern edge of the STRACNET system, come down to New York via Albany (the NEC is awfully crowded, after all, and this is for long haul freight), then to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to enter the broad central valley of the Appalachian mountains. Follow that down to Chatanooga, then to Nashville and Memphis to run through to Dallas, then down to El Paso and run via Tuscon and Phoenix to Southern California, then up the Central Valley to northern California.

I call this the "Liberty Line", as a major step toward Economic Freedom.

This corridor is first in part because it makes plenty of sense to do it even if roll-out stalls with the first line due to political fighting the main Parasite Capitalists threatened, including those US Oil Companies with substantial overseas oil production interests and hence a strong financial interest in our Economic Addiction to Oil Imports.

Looking at the freight map, there are massive truck freight loads that run entirely north of the Liberty Line, as well as a substantial amount of the traffic that runs on part of the Liberty Line that comes in from further north. So next comes a North/South corridor that I call the "Heartland" Line.

The Heartland Line runs up from Miami to Nashville via Atlanta, then up to Chicago by the most direct STRACNET route, then up to Minneapolis, and finally grabbing land port business by running up to terminate at Winnipeg in Canada.

The second leg of the Heartland Line starts in New Orleans, Louisiana, running up to Nashville and then to Cincinnati via Louisville, Columbus, Cleveland, Buffalo, and then Toronto.

With the Heartland Line development in progress, now is time to launch the National Line stage, which in the first draft was presented as Stage 1. There is a major adjustment here, since looking at the truck freight flows suggests that it is better to access the Pacific Northwest via southern Idaho, and so the National Line is now drawn to fork west of Cheyenne, with the north fork going to Portland, Oregon, and the south fork going to Sacramento to cross the Liberty Line and the Port of Oakland.

The National Line begins at the port of Wilmington, Deleware, which is the most convenient port to Liberty Line junction at Harrisburg. The line crosses to the railhead of Pittsburgh, then follows the National Line through Wheeling and to Columbus, where it a junction with one leg of the Heartland Line. From there I've drawn it as taking the existing STRACNET corridor past Dayton, until it hits the Stracnet Corridor through Indianapolis, and then through the Terre Haute where it has the junction with the other leg of the Heartland Line.

From there the line continues through St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, up to Cheyenne to run around the Colorado Rockies toward the strongest east/west freight market north of the southern tier of states. From there, as described, it forks, heading up through southern Idaho to connect to the Pacific Northwest, and through Salt Lake City toward Sacramento and then the main Northern California Pacific port of Oakland.

Now I have two main tasks to complete. First, I have a number of southeastern coastal ports that are not on the system and are too important to omit from the system. And second, if there is not going to be a Line running along the biggest of the east/west truck traffic flows west of the Mississippi, on Interstate 40, then there has to be crossing lines that can capture that freight. The Liberty Line can capture western Interstate 40 traffic to or from the Northeast, but there is nothing to intercept freight to or from the southeast.

So the Gulf and Atlantic line runs along the Southeastern Atlantic Coast to junction with the Heartland Line at Jacksonville, then to Mobile, New Orleans, Houston, and connecting to the Liberty Line at El Paso. It has a second leg from Houston that runs to Dallas, crosses I-40 at Lubbock, and continues up to junction with the National Line at Denver.

Which completes the system. It may look like a tangle, but in the Institutional framework, there are four organizations which have the goal in front of them to finish their corridor. And note that as a form of Regional Development Bank, they will not be exercising the Federal government's powers of eminent domain, so they have to focus on hammering out the way of meeting their charter that is sufficiently appealing to the freight railroads to be able to build their line.


And now the headliners: Dreamworld / Midnight Oil

Sunday Train: A Nationwide Freight and Passenger Regional HSR System

Burning the Midnight Oil for Energy Independence

It often seems there is a deep canyon lying between what we can do and what needs to be done as a community, as a local region, as a state, as a national region, or as a nation.

But the Steel Interstate is a national program that a coalition of determined groups of advocates scattered across the country could get going. It bridges regional interest conflicts, and offers a way to advance some of the interests of:

• Interstate motorists, by taking a substantial amount of semi truck traffic off the road, reducing both driving stress and road damage
  
• Advocates of car independence, by providing a Rapid Rail network that can extend the reach of Regional HSR train services in a financially sustainable way
  
• Private sector organized labor, by providing an ongoing project that will employ people in constructing the system and producing materials for the system, and as a direct consequence reduce the import share of national spending, increasing the employment impact of all newly financed spending, private or public
  
• The large "army of unemployed" benefit in precisely the same way
  
• Advocates of a development of an ecologically sustainable, by saving 90% of the energy cost of long haul freight transport by diesel powered semi-truck
  
• Advocates of effective climate change mitigation strategy, in precisely the same way
  
• Progressive Patriots, by advancing the cause of Energy Independence and weakening the foundation of the protection racket that oil companies use to gain control over US military power in support of corporate interests and in opposition to US national interest
  

Of course, I want to talk process, but it seems to be network maps that catches people's interest. So how I will go about this is alternating Map and Process.


Stage 1 Map: The National Line

The genesis of Stage 1, from which the balance of the map follows, was a comment in the dkos edition of the Sunday Train, Sunday Train: Attacks on HSR in Flyover Country, by IndianaDemocrat

So, Ya' Wanna Build A High-Speed Line?
Then build one that will actually have an IMMEDIATE TANGIBLE ECONOMIC BENEFIT.

Reconstruct the National Line form Pittsburgh to St. Louis as a High-Speed, three-rail line.

This bypasses Chicago, reduces cross-country travel times by as much as a day-and-a-half, OR MORE, depending on Chicago delays. Make it a Nationally-owned and operated line, available to all railroads to use. Even the Shortlines, for a fee.

Put that money to use actually doing something that could help breath life back in to manufacturing, instead of a flashy boondoggle.

The Stimulus Flyover projects in Chicago are a start, but little more than band-aids that don't really address the bottleneck problem.

by IndianaDemocrat on Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 08:00:59 PM EST

That's what Line#1 does. Now, as explained later in the process section, each stage is around 3,000 miles, so there's more to it: New York to Pittsburgh is the STRACNET alignment that is generally the route of the Amtrak Pennsylvanian, St. Louis to Denver is a STRACNET freight corridor, and Denver to Oakland, California is generally along the route of the Amtrak California Zephyr.

Before you react to the passenger service appeal of the corridor .... stop. Take a deep breath. This is at its core a plan that is to provide an opportunity for Sustainable Energy Independent long distance freight transport. Consider the truck traffic on Interstate 70 between Pittsburgh and Denver before rejecting the alignment out of hand.

What makes IndianaDemocrat's proposal so powerful is that STRACNET through Ohio and Indiana is a bit of a tangled mess, and it is quite plausible that the loss of the National Line is the reason.

Also, bear in mind that freight trains can change locomotives. Swapping locomotives costs time ... but if the run on an electric corridor is fast enough, both in terms of speed and in terms of capacity to handle traffic without delay, it can easily cover the time-cost for long-distance traffic.

So this is not an isolated corridor, its a trunk corridor that can be accessed by a wide number of the STRACNET corridors.


Stage 1 Process: Foundation Concepts for the Steel Interstate Project

After four to six months writing Sunday Train's, its easy for me to lose track of the fact that while there are some regulars, there are also always some people who are dropping by for the first time. So if the following is old news to the regulars, my apologies.

The Brawny Recovery. Back when the US was Energy Independent, progressive macroeconomist's would patiently explain that there is simply no problem with the government running a deficit during an economic downturn.

After all, "Money" is just a permission slip from the government: its resources that can limit the government's freedom to deficit spend. And during a downturn we have idle resources.

"Except" ... except that now we are no longer Energy Independent. Instead, we are addicted to imported energy. Like any Dependent Economy, there is always a risk that boosting demand for domestic resources will lead to problems in the exchange rate of the local money, causing a crisis in access to the external resource.

So under the situation of growing addiction to Energy Imports that has been pursued as active government policy over the past three decades by both Republican and Democratic administrations ... we can't ignore the impact on our external balance.

So we need to do more than just do "Keynesian Pump Priming": we need to ensure that we spending some of that money on stuff that helps us make stuff. That's the "Brawny Recovery": economic stimulus that also develops our national economic strength.

Ecological and Economic Sustainability. I do not spend a lot of time in the Sunday Train arguing about whether the US Economy is in an unsustainable ecological overshoot, nor about accelerating climate chaos, nor about a wide range of ecological and social failings of our current transport system. But Energy Efficiency ties into these concerns as well. Economic Growth is getting more stuff done that people want done. The massive material wastes built into our present system, means that we have an opportunity to mine what is presently wasted to get economic growth without requiring more material support.

And this is what makes it possible economically to get these projects launched. We are doing a lot of things in ways that only made economic sense with $1 a gallon gasoline or diesel (in 2010 prices). The economic foundation has fallen away, but the institutional supports keep obsolete systems and practices alive like so many zombie transport systems.

Opportunity for Sustainability. It is easy to fall into a status quo bias in which we evaluate every change in terms of what the impact will be under our present way of doing everything else. But I don't believe we can actually keep doing everything else the same way either, so I also look at how easy it is to upgrade something to full sustainability.

For long distance transport, there is no mature transport technology that has a stronger opportunity for sustainability than electric rail. Given the massive energy waste of long haul truck freight, the correct speed is "fast enough to capture freight shipments that would otherwise go on the road." Hence the focus on 100mph Rapid Electric Rail freight, which is fast enough to do precisely that.

STRACNET. STRACNET is the department of defense Strategic Rail Corridor Network. Forty years ago, the Pentagon noticed that rail lines that it depended upon in its planning for logistical support in times of crisis were in the process of being ripped out. So rail corridors with strategic impact were identified, and the STRACNET process was born, whereby the Department of Defense looks at proposals to abandon a rail line that is on STRACNET and tries to hammer out a solution that maintains the logistical capacity it requires.

As in so many other things in our society, we are only "allowed" to do serious national planning if there is a defense component. But we have been wearing massive (and politically motivated) blinkers over the past thirty years: the addiction of our nation's economy to massive oil imports is one of the greatest threats to national security that we face.

The presumption is that these investments will take place on STRACNET corridors - but note that there is some flexibility in this, since regional development banks would be in a position to negotiate with Department of Defense logistics bureaucrats to add or shift STRACNET status from one corridor to another.


Stage 2 Map: The Gulf and Southwestern Line

The next line to roll out ... and under the system proposed below, each line begin rolling out the year after the previous one ... runs from Miami to Los Angeles via Jacksonville, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Tuscon, and Phoenix.

One thing this line focuses on is port traffic, which is why it starts at Miami, runs to Los Angeles, and runs through Mobile, New Orleans, and Houston (with junctions to Galveston).

This is the Florida Atlantic Coast route and then the old Amtrak Sunset Limited, before it was chopped back to NOLA/LA.

You'll probably notice that there is no "whistling past Dixie" here ... more like "whistling through Dixie".


Stage 2 Process: Institutional Foundations

So, if we want to tap the energy efficiency of long distance rail, how would we go about doing it?

First, we learn the lessons of Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor and set the "Line Builder" authority up as a form of public regional development bank from the outset. We charter it with a specific responsibility to get a Rapid Electric Rail corridor established, and specify the cities that it must serve when construction is finished.

How to fund the thing? (Note: I am being "cute" here, using "fund" in its 1930's classical technical sense, and will discuss "finance" in another stage.) If we want an integrated, national network, it has to be publicly owned infrastructure. If we want the network integrated with the existing rail system, it has to be primarily on freight railroad right of way.

Once a rail path in a rail corridor has been electrified, it is very capital efficient to electrify all tracks in that corridor. So the basis of the regional steel interstate development bank making itself welcome is to provide the infrastructure for all existing track in the corridor, as desired by the right of way owner, in return for cooperation in providing for a Rapid Electric Rail freight path in the corridor.

And then the original capital cost project is funded by charging access fees to the tracks owned by the public authority, and user fees for the electricity consumed by all electric trains, on either the Rapid Rail or Heavy Rail paths.

Indeed, since having the capacity is in the national interest, while its using the capacity that is in the interest of the private railways, its possible to ensure that the terms are attractive by mandating that the user and access fees will be set at the level that provides for full recovery of the original capital cost in four years of 100% capacity utilization.

So the more heavily railroads use the stuff (and therefore the more useful it is to them), the faster the infrastructure is paid back. If capacity utilization is 20%, it will take 20 years to refund the cost ... if capacity utilization is 50%, it will take eight years to refund the cost.

Obviously, during an extended oil price shock, it will be used even more intensively, but there is nothing in this proposal that is waiting for things to change in terms of gas and diesel prices. This thing would have been used at the diesel prices at their trough right after the Panic of 2008 hit in full force..

Indeed, the question that is up in the air is how intensively it will get used and how rapidly rapid electric freight traffic will gain market share. Alan Drake, who developed the most ambitious form of the Steel Interstate system, was able to get modelling of the system done by the Millenium Institution, and this will get used under current economic conditions.

The funding system proposed here and financing system proposed below will allow the infrastructure to be built. If it turns out that we experience another oil price shock, the result will be to accelerate the roll-out of the corridors. However, the proposed institutions are entirely workable under present economic conditions.


Stage 3 Map: The Gulf and Northwestern Line

Its a distinctive fact of the shape of our country that the Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico makes the country narrower north to south east of the Mississippi, and wider north to south west of the Mississippi. Stage 3 takes advantage of that to provide for the first crosslinking while bringing in the northwestern quadrant that is under-served by the first two corridor.

Stage 3 starts at Mobile, linking to the Gulf and Southwestern Line, and runs up through Birmingham, Nashville, Louisville, and up the STRACNET connector to the STRACNET corridor to Chicago, It crosses the National Line with a high capacity cross-over junction at Terre Haute, Indiana. From Chicago, it runs through Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, and then along the northern STRACNET corridor through North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington to Seattle.

In Amtrak terms, the Northwestern portion of this corridor is the Empire Builder route.


Stage 3 Process: Financing the System

Looking ahead to a system of repaying the original capital cost over time means that a system is needed for paying the interest expense of the capital spending between the time that the money is spent and the time that the capital cost is paid back. This is what is classically called "Financing" the capital expense.

My proposal cuts to the heart of the matter. The problem with gas taxes is that they are seen as making gas more expensive.

But the US is not Addicted to Energy Imports because we have lost the ability to produce oil. We are the third biggest oil producer in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia but well ahead of Iran, Mexico, China, Canada, UAE, Venezuela, Kuwait, Nigeria, and etc. With roughly 5% of the World's population we produce about 10% of the world's oil.

We are not an "oil poor" country. We are an oil wasting country, consuming about one fourth of the world's supply, 2.5 times our production and 5 times our "global per capita share".

That's why "drill baby drill" was such a load of total bullshit. We already "Drill, Baby Drill" ... the myth that we do not is a convenient lie, and no basis for national policy.

And as the biggest oil waster of the world, our chief power to keep oil prices from skyrocketing is by cutting our massive waste of oil.

So this proposal goes to the heart of the problem. For each rail line, a $0.01 per gallon tariff is imposed on all imports of petroleum and petroleum products. The tariff starts at $0.01, and the regional development bank for the first line can start work, then $0.02 and the second bank can start work, up to $0.05.

A massive step toward independence from the Saudi Oil Sheiks and the Phantom Iranian Menace and the corruption and savagery of Nigeria's national oil policy and Hugo Chavez ... whoever you do not like among the nations we rely on to feed our insanely counter-productive imported oil addiction, a massive step toward reducing the imports "from them".

It may well be that the original interest subsidy will not cover the whole capital cost ... but that's OK, since building the first 2,000 miles will start generated user and access fee revenues which can be recycled into new capital spending until the line is finished. And then, when the construction of the mandated line is finished, the development bank uses the tariff revenue to accelerate repayment of the original capital cost.

And then, when the full capital cost is repaid, the tariff is extinguished.

We import in the neighborhood of 200b gallons of petroleum and petroleum products a year, so a $0.01 tariff yields in the neighborhood of $2b annually. That supports from $40b to $50b in bonds at interest rates of 4% to 5% ... less at higher rates, more at lower. Alan Drake's original proposal was costed at around $450b for over 30,000 miles of track ... so I am taking about $45b for 3,000 miles of track and working on that basis.

That is why these first three lines have all been in the neighborhood of

And building the system to its robust ... that is what allows "in the neighborhood" to work out. A robust funding framework with the flexibility to cope with moderate oil prices and extremely high oil prices is what we need to insure our economy against the potentially rocky road that lies ahead.

This is, after all, an infant industry tariff - a finance rather than protective infant industry tariff to be sure - so once the system is launched, the tariff should go away.

At that point, the longer term mandate of the regional development bank to promote the development of energy independent and carbon neutral transport in systems within its broader catchment kicks in.


Stage 4 Map: The Front Range Line, the Great Lakes Line, and the Southeastern Line

Apologies that the Southeastern Line was inadvertently omitted from the map ... you can see if on the final map below

So far New England extending into the heavily trafficked I-80 and I-76 corridors has not received a line, and there are obviously still large holes in the network. So at Stage Four there are three shorter Lines.

The Great Lakes Line starts in Boston and runs through Springfield MA, Albany and Buffalo, NY, Erie PA, Cleveland and Toledo OH, northern Indiana, into Chicago. The Southeastern Line extends from New York through DC, Richmond VA, Raleigh and Charlotte in NC, and Atlanta GA to connect with the Gulf and Northwestern at Birmingham, AL. And the Front Range Line runs from El Paso through Albuquerque through Colorado Springs to Denver.

The first three corridors are launched in three years, one after the other, each with a dedicated $0.01 in petroleum tariff revenues. These are three shorter lines, so the revenue is split: 0.4 cents goes to the Great Lakes Line, 0.4 cents goes to the Southeastern Line, and 0.2 cents goes to the Front Range Line.


Stage 4 Process: Building the Coalition to Get there

So far, this is just blueprinting. But without an opportunity to get involved, then a blueprint just gathers dust on the shelf. What is needed is to convert the blueprint into an Action Plan.

This requires coalition building. Steel Interstate Advocates need to form local advocacy groups, in all the cities and states served by the corridors ... which is all of them except Hawaii and Alaska. Even states that do not have a corridor have:

• access to the corridor via their local rail network
  
• benefits of the corridor in reducing national oil consumption
  
• and participation in the energy independence transport investment by the "Line" development banks once they have finished rolling out the corridors.
  

But long experience is that face to face meetings are required to actually look people in the eye and talk to them in person and get things moving.

Of course, the groups can be freestanding, but do not have to be freestanding. It can be an interest group working party in a union local. It can be an interest group working party in a local political party. It can be an interest group working party as part of Drinking Liberally. It can be an interest group working party wherever you can pluck up the courage to suggest it.

This is one reason why I've focused on sketching a robust system ... a fine tuned, well oiled machine would be fine for a fine tuned, well oiled political machine to put into action as a demonstration of its prowess. But this is something that we are going to have to make into an issue, over the next year, or three years, or decade if that is what it takes.


Stage 5 Map: The Midwestern Line, the Texarkana Line, and the West Coast Line

Stage Five finishes up the main trunk network ... using STRACENET corridors to provide North/South trunks in the Midwest and West Coast. The Midwest Line runs from San Antonia to Austin, crosses the Texarkana in Dallas/Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Wichita to Kansas City, then on the STRACNET corridor through Des Moines to Minneapolis. The Texarkana runs from through Dallas/Fort Worth to Little Rock Arkansas, Memphis TN, and connects to the Gulf Coast and Northwestern at Nashville. And the West Coast line runs from San Diego to cross the Gulf and Southwestern east of the LA Basin, up the Central Valley to Sacramento, where it crosses the National Line, then Northern California through Redding, up the STRACNET alignment to Eugene Oregon, and then up to Portland to connect to the Gulf and Northwestern at Seattle.

The Midwestern Line receives 0.4 cents from the fifth tranche of imported oil tariff, the West Coast line 0.4 cents, and the Texarkana receives 0.2 cents.


Stage 5 Process: What Do You Think?

Well, this is a big fat whopping Sunday Train, and will post an hour late to boot ... but what do you think? In order of importance:

• What do you think is an effective means of organizing to promote a national Steel Interstate system?
  
• What do you think about the Line Development Bank system?
  
• What else do you think about the mechanics of the proposal?
  

I expect to get lots of suggestions of different alignments and roll-out sequences ... and I am happy to discuss my why's and wherefore's on each and every line proposed as well as the logic of the sequencing ... but you know, even if not one single line I propose is adopted, and it is rolled out in reverse order ... any serious real world steel interstate system beats the best possible fictitious real world steel interstate system.

So if the lines that people are willing to fight for end up being completely different to the maps I draw up this weekend ... people willing to fight for any steel interstate line is such great news that I'd be sitting pretty.


The Headliners: Midnight Oil - The Power and the Passion


supported by Bethany and Rufus

Sunday Train: Rescuing the Cardinal from Demise

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence


When looking at the famously mis-titled "Vision for High Speed Rail in America" map trotted out last year, showing those of state-planned High Speed Rail corridors that have already applied for and received official designation as High Speed Rail corridors ... there are ghosts on that map.

The Ghosts of Trains Past, also known as the Amtrak long distance routes.

As discussed on November 8th of last year in Rescuing the Innocent Amtrak Numbers from SubsidyScope, some of these ghosts are healthier than others. One of the ones in the most dire shape is the Cardinal, responsible for the only line on that map that enters either West Virgnia or eastern Kentucky.

Why it does so badly, and how it might be fixed up a bit, after the fold.

---[ Discussion at Agent Orange and elsewhere around the web ]---


Conventional Long Distance Rail Aint Easy

When tossing aside the fatally flawed SubsidyScope treatment of capital depreciation ... and I am still eagerly awaiting their consideration of the subsidies to road and air transport that uses the same approach to capital depreciation ... most long haul Amtrak routes have similar financial performance. If one says, "long haul Amtrak routes recover between 40% and 50% of their operating costs from fare revenue", that would cover ten of fifteen services:

• from the Southwest Chief (IL/CA) and City of New Orleans (IL/LA) at 49%,
• through the Silver Meteor (NY/FL), Capital Ltd (DC/IL), Coast Starlight (WA/CA), Crescent (NY/LA), Texas Eagle (IL/TX), California Zephyr (IL/CA),
• to the Silver Star (NY/FL) and Lakeshore Ltd (MA|NY/IL) at 41%.

There are three that did better in the year that SubsidyScope considered: the specialty Auto Train between Virginia and Florida, at 85%, the Empire Builder from Illinois to Washington and Oregon at 61%, and the Palmetto from New York to Georgia at 55%.

And two that did worse: the Cardinal at 34%, and the Sunset Ltd from Louisiana to California at 23%.

This is not a diary about "fixing long distance rail". Whether 40% to 50% is a reasonable return given the other benefits that long distance rail may provide is not something I am fixing to consider tonight.

Instead, considering the norm of 41% to 49% ... the Cardinal falls short. That means that if the long knives come out, its neck is not far from the chopping block. And that is true even if in fact the average long haul route does provide twice as many external benefits as passenger benefits, and so it is true even if the Cardinal breaks even in an economic sense.

And its worse than that. The Cardinal is a route that runs three times a week in each direction. The final leg of its route to Chicago and first leg of its route from Chicago is "the Hoosier State", which runs as an independent short corridor routes the rest of the week.

And the Hoosier State is in even more dire straits ... where 9 of 26 regional corridor routes have operating cost recovery between 64% and 79%; 20 of 26 have operating cost recovery above 50%; and 25 out of 26 have operating cost recover above 30% ...

... the Hoosier State has operating cost recovery of 15%.

I have seen a comment to the effect that when Senator Byrd is no longer there to defend it, the Cardinal is going to be shut down. While I have no idea how accurate that comment is - it is certainly plausible.


Oh. My. God. How does it hit 34%?


And then you look at the schedule of the Cardinal, and wonder how it gets enough fares to cover 34% of its operating costs.

Consider it as a train to get to Chicago. Westbound, it is scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 10:35 in the morning, after leaving Indianapolis at 6:30am - that is the daily Hoosier State schedule. It is scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis at 4:44am, after leaving Cincinnati at 1:10am. It traveled through Kentucky between 10pm and midnight, and through West Virginia between 6:30pm and 9:35pm, leaving the capital of Charleston WV at 8:10pm.

Scanning up the timetable, the train got into southern West Virginia from western Virginia, and to there from Washington, DC. And that is the real surprise: this route which spends so much of its time heading up toward Chicago from the east by southeast ... originates in New York. Of course, nobody would take it from New York to Chicago, even if they were determined to rider the train, since its the slowest of the New York to Chicago trains.

The problem is, if you stop the train and turn it around at Washington DC, there does not seem to be a lot that is gained ... because the total route end to end is 23:25 from DC to Chicago, and 24:10 from Chicago to DC. So when taking turn-over operations and the schedule slack to cope with the inevitable delays, its hard to tailor the timetable to provide appropriate return trip schedules without losing quite a lot of time sitting idle.

As to how it hits 34%, that could well be on that part between New York and western Virginia ... which is part of the reason why the schedule timing is so poor for the majority of the route.

Except, with a little imagination ... it might be possible to fix the schedule up.


Fixing the Cardinal

The balance of this diary is done on a simple rule. I transport the current scheduled times between cities from existing Amtrak scheduled routes to the route that I am building here. Sure, in the Sunday Train, I've spent more than a little time writing about High Speed Rail ... but here, I am sticking to the conventional rail Amtrak.

That does not guarantee that these timetables are either feasible or, if feasible, exact. I have no inside information on rail system bottlenecks, and so this should be seen as nothing but a rough sketch. However, its a rough sketch draw with the brush of existing scheduled services.

Start out by breaking the Hoosier State free of the Cardinal. It might run, for instance, down from Chicago at 7:30am, and return to Chicago at 7:00pm, if that is what transport studies indicates is the most appealing schedule. It might make one round trip and one single trip, providing different MWF and TRS schedules. It might run from Chicago through Indianapolis to Cincinnati and back each day. If running past Miami of Ohio in the middle of the day makes it look promising, it could add a Miami University station. Whatever looks to be the most attractive to the most passengers riding the train for the longest trips.

Now, don't think about the Cardinal route as a New York route, think about it as a Chicago route. Chicago to Indianapolis is covered. Chicago to Cincinnati through to DC is a much longer ride. And the best way to cut time out of the ride is to make it a sleeper service.

So leave Chicago at 10pm. The train runs through Indianapolis between 4am and 5am, then reached Cincinnati at 7:45am. It gets to Charleston, WV about 12:30pm, starts passing through western Virgnia around 4:30pm, and hits Washington around 10:10pm.

OK, now, we have a train arriving in DC at about 10:10pm ... why not make it a night train as well. I'll have it continue around 11pm heading up toward Pittsburgh, along the Capital Corridor route. It gets to Pittsburgh about 7am, Cleveland about 10am, Toledo 12:30pm, and gets to Chicago about 4pm. That gives it six hours to get ready to start the loop all over again.

The key to the night train scheduling is to make sure that the reverse trip is a similar night train. So a second train runs the reverse route, leaving Chicago at about noon, getting to Cleveland about 7:15pm and Pittsburgh 10:40pm, then DC at 6:30 the next morning. Leave DC at 8:30 to arrive at Charleston WV 5:30pm, Cincinnati at 10:30pm, and Chicago at about 7:55 the next morning.

Now, this is still a three-times-a-week train, but now the overnight service into Chicago arrives before the Start of Business, getting maximum value from the sleeper train. The same thing happens heading southwest into DC on the Cleveland/Pittsburgh leg.

This route also allows more fine tuning of service to transport demand than is normally possible on such a long route ... because alternate days without a Cardinal service can be provided a complementary service. For example, the original Cardinal could run from New York through DC to Charleston in a day, and return the following day. An alternate daytime Cleveland/Pittsburgh service would connect to the Northeast Corridor further north, running from Chicago to Pittsburgh and then to Philadelphia, with late evening connections still available both north and south.


Its not perfect - but perfection is a fantasy

Of course, this is not a perfect schedule. For one thing, just like the Cardinal, there will be delays, because the route is not designed to allow trains to run without delays.

And of course, its too damn slow.

However, it provides Ohio's two largest cities with intercity train service that is not between midnight and 6am. Each obtains daytime connections with part of its economic hinterland - up the Ohio River Valley for Cincinnati and along Lake Eries for Cleveland. And existing service to West Virginia and Kentucky is provided at a more appealing time of day.

If the Cardinal is going to get its operating cost recovery ratio up into the 40%~50% range, and get its neck off the chopping block ... turning its philosophy from the "one of the most out of the way conceivable trips from New York to Chicago" to a long Appalachian Loop out of Chicago with transfers at Washington DC may well be the way to go about it.


Midnight Oil: Truganini

Sunday Train: Attacks on HSR in Flyover Country

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Today's Sunday Train is focusing on attacks that have been launched against Ohio's 3C plan (larger map of full Ohio Hub plan here (pdf))., which was granted $400m in the HSR round of Stimulus II grants. There are attacks from Republicans, engaged in their usual games of negotiating in bad faith and basing critiques on focus group testing of talking points rather than substance. There are attacks from "transport experts", calling for all of our HSR spending to be focused on the coasts with no systems developed to serve the needs of flyover country.

There is even an attack launched against the award of funds to Ohio by President Obama's Department of Transportation paradoxically by a kossack who goes by the name of "Ohiobama".

So today is focused on examining the attacks and seeing what there is to them. And lest it seem that this is a single-state issue, many of these same arguments may be used against all of the plans already in place between the Rockies and the Appalachias, as well as the Pacific Northwest and the South Atlantic Coast.

Since its the 3C corridor I am focusing on, there are three attacks considered: one from the so-called "Conservatives"; one from a "rail-expert" making a "Claim to Fame" attack (since attacks on administration programs get into the press much easier than defenses would do); and one "Clown-Train" attack.

The Star of the Show: The 3C Project

I have written now and again about the Ohio Hub project, sometimes in more length and sometimes less. Above the fold is the original six-stage plan, though if you squint you will see that the first stage could have started running later this year ... as with many of these plans, there was been a lot more planning than ground breaking in the previous decades, given the aggressively anti-rail Bush administration (and certainly expected under an administration that would have sold its soul to the oil companies if it had had a soul to sell).

To the right is my sketch that puts the Ohio Hub in the context of the other state-level HSR plans east of the Mississippi, where the Ohio Hub network is in Scarlet (gray being too inclined to get lost in the background).

Not sketched in that map are any plans for an Express HSR system. These are all "Emerging" (110mph) and "Regional" (125mph) systems. Now that work is underway for building the first 110mph segment, as part of the Chicago to St. Louis route, preliminary planning is just getting underway to identify the potential for "Express" (220mph) routes.

And when we consider the model that France used to build and now uses to operate its Express HSR corridors, its not hard to see why the original focus has been on 110mph corridors, many of which could later be upgraded to 125mph corridors.

France started operating its HSR service between Paris and Lyon before the corridor was finished. The original impetus for building the line was the projection that the Paris/Lyon line would reach capacity by 1970. Once it was decided to build a passenger-only corridor to relieve capacity constraints, it was natural to design that new corridor to achieve the most competitive possible passenger service.

Of course, since France already had an Express Interurban network running substantially faster than Amtrak speeds, once the first segment of the HSR corridor was completed, the France completed the journey to Lyon on the existing express interurban corridor. Then completing an additional segment allowed more of the route to be operated at high speed, and so on until it was finished.

And today, a large number of High Speed Rail routes operate on the French Express HSR network, and then run out onto the Express Interurban network to complete their journey. This means that the capital cost of the HSR corridors are shared by multiple services extending to cities beyond the direct reach of the network.

Which is an excellent model for areas like the Great Lake states, that actually have higher population population density than most of France ... except for one thing. We don't have that Express Interurban network.

And that observation is the foundation of the "run before you fly" approach. Given a large number of corridors that can support quite effective intercity passenger train, and indeed in many cases passenger trains that can generate an operating surplus if only the trains can get there as fast or faster than cars, and given that Emerging HSR corridors are often about 1/5 the cost of Express HSR corridors per mile ... first build out an effective Emerging HSR system, and then determine where to, one the one hand, put the Express HSR corridors and, on the other hand, upgrade the Emerging HSR corridors to Regional HSR corridors, to make the most effective total system to serve passengers.

Remember the end of that long-winded sentence: "to serve passengers". When the technophiles get into the act, that is something that can sometime be lost.


But the 3C starter system is not an Emerging HSR corridor

Now, zoom into Ohio. A Democratic governor, a Democratic State House of Representatives, but only just (and the first time the State House of Representatives have ever changed hands without that party controlling House redistricting), and a Republican State Senate.

And being the Party of No, the Republicans say "No" to the Emerging HSR plan for a wide range of reasons. Its untried, for one, even though the United States once had regional corridor passenger trains running faster than 80mph. The company that did the ridership study did not run rail services, so it is suggested (without any real evidence) that they were just giving a high number to make their client happy. Buckeyes are culturally attached to their cars, and (unlike Pennsylvanians, Michiganivites, or Illini) unwilling to ride trains. $1b+ is too much to risk on such a gamble.

DON'T RUSH AHEAD WITH THIS!!!

Well, OK, one might wish to rush ahead, but if the Senate Majority is not prepared to do so, then its necessary to compromise. The compromise that was arrived at was the starter 3C line. It would be an Amtrak speed service, primarily sharing track with freight services, though with some track upgrades. It would omit a number of the stations proposed for the all-stations service of the Emerging HSR system.

Amtrak did the ridership and feasibility study, and, since a conventional speed rail service requires subsidy, worked out the subsidy that the state would have to pay to get the train up and running.

So, basically 1/3 to 2/5 of the work for an Emerging HSR service would be done, a route would be started, and then we'd see what happened.


Damn! They Gave Us The Money!

It seems that what the Republicans did not expect is that Ohio would in fact get a majority of its application actually funded by the Department of Transport when it came time to hand out the HSR. Because now that it is time to approve receipt of the $400m from the Federal Government, the Republicans are complaining (The Transport Politic).

What are their complaints? Well, a mix of old complaints and new ones. Old complaints: Buckeyes love our cars and we won't ride these trains. Why Buckeyes will behave completely differently to people who live in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, or North Carolina when they got access to a broader range of transport choices, they do not need to explain, since nobody in the press ever "presses" for actual explanations to back up talking points any more.

I mentioned a "Conservative" columnist last week who just plain lied about the $400m being paid by Ohio, when in fact Ohio's share of the deficit financed $8b for HSR is about $267m, and we've got the same share whether or not our own rail project receives the funds.

However, the newest wrinkle in the Republican attack is to attack the running times. The main reason that the system requires subsidy, after all, is that it is put into operation without all the work required for 110mph trains. So the top speed is 79mph. There is 17% leeway added to a passenger train schedule when it is sharing track with freight, which means that 79mph maximum is 68mph maximum trip speed. Add in slow zones, and the fact that some of the track between Dayton and Cincinnati is not mainline 79mph track in the first place, and the starter system would average about 37mph by a common reckoning.

And then, even though this is the exact service that Amtrak based their ridership study on, they use the slow average speed to question the ridership figures. One trick is to act as if 500,000 projected riders are 500,000 people taking the almost seven hour trip from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Of course the biggest number of riders will come from Columbus/Cleveland and Columbus/Cincinnati trips, supplemented by Dayton/Cincinnati and Dayton/Columbus trips, but opponents of any public investment in any intercity transport or local transit system always "question the ridership" numbers.

And why do the Republicans express this surprise? Because they want Governor Strickland to experience a political defeat, to make it harder for Governor Strickland to win re-election. They are not all of a sudden finding some surprising and hidden flaw with the plan. This was the plan for the starter line. The low average speed is the consequence of the original compromise with the Republicans that allowed the application to be made.

But they made the deal, that allowed the application to be made, when Strickland's opinion ratings were higher. So now they are all of a sudden getting amnesia.


Damn Flyover Country, You Don't Deserve High Speed Rail

A different line of attack comes from the Progressive Policy Institute. Mark Reutter argues that:

The president certainly got it right when he said that we must break our dependence on the automobile and imported oil. Safe, reliable, and incredibly fast rail promises a breakthrough that people will be willing to pay for and private investors willing to operate. Passenger trains cruising at 150 miles per hour provide a decisive margin of superiority over highway travel and can compete effectively with commercial air in short- and medium-distance markets while cutting overall fuel consumption and greenhouse gases.

But for all the hype surrounding the president’s announcement, this exciting new mode of transportation won’t be arriving in America anytime soon unless the Obama administration and Congress make some "course corrections." The crux of the problem is that the administration has begun a major civic work without laying down engineering and design protocols that match the standards of fast train lines built elsewhere in the world. Even worse, the distribution of funds from the stimulus package ensures that the most promising projects will remain underfunded.

Now, politically, the second part of the critique is incredibly naive. Suppose that 80% of HSR Stimulus funds are allocated to California and Florida, and 80% of the $2.5b passed for this year by the Senate. How many Senators does California and Florida have? On my understanding (I admittedly am an economist of fairly small political brain), that's 4, which is roughly 4% of the Senate, when 51% is required for a Simple Majority and 60% is required to avoid The Tarantino (which kills bills).

Under the allocation that Reutter is complaining about, over 30 states received some funding, ranging from simple problem-area fixes in the range of $100,000's to $1m's in Iowa and Texas, to California, Florida, North Carolina, Washington and Oregon, Illinois and Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin, Illinois / Indiana / Michigan, and Ohio, all getting over $200m for corridors in their states (that's 11), and Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England sharing in over $400m in improvements for Amtrak and over $100m in dedicated HSR spending (that lot is 9 states, for those keeping count). 20 states received a share in major distributions, and another 13 received spending on smaller projects or planning funding that lay the groundwork for larger projects in the future.

As far as the first point, its just technophile bias. The point of investing in HSR is to provide a new transport option to passengers, one that is less exposed to being cut off or held to ransom by overseas oil producers, and one that we can afford to provide without first having to prove that there is no risk of significant and costly climate change from our relentlessly increasing emissions of CO2.

If a 110mph maximum speed service can generate an operating surplus - and the 110mph version of the 3C corridor certainly can do so - then we should definitely establish that 110mph speed service.

If a 160mph maximum speed service can generate an operating surplus - and there seems little reason to doubt that the Tampa/Orlando corridor can do so, despite the flaw of the Orlando alignment - and the state has reserved the alignment for the train so that it can be built for about $3b, we should definitely establish that service.

If a 220mph maximum speed service can provide needed intercity transport capacity in a rapidly growing state facing perennial budget crises, and can do so for substantially less money than will be required to provide the capacity with road and air infrastructure - then with lower cost infrastructure and the insurance against oil price shocks and oil supply disruptions for free, we should definitely establish that service.

Now, for the best efficiency in 110mph operations, we need to make modernize rail transportation regulations from the "add more steel" days of the 1950's. For 125mph operations, we actually need to finalize some standard to make the services possible. And for over 125mph, we have a substantial amount of regulatory work that must be done to lay the foundation.

However, going back to Reutter's political naivete, the way to light the fire under the Federal Rail Administration to make that happen is to ensure that a large number of Senators and a large number of Representatives have a stake in those changes being accomplished.

And his plan of, "put all our eggs in two baskets", while a bit better than putting all our eggs in one basket, simply does not promise to make sure that there are enough Congresscritters with enough incentive to light a fire under the FRA.


And then there is the gullible

And as I mentioned, then there are those who fall so thoroughly for Republican talking points, hook line and sinker, that one must wonder whether they really are that gullible or whether they are Republican operatives in disguise. "Ohiobama", for example. "Scamtrak: Amish Buggies Would Outpace Ohio Governor's Half-Billion-$ Snail Rail Trains"

Take $400 million in federal "strimulus" funds, add a dollop of non-existent state revenue, and throw that money toward a notoriously corrupt group of industrialists to build a new transit system that is so slow, expensive, and inconvenient that it's guaranteed to attract few riders, displace no automotive traffic, save no energy, and yield no technological innovations. And it will be run by Democrats, up and down the line.

What is up with "strimulus"? What does that even mean?

The promised subsidy is under 2% of the State Transport Budget in a state that actually used some of our Stimulus road money on building new roads ... although of course we could have spent every single cent on repairing roads and bridges.

And then there is the complete and total ignorance of the fact that the rail corridor that is going to receive the investment can with another $600m~$800m be brought up to 110mph ... just as the Republicans wish to obscure in their attack on the line.

I have no idea whether Ohiobama is sincere but uninformed or a Republican plant, but somebody needs to ask Ohiobama why he is joining the Republican misinformation assault on Obama's intercity transportation policy. I fear I might not be the right person to do so, since reading over-excited, distraught, hyperventilating argument is not really my cup of tea.

Sunday Train: Going to Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Other Adventures

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Huh, seems me that whatever the state of my various concerns, the agenda of the Sunday Train has been taken over by the White House ... funny how announcing the recipients of a total of $8b will do that.

The Transport Politic (aka Yonah Freeman and the TTP commentariat) has a very complete rundown. The allotments over $200m are:

• California, $2,344m
• Florida: $1,250m
• Illinois: $1,236m
• Wisconsin: $822m
• Washington: $590m
• North Carolina: $545m
• Ohio: $400m

So, what's the money for?


So, what's the money for?

I'll start with the big ticket items.

California, $2,344m. This includes $1,850m for the California HSR Stage 1 from San Francisco to Anaheim via San Jose, Fresno, Bakersfield, and the LA Basin. This is, in essence, enough to prime the pump for the California project.

California has the advantage of $9b in bonding authority already passed in November 2008, but that bonding authority has strings attached. One of those string is that for any given segment, all funding has to be in place before bonds can be sold, bonds cannot fund more than half the cost of a given segment, and to avoid monkey business in the definition of "segment", it has to have a vetted plan for running services without state operating subsidies.

This ARRA funding will allow the California HSR authority to work through 2010 and its projected start of the segment design and build process in 2011 without having to sell bonds up front. Then if an application for additional Federal funds requires matching funds, it will be possible to bring one or more of the defined segments in line for receiving state bond support, which will provide the matching funds.

Obviously, how fast those funds flow will determine how close the CAHSRA can stay to its project timeline ... but with the ARRA funding to prime the pump, California is well placed to proceed with the project at whatever pace that funding flows permit.

And the flip side of the ARRA announcement is a substantial group of states with a stake in having enough HSR funding so that they are not forced to go toe-to-toe with California's substantial application advantages. Any "transparent process", which are codewords for cost-benefit analysis based decisions, will give heavy weight to California for Express HSR. Just as the Northeast Corridor has a close to ideal population distribution for conventional rail, and the Great Lakes / Eastern Midwest a close to an ideal population distribution for 110mph/125mph Emerging/Regional HSR, California has close to an ideal population distribution for Express HSR.

In addition to the Stage 1 corridor funding, the ARRA funding includes $400m for building the shell of a bus terminal into the foundations of the Transbay Terminal bus station in San Francisco. This is a project that is reputedly "ready to go", although of course the actual design of the TBT train box leaves quite a bit to be desired. Never one to quit working before the whistle, I am hoping that the availability of $400m can be used to persuade the Transbay Joint Power Authority to build a less heavily bottlenecked design for trains entering and leaving this undergound train station.

Finally, while Stage 1 does not go to Vegas (despite what the Replicants were saying this time last year) ... it does go to Disneyland. Which sets the stage for the next allocation.

Florida: $1,250m. This is entirely for Express HSR track from Tampa to Orlando. This is a line that has been criticized for not connecting the two downtowns of the two cities. On the other hand, it does go to Disneyworld, and as an on-again, off-again project that kept getting squashed by lack of local funding, the Florida State Legislature was led to believe that their hopes of HSR funding required a commitment to support complementary local rail service. Support for SunRail passed, and so Florida got their Disneyworld train.

If there is ongoing federal funding available, I expect that sooner or later Florida will bite the bullet and sort out an extension of the service - even if not an extension of the corridor - to allow downtown to downtown service. After all, in France, one of the early pioneers in High Speed Rail, its common for the Express HSR services to only run on Express HSR corridors between major metropolitan areas, and to run into and through major metro areas on express electric urban lines.

Illinois: $1,236m. The main project here is $1,102m to upgrade parts of the Chicago / St. Louis corridor to 110mph service, cutting end-to-end travel time to four hours, and bringing substantial new populations along the corridor within three hours or less of either Chicago or St. Louis or both. Further improvement of this corridor on the same basis can bring the end-to-end time down to three hours.

The second main project is $133m for line and station improvements between Chicago and Michigan, including two suburban and one downtown station for Detroit. This is a line that, like the Chicago / St. Louis, has already has a series of smaller incremental improvements.

Wisconsin: $822m. The bulk of this is $810m to establish a Milwaukee-Madison corridor service. This will extend the already well patronized successful Chicago / Milwaukee corridor, and indeed further build patronage on that corridor, since Madison / Chicago is a substantial transport market in its own right along this corridor.

Washington: $590m. This is mostly for bypass tracks for the Cascade Corridor between Oregon and Washington, with some services continuing to Vancouver. I believe there is also some provision for new rolling stock to support additional Vancouver services.

North Carolina: $545m. The bulk of this is $520m to bring the Raleigh/Charlotte corridor up to 90mph, as a first step to eventually bringing it up to 110mph as part of the Southeast HSR Corridor.

Ohio: $400m. This is all dedicated to establishing the conventional rail starter service for the Triple C route from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati to Columbus. This was a route abandoned in 1971 when Penn Central went bust, and when Columbus was well under half a million in population. However, with the growth of Columbus in the decades since, Columbus is now the second most populous metro area and the corridor the most densely populated corridor in the country without regular rail service.

In terms of HSR, establishing this service is a starter on establishing the 110mph version of the Triple C, which with two hour services to Columbus from either end is when the corridor is projected to be capable of generating a substantial operating surplus. It may take a series of upgrades, to get there, but each upgrade will cut trip speeds and improve patronage on the corridor, trimming the required subsidy until it finally goes away.


Oh, and clever politics too

I've already noted the political intelligence of giving California enough to prime their pump. California Senators and Congressmen will, of course, be pushing for enough further HSR funding to assure that California's HSR system can be constructed more or less on scheduled. And of course, rivals can either try to fight that big House caucus ... or work out a way to ensure there is enough to go around. The politics leans toward the "enough to go around" outcome.

For Florida, people from all over the country go to Disneyworld. In not too long a time from now, many of them will be catching the train from an airport station to Disneyworld, and some of them using the HSR train again for one or another daytrip. This addresses the "if only you had ever been to Europe/Japan and experienced this thing ..." problem.

And of course, Florida is a famous Presidential swing state. Work on the corridor will be progressing before election day in 2012.

Illinois is not a famous Presidential swing state, but after California is one of the prime examples of states that have invested both capital and operating subsidies into improving Amtrak corridor services in its state, and even if the President and Secretary of Transport were not a Democrat and Republican, respectively, from Illinois, it would be wise politics to reward that behavior with the flagship Emerging HSR corridor. Of course, on the SubsidyScope numbers, even at conventional rail speed, its also the leading Great Lakes / Midwestern regional corridor in operating cost ratio, so its also the safest bet in terms of generating a comfortable operating surplus once raised to 110mph.

Washington (and Oregon, but the bulk of the corridor is in Washington, and that's where the highest priority bottlenecks lie) may not lean as strongly Democratic in Presidential politics as Illinois, but is also an example of rewarding those states that have invested into corridor improvements, as in inducement to additional states to follow the same course.

North Carolina is an example of a state that we didn't expect to be a swing state in Presidential politics, but then in 2008, it swung. And North Carolina is right on the boundary line between states that have been making genuine investments in improved rail service, and the states to its immediate south and west that have been paying lip service at most.

And of course, Ohio is a Presidential swing state in the Florida league. Further, the Ohio Triple-C will be in operation before election day, 2012.

In terms of the politics of rewarding states for supporting rail, Ohio is like Florida in the first half of "new friends are silver, old friends are gold" ... after a very tight fight in the Ohio state legislature, the operating subsidies required by the conventional speed Triple-C service were passed by the Republican State Senate. That was when before Strickland's approval rating was battered by the recession, and unless that subsidy offer was taken up by the DoT, there was every chance that it would not be repeated.

On the other hand, once the service is up and running, the call to apply for federal funds to speed segments of the corridor up to 110mph will be much harder to resist than it was to fight against the idea of starting the service up in the first place. So there is every reason to hope for 110mph service to be in place in Ohio sometime before election day, 2016.


And now, the headliners ...
Midnight Oil: The Power and the Passion

Sunday Train: A Train Running A Profit is Charging Too Much

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Note that the statement is abbreviated for the title. The full statement is, a common carrier like a train, bus, or plane that running a profit based on passenger revenue while paying its full operating and capital cost is charging too much for its tickets.

The radical abbreviation of the title is in part because of the radical abbreviation of the lie that is commonly used as a frame. The lie is that a common carrier like a train, bus or plane that is paying for its full operating and capital costs out of passenger revenue ought to run a profit, commonly expressed as a charge of, "SERVICE_XYZ is losing money, it needs to be reformed!", which assumes that Service_XYZ is supposed to be making a profit.

And, of course, in the sense described above, if its a common carrier transport service, of course it shouldn't be making a profit. And further, if under the above conditions, if its making a profit, you're doing it wrong. In the sense given above, PROFIT=FAIL.

This is problematic under our economic system, because under our economic system, running a profit on the full cost of production normally means that you are free to continue without substantial outside interference, while not making a profit implies that you have to go cap in hand begging for money to operate. So if the main assertion is correct, we have a situation where you can be doing it wrong, and be free to continue, or be doing it right, and have to constantly beg for permission to continue doing it right.


The Services Provide by a Common Carrier Transport Service

A common carrier transport service provides multiple services.

• The passenger taking the service receives a direct benefit
  
• The passenger choosing an alternate means of transport receives an insurance benefit in the form of an available back-up means of transport in case the preferred alternative fails
  
• In the US and most Western nations, common carrier transport services are more space-efficient than the most common semi-private private vehicle transport, the automobile, so the passenger taking the common carrier service is providing a congestion benefit to semi-private motorists
  
• Common carriers normally operate with designated origin and destination points, which concentrates foot traffic and creates property value
  
• When compared to semi-private automotive transport, common carrier rolling stock is normally far more intensively employed, substantially reducing rolling stock material overheads per passenger mile
  
• These are in addition to the general external benefits of transport in permitting people to congregate, to the benefit of employers, retailers, and a wide range of service providers
  
• These are also in addition to specific advantages or disadvantages of specific technologies, such as the intrinsic energy efficiency and aggregate labor efficiency of coupled vehicles operated in a train over uncoupled vehicles operated individually.
  

The value of the common carrier ticket reflects the direct benefit to the passenger, and some but not all of the insurance value of the existence of the service. It cannot include congestion benefits, intrinsically experienced by those not taking the common carrier, and does not include any property value benefits.

The material efficiencies of use of the rolling stock would be captured in the capital cost of the system - except there are substantial material costs that we simply ignore. Handing a free ride, for example, to those dumping CO2 into the atmosphere despite the fact that they have done nothing to establish that it is safe to do so - is only one of the more egregious examples.

All common carriers offer intrinsic and automatic transport insurance benefits to users of alternative systems, and that benefit can only be partially captured in ticket prices. It is possible, of course, to charge a higher price to a person that bought a ticket closer to the day of departure, ordinarily presented to the passenger as a discount for buying the ticket a certain period in advance. However, it is not possible to distinguish between a specific transport need that arises close to the departure date and a need to switch to a back-up mode that arises close to the departure date.

So demanding that trains, buses, and planes fully their full economic costs out of ticket revenues alone is always expecting passengers to pay for somebody else's benefit.

This should be no surprise: "user pays" is quite often a shorthand for, "the poor sucker who has had the bad luck to be dubbed 'user' subsidizes the other beneficiaries". In reality, those on the public right of way may be using space freed by common carrier passengers, as well as using the self-insurance of a fall-back option, and if the common carrier transport is more energy and emissions efficient, using the fuel and CO2 dumping capacity freed up by the common carrier transport.

What About Beneficiary Pays, Then?

So, what if we had a Beneficiary Pays system?

Those private users of a congested public resource like the public roadway would pay users of common carriers based on the relative space efficiency of that common carrier. So mass transit would get the most subsidy per seat, then various forms of light rail, then (actual) Bus Rapid Transit and Quality Buses, then shuttle buses. This payment would be for seats occupied over the load factor that has the same space consumption as the average private vehicle.

In our Petroleum Import Strategically Dependent nation, those private users of petroleum consuming vehicles would pay users of common carriers based on the relative petroleum consumption - the maximum subsidy to electric vehicles, then to high load factor trains, then to high load factor buses. This payment would be for seats occupied over the load factor that has the same petroleum consumption as the average private vehicle.

All private vehicle operators would, of course, pay for the existence of common carrier transport. This payment would be for the frequency of trips to distinct destinations.

And all property owners served by common carriers would pay a property tax to reflect the portion of their property value supported by the existence of the common carrier. Since it is dedicated transport corridors that have clearly discernable property value benefits, this payment would be distributed by the frequency of trips on dedicated transport corridors to distinct destinations.


Short Term Versus Long Term

Now, this is not a proposal for Congressional Action in 2010. Just as the radical reactionaries who adopt the pretense of labeling as "conservative" the desire to destroy the gains of the Square Deal and the New Deal pushed both short term and long term messaging, we have to be able to push both short term and long term messaging. And this is part of the long term messaging:

• ALL the beneficiaries should pay, not just the users

Heck, its short enough to twitter: "All who benefit should pay, not just riders" ... 44 letters. 20 characters for a bit.ly link and you still have 70+ characters for usernames, retweets, and additional remarks.

But short term, keep it in mind when arguing in favor of whatever funding source is being cobbled together to support feasibly ecologically sustainable transport by electric rail, rail that can later be upgraded to electric rail, and electric trolley buses ... throw it into the argument. "ALL who benefit should pay, not just the riders".

Oh, and don't forget the occasional "of course you want the system to make a profit - you are trying to take a free ride off the fares paid by the riders" if you get the mental inhabitant of one of the libertarian fantasy universe engaged in conversation.

Because if well run train system on a well-chosen corridor is running a profit - then cutting the fares and eliminating the profit would offer more benefit all around.


The Headliners: Midnight Oil
Read About It: Oil on the Water Concert

The rich get richer
The poor get the picture
The bombs never hit you when you're down so low

Some got pollution
Some revolution
There must be some solution but I just don't know