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Will Joe Biden fund mainline electrification as part of his infrastructure package? Will Joe bring back the Little Joes?
>>1635310Is "little joes" the nickname he gives his razadyne?
Okay hear me out... what if we spent half the subsidy budget on electrifying amtrak and just dumped the other half into a fare subsidy program to get people to ACTUALLY RIDE the current system?
>>1635310Is electrification even practical in areas like that? Modern steam would be more practical.
>>1635322>electrifying amtrakWhy?
>>1635322No we need better lines and better trains.
>>1635323>Modern steam>PracticalPick 1
>>1635467This is why you can't engage foamers to find practical ways to improve passenger rail, they keep bringing up meme ideas like "electrifying Amtrak" and won't let go of the past "modern steam." They're just too autistic.
>>1635310Joe Biden was already serving as a US senator when the Milwaukee Road was still electrified. It de-electrified under his watch, what makes you think he would bring it back?
>>1635470Electric trains are modern steam - so modern that the steam part is stationary, efficient and far, far away from the actual train.
>>1635431fuck no. That falls under fake food in the dining car and some token hire that has no business working for humans.
>>1635505why would a delaware senator intervene in the de-electrification of a midwestern class I?
>>1635323Yes. 50 kv lines. Which are one step up from residence lines. Would be sufficient to power the trains.
>>1635534ive ridden amtrak to /from los angeles and its literally hell
>>1635676i rode it to/from new york city and it was comfy
>>1635696Probably 1st class, then.
>>1635676>>1635696Amtrak in the NEC is fine and PHL to NYC is great, WAY nicer than the fucking Greyhound albeit not cheap especially if you don't book in advance. I second anon, it was comfy when I used to take the route a few times a month. Not even first class required, the regular Keystone was fine, the seats are massive and you have so much leg room. I took 1st class on an Acela once (I had a free upgrade from their loyalty program) and it was neat (nothing crazy though). Free snacks, hot towel, lunch service (if you wanted), and a more modern carriage.
>>1635701no my tickets were 70 dollars, same cost as the bus
Doesn't matter what they do with Amtrak. Until they do something about pic related, no one is going to use it. As is, air travel is both faster and cheaper. Availability also sucks, but that's partly a function of ridership.
>>1635670He wasn't elected to the Delaware state senate, he was elected to the US senate to pass national legislation. If he claims to care about the nation's passenger rail service, he should have been equally concerned with saving the most efficient part of the nation's freight system.
Jannies are faggots that can't handle the truth that modern rail is garbage in the USA is garbage and the reasons why scares them.
>>1635814>He wasn't elected to the Delaware state senate, he was elected to the US senateby the citizens of Delaware. you clearly have no idea how politics works if you think some federal east coast senator is going to have a midwestern freight railway as his hill to die on. the actual viable parts of the railway were simply acquired by CP. >>1635942protip black people aren't behind the chronic disinvestment in rail and the absurdly large amounts of spending in road construction that has crippled american rail since ww2 ended
>>1635745>why i don't take trains>posts 1000 mile journey literally no rides trains over those kinds of distances except poor russians, chinese and students interrailing across europemeanwhile on the NEC, Amtrak services carry 3/4 of all air/rail passengers because that is a part of the country where rail travel actually makes sense
>>1635733I hope the Avelia trainsets have proper lounges for First Class.
>>1636074Jews did it
>>1636199Robert Moses in the singular
>>1636080>literally nobody rides over those kinds of distances except *lists two of the only countries with cities as far apart as the US*If continental train travel was cheaper than air travel, you bet your ass I'd take the extra few hours to go by train. I'm positive many Americans would agree.
>>1635310The infrastructure project should be more like 20 trillion instead of two
>>1636228I wonder if Amtrak keeps the price at a point where long distance trains are mostly full to justify its continued service, but high enough that adding another train isn't justified because railroads don't want more Amtrak trains
>>1635323Definitely in the PNW.The amount of dams along the Columbia River is enough to provide cheap electricity.>>1635671 Could it be possible to make a 2 x 50kV system like the one detailed here?It would need heavier duty transformers, but result in a 75% reduction of losses along the transmission lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_kV_AC_railway_electrification#2_x_25_kV_autotransformer_system
>>1636228It won't ever be unless it's 100% subsidied, air travel is cheaper than most international rail journeys in Europe
>>1635422To go more than 120 or however fast the diesels max speed is
>>1635470True. An actual way to improve it would be legit just more routes and better passenger cars; also cheaper food. Also, there should be more advertising for Amtrak. Most people I talk to where I live don’t even know taking the train somewhere is an option.
>>1636330Electrification isn’t very likely at all but if I had to guess I would say Vancouver-Seattle-Portland would get electrified in addition to Detroit-Chicago.
>>1636454>Electrification isn’t very likely at all but if I had to guess I would say Vancouver-Seattle-Portland would get electrified in addition to Detroit-Chicago.I do agree with your point, the US isn't really dense enough to justify it. Even in the areas where it is, for freight it's cheaper to have a single fleet of diesels that can go anywhere than electrifying and swapping between electrics and diesels on different parts of the network.
>>1636456Right but usually Amtrak owns the electrified tracks so it doesn’t matter to freight trains anyways.
biden is a rich boomer and is likelier to defund rail infra to spend it on highways as was the norm before he went senile
>>1636456BNSF and the Canadians are messing with battery electric motors and hydrogen motors.They'll dick around with them, and realize they're not worth it.Total electrification of traind is low hanging fruit for decarbonizing transport. Can be done for less than 200 billion over 2 or 3 decades. Which is basically chump change for the federal budget. Once a major corridor is electric. You could send pure electric trains on just that. While still operating diesels.
>>1635310>Will Joe Biden fund mainline electrification as part of his infrastructure package?Why do you want to make railroads worse?Are you chink chong spy?You should be hanged.
>>1636448Max diesel speed record was 148mph.Today you can do better but why. Plane is faster anyway.
>>1636505Replacing thousands of barely maintained and functional diesel units. No more particulates and noise. Less likely to fail. Less maintenance. Lower and more stabile energy prices. No need for fuel racks and fuelers.
>>1635322No, stop thinking practically. We must bring back the Pacific Extension because some autist on a Norwegian culinary arts imageboard wants it
>>1636487But there's no incentive to do so.Why spend 200 billion up front when the current system works just fine?
>>1636567It's an easy emissions source to replace. The railroads could probably get the feds to pay for most of it.
>>1636588Feds won't pay for it unless the Biden goes nuts, and the Fed Reserve cranks the money printers way higher.Plus 1 train takes many more trucks off the roads, it's very energy efficient per ton transported (though not as much as shipping).
>>1636602But it's still the easiest to decarbonize. No new technology. And the costs to the feds over a decade or so is trivial. It's a shovel ready jobs program too.
