I guess planes don't fly on railtracks
which require shit loads of space and no end of maintenance
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Jahled Three shades of black, Fri 23 Jan 2015, 9:57,
Reply)
Well, I kinda call bullshit to that.
Heavy rail can last from 30 to 100 years before needing a full refit...
And newer track systems (1970's onwards) are projected to last even longer.
Most maintenance is at crossings and heavy stress curves, the rest is pretty stable.
For lets say 15000 movements a year (about one train every 30 min)?
I'd say that the maintenance cost of a 100 miles of track, the rolling stock and two train stations over 30 years.
Is probably a magnitude or two lower than than the maintenance of two airports, the aircraft's and others (comms, radars etc) at 100 miles from one another.
Then if you factor in energy. It becomes ridiculously in favour of trains.
So the difference is going somewhere but where? I say aliens.
onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_webdoc_43.pdf
www.railway-technical.com/finance.shtml (look at the Ratio of Revenue to Operating costs oO )
litep.epfl.ch/files/content/sites/litep/files/shared/Liens/Downloads/Divers/Baumgartner_Couts_chf_2001_e.pdf
Etc.
Keep in mind that most of these studies are the worst case scenarios in the 1st world.
In certain countries, Japan, many short haul routes have disappeared because they can't compete with trains.
(, Fri 23 Jan 2015, 10:23, Reply)
I don't really know that much about the operational costs of a transport network to be honest
other than well, it's cheaper to fly in some circumstances.
That's it really
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Jahled Three shades of black, Fri 23 Jan 2015, 10:51,
Reply)
I can't quote statistics or anything,
But I have been led to believe that some analysis was done looking comparing national railways to our motorway / a-road system, and the conclusion was that the best value for money the government can get means never building any more train tracks ever again and just building motorways everywhere.
www.transport-watch.co.uk/facts-sheet-7-rail-versus-road-capital-costs-track
(Personally, I don't agree with this, since I need the train system and I'm already shafted daily by the prices, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the order-of-magnitude difference in cost)
(, Fri 23 Jan 2015, 12:24, Reply)
Pave the bloody island
One endless blacktop as far as the eye can see.
This forgets the cost of ownership of cars, aka cost of trains, that is distributed.
Cost of being stuck in jams.
Benefit of on working, reading, resting in trains.
Time lost looking for parking etc
Amongst others.
This is apple to fish.
(, Fri 23 Jan 2015, 14:47, Reply)