[tahoevalleylines]

Railway rehab is usually brushed off by the "experts" as retrograde or as being to big a challenge to tackle. Funny thing, while these brush-offs were handed back to me, a whole bunch of abandoned rail corridor has been/ is being rehabbed for ethanol plants, and other branchlines rehabs are under-way for general freight.

So now we have established that US operators can be found to rehab and put old rail lines to work, let's get the idea of the national localized rail matrix back on the table. Easy to visualize, just get hold of maps & history of USA railway lines extant 1910-1960. Balance is the keynote- cars- buses- trucks- trains at work in an energy-independent America.

A fifty-year slice of US economic activity, with railway mains & branchlines, electric interurban systems, and electric streetcar lines in downtown & 'burbs. Update for the present with renewable application, new solar/wind, etc. facilities emplaced in lockstep with railway expansion and extensions.

One can see the need to utilize the railway, "Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform", immediately thought given to trucking problems in fuel shortage/ disaster scenarios. Incremental rehab of dormant corridor is a no-brainer, and accomplished with non-railroader contractors with some rr consultancies supervising. Ties replaced, re-ballasting, warehousing/container handling facilities at appropriate locations enroute & end of line. Bring in respective states' National Guard units for re-establishment of railway ops & maintenance battalions for skeleton initial ops.

Post 911DAY realities determine need for the railway reconnect as well as the Peaking Oil threat. See the Pacific Electric Model, day passenger, night freight delivery of victuals to en-route victuals warehousing, produce terminals, etc. Nothing about this methodology is too complicated or too expensive, properly melded with existing capital projects in transport & homeland defense preparations. Believe it or not, some NY & Chicago ELS had perishables terminals along the downtown lines for night interchange when passengers not moving. These can be found in Boardmans Publishing M of Way Cyclopedias circa 1920's & 1930's!

The important thing is to emplace lines where trucking can shift as work is completed, following with marginal lines to be ready when full-blown trucking fuel allocation hits us. Prof Darley, Jim Kunstler already have expressed knowledge and can help Matt Simmons and other Oil Interregnum Panelists with background. Northern California offers textbook examples for replication across USA: Rehab lines to Placerville, Isleton, Santa Rosa, Martinez, Willits, San Raphael, Tahoe City, Grass Valley/Nevada City, Monterrey & Calaveras. CalTrans has studies for new rail lines i.e., the 50 Corridor from the Sacramento Valley to Carson Valley/Reno.

In fact, ALL USA states have identifiable rail corridor to rehab or upgrade. Part of "public service draft" in offing can enable voluntary candidates for service to opt for homeland railway rehabilitation corps. National Guard has archived personnel charts to help with reforming rr ops & maintenance battalions. The growing renewables manufacturing opportunities will fit nicely with the railway power link-ups. This writer suggests seeing ASPO article 374 for the barest of talking points, for a beginning.

[Tanada]

This has certainly been taking place in my region. Two local Class III railroads have been spending large sums of cash in the last 18 months to rehab their lines and get them back into hauling cargo as an economic alternative to long distance trucking. Midwest Rail is one of the companies and Pioneer Railcorp is the other. I haven't seen much happening in Michigan yet, but given that Toledo is the beneficiary of Midwest rail and Defiance/Napoleon Ohio are benefiting from Pioneer Railcorp I suspect somebody has something planned or already going on I just have not learned about yet.

[oilfreeandhappy]

Freight rail seems to be doing well since the price of oil has gone up so dramatically. I certainly hope that passenger rail starts to follow course.

[Plantagenet]

Part of the rail renaissance comes from the new oil production in the Bakken. There was lots of oil and no pipelines to North Dakota and Canada, so pipe for the oil wells was shipping and and the oil had to be shipped out by rail. Canadian oil from other sites, including the Alberta tar sands, is also shipped to the US by rail.

While it would be cheaper and more efficient and safer to ship oil by pipeline, the Obama administration continues to block the Keystone XL pipeline project, allowing Warren Buffett to continue to clean up on his rail investments.