RAIL FREIGHT: Rising energy prices may mean a renaissance for freight trains in the U.S.
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It just may be a hunger for wood pellets that drives a resurgence of freight rail in the U.S. Southeast. European demand for this greener fuel is expected to triple by 2020, driven by climate-friendly policies that encourage coal-fired utilities to burn biomass as well to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. But Europe does not have enough wood pellets, and the shortfall between global supply and demand is expected to grow to 45 million metric tons per year. And that is where Sean Dunlap, director of Mississippi's Wayne County Economic Development District, sees an export opportunity.
"We're blessed with trees and we want to get them to market," Dunlap explains. "Mississippi has two counties that are 50 to 70 percent covered in forest, but they can't get the timber out economically without rail."
Bulky, low-density materials like wood pulp and pellets are too expensive to ship by truck, so Dunlap, along with partners, wants to build a 90-kilometer (56-mile) freight rail link that would restore direct service from Chicago all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Absent such a link, regional suppliers have to ship their products far to the east or west to get the goods to Gulf ports. "That 56 miles might as well be 5,000 miles to them," says Dunlap, calling the plan "the missing link in the economic spine of east Mississippi."
Such economic dreams—and high diesel prices—are spawning a renaissance of freight rail in the U.S., rather than the high-speed passenger rail that gets most of the attention.
The efficiency advantage
Diesel prices are nearly four times higher today than they were in 1999, forcing shippers to seek the most fuel-efficient modes of travel. According to a 2009 study by the Federal Railroad Administration, rail fuel efficiency varies from 66 to 218 ton-kilometers per liter, whereas truck fuel efficiency ranges from 29 to 57 ton-kilometers per liter.
Moreover, the fuel efficiency of rail has been ramping up at a far faster rate than trucks. Between 1990 and 2006 rail efficiency improved by about 20 percent, or 1.1 percent annually.
Some of the gain is owed to technological and efficiency improvements: Railroads have adopted electronic controllers in locomotives, including advanced sensors and fault diagnostics; improved diesel fuel mixture and combustion as well as cooling systems that maintain optimal engine temperature; replaced binary switch DC motors with AC traction motors that respond to loadwith variable voltage/frequency output, and better control/communication systems.
Also added were lightweight, high-capacity coal cars, improved aerodynamics, lighter containers to replace truck trailers and spin/slide-protected steering wheels to maximize traction. These improvements, along with reductions in weight as well as rolling and aerodynamic resistance, and coupled with the addition of stronger (6,000-horsepower) motors, have reduced the number of locomotives needed to pull a train. Hybrid locomotives, which carry a 1,200 amp-hour battery bank and use regenerative braking, were also introduced. Operational practices like optimizing traffic at sidings, improved scheduling, reducing empty car mileage and changes in the traffic mix also helped.
Further, as rail privately invested $40 billion in new infrastructure over the past five years, the trucking industry has suffered high fuel and labor prices—the two largest costs—which have forced it to contract since 2005. Accordingly, rail has gradually taken market share away from trucks since 1999. The migration from trucks to rail is particularly evident for shipping distances longer than 800 kilometers. The longer the haul, the more of a fuel efficiency advantage rail has over trucking.
The trend toward freight rail is destined to continue, according to a projection by rail transportation veteran Ron Sucik of RSE consulting. He believes that market share of rail could double 2035 as more trains are "double-stacked" with shipping containers and fuel prices continue to rise. The benefit is obvious: One double-stacked train can replace 300 trucks and save 285,000 liters of fuel on the 3,200-kilometer journey between Chicago and Los Angeles.
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20 Comments
Add CommentPerhaps the Gulf of Mexico will expand to Lake Michigan in the future. I am expecting a dramatic increase in air transport efficiency that will kill land transport.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only real reason that air freight was competitive with rail was because of federal subsidies on airlines. Air travel has never been profitable, and should be reserved for intercontinental travel. We need a continental system of solar- and wind-powered electric light rail transit and freight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJosh
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you claiming that Federal Express is subsidized and that is why they are a sucessful business? The US does not NEED an inefficient means of national transportation.
The article was fine until...'public investment in freight rail...' If rail is such an advantage, then private investment will flock to build new infrastructure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'Revival' implies there was a decline in freight volume. There wasn't. Rail has declined as a percent of transportation not as a decline in itself. Rail is very efficient over longer hauls. Smaller lines such as those mentioned in the opening are not cost effective...if they are, the author is free to start up a rail consortium to meet the demand and reap millions in profit.
...I don't know, it's certainly cheaper than air freight. Maybe transport blimps with sails would work?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday's fascist corporate sector is run by attorney's sitting on $2.5 trillion in taxpayer money gifted to them by various state and federal tax breaks and now safely in Swiss banks awaiting distribution in quarterly bonus. None of these folks is capable of changing a tire. One foolish enough to promote a $B investment in rail tech that won't payback for 5 years would be fired instantly.
Gulf of Mexico expansion is related to an asteroid hit ( most likely ) ,...not global warming. In fact ,I am expecting a cold period starting 2014. No guarantee on timeline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDude. You need to check your meds. An asteroid big enough to create the Gulf of Mexico (and there wasn't one--the KT asteroid hit the Yucutan peninsula) would most likely punch through the crust of the Earth and knock it off orbit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for a "cold period starting in 2014"--how do you predict that?
As a geoogist I can assure you that no asteroid hit would knock the earth off orbit. It is akin to a pebble hitting the windshield of an 18 wheeler...it might leave a windshield crack but is irrelevent to the trajectory of the truck.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(but agree that alan should check his meds)
As predicted the interstate system has proven to be a massive disaster. Making it free subsidised the trucking industry while the rail system still had to pay the freight. Rebuilding the rail networks to handle what should be large increases in traffic will be expensive. America should have followed the lead of other countries that did not rely on truck traffic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't mean seriously, I mean detectably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy point is, an asteroid big enough to create the Gulf would have to be much larger than the KT asteroid--maybe four or five times the radius? I'm no astrophysicist, though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurrently, you have to add the next few countries together to ship anywhere near the amount of freight that is shipped in the United States by freight. I think we ship more than the next 5 countries combined. There isn't a revival, we ship a huge amount by rail. Maybe we will see an increase because of the cost of fuel, but we already extensively use rail.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcept for Ernest Payne the rest of your posts are birdsh-t crazy!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst anyone using oil for fuel isn't going to be competetive either truck or train in 5 yrs.
The RR tracks needs to be nationalized and improved with at least dual tracks almost everywhere. The mess of 100? diffeent lines doubles to triples train times and costs. Give each company credits for the tracks they own and make it a modern system everybody can use coast to coast without having to stop so other trains can go by, etc mess we have now.
Only then a real free market can develop in train transport including passenger rail.
Trucks can get 2-3x's the mileage they get now with EV drive and NG engines at 10% of the fuel cost with curreent tech of lightweighting, EV drive and aerodunamics.
For the pellet example a composite bodied single unit truck with such drive and aero shape could compete with trains on many routes under 1000 miles. And no real reason it couldn't run on gasified wood pellets.
A big problem with much long distance is in the future much less will be shipped and much more made locally from energy to manufacturing to food. Facts are we'll need far less as material prices rise, buying few quality items that last decades will replace much of the junk we buy, ship now that lasts short term.
Take energy it's now cheaper to make your own than tobuy it from a utility in most cases and in 3 yrs most new homes, building will make their own or even more for income as an example.
Times are changing very fast and in 10 yrs life will be quite different with many industries gone and new ones taking their place.
BTW this is how the rich do it, at least those that stay rich.
Did I miss something? Private investment is flooding into rail infrastructure... in both absolute terms and terms relative to trucking. Just look at the $100 million investment made by UP at the San Antonio Intermodal Terminal or CenterPoint Properties' investment in the intermodal terminal at Joliet, IL. CPP describes the development as, "one of the largest private developments ever undertaken in the United States, it encompasses 2,500 acres with a total investment of $1 billion."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, your interpretation of 'revival' is not the only interpretation possible. I believe what that author meant was a revival in popularity amongst shippers. This can be seen in the much faster rise in volumes of intermodal containers traveling via rail versus truck only (for long distance deliveries).
Chris,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat to see you with the opportunity to branch out. Perhaps here the main problem will be techno fantasists rather than deniers.
Railroads are anything but techno fantasies except for the 300mph high speed passenger rail kind. If we can return to the 100mph passenger rail of the turn from the 19th to 20th centuries, we'll be lucky. Most likely except for the longest runs(or maybe the shortest) passenger and freight will need to share the same tracks. Thank Heavens for those positive train control systems for routing and scheduling, if there's a little capital left over after upgrading the tracks, eh?
I didn't know about the vast disparity between the cost of laying track and road construction. It's good to know and even better to contemplate that the costs with declining capital to begin to replace monster roads with rail is about a half magnitude (1/5th) of the difference in lower costs.
That half magnitude is crucial in so many areas of our ability to respond to peak everything without total collapse, to have a more gently descending diminishment of consumption rather than repeatedly falling off resource cliffs into chaos. Think about it. The climate scientist tell us that we must cut our fossil fuel energy usage by 80% by mid-century, 1/2 magnitude, if we are to have a shot at eventually halting climate change. That's the macro part of the 1/2 magnitude equation. You indicate the longer range transport costs for freight (and possibly people) by rail is perhaps 1/2 magnitude less costly than our current system in terms of capital and I assume running expenditure.
I know from my own personal experience that powered personal transport in perhaps a 50 mile radius of home in an urban area using e-bicycle rather than automobile tech is very possible. Energy consumption and cost using simple e-bikes is right now 2x1 order of magnitude less than cars, but even after they are comfortabled and tarted up will be well within the 1/2 order of magnitude necessary for reduced cost and energy consumption versus cars. Slower, however, though there I think we can go to 1/2 slower, rather than 1/2 magnitude slower, making these much smaller and lighter weight personal vehicles useful in all terrains and areas beyond urban.
This 1/2 order of magnitude is starting to drive my thinking in a lot of different areas of life in comparison to today, even habitat size. Witness the tiny house movement.
In any case, Chris, I've been holding off saying this to you for some time. This is a better place to say it.
The ideal solution is already partly implemented and could be fully operational in just a few years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe container shipping revolution makes it possible to ship goods "prepackaged" from any seaport to any other seaport. From landing, the container can be freighted by train to the local "hub" closest to the intended recipient. From there it can be transported, still in the original container, to its final destination by short haul truck.
Within a continent the same system applies; shipped in container from origin by truck to hub, then by rail to hub, and by truck to recipient.
Most "over the road" trucking would be eliminated.
The roadways will be safer with fewer trucks, and there will be much less wear. Wear on a road surface is proportional to the 4th power of the weight of the vehicle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article is not even new technology being pursued to make rail even more efficient, surprisingly by retrofitting old steam locomotives with advanced technology. Look-see:P
http://www.csrail.org/
Drink your Kool-Aid...I take herbal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHazMat Experts and Firefighters petition Dow Chemical and Union Pacific for safe rail tank cars transporting gas chlorine. Secondary containment is a necessary improvement that must be implemented. See--PETITION C KIT for First Responders Comments.
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