Quote:
Originally Posted by aberdeen5698
Well regular open air track requires inspection and maintenance too, is it really that much more expensive because it's in a tunnel?
Electricity costs I can see, although you only need to run the fans for relatively brief periods during and shortly after a train transits the tunnel, which is only what - around a dozen times a day for that route? I'd be surprised if it was all that expensive relative to the value of moving the goods through it.
It just seems to me like that must be a pretty tiny piece of the puzzle compared to everything else. I've gotta believe that it would probably take many, many decades of operation for those kinds of expenses to get anywhere near the construction cost and land acquisition costs.
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I am talking about maintenance on the tunnel structure itself in addition to the regular maintenance on the track structure.
Also consider it takes time to clear a tunnel of diesel exhaust before another train can pass through. That limits the frequency of traffic flow. It takes around 30 minutes to clear the Mt McDonald tunnel.