Tomorrowland meets Texas - Futuristic freight system planned for I-35 corridor

[KevinFromTexas]

Larger image at the link.

http://blogs.star-telegram.com/honki...#storylink=cpy

JUNE 06, 2012
Tomorrowland meets Texas - Futuristic freight system planned for I-35 corridor

@gdickson

Freight normally hauled by trucks could one day soon be shipped on an electric-powered, overhead guideway across Texas. It may seem like an idea more suitable for Tomorrowland – and artist renderings of the project do resemble Disney’s famed monorail system – but Texas officials are encouraging a privately-funded business to get the project up and running, perhaps within six years.

"We think it’s happening at just the right time in our country,” said Stephen Roop, an assistant director at Texas A&M University’s Texas Transportation Institute, and developer of the so-called Freight Shuttle concept. “It can operate in the air space of a highway median.”

Read more here: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/honki...#storylink=cpy

Read more: http://www.freightshuttle.com/


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[northbay]

I like the idea. But I somehow doubt this will come to fruition, especially if it's supposed to be entirely privately funded

[electricron]

This pie-in-the-sky scheme is vary similar to proposals I've seen for personal people movers. I would think electrifying the existing freight tracks throughout Texas would be cheaper, and more environmental friendly.

Just like proponents for personal people movers, they have completely ignored considering the yards needed to manage the freight. Trains need maintenance shops, storage yards, sorting yards, and handling yards, so will these.

Why build an entirely new system when a fully functioning, highly profitable rail system already exists?

[M II A II R II K]

To free up space for passenger rail perhaps.

[Rail Claimore]

This is just a "greener" version of the now-dead Trans-Texas Corridor.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by electricron

This pie-in-the-sky scheme is vary similar to proposals I've seen for personal people movers. I would think electrifying the existing freight tracks throughout Texas would be cheaper, and more environmental friendly.

Just like proponents for personal people movers, they have completely ignored considering the yards needed to manage the freight. Trains need maintenance shops, storage yards, sorting yards, and handling yards, so will these.

Why build an entirely new system when a fully functioning, highly profitable rail system already exists?

I agree, with a caveat or two.

Nationwide, the US rail grid works rather well between the cities themselves. Once right-of-way is beyond old downtowns routes between metropolitan areas of all sizes tends to be rather good. The problem, however, is within the urban areas, where from the 1950s on track connections have been ripped up, slowing freight traffic through urban cores to a "crawl."

A classic example is north-south, east-west connections through downtown Denver where about 3 miles of connection track has been been butchered through the years to the current point where freight trains routinely take 6 hours to traverse, for an average of .5 mph (this misalignment process has continued well into the 21st Century here in Denver).

What is needed, IMO, far more than huge real estate plays between big cities, are high grade right-of-way shunts around (and, yes, even through) central cities.

A sustained 15 mph average would enable a freight train to travel the 2500 or so rail miles, coast to coast, in around 165 hours, or almost 7 days. A sustained average of 50 mph, about 50 hours, or a bit over two days.

The key, IMO, for BOTH freight and passenger rail traffic efficientcy improvement is to move traffic through urban areas faster, not gloriously grandiose high speed schemes.

I remember parts of the US before the interstates through cities had been completed, how slow getting through many cities by car happened to be.

The US rail system is like a system of rail interstates with metaphoric stop lights and two line roads through too many cities.

[Hayward]

Originally Posted by electricron

This pie-in-the-sky scheme is vary similar to proposals I've seen for personal people movers. I would think electrifying the existing freight tracks throughout Texas would be cheaper, and more environmental friendly.

Just like proponents for personal people movers, they have completely ignored considering the yards needed to manage the freight. Trains need maintenance shops, storage yards, sorting yards, and handling yards, so will these.

Why build an entirely new system when a fully functioning, highly profitable rail system already exists?

I would assume you could just use existing intermodal centers. I don't see the purpose of building a ton of additional infrastructure to service something like this.

[min-chi-cbus]

Of all places this could EVER happen, TX would be the last. It could've been first, had it not been for those oil companies and their lobbyists.

[quattordici]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

I agree, with a caveat or two.

Nationwide, the US rail grid works rather well between the cities themselves. Once right-of-way is beyond old downtowns routes between metropolitan areas of all sizes tends to be rather good. The problem, however, is within the urban areas, where from the 1950s on track connections have been ripped up, slowing freight traffic through urban cores to a "crawl."

A classic example is north-south, east-west connections through downtown Denver where about 3 miles of connection track has been been butchered through the years to the current point where freight trains routinely take 6 hours to traverse, for an average of .5 mph (this misalignment process has continued well into the 21st Century here in Denver).

What is needed, IMO, far more than huge real estate plays between big cities, are high grade right-of-way shunts around (and, yes, even through) central cities.

A sustained 15 mph average would enable a freight train to travel the 2500 or so rail miles, coast to coast, in around 165 hours, or almost 7 days. A sustained average of 50 mph, about 50 hours, or a bit over two days.

The key, IMO, for BOTH freight and passenger rail traffic efficientcy improvement is to move traffic through urban areas faster, not gloriously grandiose high speed schemes.

I remember parts of the US before the interstates through cities had been completed, how slow getting through many cities by car happened to be.

The US rail system is like a system of rail interstates with metaphoric stop lights and two line roads through too many cities.

I'm just jumping into this conversation, but what I've noticed, and what has been widely publicized in Alabama is that short haul routes take a long ass time, while long haul routes are fast fast fast. It's a common joke in Alabama that it takes longer to ship between Mobile and Huntsville than it does between Mobile and Los Angles. The sad fact is that it's true. Just imagine how much Mobile's port would grow if it could simply ship goods quickly to Alabama's 2nd busiest airport faster than it does to California.

Shipping is somehow forgotten in the equation of economic recovery...