We used to have what was called the interurban rail

[catmandu57]

From roughly the 1880's up to the 1920's, basically it was a lite rail system that took country people to the city, it even ran down main street and delivered merchandise to store owners. It was paved over so people could drive and not be bothered by the train, the city it went to collected people at the depot and they used trolleys to get to their destination, which ran on overhead electricity.
I remember taking the train from the little town where we lived when I was about four years old, I still had my teeth and all my toes then, but, that's another story. The tracks and depot are still there, only freight trains run now though.
It may be time to bring this stuff back, to move numbers of people to work and back, if nothing else until they can get a system restored shortline bus routes from the rural communities to collection points in populated centers for work and shopping may be the answer to slowing the dependence on oil.
Plus there would be an economic stimulant that we need, especially here, putting people to work rebuilding the line. I don't know if an electric powered trolley would work, but it's time to start looking for other answers.

[Warpy]

1. Thanks to Richardson, it's coming back here in NM

connecting the cities along the Rio Grande valley. It's not to Santa Fe yet, but I'm greatly looking forward to taking the train instead of driving up there once in a blue moon. I could even take the train up there for lunch, something I'd dearly love to be able to do.

The connecting bus systems are still primitive, but it's still great to see a rail passenger transit system starting up here in the wild west.

[catmandu57]

4. Now that would be a great ride

Pretty pretty county there.

[lyonn]

2. What was wrong with the old rail system?

In the 1950's many large cities had a rail system for downtown areas. The regular rail system would go from town to town and across the country. I took the train from L.A. to D.C. in the 50's. Terribly long trip but it worked. Better than driving. Now 16 wheelers are constantly on the highways and it seems that is more costly fuel wise than a train system.

Edit: To get the rail system up to date would probably take govt. assistance and the repubs just hate to spend tax dollars on "social" issues. They don't hesitate to give the oilies a break.

[catmandu57]

3. Nothing wrong with it

The rail lines are still there for the most part, though they ripped out an important one here back in the eighties, but the bed is still there.

[Sapere aude]

5. A book that I remember reading told how General Motors and the tire industry got the city of

Angeles to switch from rail to busses. The rail cars were old but efficient and operated on electricity so they were better for the environment but no one cared too much about that in the 50's. The book had a picture of the "red cars" stacked 5 high at the salvage yard.

[Recursion]

6. Didn't you see "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"?

The old rail systems were cheap, efficient, relatively clean, and fast, and they weren't making a profit for anybody. So the oil and car companies bought them up and dismantled them.

[enid602]

7. investment

According to 'Newsweek,' US is $250B behind in needed interurban rail investment. Chicago hasn't added any transit lines in decades, and is $6B behind in needed repairs, just to keep the El barely going. Yet there's no shortage of investment for skysraper development downtown, or to build McMansions in exurban counties that don't now and will never have mass transit.

[Warpy]

8. What was wrong?

The trolleys competed for space with cars. That wasn't too bad in the early days, but after WWII the roads got more and more choked with cars as the burbs sprang up and people needed their cars to come into the cities to shop. Trolleys also required one to walk to a stop. Cars were door to door, an irresistible convenience for city folks who had a place to park one.

Trucks were favored over rail because their service was also door to door instead of door to station to station to door, often with sidetracking in between. Rail shipment of perishables like dairy and fresh fruits & veg was not optimum for that reason, alone.

Also, consider that the highways were always federally subsidized and then supported through fuel taxes. The rail beds were not subsidized but grew up privately owned. That meant the maintenance had to be done solely by the rail lines without the help of funds from outside the system.

Those are the reasons Big Oil, Big Rubber and Big Auto were able to kill off much of the rail systems--all of them within some cities.