John Murray: Enough Railroad Studies
John Murray sounds a bit hostile towards the idea of more railroad studies in his Times- Standard My Word column. I'll have to agree, although I'm ambivalent, rather than hostile, towards the idea of re- establishing rail service up here.
Still, how many more studies will it take to finally accept that the idea doesn't pencil out well? Even the more recent study by the Harbor District shows the numbers don't look good. If someone has a better idea, I'm all ears.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:11 AM
26 comments
26 Comments:
John Murray hates the railroad. HATES the railroad. Has a fetish about the restoration of the line. Our government can spend billions of dollars overseas arming Syria (who all hate us) and putting up buildings in Afganistan that will be abandoned after we leave, but not spend any of our tax money on infrastructure in our own country. That is just stupid. Rebuilding the railroad is expensive, but not stupid as John Murray would like us to believe.
You're right for the price it costs to pay off one sheik we can probably rebuild the entire counties infrastructure from one end to the other
You totally miss the point. Lets not waste a bunch of money on either Afghanistan or a pointless railroad. If we build infrastructure, lets choose wisely where to build it - not as a make work project that leads nowhere. Now, an East-West bicycle trail...that would be something. At a fraction of the cost, too.
You totally miss the point....lets choose wisely where to build it - not as a make work project that leads nowhere.
Agreed, except a bicycle wouldn't fill any pressing need. At least rail has the potential to bring commerce to the area, but it doesn't seem as if it would be cost effective.
"Now, an East-West bicycle trail...that would be something. At a fraction of the cost, too."
How about a North/South bicycle trail between Eureka and Arcata first, much more doable and for even far less money.
Plus it would fill a need for many more people without motorized transportation
John Murray here. I do not hate the railroad, I hate the waste of my tax dollar. The studies show that it is not economically feasible to connect us to the national grid. I don't think it would be a wise use of money to build a bike trail that far either. Highways are built with user taxes and they siphon some of those funds off to fund mass transit. Freight railroads are either self supporting or non existent.
John, you do the community a great disservice by coming on as an engineering pundit when you obviously haven't studied alternative rail systems, such as the solar rail monorail system that requires far less road bed construction with pylons instead of continuous railway roadbed. By keeping your criticism framed only in past technology you rule out creative problem solving and in this case, its a critical issue for Humboldt County businesses.
Stephen Lewis is such a dope
John Murray again. To the 7:13 am anonymous poster defending me. Thank you, I could not have phrased it better!
And there goes your credibility, John, stooping to schoolyard name-calling instead of reasoned argument. That makes you typical of so many yahoo activists with degrees but no objective reasoning when it comes to pet political prejudices.
It anon 9:47 isn't you, John, we need to know. It really would help if you actually posted reasons why alternative railway solutions are not feasible--in your great experience with them..
Stephen,
I don't think John called you a name.
Please list some alternate freight railroads that have been built so all of us can cogitate upon them as we bask in your brilliance.
Regardless of how any railroad is built or operated, it still comes down to whether area commerce would make the rail line worth having.
Below is a news of another mass transport idea I also invented way back in 1976 when I got the solar monorail idea. My idea on the pnuematic tube was to create a tower system using gravity to compress air to power the pods inside the tubes. The point is, sticking to old technology and using it as weapons to defeat new technology is just downright stupid planning for future generations.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Imagine strapping into a car-sized capsule and hurtling through a tube at more than 700 mph — not for the thrill of it, but to get where you need to go.
On Monday, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled a transportation concept that he said could whisk passengers the nearly 400 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes — half the time it takes an airplane.
If it's ever built.
His "Hyperloop" system for travel between major cities is akin to the pneumatic tubes that transport capsules stuffed with paperwork in older buildings.
In this case, the cargo would be people, reclining for the ride.
Hyperloop Travel
This image released by Tesla Motors shows a conceptual design sketch of the Hyperloop passenger transport capsule.(Photo: Handout via AP)
The system would feature a large, nearly air-free tube. Inside, capsules would be pulled down the line by magnetic attraction.
Capsules would float on a cushion of air they create — like an air hockey table in which the puck produces the air instead of the surface. To minimize friction from what air is in the tube, a powerful fan at the front of each capsule would suck air from the front to the rear.
"Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome (someone please do this), the only option for super fast travel is to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment," Musk wrote in his proposal, posted online.
On a conference call Monday, Musk said that if all goes right, it could take seven to 10 years for the first passengers to make the journey between California's two biggest metro areas. He put the price tag at around $6 billion — pointedly mentioning that would be about one-tenth the projected cost of a high-speed rail system that California has been planning to build.
Like that bullet train, the Hyperloop didn't take long to attract skepticism.
Citing barriers such as mountains and cost, one transportation expert said that while Musk's idea is novel, it's not a breakthrough.
"I don't think it will provide the alternative that he's looking for," said James E. Moore II, director of the transportation engineering program at the University of Southern California.
Monday's unveiling lived up to the hype part of its name.
Musk has been dropping hints about his system for more than a year during public events, mentioning that it could never crash and would be immune to weather.
Coming from almost anyone else, the hyperbole would be hard to take seriously. But Musk has a track record of success. He co-founded online payment service PayPal, electric luxury carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. and the rocket-building company SpaceX.
Musk has said he is too focused on other projects to consider actually building the Hyperloop, and instead would publish an open-source design that anyone can use or modify.
That's still the case, he said Monday, but added that if no one else steps forward he might build a working prototype. That would take three or four years, he said.
AP National Writer Martha Mendoza contributed to this report from San Jose, Calif.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I think this gives even more credibility to the 7:13 am anonymous comment.
I'm already laughing at the local Luddite attempts to block the inevitable railway lines in and out of Humboldt County. When they couldn't actually close down attempts to revive the north-south line, up pops an east-west proposal which they also want to tear to pieces but can't pull it off. So we get our angry children lashing out from their schoolyard clique mentalities instead of reasoned arguments. Sorry, but I'm sure the Wright Bros, Thom Edison, and every single major invention and inventor were poo-poo'd by the very same Luddite blindness of social progress so articulately expressed by our anon pundits of progressive Ludditism..
Progluddites, you want 'em, we've got 'em! They be the same types what couldn't figure out how to make artificial caves out of animal skins and tree branches so had to stay there in the dark and damp. Meanwhile, more advanced thinkers and doers, our progenitors, made the technological jump.
Stephen, you know how to ruin a perfectly nice discussion with your ranting. Have you thought of adding more fiber to your diet.
Naw, who needs extra fiber when I can chew up local Prog-Luddites? True, they're not very nutritious but they do the shitty job nobody else wants anymore: the RCC pundits in pointy hats telling the world they don't need any stinkin Galilejos or Brunos leading humanity in future technological development.
"Henchman Of Justice" says,
John Murray is a shill, part of the local two party system supporters and former inbred government mule employee who had is "fair share of mess-ups, scams and deceptions". Too ironic.
Anyhow, after being demoted from "Public Works" to another "administrative position", Murray retired, fyi his b-s ran amuck.
HOJ
"Henchman Of Justice" says,
eka rider: more people would support bikers "if ya'll followed the motor vehicle codes.
Run a stop sign - screw bikers.
Don't signal - screw bikers.
Riding in a manner to disrupt - screw bikers
etc.....
see eka biker, more support when the laws are followed, as compared to animosity and detraction.
For now though, let's just say Arcata is biker friendly because it won't enforce those laws.
So, how can an injured biker "prove" that a motorist is at fault for killing a biker intentionally at one of those famous downhill stop signs that Arcata bikers like to "run the stop".
Death do us part,
HOJ
How does a conversation on whether or not there should be another railroad study descend into name calling. Do you think there should be a study? Stephen thinks there should be a more modern, futuristic concept. John and Fred think no more studies.Those are points of view. Attack the ideas, not the people.
Ah, fresh air! Thank you, anon 2:48 for pointing to sane discussion not bent into slander service. Evidently Musk the young super rich guy with the pnuematic tube idea is also getting his share of nay-sayers while he just says he wanted to put the idea out there. That's what new ideas are about: looking at them, their potentials, research those potentials, and going forward if there's a new energy savings or cost benefit. But if we don't look, don't think of alternatives, then we just are killing time then aren't we when we tell ourselves that this community is not facing its inevitable future of higher population needing community jobs and services. Plan now, plan green, or pay the price of haphazard non-green compliance environmental destruction issues that our children will inherit. But just saying NO doesn't do the job at all. It only foists the problem of how to deal with increased population and green planning onto future generations.
"Henchman Of Justice" says,
Anonymous meant to say,
attack the lies, not the liars
HOJ
"Henchman Of Justice" says,
Stephen, Musk's idea has been known at least since his car company start-up with his son (TESLA). This was the company that the fed's subsidized a few years back during Obama #1 (he got heat for it during the Solyndra scam). Now, HOJ remembers a KTVU Channel 2 news story on the TESLA story - it was fascinating. The cars look like ferarris, lamborghinis, etc.... a buddy of HOJ just mentioned that the idea for long range electric vehicle use will be "quick release batteries" (instead of fueling-up at the gas pump enroute, ya just have the quick-release battery pulled after purchasing another already charged battery. Makes sense for now until a better charging unit and greater storage capacity within a smaller battery can be utilized.
Another great technology is the "braking systems" that now generate eletricity, as opposed to only wheels in motion. Strides are being made. Better ideas by Musk than most "conventional brainwashed types" because "conventional" is tied to "old boy network" which is entrenched already and does not want to cede power, wealth, status, etc... away to another person. Competition does weird things to people's levels of greed.
HOJ
Musk's idea? Sorry, HOJ, but Musk is a young man and I had the pnuematic tube idea back in 1976, probably a decade before he was born. And the braking system putting more juice back into the batteries, that too. They still haven't gotten to the wheels hubs being shock absorbers or the body as battery or the wheels to the ground system being like fingers of a hand instead of a single wheel for much much greater road control. Local invention has been here for decades but because of poverty and lack of engineering credentials in my particular case, I've never been able to develop 98% of my ideas.
Post a Comment
<< Home