Nature Editorial Calls for Rail Renaissance as Networks Mark 200 Years (nature.com) 78
Nature's editorial board urged governments on Tuesday to reverse decades of rail disinvestment as railways mark their 200th anniversary September 27, citing transport sector emissions that grew 1.7% annually from 1990-2022 and now generate one-quarter of global CO2. Rail produces one-fifth the emissions of cars per passenger kilometer yet carries just 8.4% of EU passenger traffic versus 73% for automobiles.
The journal called for broader investment criteria beyond narrow profitability metrics and noted only one-third of countries have incorporated transport into their Paris Agreement commitments. Global rail freight fell from 38% to 24% between 1980-2017 while US networks shrank from 400,000 to 200,000 kilometers since 1914. Africa operates 87,000 rail kilometers continent-wide compared to India's 65,000 kilometers in one-tenth the area. Transport emissions must decline 3% yearly to meet net-zero targets.
The journal called for broader investment criteria beyond narrow profitability metrics and noted only one-third of countries have incorporated transport into their Paris Agreement commitments. Global rail freight fell from 38% to 24% between 1980-2017 while US networks shrank from 400,000 to 200,000 kilometers since 1914. Africa operates 87,000 rail kilometers continent-wide compared to India's 65,000 kilometers in one-tenth the area. Transport emissions must decline 3% yearly to meet net-zero targets.
20% as much CO2 (Score:2)
Re:20% as much CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)
That’s a direct result of the discouragement of investment in trains in the US. Elsewhere in the world, a train is a comfortable and safe experience.
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That’s a direct result of the discouragement of investment in trains in the US. Elsewhere in the world, a train is a comfortable and safe experience.
I wouldn't want to be stuck in a train with the people that shop at my local Walmart, and they all have cars. I think it's just a cultural difference here in the US, where we'd be at each other's throats if not kept separated in our own little metal boxes with wheels.
And since I think I need to clarify before someone pulls the "racist" card or whatever slight they're imagining, I was specifically thinking of two things:
Ever since Florida legalized medicinal marijuana, some people absolutely reek of it. To
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I wouldn't want to be stuck in a train with the people that shop at my local Walmart, and they all have cars. I think it's just a cultural difference here in the US, where we'd be at each other's throats if not kept separated in our own little metal boxes with wheels.
In New York massive numbers of people take the commuter lines into the city every day and New Yorkers are known for being some of the most intense Americans. Then there's the subways moving even more people. New York also has legal pot as well. With the right infrastructure this type of thing works fine in the US.
The homophobia thing I get though. I'm sorry that's bullshit you have to worry about.
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In New York massive numbers of people take the commuter lines into the city every day and New Yorkers are known for being some of the most intense Americans.
I have no first-hand experience with NYC's subway. Never been there. Only public transportation I regularly use is the monorail at Disney, and it's cramped and people tend to be rude at the end of the day because they're tired from walking around the theme park for hours in the blazing hot sun.
New York also has legal pot as well.
Which basically means having to tolerate the stench that lingers on people's clothes. Though, at least from what I've heard, NYC's subways are such a cocktail of unpleasant odors already, so people just have to deal
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All my family originally comes from out there and I take the commutor's into the city when I visit those that still live there. They're not a luxury experience but I never found those trains unpleasant. It actually makes for a good thing to keep in mind if one doesn't have family to stay with there like I do, it's MUCH cheaper to stay outside the city and then take the train in.
The subways though, there's some smells year round but personally it's just the summer that I find to be bad. The heat doesn't do g
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That's basically saying trains are an urban necessity, and I'm not disagreeing with that part. I just don't see trains as a good fit for suburbia, and usually when an article implies that we need more trains, they're also subtly hinting that low density development is a problem by extension.
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That's basically saying trains are an urban necessity, and I'm not disagreeing with that part. I just don't see trains as a good fit for suburbia, and usually when an article implies that we need more trains, they're also subtly hinting that low density development is a problem by extension.
I have never heard of an urban, but not suburban train. I know your only experience is the Disney monorail, but dude, this is a larger scale than a theme park. Trains go from the city, through the suburbs, and beyond. It's like the whole fucking point. Commuter trains connect the jobs in the city to the vast, rich expanse of exurbs beyond the reach of light rail.
You say it's not a problem, then you complain about the traffic. Then you complain about construction. Then the apartment buildings. It will happen
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Ugh, what you lay out is California's problems in a nutshell (I live here). Somehow people thought demand would stop when houses stopped being built and that no problems could possibly stem from this for one of the most in demand states to live in. The worst is Silicon Valley, it's distorted most of Northern California's real-estate market by now. It's got major urban area growth needs but they keep it suburban with zoning laws. They should have been building upwards in the valley decades ago.
Sorry, venting
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Florida has also become increasingly homophobic, and my partner and I really wouldn't feel safe on public transportation. Recent political events have only made the situation worse. There's no way we'd give up our cars.
How would they even know that you're gay? Even if you travel together noone has any reason to think you're not friends/colleagues/relatives/etc travelling together unless you advertise otherwise.
But yes your point about public transport being an unpleasant environment stand.
Most of the assholes that give people grief are not actually homophobic or racist, they just use whatever slurs they think will provoke a reaction. The same "racist homophobes" will still happily harass a straight white male if the situa
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Ever since Florida legalized medicinal marijuana, some people absolutely reek of it. To the point of just being near them makes me gag.
This just adds more variety...
The smell of tobacco is just as disgusting, but it's been legal for a lot longer. Smokers regardless of what they smoke usually tend to be oblivious to how badly they stink.
There are also lots of other unpleasant smells on public transport, and even if you set out clean in the morning by the time you're travelling home on a hot overcrowded train you're going to be sweating.
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There's no point in investing anything in public transp
Re:20% as much CO2 (Score:4)
This is just a trope you guys tell yourselves. There’s no evidence basis for it. Where you have public transit, it’s heavily used, even if you won’t do it. You sound like Thatcher about people taking buses (it’s a notorious quote, look it up)
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The public transit systems trend towards becoming the most tragic sort of commons.
I live in a Canadian city with cold winters. In the past, the transit system built heated shelters for people to wait for the bus in heavily trafficked areas. These are now all unintentional homeless shelters. They won't kick the people living in them out because that would be racist/colonial/insensitive/etc., so if you are waiting for the bus you will almost certainly be doing it in the cold and wet.
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It has nothing to do with investment in trains or not but a tolerance for allowing people who cause trouble to use them. There are countries with far older rail infrastructure that I would use over American public transit. Those countries won't put up with some crackhead or meth addict terrorizing other patrons.
I see a glaring problem here. Do you know how much a ticket costs on a commuter train? Crackheads can't afford them.
You have never used the American railway system in your life, have you. Shut your fucking mouth.
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Yeah. One of the reasons the buses suck so much here is because the bus drivers won't force the scumbags to pay the fare because they don't want to get attacked by scumbags.
Most of this kind of transport planning is created by people who think we're still living in a prosperous, high-trust society where people will obey their dictats. And we're not.
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Based on the trains I see in American TV shows, the impopularity of trains in the US is caused by train drivers leaning on their 'wake the dead' horn for 30 seconds for every railroad crossing. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near train tracks with that racket.
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No it's generally not...
Trains are heavy and require a lot of energy to move them, and in most cases don't take you directly where you need to go so you might have to take an indirect (ie longer) route, and will usually have to travel to/from the station at either end.
In order to get close to the claimed energy efficiency benefits over cars, trains are often packed well over their design capacity - that means no comfortable seats, you will be standing with other passengers right in your face.
Those trains wh
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This means remote working when the job allows for it, and for jobs that are unsuitable for remote work designing cities so that employees can live closer (ie within walking distance) of their workplaces.
There have been studies of remote workers that found they don't actually travel less. As I understand it, people use their commute to chain trips for other purposes. Without the commute, those trips get made individually. In many cases people actually drive more.
There is a reason central cities exist. They are very efficient. One of those efficiencies is lost when you rely on single occupancy vehicles instead of mass transit and walking.
Trains do a great job of comfortably moving large numbers of people qu
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There have been studies of remote workers that found they don't actually travel less. As I understand it, people use their commute to chain trips for other purposes. Without the commute, those trips get made individually. In many cases people actually drive more.
Not really, they might make a trip to go shopping instead of picking something up on the way back but that's about it. It's also down to city layout as some people may not have shops nearby where they live. The long commute can also be replaced by a short trip to the shop which will often be a walk.
In many european countries lots of people don't even have cars, and if you don't need to commute every day and have basic essentials within easy walking distance you have very little need for a permanent car and
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One of the most important reasons that many people in European cities don't have cars is that there is great public transport in European cities. For the 20+ years I lived in Hampstead, St Johns Wood, South Hampstead, West Hampstead and Kilburn, I didn't need a car because I had such easy access to multiple tube stations, train stations and buses. Now I live a little further out and while I still have easy access to tube and bus, I do have a car, although we don't use it that often, because there's some jou
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If you took the train into the city during peak hours from these locations where you lived, how comfortable was it?
Standing room only with other passengers packed in so you can barely move assuming you can even physically get inside, no air conditioning so it's unbearably hot during the summer... Do you actually like travelling in these conditions? And you believe that *more* people should be travelling on these same trains?
The fact is many journeys are unnecessary, and most travel at peak times is extremel
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You're conflating the downsides of not allowing remote working with the perceived downsides of enabling public transport. That's.... muddled. Public transport provides plenty of value beyond commutes, and the future of work and of commuting is mixed modal anyway: people working at home some times and outside the home at other times, and getting around on foot, on bike, on scooter, on buses, trains, metros, light rail, heavy rail, boats, and sometimes private cars too.
The existence of trains does not cause t
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and trains can be very comfortable and safe
They can be, but not when they're over crowded. Then they are extremely uncomfortable, and become ideal spreading grounds for infectious diseases as well as pickpockets. The conditions commuters endure at peak times would be illegal for transporting farm animals in many countries.
Pushing more people into over crowded trains is not the answer, reducing congestion should be the goal.
Only it's not, the focus is always on forcing more people onto public transport which just increases congestion and worsens cond
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Right. You might run into assholes like you, who are terrified of other people. And people like you, who've never been on a train.
You remind me ot the idiots in Chicago, "oh, my car's more convenient"... as they're commuting down the interstate, sitting in ludicrous traffic jams, spending $20/day to park... as I rode in the Metra, Chicago's commuter rail, right by them.
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80% less than cars is a lot less, but I'm kind of surprised it's that much.
They assume a particular energy mix to power the (electric) trains. The data I can find says:
g_CO2 / (passenger . km)
airplane 260 g (141 g fuel)
ICE car 146 g (119 g fuel)
ICE bus 71 g (66 g fuel)
EV car 49 g (40 g fabrication)
train 8.3 g (6 g energy)
sourve: https://www.sncf-voyageurs.com... [sncf-voyageurs.com]
This is data for France where the 6 g CO2 for train energy correspond to mostly nuclear and a bit of something else. The energy mix in coal-fueled Poland will be different.
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(wikipedia)
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Rail's high efficiency comes from use of metal wheels on metal track - it's the lowest friction that one can have for locomotion. Electric power on top of that adds to higher torque and zero-emission. As other readers have pointed out additional efficiency comes from lower overhead of shared engine for a long train, lower air-resistance due to only one front vs 200 fronts when compared to cars.
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These kind of calculations assume full ridership. Around here, what I see is huge buses with like 3 people in a bus that can seat 50. Nature wants us to go back to the 1920s.
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80% less than cars is a lot less, but I'm kind of surprised it's that much. It actually makes me wonder how a Prius would fare compared to a klunky old half-full (per load factor statistics) Amtrak train.
Part of the problem is that trains are really, really heavy. A double-decker passenger train car might weigh 180,000 pounds and carry only 100 people, for a total weight of 1,800 pounds per car plus the person. So you're carrying half the weight of that Prius. The trains are still vastly more efficient because you have one powertrain accelerating all of those people in Priuses (Prii?) instead of hundreds, they accelerate and decelerate slowly (and rarely), they have low rolling resistance, etc.
Imagine ho
Train kept a-rollin' / till six PM (Score:2)
"Rail produces one-fifth the emissions of cars per passenger kilometer..."
Sure, for all cars. But how does it compare to just buses?
I think the inefficiency may lie not the mode of transport but in our unwillingness to all pile into the same conveyance.
Re:Train kept a-rollin' / till six PM (Score:5, Insightful)
It’s typically going to be better than buses, due to scale economies and lower rolling resistance. Depends on load factors etc, and EV buses have cut the gap, but steel wheels on rails vs rubber on roads is a big advantage
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"Rail produces one-fifth the emissions of cars per passenger kilometer..."
Sure, for all cars. But how does it compare to just buses?
I think the inefficiency may lie not the mode of transport but in our unwillingness to all pile into the same conveyance.
Full or at typical capacity? Lots of bus routes around here average a low single-digit number of passengers for much of the route. Even single-passenger cars compare favorably to that. Assuming a diesel bus at an average of 3 MPG, you need a minimum of 15 passengers on average to break even with driving single-passenger hybrids. And that's not factoring in how much dirtier a gallon of diesel fuel is compared with a gallon of gasoline.
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3 MPG? That may be true for a 1970s American bus with a Detroit two-stroke coupled to a slushbox, but not for a modern bus.
A modern diesel bus gets about 9 mpg (Mercedes Citaro). A diesel hybrid reduces that by 10%. And cities are introducing electric buses now.
African rail history (Score:3)
For those with an interest the book, "The Lunatic Express", by Charles Miller tells the saga of the construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria railway. If you saw the movie, "The Ghost and the Darkness", that bridge they were building was one small piece of the Mombasa... railway. An interesting book of engineering, rail history, and British imperialism.
If you search for the book don't confuse it with another book of the same title by Carl Hoffman (which is also an excellent book, btw).
Re:"Lefist Rag Calls for More Trains" News at 11 (Score:4, Informative)
It's been five years and all the evidence has been pointing away from WIV and towards zoonotic. At the very least in 5 years you are no closer to disproving zoonotic.
If you think you got more information there's $100,000 up for grabs. Once guy already won it by really just slapping down lab-leak for like 12 hours.
My Friend Won the US$100,000 Debate on the Origin of COVID-19 [medium.com]
So maybe Nature keeps it's good reputation and you can stick with RFK Jr as your strongest advocate. Good luck with the monster man.
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You do your argument no favors with outright lies.
Re:"Lefist Rag Calls for More Trains" News at 11 (Score:4, Informative)
Do you hear that? The sound of no real evidence and just empty accusations?
I can freely admit we will never have 100% confirmation either way, only probabilities but we have everything we need to explain zoonotic origin and we have to take in a bunch of wild assumptions to make lab leak work. We dont even have any outside the market clusters.
If you want to believe lab leak go right ahead but you cannot sit here and act like your evidence is strong and certainly not stronger than zoonotic, thats a lie. The OP certainly can't claim Nature did some wrong by going where the evidence goes.
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Vagueposting twice is just multiplying by zero.
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The wet market hypothesis claims the Covid outbreak began in the Wuhan wet market in December 2019.
We now know from analysis of stored patient samples that it was in Italy by October 2019(*) and have inconclusive tests from September 2019 so it may have been there earlier. I also have been told by people working in medicine in North America that they have found positive stored samples from patients in October 2019.
So wherever it came from, it almost certainly did not originate in the wet market in December
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Can you give me a link about this, I've not heard the Italy hypothesis, I want to see how it's explained that no major outbreaks occurred for 60-90 days.
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The CIA’s now leaning lab leak with growing confidence in 2025
If you read that they actually say "low confidence"
WIV’s sketchy gain-of-function experiments
Never been proved nor is there anything pointing towards WIV or anyone having the ability or knowledge to "make" covid.
still chasing mythical pangolins in a Wuhan market with no intermediate host in sight
They actually have a fairly high confidence of the *exact stall* it originated from. Funnily enough a viral researcher years prior went to that exact spot took photos and said "this is a pretty ripe spot for a spillover"
That’s not a debunking; it’s a verbal cage match judged by three randos.
And yet he's 100k richer against a guy who has nothing but time money and resources to make his case and he couldnt, too
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“No proof” of WIV’s gain-of-function? State Department docs confirm they engineered chimeric viruses, tweaking bat coronaviruse
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Ask yourself what the DoE has in regards to information in a viral infection? There's a reason they put that out and gullible like you are the reason. You dropped your "Fell for it again award". Where is any followup? This admin has every incentive and yet...
A 96% SARS-CoV-2 match. Deny that with a straight face.
Still not covid, doesnt have the pieces and all of those have markers of something manamde of which Covid has none so either this is some black ops super secret thing or it's natural.
Rootclaim still holds lab leak at 89%, unfazed. It’s showbiz, not science.
Which way western man? Showbiz or science. That fence must be spli
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Ask yourself what the DoE has in regards to information in a viral infection?
Oh, please, the Department of Energy’s input isn’t about virology credentials; it’s about piecing together the intelligence puzzle. Their moderate-to-high confidence aligns with CIA, FBI, and Energy’s growing lean toward a lab leak, especially as China’s data shredding leaves us with precious little to work with. Gullible? That’s rich coming from someone clinging to a debunked wet-market myth.
Still not covid, doesnt have the pieces and all of those have markers of something manamde of which Covid has none so either this is some black ops super secret thing or it's natural.
RaTG13, with its 96% match to SARS-CoV-2, comes from WIV’s own work, where
Re:"Lefist Rag Calls for More Trains" News at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
You’re completely bonkers, you are. A drivelling loon. It would never do to take you seriously and reply to your ramblings substantively. That would dignify them more than is reasonable. But it’s fun to laugh at you, so thanks for that!
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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n... [pbs.org]
State records show Robinson is registered to vote but is not affiliated with a political party and is listed as inactive, meaning he did not vote in the two most recent general elections.
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State records show Robinson is registered to vote but is not affiliated with a political party and is listed as inactive, meaning he did not vote in the two most recent general elections.
Odd how someone can be "radicalized" enough to shoot someone, but participating in democracy the proper way is still too much of a hassle. Almost like something else was just wrong in his head. Also being exposed to, like Neo said, guns, lots of guns, ever since he was a kid. Don't tell the peanut gallery on X that though, they'll get you fired for anything that even remotely challenges the narrative that a crazed leftist took out their Christian nationalist golden boy.
Re: "Lefist Rag Calls for More Trains" News at 11 (Score:2)
Odd how someone can be "radicalized" enough to shoot someone, but participating in democracy the proper way is still too much of a hassle.
To vote for what for example?
Charlie Kirk was never on a ballot, and people keep saying his "politics", he was targeted because someone hated his "politics". Charlie Kirk's opinions on a lot of things were not "politics", and they were hateful. The shooter apparently had someone close to him (roommate) that was a member of a group Charlie Kirk openly hated, this is all based on what's been reported so far. All we have from the Utah governor is a vapid "leftist ideologies" and some theory of rapid radicaliza
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Availability of guns enabled the crime of course, but I don't think that being raised around lots of guns is the whole problem here. Grandma said they're all MAGAs. He was raised around a lot of violent rhetoric in combination with guns. Did he have to be wired wrong, or was being programmed from an early age enough?
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Granny says the entire family was MAGA and not a democrat in the bunch. https://www.yahoo.com/news/art... [yahoo.com]
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Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
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Thank goodness cars are not associated with any crimes, eh? You’ll struggle to find any stories of car jackings or road rage. There’s never been a video game named after a famous type of car crime, has there?
Fucking imbecile
It isn't that simple (Score:2)
"Just invest in rail."
No, it's not that easy. Trains are slow to get started, they need a significant amount of time to stop. Most trains weigh way more than a truck with full load. But trains need to be managed carefully. Enough distance between the trains, a quality management system for switches and signals, good trains, good personnel.
Before that, you need to design your network such that it's attractive enough for people to use it. With public transit this generally means: put stations at places where
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"Just invest in rail."
No, it's not that easy. Trains are slow to get started, they need a significant amount of time to stop. Most trains weigh way more than a truck with full load. But trains need to be managed carefully. Enough distance between the trains, a quality management system for switches and signals, good trains, good personnel.
Before that, you need to design your network such that it's attractive enough for people to use it. With public transit this generally means: put stations at places where people want to get on or get off or want to transfer to other modes of public transport (such as buses, subways, trams) which can bring people closer to their final destination.
And note that this will change over time, but your rails can't change over time. This is the peril of rail for intracity transit.
Rails make a lot of sense in ultra-dense areas (think Manhattan, *maybe* downtown SF, but not any of the rest of the Bay Area, etc.), because the roads can't handle even a fraction of the passenger volume.
Rails also make sense for long-distance travel. If you're traveling for several hours, you probably don't want to drive that, so it is worth the inconvenience of not having a c
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You can easily add new bus stops near rail, it's not as easy to add rail near bus lines except by luck.
Safe and clean are going to require some upgrades to society. They would be cheaper than what we've been doing, but then some people would get things for free that other people are paying for, and then lots of people would be mad. And not without reason, but not usually for the reason they'd be mad for.
This is the problem... (Score:2)
And the problem as I see it is, the ridiculous price of a rail ticket and the sheer inconvenience of rail travel. I can put petrol in my 35 years old Civic and drive to wherever I want to, possibly with a passenger, at a fraction of the price of a rail ticket. Then, instead of being dropped in the middle of some city and having to get a cab or bus or hire car to complete the journey I can just continue in my car. If I need them my car can easily carry along for me a tent, sleeping bag, stove, cooking fuel,
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The prices are atrocious, also insanely hard to navigate.
On the other hand traffic is more than an occasional problem and cars don't do 125mph. I've been fairly regularly travelling London to Bristol for work. It's way faster by train even though I need to hire a car at temple meads and drive to the arse end. Especially as being work related I hit horrendous traffic in London sometimes. Slower than walking pace literally.
Actually cone to think of it, the price for 2 tickets with a Railcard was 60 quid, so n
Need to wait (Score:2)
....until the other Koch brother (Charles is dead too)
They were the main duo behind Koch Industries and its vast political influence through funding of libertarian and right-wing causes, including heavy opposition to public transit and urban rail projects across the US.
David Koch is dead (2019), but Charles Koch is still alive.
Their network, especially through Americans for Prosperity, spent millions lobbying against:
Local ballot measures for public transit (e.g. Nashville, Phoenix, Milwaukee)
Light rail and
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The Maximum Good (Score:1)
I believe the maximum good could be extracted from a complete rebuild of the infrastructure pointed specifically at competing with highways.
The easiest way is the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach and engineer railroads to quickly and efficiently load and unload automobiles. That way, people could drive their vehicles onto the trains, the train in transporting them and their vehicle would eliminate the park your car then rent another at the other end annoyance and expense, and most positively phy
That's half of it (Score:2)
Under-investment ... absolutely there is.
The other half is sorting out the perverse tax incentives that favour cars and trucks. A level playing field for all modes of transport.
Remove the tax incentives . I am not saying impose NEW taxes, just make ALL car and truck use the same.
Case in point: In Australia, all Diesel purchases are taxed. However, farmers may directly claim that back. And the Diesel fuel excise it fed directly back in to roads. However, who is the single biggest purchaser of Diesel fuel? In
Rail Moves Heavy Things Well (Score:2)
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Rail would be a lot better if you could bring your car on it.