The Southern California Association of Governments did an extensive railroad electrification study in the 1990's. Factors in the cost of electrification include clearance and bridge issues, voltage (which affects performance), number of tracks, utility location issues. Some projects in BC in the 70's were amazingly cheap. Two million a mile is certainly way to low. Cost ranges between $4-$20 million a track mile for urban for electric alone are probably closer to reality. These studies assumed 25,000 to 50,000 KV AC systems capable of powering 6,000-8,000 hp locomotives MU'd for long heavy container trains.

At the time of the SCAG study the railroads requested consideration of a completely absurd 26' clearance. This required extensive bridge work in that study, since they refused to consider the cheaper alternative of lower the tracks rather than raising the bridges. With current FRA clearances this would not be necessary. This was studied as part of a potential air quality regulation that the RR's opposed and they were not helpful. Oil was about $16-$20 a barrel back then.

Someone in an earlier thread alluded to the coal diesel fiasco being propogated by the coal industry. As someone who has extensively studied the economics of alternative tranportation fuels, this was interesting. Despite coal industry propoganda, this does not look like a very cost effective fuel. The Germans, in desparation in WW II, did do this, and it was not very cost effective for them either. It requires very costly and energy intensive processing, this also reusults in a very dirty base fuel and cleaning that up takes even more energy and processing, and does nothing about carbon emissions. None of the nations we compete with in the world market for fuels are considering this as a serious alternative for railroads.

Electrification schemes to wire only significant grades to capture electricity from dynamic braking and put it into the grid have been discussed with utilities over the years. This does indeed allow significant co-generation of power that can power other trains up the hill, and/or can be put back into the grid. This capture of dynamic braking electricity has also been done around the world.

In some ways cheap fuel has been bad for America, because it has caused us to become complacent and not develop the skills and knowledge base for the alternative technologies. The current political manipulation of short term fuel prices is lulling people into thinking that everything will be okay again soon (until after the election?). This is inconsistent with even th most optimistic production and consumption estimates on oil over the next 20 years. Continued dependence on imported oil will only be very slightly mitigated by domestic drilling, we have to start considering long term solutions, if we want to maintain our competitive edge and high quality of life.

As T. Boone Pickens recently noted the US is currently spending $700 billion on imported oil every year (we spend about $30-$32 billon a year on all mass transit and Amtrak?). Electification of America's primary rail network would cost about $50-$70 billion over 10 years. The economics of doing nothing are not acceptable. The US will be a bankrupt nation, if we continue the status quo, inflation and economic stagnation will reduce our standard of living. To the naysayers, please also note: railroad electrification is on the table with the money people, who own the stocks, like Warren Buffet and T. Boone.

When someone in a thread on this attacked this as not being a national security concern I was shocked, as well. Energy wars are already under way. Note: The Russians don't give a damn about Georgian democracy, and they are not going back to communism, they do give a damn about controlling the Black Sea natural gas ports and controlling access to resources, for their growing GAZPROM monopoly. And, I'll bet Dick Cheney doesn't give a rat's ass about democracy in Somalia, which is just a screwed up as Iraq ever was, since there's no oil there?

This discussion is long overdue, for rail folks and the rest of America.