Plot Device
06-26-2008, 02:04 AM
Below are Seven Anecdotes from avid readers at the blog of James Howard Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/index.html). He gets LOTS of e-mail every day. And sometimes these e-mails include disturbing anecdotes and observations from people who have the inside scoop on certain corners of life. I've listed only a few of them below in chronological order (he has dozens of these anecdotes, but I picked just the best ones). Please note that not all of these are complete--I have greatly cut them down in length.
Anecdote #1 is from Mr. Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)himself (the only one here by him, in fact). This was his recent and weird experience on Northwest Airlines. (Anyone have any theories as to what the REAL problem was with that flight?)
Feb 20, 2008
Death of the Airline Industry
I had a two-hour layover in the Twin Cities for my connection to Duluth. As it happened, though, they didn't board us until 6:00. We pushed back at 6:30, taxied out to the runway, and then sat there for another hour. About halfway through that wait, the pilot got on the PA and said they were "waiting for their numbers."
A half hour later he came back on the PA and said the plane was "over its weight limit" and we had to go back to the gate and drop some people off. Huh...? This was a small regional jet. There were 12 rows of two across, and there were a few empty seats. So, we get back to the gate and we sit there for another half hour while a technician comes on board with a clipboard and palavers with the flight crew. It's now two hours past the original schduled departure time. So even if we left that instant, I'd miss my connection to Duluth and be stuck in the Minneapolis airport all night. As it happened, the pilot asked for 13 volunteers to get off the plane. (There was some grumbling about the obvious illogic of a plane designed with 48 seats being unable to carry 36 passengers... but let's not even go there....) If they couldn't get 13 volunteers, the pilot said, they'd cancel the whole flight (and then everybody would be fucked, I inferred). I got up with a bunch of other volunteers -- thirteen, finally -- and straggled off the plane.
I actually don't know if the plane ever did leave. It was still parked at the gate when I finally left the airport at 9:30.
Anecdote #2 is from a farmer in South Africa (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_SouthAfrica.html), commenting on the slow erosion of South African life due to the past three years of a steadily mounting and unrelenting energy crisis in that nation. His general observation is that it was such a slow, gradual process that no one really noticed --much like, he explains, the frog in the pot of cold water that is brought to a boil in such slow incremenets that the frog doesn't notice and eventually dies. I want to say that I was at first tempted to highlight in red font all the truly disturbing things he was so whimsically relating. But then when over 50% of the entire anecdote was nothing but red, I decided to just set it all back to black again and let the man speak for himself.
February 4, 2008
It began with a few potholes in the roads, the odd interruption to the water supply in the suburbs, a couple of days with strike action preventing the delivery of municipal services – no garbage collection, protest action disrupting the mining industry and picketing & toy toying at shopping malls…It continued over the next couple of years, largely with disregard for the disruptions, a little irritation to daily commercial and home life by the lack of service provision in food, gas, water and power.
In recent months, at the receivables end of the supply chain, there was a little aggravation at the delays, the lack of service, the shortage of a few consumer luxuries in the retail shops…, ‘but hey, what the hell, this is a great country, we cannot fault the lifestyle, the weather…’. For a couple of months, perhaps a year back or so, there seemed little or no reason to change our way of life, our lifestyles…a little further down the road and the disruptions become more frequent, we learn to cope, learn to accept the rising cost of living, gas supply shortages in the Winter of 2007, the intermittent water disruptions, the odd power outage and the potholes. Potholes may well be the singular measure of the calamity we are in or about to face.
But the cracks that are now evident are tell tails signs, not only of the effectivity of the New South Africa and an explanation of the path traveled to this point in time, but more of what is promised for the future. And the future may be more a by product of global issues than issues unique and unfortunate to South Africa.
In the up market suburbs, not least to say generally all over the urban landscape, there is not a 1km (1/2 mile) strip of tarred road that is not full of potholes (hugh gapping holes, across which vehicles cannot drive), the roadside curbs are disintegrating, the road maintenance programmes over the last 10 years have failed to maintain the roads in a serviceable and passable state. The nation is gripped in a crisis of rolling power outages caused by the incompetence of highly paid government ministers and their charges. The news of the weekend is that the nation is in dire straits with the supply of clean, drinkable water to households and business alike.
The rolling power outages are resulting in about a 25% national power outage per month. The ramifications of this can be related directly to an income loss of the same amount, retail supplies are being interrupted and from a security point of view it is dangerous to shop in malls. The Electricity Supply Commission – ESKOM are indicating a forced reduction on power usage by 10%, further, the mines have been told not to work on Fridays.
It is not only that ESKOM have not maintained or expanded their operations in the last 15 years, but the next big whammy is that there is no coal to keep the power stations running…at most times, there is a couple of months supply of coal onsite for electricity operations, today there is hardly a few days supply. Incidentally the reason given for this catastrophe is that the trucks delivering the coal have been unable to get to the power stations as the road infrastructure has deteriorated- potholes again. In the Afrikaans language: ‘slaggate’ – a direct translation to ‘slaughter holes’. As this is written, we wait for the next couple of days to see the effect of the ‘coal emergency’.
At some point the effect of the power emergency on water and sanitation supply should be considered and this would be part of the roll out of unexpected events resultant of the collapse of the power supply, but the water board have usurped the power supply with homegrown problems of their own…
So here we have it, 43% of the dams have safety problems and are in danger of collapsing. Further to this, the ground water in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, has radioactive contamination from mining operations.
Now, as a matter of interest, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world that is built on a hill and water has to be pumped up into the city!!!
And what of the peoples reaction? Complacency does not even come close, the nation is either brain dead or ignorant, or just plain ‘frog in a pot’ of water with the temperature rising.
The first reaction to the power emergency took the form of a rush for candles, refilling of gas bottles and the purchasing of generators (if you could get them). Then the complacency set it, business learnt to sit through power outages, retail shops were forced to close their doors for a few hours a day. There was and is a shortage of food supplies, food went bad in the fridges and had to been thrown away. It was kind of charming in a strange kind of way, to eat dinner by candle light and forgo the ‘soapies’ on TV. Traffic lights were out over a large number of suburbs and delays in getting to business meetings became the norm. The schools are unable to teach a full day’s lesson. The internet service providers and the mobile phone companies’ frequently have service delays or are just plain ‘off line’. The battery runs out on your laptop and that’s the days productive work is over until the power is back on…Patients in ICU or undergoing operations, as the power grid went down, were at risk of and did, die.
I proffer that the events in South Africa, tragic as they are, as they play themselves out, will give a good indication of the events that the USA and other countries will realize in the years to come.
[Ha! Just as I finish this, guess what… the power is out, the battery life in my laptop is about 5 mins, so at 11am, I cannot be productive for the rest of the day… the networks are down, so this cannot be mailed for the moment.]
Anecdote #3 is from a man employed at the headquarters (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)for the US Dept of Agriculture in Washington DC.
March 17, 2008
I'm writing you this email to tell you something which I find pretty disturbing. USDA is the second largest federal office building in D.C. It is massive, with hallways that stretch for three city blocks on seven floors, and one block the other way on each floor. For the last few months, every other overhead light in the halls has had their bulbs removed. Sometimes, two lights in a row are dark. It's bright enough to walk down, no doubt, but still noticeably darker. Moreoever, each floor has two banks of elevators at each end, with three elevators per bank. For the last few months, one elevator at each bank has been put out of commission. Further, employees are now forbidden from putting space heaters in their offices, which many have done because the heating in the building has been turned down to a level where even I, a descendant of hardy Russian peasants, feel cold.
What does this tell me? It tells me that the government of the United States of America is having difficulty paying its utility bills. Think about that.
Federal offices cannot keep all the lights on, or keep the heat sufficiently high. (We'll see what the air conditioning is like in a few months, when D.C. turns into a humid swamp). This is what one expects of Third World governments, not the USA.
Anecdote #4 is from a pilot for a major US airline (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html).
June 6 2008
. . . United is parking 6 - 747s and 94 - 737s and somehow doing that by only eliminating 1,100; Continental announced today parking 67 airplanes and shedding 3,000 employees. US Airways President Kirby met with West pilots in PHX last week, and when asked about furloughs, was told there is a hot evaluation going on inside the company, and to expect to hear The Plan in two weeks: so that's 7-10 days from now. Kirby made a strong point when asked, that there were still too many empty seats for airlines to be able to charge what it costs to provide the service, ie, pass on fuel increases.
Anecdote #5 is from an American railroad employee (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_trains_and_planes2.html)about his witness to the slow disintegration of the American train system over the years.
June 6, 2008
Jim,
Below is one of the many "news flash" items I get from the local union reps.
I thought this was worthy of your time and attention, due to the fact it so accurately sums up the REAL problem our nation faces with any immediate passenger train introduction.
In the most simplistic of explanations, we've not only scrapped route miles, but also the vital subcomponent of track density on what routes are still extant. In scrapping the density we've created a physical rail plant that by its very design makes no allowance for passenger trains to do what they are supposed to do; pick up and drop off passengers without bringing everything else to a stop!
Just this past twenty four hours I took a load of Honda automobiles down to Cincinnati. Upon arrival in Cincinnati, I parked my train at "Tower A", next to a tied-down (parked and crewless) coal train. The coal train was sitting on the only remaining track with platform, of what was once a 26 track with platform and concourse attached to the Cincinnati Union Terminal. In effect there was no freaking way for any passenger trains to pick up or disembark passengers, on the only fucking platform in all of Cincinnati! Not until that coal train had a crew and then possibly, maybe by chance, get clearance to move on and out of the way.
In reality, beyond what the 'news flash" talks about, I'm telling you the freight railroads have left only the bare minimum track density needed to accommodate the few intercity Amtrak trains still operating.
(signed)
"Anonymous"
FREIGHTS HOBBLE AMTRAK
(The following opinion article was published by the Transportation Research Board's Intercity Rail Passenger System's Committee.)
Amtrak, our national intercity rail passenger network, may be America's longest running act of despair.
The Bush administration, which calls Amtrak a relic of the past, is direct and vocal in its desire to starve Amtrak of federal funding. Major freight railroads, which host intercity Amtrak trains, are more circumspect in their public comments, but equally anxious to vanquish those pesky passenger trains, which interfere with more profitable freight traffic on increasingly congested mainline track -- capacity reduction occasioned by freight railroad mergers and line abandonments.
If Amtrak were seen as a more efficient operation, its critics would have fewer opportunities to pull the feeding tube, and its supporters would find greater acceptance for creating a consistent and reliable federal subsidy for Amtrak.
The most visible and nagging of Amtrak's problems are intercity passenger trains that do not and cannot run on time because of operational conflicts on freight lines.
All but 730 miles of the 21,000-mile Amtrak system are owned, operated and dispatched by freight railroads. Those freight railroads consider Amtrak's payments for track rental and on-time bonuses as relatively minor sums that are unlikely to influence operating priorities. In the words of a Union Pacific official, "Waving money in front of us isn't going to fix the problem, because the reality is, you have a lot of freight trains out there."
This being the case, the Bush administration's proposal to fix Amtrak -- through a public-private partnership involving the states -- lacks merit. As Amtrak's former president, David Gunn, observed, "What is the point in providing additional funds for new state-supported rail services if those trains are just going to suffer the same congestion and dispatching problems that befall Amtrak's current trains?"
If opinion leaders and decision makers are serious about keeping intact a national intercity rail passenger network (and Congress keeps reminding us that any breakup of Amtrak will so erode political support for Amtrak that federal funding for even the Northeast Corridor will dry up) then the starting point should be improving the level of service over freight-railroad owned track.
Practically, this means the enforcement of the initial Amtrak contract signed by the freight railroads in 1970, which enabled them to avoid (at the time) an almost $1 billion annual cost of operating passenger trains -- approximately $5.3 billion in 2007 dollars.
At that time, the freight railroads voluntarily and vigorously embraced legislation in which they pledged to give Amtrak trains preference over their freight consists. And you can look it up: U.S. Code 49, 24308(C). In fact, Amtrak intercity trains utilizing freight railroad track most often run late (only 61 percent of such Amtrak trains run on time, and many arrive seven and eight hours late).
As long as there are no penalties for delaying Amtrak trains, the freight railroads have every incentive not to give them preference.
Some may suggest that turning Amtrak over to the private sector would largely solve the problem, but consider the observation of Gunn's successor at Amtrak, former Union Pacific Vice President Alexander Kummant: "It is an intersection of a subsidized structure with a truly private-sector structure, so how do you coexist?"
Amtrak and freight railroads must coexist, because an aging U.S. population, growing highway and commercial aviation congestion, and greater demand for intercity mobility, require an effective and efficient alternative to automobiles, buses and airplanes.
The one corridor where Amtrak does perform mostly on time is the one corridor it owns: the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Between Washington and New York, for example, Amtrak's share of end-point travelers has grown from 45 to 54 percent since 2000.
Amtrak is capable of operating its trains efficiently -- thus our suggestion that the Amtrak debate shift to a focus of freight railroads giving Amtrak trains the priority handling the law requires in order to build a firm foundation for Amtrak political support and the consistent and reliable federal funding that would follow.
Anecdote #6 is from a New Hampshire resident (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)who has been number crunching his utility bills and sees trouble ahead for the power grid in New England.
June 25, 2008
Beware the Electric Grid this Winter
Jim,
I just did the math. The Northeast Electric grid is going to collapse next winter.
A gallon of home heating oil is 130,500 btu's and oil burners are 80% efficient. At $4.50 a gallon 1000 btu's of oil heat costs $0.043.
A kilowatt hour of electricity is 3413 btu's and electric heaters are almost 100% efficient. At $0.15 per kilowatt hour (what we pay in NH) 1000 btu's of electric heat costs $0.044.
The public will soon figure out that plugging in electric space heaters and leaving the electric stove on 24/7 will be a cheaper way to heat the house next winter than to run the oil burner. Besides the electric utility companies are prohibited from shutting off your electricity during winter.
Sixty percent of the homes in New England heat with oil. There is no way the electric grid can handle the increased demand.
And Anecdote #7 is from an oil industry insider in Virginia (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)who is watching oil companies getting ready to drill some new wells in the Gulf of Mexico. This comment is confirming what I have repeatedly read elsewhere: that there are not enough modern, functioning off-shore oil rigs in existence at the moment to try and expand any efforts at off-shore drilling.
June 25, 2008
They're dragging rigs that were made in the late 40s off the fence line, patching them up and sending them out....and there still ain't enough. Never mind the bottlenecks around too few people to run them, too few mechanics to service them, people living in tents, and on and on. Months and months of lag time because they can't get a part or something.
And people think drilling off FL is going to bring gas down by September....
Anecdote #1 is from Mr. Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)himself (the only one here by him, in fact). This was his recent and weird experience on Northwest Airlines. (Anyone have any theories as to what the REAL problem was with that flight?)
Feb 20, 2008
Death of the Airline Industry
I had a two-hour layover in the Twin Cities for my connection to Duluth. As it happened, though, they didn't board us until 6:00. We pushed back at 6:30, taxied out to the runway, and then sat there for another hour. About halfway through that wait, the pilot got on the PA and said they were "waiting for their numbers."
A half hour later he came back on the PA and said the plane was "over its weight limit" and we had to go back to the gate and drop some people off. Huh...? This was a small regional jet. There were 12 rows of two across, and there were a few empty seats. So, we get back to the gate and we sit there for another half hour while a technician comes on board with a clipboard and palavers with the flight crew. It's now two hours past the original schduled departure time. So even if we left that instant, I'd miss my connection to Duluth and be stuck in the Minneapolis airport all night. As it happened, the pilot asked for 13 volunteers to get off the plane. (There was some grumbling about the obvious illogic of a plane designed with 48 seats being unable to carry 36 passengers... but let's not even go there....) If they couldn't get 13 volunteers, the pilot said, they'd cancel the whole flight (and then everybody would be fucked, I inferred). I got up with a bunch of other volunteers -- thirteen, finally -- and straggled off the plane.
I actually don't know if the plane ever did leave. It was still parked at the gate when I finally left the airport at 9:30.
Anecdote #2 is from a farmer in South Africa (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_SouthAfrica.html), commenting on the slow erosion of South African life due to the past three years of a steadily mounting and unrelenting energy crisis in that nation. His general observation is that it was such a slow, gradual process that no one really noticed --much like, he explains, the frog in the pot of cold water that is brought to a boil in such slow incremenets that the frog doesn't notice and eventually dies. I want to say that I was at first tempted to highlight in red font all the truly disturbing things he was so whimsically relating. But then when over 50% of the entire anecdote was nothing but red, I decided to just set it all back to black again and let the man speak for himself.
February 4, 2008
It began with a few potholes in the roads, the odd interruption to the water supply in the suburbs, a couple of days with strike action preventing the delivery of municipal services – no garbage collection, protest action disrupting the mining industry and picketing & toy toying at shopping malls…It continued over the next couple of years, largely with disregard for the disruptions, a little irritation to daily commercial and home life by the lack of service provision in food, gas, water and power.
In recent months, at the receivables end of the supply chain, there was a little aggravation at the delays, the lack of service, the shortage of a few consumer luxuries in the retail shops…, ‘but hey, what the hell, this is a great country, we cannot fault the lifestyle, the weather…’. For a couple of months, perhaps a year back or so, there seemed little or no reason to change our way of life, our lifestyles…a little further down the road and the disruptions become more frequent, we learn to cope, learn to accept the rising cost of living, gas supply shortages in the Winter of 2007, the intermittent water disruptions, the odd power outage and the potholes. Potholes may well be the singular measure of the calamity we are in or about to face.
But the cracks that are now evident are tell tails signs, not only of the effectivity of the New South Africa and an explanation of the path traveled to this point in time, but more of what is promised for the future. And the future may be more a by product of global issues than issues unique and unfortunate to South Africa.
In the up market suburbs, not least to say generally all over the urban landscape, there is not a 1km (1/2 mile) strip of tarred road that is not full of potholes (hugh gapping holes, across which vehicles cannot drive), the roadside curbs are disintegrating, the road maintenance programmes over the last 10 years have failed to maintain the roads in a serviceable and passable state. The nation is gripped in a crisis of rolling power outages caused by the incompetence of highly paid government ministers and their charges. The news of the weekend is that the nation is in dire straits with the supply of clean, drinkable water to households and business alike.
The rolling power outages are resulting in about a 25% national power outage per month. The ramifications of this can be related directly to an income loss of the same amount, retail supplies are being interrupted and from a security point of view it is dangerous to shop in malls. The Electricity Supply Commission – ESKOM are indicating a forced reduction on power usage by 10%, further, the mines have been told not to work on Fridays.
It is not only that ESKOM have not maintained or expanded their operations in the last 15 years, but the next big whammy is that there is no coal to keep the power stations running…at most times, there is a couple of months supply of coal onsite for electricity operations, today there is hardly a few days supply. Incidentally the reason given for this catastrophe is that the trucks delivering the coal have been unable to get to the power stations as the road infrastructure has deteriorated- potholes again. In the Afrikaans language: ‘slaggate’ – a direct translation to ‘slaughter holes’. As this is written, we wait for the next couple of days to see the effect of the ‘coal emergency’.
At some point the effect of the power emergency on water and sanitation supply should be considered and this would be part of the roll out of unexpected events resultant of the collapse of the power supply, but the water board have usurped the power supply with homegrown problems of their own…
So here we have it, 43% of the dams have safety problems and are in danger of collapsing. Further to this, the ground water in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, has radioactive contamination from mining operations.
Now, as a matter of interest, Johannesburg is one of the few cities in the world that is built on a hill and water has to be pumped up into the city!!!
And what of the peoples reaction? Complacency does not even come close, the nation is either brain dead or ignorant, or just plain ‘frog in a pot’ of water with the temperature rising.
The first reaction to the power emergency took the form of a rush for candles, refilling of gas bottles and the purchasing of generators (if you could get them). Then the complacency set it, business learnt to sit through power outages, retail shops were forced to close their doors for a few hours a day. There was and is a shortage of food supplies, food went bad in the fridges and had to been thrown away. It was kind of charming in a strange kind of way, to eat dinner by candle light and forgo the ‘soapies’ on TV. Traffic lights were out over a large number of suburbs and delays in getting to business meetings became the norm. The schools are unable to teach a full day’s lesson. The internet service providers and the mobile phone companies’ frequently have service delays or are just plain ‘off line’. The battery runs out on your laptop and that’s the days productive work is over until the power is back on…Patients in ICU or undergoing operations, as the power grid went down, were at risk of and did, die.
I proffer that the events in South Africa, tragic as they are, as they play themselves out, will give a good indication of the events that the USA and other countries will realize in the years to come.
[Ha! Just as I finish this, guess what… the power is out, the battery life in my laptop is about 5 mins, so at 11am, I cannot be productive for the rest of the day… the networks are down, so this cannot be mailed for the moment.]
Anecdote #3 is from a man employed at the headquarters (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)for the US Dept of Agriculture in Washington DC.
March 17, 2008
I'm writing you this email to tell you something which I find pretty disturbing. USDA is the second largest federal office building in D.C. It is massive, with hallways that stretch for three city blocks on seven floors, and one block the other way on each floor. For the last few months, every other overhead light in the halls has had their bulbs removed. Sometimes, two lights in a row are dark. It's bright enough to walk down, no doubt, but still noticeably darker. Moreoever, each floor has two banks of elevators at each end, with three elevators per bank. For the last few months, one elevator at each bank has been put out of commission. Further, employees are now forbidden from putting space heaters in their offices, which many have done because the heating in the building has been turned down to a level where even I, a descendant of hardy Russian peasants, feel cold.
What does this tell me? It tells me that the government of the United States of America is having difficulty paying its utility bills. Think about that.
Federal offices cannot keep all the lights on, or keep the heat sufficiently high. (We'll see what the air conditioning is like in a few months, when D.C. turns into a humid swamp). This is what one expects of Third World governments, not the USA.
Anecdote #4 is from a pilot for a major US airline (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html).
June 6 2008
. . . United is parking 6 - 747s and 94 - 737s and somehow doing that by only eliminating 1,100; Continental announced today parking 67 airplanes and shedding 3,000 employees. US Airways President Kirby met with West pilots in PHX last week, and when asked about furloughs, was told there is a hot evaluation going on inside the company, and to expect to hear The Plan in two weeks: so that's 7-10 days from now. Kirby made a strong point when asked, that there were still too many empty seats for airlines to be able to charge what it costs to provide the service, ie, pass on fuel increases.
Anecdote #5 is from an American railroad employee (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt_trains_and_planes2.html)about his witness to the slow disintegration of the American train system over the years.
June 6, 2008
Jim,
Below is one of the many "news flash" items I get from the local union reps.
I thought this was worthy of your time and attention, due to the fact it so accurately sums up the REAL problem our nation faces with any immediate passenger train introduction.
In the most simplistic of explanations, we've not only scrapped route miles, but also the vital subcomponent of track density on what routes are still extant. In scrapping the density we've created a physical rail plant that by its very design makes no allowance for passenger trains to do what they are supposed to do; pick up and drop off passengers without bringing everything else to a stop!
Just this past twenty four hours I took a load of Honda automobiles down to Cincinnati. Upon arrival in Cincinnati, I parked my train at "Tower A", next to a tied-down (parked and crewless) coal train. The coal train was sitting on the only remaining track with platform, of what was once a 26 track with platform and concourse attached to the Cincinnati Union Terminal. In effect there was no freaking way for any passenger trains to pick up or disembark passengers, on the only fucking platform in all of Cincinnati! Not until that coal train had a crew and then possibly, maybe by chance, get clearance to move on and out of the way.
In reality, beyond what the 'news flash" talks about, I'm telling you the freight railroads have left only the bare minimum track density needed to accommodate the few intercity Amtrak trains still operating.
(signed)
"Anonymous"
FREIGHTS HOBBLE AMTRAK
(The following opinion article was published by the Transportation Research Board's Intercity Rail Passenger System's Committee.)
Amtrak, our national intercity rail passenger network, may be America's longest running act of despair.
The Bush administration, which calls Amtrak a relic of the past, is direct and vocal in its desire to starve Amtrak of federal funding. Major freight railroads, which host intercity Amtrak trains, are more circumspect in their public comments, but equally anxious to vanquish those pesky passenger trains, which interfere with more profitable freight traffic on increasingly congested mainline track -- capacity reduction occasioned by freight railroad mergers and line abandonments.
If Amtrak were seen as a more efficient operation, its critics would have fewer opportunities to pull the feeding tube, and its supporters would find greater acceptance for creating a consistent and reliable federal subsidy for Amtrak.
The most visible and nagging of Amtrak's problems are intercity passenger trains that do not and cannot run on time because of operational conflicts on freight lines.
All but 730 miles of the 21,000-mile Amtrak system are owned, operated and dispatched by freight railroads. Those freight railroads consider Amtrak's payments for track rental and on-time bonuses as relatively minor sums that are unlikely to influence operating priorities. In the words of a Union Pacific official, "Waving money in front of us isn't going to fix the problem, because the reality is, you have a lot of freight trains out there."
This being the case, the Bush administration's proposal to fix Amtrak -- through a public-private partnership involving the states -- lacks merit. As Amtrak's former president, David Gunn, observed, "What is the point in providing additional funds for new state-supported rail services if those trains are just going to suffer the same congestion and dispatching problems that befall Amtrak's current trains?"
If opinion leaders and decision makers are serious about keeping intact a national intercity rail passenger network (and Congress keeps reminding us that any breakup of Amtrak will so erode political support for Amtrak that federal funding for even the Northeast Corridor will dry up) then the starting point should be improving the level of service over freight-railroad owned track.
Practically, this means the enforcement of the initial Amtrak contract signed by the freight railroads in 1970, which enabled them to avoid (at the time) an almost $1 billion annual cost of operating passenger trains -- approximately $5.3 billion in 2007 dollars.
At that time, the freight railroads voluntarily and vigorously embraced legislation in which they pledged to give Amtrak trains preference over their freight consists. And you can look it up: U.S. Code 49, 24308(C). In fact, Amtrak intercity trains utilizing freight railroad track most often run late (only 61 percent of such Amtrak trains run on time, and many arrive seven and eight hours late).
As long as there are no penalties for delaying Amtrak trains, the freight railroads have every incentive not to give them preference.
Some may suggest that turning Amtrak over to the private sector would largely solve the problem, but consider the observation of Gunn's successor at Amtrak, former Union Pacific Vice President Alexander Kummant: "It is an intersection of a subsidized structure with a truly private-sector structure, so how do you coexist?"
Amtrak and freight railroads must coexist, because an aging U.S. population, growing highway and commercial aviation congestion, and greater demand for intercity mobility, require an effective and efficient alternative to automobiles, buses and airplanes.
The one corridor where Amtrak does perform mostly on time is the one corridor it owns: the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Between Washington and New York, for example, Amtrak's share of end-point travelers has grown from 45 to 54 percent since 2000.
Amtrak is capable of operating its trains efficiently -- thus our suggestion that the Amtrak debate shift to a focus of freight railroads giving Amtrak trains the priority handling the law requires in order to build a firm foundation for Amtrak political support and the consistent and reliable federal funding that would follow.
Anecdote #6 is from a New Hampshire resident (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)who has been number crunching his utility bills and sees trouble ahead for the power grid in New England.
June 25, 2008
Beware the Electric Grid this Winter
Jim,
I just did the math. The Northeast Electric grid is going to collapse next winter.
A gallon of home heating oil is 130,500 btu's and oil burners are 80% efficient. At $4.50 a gallon 1000 btu's of oil heat costs $0.043.
A kilowatt hour of electricity is 3413 btu's and electric heaters are almost 100% efficient. At $0.15 per kilowatt hour (what we pay in NH) 1000 btu's of electric heat costs $0.044.
The public will soon figure out that plugging in electric space heaters and leaving the electric stove on 24/7 will be a cheaper way to heat the house next winter than to run the oil burner. Besides the electric utility companies are prohibited from shutting off your electricity during winter.
Sixty percent of the homes in New England heat with oil. There is no way the electric grid can handle the increased demand.
And Anecdote #7 is from an oil industry insider in Virginia (http://www.kunstler.com/Grunt%20Archive.html)who is watching oil companies getting ready to drill some new wells in the Gulf of Mexico. This comment is confirming what I have repeatedly read elsewhere: that there are not enough modern, functioning off-shore oil rigs in existence at the moment to try and expand any efforts at off-shore drilling.
June 25, 2008
They're dragging rigs that were made in the late 40s off the fence line, patching them up and sending them out....and there still ain't enough. Never mind the bottlenecks around too few people to run them, too few mechanics to service them, people living in tents, and on and on. Months and months of lag time because they can't get a part or something.
And people think drilling off FL is going to bring gas down by September....