Riding the rails
Transportation week
Top: The NYC subway sometimes emerges to become an “aboveway,” opening up expanses of roofs and rivers, neighborhoods and graffiti messages to the world.
Middle: One of the pleasures of many Asian trains, including this one in rural Thailand, is being able to open your window at a station, reach through, and buy homemade local specialties sold and prepared by individual vendors.
Bottom: The sad state of American rail lines means it takes longer to get from Vermont to NYC or DC by train than to drive. The argument is often made that Amtrak fails to make a profit, a criticism never leveled at far more polluting roads. This image, of course, is of a freight train. The line runs right through the center of Montpelier, and hauls massive blocks of grey granite from nearby Barre’s quarries.
As for freight, I looked up fuel requirement per ton-mile for rail vs. truck. It appears that rail is about 3.5 times as efficient as truck, or expressed another way, a truck uses 3.5 x as much fuel per ton-mile as train.