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Author Topic: Benefits of Rail Travel
EmpireBuilder
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I've read messages on this board for quite awhile but just now registred so this is my first post. I have a request that I hope someone can help me with. I'm a college student trying to do a report on the economic and environmental benefits of intercity rail travel. So far my search hasn't produced many results, and I was wondering if any of you would know a good source for this sort of thing. Any type of source from internet to book to magazine article would work for me. The types of info I would want would be mainly numbers on not just someone going on a rant about the benefits without the support to back it up. Please try to help me out. Thanks.
Posts: 97 | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Ken V
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While some of the folks here can offer you much valuable information, if you want to be inundated with facts & figures I recommend posing your question on the Amtrak forum at http://www.railroad.net/forums
Posts: 149 | From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Mr. Toy
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The best place to go for raw numbers is the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

This page on their site gives energy consumption per passenger mile. Trains beat out EVERYTHING else including motorcycles for energy efficiency. Here's the page for that: http://www.bts.gov/publications/nts/html/table_04_20.html

After you look that over go to the top of the page and you'll find more tables of numbers for everything transportation related.

Next I will refer you to the Amtrak plan developed by the NARP. It includes a lot of facts and figures, and explains the benefits of rail transportation in terms the layman can understand. Download the plan in PDF format at http://www.narprail.org/plan.htm

Be sure to get the full plan, not the executive summary.

The October issue of Trains magazine had a great article on the economics of long-distance vs regional trains, busting a few common myths.

Another source of facts and figures along with an analysis of same can be found in the Selden Plan at the United Rail Passenger Alliance http://www.unitedrail.org

The California State Rail Plan at http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/rail/railplan/csrp.htm may also be helpful.

These advocacy sites may also be helpful:
American Passenger Rail Coalition, which is made up mostly of railroad equipment suppliers and ther related businesses http://www.aprc.org/index2.html

And the National Corridors Initiative at http://nationalcorridors.org Their weekly newsletter is loaded with all sorts of information.

That may be more than you wanted.
Good luck.

------------------
Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

The Del Monte Club Car


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CG96
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Another site to check out:
http://www.dot.state.wi.us/dtim/bop/rail-srp.htm

The Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation provides information here on the State Rail Plan and on past and future plan meetings and activities. It also gives contact numbers and addresses and provides links to other rail sites.
Also, there is midwesthsr.org, however, this site doesn't have as much information on environmental studies as the WiscDOT site does.
Two additional sites to look at are: www.prorail.com & www.wisarp.org

[This message has been edited by CG96 (edited 10-27-2002).]


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EmpireBuilder
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Thanks to everyone for your responses, it looks likt there should be quite a bit of good information that I can use from all that was supplied. Thanks especially to you Mr. Toy for that huge list of things you supplied. My compliments to you on your website, by the way. I found your descrpition of your trip to be quite interesting. Once again, thanks to everyone who tried to help me out.
Posts: 97 | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
   

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