Travel by train
One very effective way to help alleviate global warming would be to bring back a railway system into the United States. Since the mass production of combustible engine automobiles, the country slowly and steadily began destroying track and train stations, discontinuing passenger service and using 18-wheeled trucks for the delivery of goods. Oil was cheap and good could be delivered directly to the loading docks of merchandisers.
However, this presented many problems that were ignored in favor of profit. Air pollution, additional highways that destroyed habitat and the need for frequent repair from the effects of the heavy vehicles were also problems that were made out to be beneficial. New highways and repairs created jobs, destroyed habitat was the price for “progress” and similar spin kept the issues swept under the rug until the global community began to realize the enormity of the problem.
Bringing back a rail system would relieve highway congestion and drastically reduce pollution, especially if it provided passenger service. Europe makes use of trains for goods and passengers very successfully, markedly reducing pollution as well as highway fatalities. Denmark hopes that in just a few years, they can be operating fuel cell trains that are powered by hydrogen waste thrown off by manufacturing processes or even power the fuel cells with wind. United States train line Burlington-Northern-Santa Fe Rail Road has partnered with Vehicle Projects LLC in hopes of having fuel cell trains by 2012. Setting up hydrogen fueling stations for train lines is a minimal expense, as trains are predictable and fuel calculations are very accurate. The environmental impact of passenger travel is significantly less when trains are used than any other form of motorized transportation!
With the return of rail travel, emissions would decrease drastically. Highways would need fewer repairs, thus using much less energy through heavy equipment as well as that needed to recycle the materials for the road. The huge eighteen wheel trucks that currently belch out pollutants and carbon dioxide as fast as they guzzle gasoline would be used only for short trips between trains stations and merchants.
Funds previously used for the catastrophic injuries caused by highway collisions could conceivably be diverted to environmental preservation should train travel become as popular and efficient as it once was. Insurance companies would save money and could afford to fund programs to research even more methods to reduce our carbon footprint on the fragile earth.
In the past decade, the average emissions per passenger from automobiles fell 8%, those from airliners increased 5% and emissions from rail travel fell a whopping 22%. New technology and fuel efficiency is powering modern railways and making it possible to go as much as one hundred miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. Compare the cost in oil and emissions to that of highway vehicles and there is a powerful case to be made for reviving train travel. Whether the purpose is to move human masses or quantities of goods, railroads may just prove to be the best solution for the planet, the economy, human safety and convenience.
