Long Standing

As the days drag into weeks, oil continues its rush from the Gulf floor to the ocean above. The politicians point fingers, the residents along the Gulf Coast question response times and commitment, and the coastline waits for the slick to make landfall.

Amidst the chaos and noise, the economy of the region hinges on the effects and success of the spill containment. Oyster beds dot the area, shrimp fishing is common place. These are the economic realities that coexist with the environmental impacts.

The world economy thrives on readily available oil products that move cars, heat homes, even form the backbone for the many plastics that are relied on every day. In 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy reported that 28% of the U.S. energy use was consumed by the transportation sector alone [1]. Much of the transportation sector consists of internal combustion engines operating on the Otto or Diesel cycle. The staggering consideration is that many of these engines are only 35 to 40 % efficient [2]. For every gallon of gasoline consumed, nearly two thirds is wasted.

The remnants of one alternative is a long standing one, found out under the big skies of Montana. Now just a relic left in only a few places, the Milwaukee Road's electrification represents a different choice. In the photo above, the old line-side poles coexist with the catenary poles along an old stretch of mainline. Trains have not passed this way since 1980. Electrified trains have not passed this way since 1974. To many, the Milwaukee's decision to cease electrification cost the company its existence: on the eve of the fuel crisis of the 70s, the highly efficient electric lines were turned off, the powerful locomotives sidelined and scrapped.
This brought America's Resourceful Railroad back into line with all of its competitors and counterparts, ending the alternative means of propulsion at a time when it was, perhaps, most critical.

There are decades that span the gap between the crisis in the Gulf and the Resourceful Railroad's path to the west coast. Yet, at least in my mind, the events are linked in some strange way and the decisions that have been made have unarguably led us to this point. What will the next several decades hold? Is there any room for the long standing alternative still seen in lonely stretches of the West? Perhaps. Although it is unlikely that a Little Joe will be under wire any time soon.

1)EIA. Annual energy review 2007. Technical report, Energy Information Administration,

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/contents.html, 2007.


2)C. Ferguson and A. Kirkpatrick. Internal Combustion Engines. John Wiley and Sons Inc., second edition,

2001.

Comments

OMA said…
Disconnects seem to happen when a concept appears when the world around is engaged in an alternative which, at the time, seems to be more attractive: ie cheap oil vs high capital investment in electric. Looking back, it does not make sense, but in the absence of a critical mass of like thinkers, some very good ideas fall by the wayside. Timing is everything!
5/07/2010 05:33:00 AM
SDP45 said…
I went out and looked for the depot at Ralston, WA 2 weeks ago, and it finally seems to be gone, after spending so many years away from the right-of-way in poor shape. One more piece is gone.

Dan
5/08/2010 03:44:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Place Where She Only Sleeps

Image
 Location: MP 1566.8 Grant-Kohrs Ranch Not far from Deer Lodge, headed west on the transcon we arrive here, at Grant-Kohrs Ranch where the Resourceful Railroad only sleeps.  Instead of empty right of way and scattered gravel, steel rail still binds the land in this place that is unlike the many other hundreds of miles along Lines West.  Across the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, on federal Park lands, the railroad only seems to rest and slumber while waiting for a new time to come.  Against the backdrop of Montana clouds that hold no rain, the catenary poles can still be found here standing against the endless skies.  The lineside poles that mark an era of railroading now gone still hold to the right of way.  It is not hard to imagine them whipping by outside the windows of an Olympian under the electrified power of a Quill or Joe.  Perhaps an XL Special could easily whisk across the scene above as though decades had never passed. Things don't seem so forgotten or beyond hope in a place like th
Read more

Rock-a-bye bye bye?

Image
There are footnotes to history and there are chapters. Dependent on your perspective, sometimes those footnotes deserve a book unto themselves. As the economy sagged in the seventies, railroads were hit hard. The East saw a general collapse in the form of Penn Central. As the seventies wore on, the PC would be combined with several other bankrupt roads to form Conrail, a government backed corporation who's sole goal was to save rail transportation in the eastern half of the country. Collapse worked its way through the western lines during these years as well. The Milwaukee Road pulled out of the West just over 30 years ago at the beginning of March. Bankrupt and reeling, its retreat to the Midwest would last only a few more years until its absorption by Soo Line. Its competitors in the West and Northwest managed to hang on, but healthy balance sheets were not to be found in the board rooms of the Cascade Green lines in those years. The Rock Island had a long flirtation with
Read more

Hidden in the Trees

Image
 MP1613.1, Ravenna, MT.  Substation 9  I once met the man who owned the old Substation at Ravenna.  In one of those strange twists of history, so I'm told, it was supposed to be torn down and sold for scrap as the bricks had value.  But the original sale didn't work, the scrapper never came and it remains standing near the howling roar of I90 to this day. I90 is just one part of  the U.S. system that moves upwards of 90% of freight by truck and highway.  But tucked in amongst the tall pines like a mirage, Ravenna looks out blankly towards that interstate and shouts quietly back about a different time. The year was 1972 and General Electric had put together a unique proposal: completion of the electrified railway portion of the Milwaukee Road.  In a formal proposal, offered by GE itself ("Proposal for the Completion of the Electrified Railway Operation of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company") via the Locomotive Products Department, the proposa
Read more