Some of you may know that I have been a railroad enthusiast for most of my life. I will always remember visiting my grandmother's home in New York state, and running out to watch the double-track rail line running literally in the backyard every time I heard the rumble of an oncoming train. For most of my childhood, I had a model railroad of some sort in the basement (it was never good enough as it was, I was always tearing it up and laying a new design down onto that sheet of plywood).
The other week, I brought all of my model railroad stuff over from the basement of my parents house, and am looking forward to taking inventory of what I have and seeing what I can do with it in the basement here. I used some of my birthday money to subscribe to Model Railroader and Trains magazines.
I was thinking about the rise in gas prices, and what a perfect opportunity this would be for railroads to make a comeback. Yesterday, when I logged on to check my Yahoo mail, there was an advertisement for the Norfolk Southern Railroad. It was mostly a public awareness ad, appealing to economy and environment: 1 gallon of diesel fuel can haul 1 ton of freight 410 miles by rail. It includes a little video clip. Pretty cool!
It's just too bad that with the construction of the interstate highway system, a lot of the old railroad rights-of-way were torn up and sold off. To bring the current railroad infrastructure up to speed will take many years and millions of dollars. Transfer facilities will have to be constructed so that local trucks can be used to haul freight from the train to it's final destination (most of today's industry has no rail accomodations, either because the rails have been torn up, or because the facility is new enough so that it never had the option of rail access). The numbers that NS has on it's website are based on projections for the year 2025.
So, as a railroad enthusiast, I am glad to see some of the railroad companies taking a proactive approach, and seizing this opportunity to increase public awareness of an economical, environmentally friendly way to haul goods across the country!
Now, if only there were more options for long-distance passenger travel by rail...
