August 31^st 2007

Dear Editor,

You know I hate to be a nay-sayer, because I hate nay-sayers. But in response to the article dated Thursday, August 23^rd All Aboard, and Friday, August 24^th, Word on the Street, in reference to the idea of introducing passenger rail service as a viable solution to the crowded highways and freeways forgets that the highways and freeways were the very element that put an end to passenger rail service in the first place. (How quickly we forget).

If you put a little thought into a few of the facts, you may find that the people doing these studies and selling you on the idea of rail service may in fact be selling good ole fashion snake oil.

First of all, I am not a slave to the internal combustion engine and the oil companies. I happen to like the little internal combustion engine that runs my Buick, and I like my Buick, which I would point out, is my slave, and takes me from inside my home, (garage) to most anywhere I would like to go. Most anywhere! Something a train simply cannot do. Nor do I feel like I am held hostage by the oil companies, (which I own, via stocks). Quite the contrary, I feel I am held hostage by my own government who won’t let my brothers in the oil companies build new refineries, or drill holes in Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico so they can better bring me the products I desire, namely fuel for my Buick at a reasonable cost! So right off I reject your premise completely.

Let us examine a simple fact that no one selling rail-systems is going to point out, that a railway system is empty space most of the time. Think about it??? It’s that simple, a rail system is empty space most of the time. That is to say that at any given time, there are no cars on any given stretch of track, whereas on the freeway, empty space is at a premium. Empty space doesn’t move anything; you have to occupy the space to make use of it.

Now let us look at a few numbers:

If we take a twenty mile stretch of track (let say Clear Lake to Galveston), and we run a 4 car commuter, lets say with 100 passengers per car and run it three times in an hour and it operates at full capacity, you have moved 1200 persons 20 miles from station to station, with the transportation to and from the stations left up to the passenger. You have now made the government responsible for the right-of-way, the rail, the railcars (engines), providing fuel, operators, maintenance and cost of insurance. That is to say you have made me, the taxpayer responsible for all these cost. Now if you have an engine break down, which never happens of course, you have lost 33% of your capacity, or the ability to move 400 passengers, and if it breaks down in route, you have shut down it’s entire capacity. And let us not forget, the track, between runs, for twenty minutes, is nothing more than empty space.

Now let us consider that same twenty mile stretch, but we move over to I-45, Now bear with me here: If your average car is 16’ long and you provide 6 car lengths between cars at 60 mph, then you have 112’ per car, over a distance of 1-mile (5280’) you have room for 47.2 cars per mile per lane, times three lanes, that’s 141.6 cars per mile, now don’t forget, we have a 20 mile commute so there is room for 2832 cars over the 20 mile stretch of commuted road, times lets say 1.5 passenger per automobile, that comes to 4248 commuters, but because it continues to flow, we cycle that stretch 3 times in an hour which brings your auto count up to 8496 and your commuter count up to 12,744 per hour. But least we over look the fact that I-45 flows in two different direction at the same time, which means it has the ability to move another 12,744 commuters in the same hour going the opposite direction, thus we have double duty from the same corridor. You also can go directly from your home to your destination without changing vehicles. You have shifted the cost of the vehicle, the fuel, the operator, maintenance and insurance to the user, and not to me the taxpayer, lowering my cost, increasing my convenience as well as the capacity of the overall system. And if a car breaks down you have lost .00011% of you capacity or the ability to move 1.5 commuters. And God forbid, should there be an accident in route, traffic slows and goes around it, and when you slow, you increase capacity per mile because you reduce the amount of empty space, thus your ability to move commuters for the most part remains static.

My question is, what the h’ ell did they (Houston-Galveston Area Council) do with that $600,000 dollars they spent on the study? Just what the h‘ ell did they study? If this was truly a viable solution, I promise you the private sector would already be doing it. (Union Pacific already owns the corridor, the rail and has locomotives; all they need are passenger cars)???

Now if you want to talk mass transit, you just look anywhere you want in the world, and nobody moves people like the American Freeway, highway, byway, local road, street, avenue and drive system that our fathers put in place, for I can go from inside my house to most anywhere in the country (and Canada), and not have to walk any more that a couple of hundred feet when I get there. So be careful what you wish for, you may get it, and you will pay for it. So quit looking at what’s on the other fellow’s plate, and look at your own, it’s full, enjoy it and beware of snake oil salesman for they have the uncanny ability to make sh’ it, sound just like shine-ola.

George Henry Nichols