Quote:
Originally Posted by CivicBlues
Cant' really compare Canada with countries with a European propensity for train travel (yes that includes Russia, Morocco, Uzbekistan). But hey, at least we don't suck as bad as Australia or practically all of Latin America.
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Heh. The Aussies don't even have the same gauge of rail for lots of their system. You'd need several different stops to get between the states.
Notwithstanding the time factor, I'm curious how the energy cost works out vis-a-vis air travel. Diesel locomotive aren't light, but they do have minimal friction losses. I guess it would come down to passenger load and distance - a lightly loaded version of the Canadian would probably be worse than one fully loaded aircraft. It would likely be better than a car (even one at capacity), though.
Edit: found some stuff on Wikipedia, so YMMV.
A320 with 150 seats full going ~4,000km =~2.43L/100km/passenger
Reasonably efficient car with 4 passengers ~2L/100km/passenger. Double that for two people.
Train: ~0.5L/100km/passenger (I'm curious how applicable this number is to VIA's various routes - I'd suspect it would be accurate for a commuter train, but a lower-capacity long-distance train would be somewhat worse)
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