Trains Are Cleaner Than Planes, Right? The surprising carbon footprint of an Amtrak trip across America.
Trains Are Cleaner Than Planes, Right? The surprising carbon footprint of an Amtrak trip across America.
The surprising carbon footprint of an Amtrak trip across America.
The big difference is of course that you can electrify trains, as has happened in much of Europe and Asia, but not for most of Amtrak
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One of the problems Amtrak is facing at the moment is a lack of rolling stock. The author notes that the California Zephyr was running full. It’s also running a shorter consist that it would have traditionally because of a lack of units. Increasing the length of the consist, assuming the engines can pull it, would reduce the emissions per seat. The ridership demand is there, the investment into Amtraks stock is, sadly, not.
the investment into Amtraks stock is, sadly, not.
Amtrak's investment into rolling stock is there however it hasn't come to fruition yet.
For short/medium haul amtrak has over 500 Siemens Venture cars (aka airo) on order with them starting service in 2026.
It’s also running a shorter consist that it would have traditionally because of a lack of units. Increasing the length of the consist
Amtrak right now is in a tricky situation which is why their running short consists even though there's demand for longer trains. The problem is there's a significant amount of damaged cars (63 to be expected, page 85) awaiting for repairs.
A lot of the issue amtrak is currently facing was directly caused by Trump slashing funding for amtrak in 2020 when amtrak needed it the most leading to amtrak to furlough 2000 employees which critically included mechanical employees. When amtrak should have been using the time to catch up on their maintenance they sadly fell behind and still have yet to recover.
Thanks for the informative reply and the references. Very interesting!