One Way To Conserve Energy...

...would be to reinvigorate our passenger and freight railroads. In Europe, rails are a prime method of transport. In this country, railroads, especially passenger service, have been trashed due to Americans' love affair with the automobile. That will have to change.

If you do any amount of highway driving, you probably have had some scary moments with trucks. On the New Jersey Turnpike, there are car only lanes in the Northern part of the road, thankfully. I'd like to see less trucks on the road and more use of rail for transport of both freight and passengers.
Read the following to see how railroads can help with our energy problem:

If 25 percent of truck traffic were shipped instead by freight trains, by 2025
the following benefits could be achieved:
• The average person traveling
during peak periods would save 44 hours per year (equal to more than to five
8-hour work days) as the reduced truck volume eased traffic congestion. In the
most congested urban areas, annual savings could exceed 100 hours. Nationally,
we would save 3.2 billion hours of delay.
• Fuel consumption would be
reduced because of faster speeds and more fluid traffic flow on the less
congested roadways. Diesel and gasoline fuel consumption in 2025 would be an
estimated 17 billion gallons lower than it otherwise would be - equivalent to
more than 250 gallons annually per motorist.
• The savings in travel time
and fuel would yield significant economic benefits. A typical household would
enjoy $620 per year in reduced congestion costs, equal to $44 billion overall,
in urban areas nationwide.
• Air quality would improve thanks to an
estimated 900,000 fewer tons of air pollution, including lower levels of carbon
monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide (NOx).

This is from the "Go Rail" website, which can be found here.

Once again, where are our political leaders when it come to advocacy for his sort of thing? Probably, they are securely in the pocket of trucking industry lobbyists.

PHOTO: One of our historic boat houses has its own attached lighthouse!

Jim