Rail Ferries

[Rev Blair]

I'm trying to flesh out this idea a bit.

 

The situation:

 

I often have to travel back to my home province. Usually this entails taking two dogs, a wife, and a bunch of carpentry tools, so I need to take the truck.

 

I also need transport when I get there, since most of my relatives live in rural areas and there is no public transit available.

 

I know a lot of people who make this kind of trip, either for family or business.

 

My idea:

 

My idea is for a rail ferry. You drive to the rail station in Winnipeg, put the truck on a rail car and sit either in the truck or in a passenger lounge until the train gets to Regina. You can take all your stuff with you, and you have a way of getting around when you get there.

 

You could do this all across Canada and likely the US too.

 

A lot of the infrastructure is already in place...the rail lines are there and the trains move already. We'd need facilities for loading cars and trucks onto trains and we'd need to build or modify rail cars for the purpose.

 

The rationale:

 

The rail companies already do this with semi-trailers and cargo containers to some extent, but this would be for people and personal vehicles.

 

We use an incredible amount of fuel and emit a lot of GHGs to travel in personal automobiles. Getting most of the salesmen, technicians, tradespeople, and vacationers off the highways would save a lot.

 

It deals with a lot of the objections, real and imagined, to using public transit.

 

So how hard would this be to do?

 

You'd need some way off locking the vehicles down, I think. The cars would have to be enclosed so people wouldn't fall off. The price would have to comparable to the cost of driving for people to use the service. You'd need regular service, but there's no reason I can see why a car or two couldn't be hooked on to existing trains.

 

Obviously I've missed a lot of things. I'm not sure about the engineering that would be necessary and have no idea how to calculate savings in emissions, for example. The logistics of loading and unloading vehicles belonging to people who can't parallel park most days could be a problem.

 

Then there's dealing with the rail companies. CN has been a nightmare of brutal ignorance ever since those guys in Chicago bought it. CP is no better...some would say that it's worse.

 

I think these things can be dealt with though.

 

What have I missed?

[ecoli]

can't you just, you know, drive the truck, or take the train?

[Realitycheck]

Sounds pretty expensive. How many cars can you fit on a car, maybe 6? You must compare it to how much they can get for using this car to do other forms of business, like shipping a container as usual, or a car full of gas or coal.

[Pangloss]

Actually as I understand it most automobiles have been on a train at some point in time (at least in the US). That's how they typically get from the factory or shipping port to the region, at which point they're reloaded onto a truck for local delivery. Trucks are just too small to carry enough cars to make cross-country shipping in that manner efficient, so trains do the job most of the time.

 

(That's why if you get a new car you have to clay it immediately to get off that really fine, gritty, metallic dust that settles on the finish from the train ride.)

[Rev Blair]

can't you just, you know, drive the truck, or take the train?

 

I do drive the truck. So do thousands of others. We haven't got a lot of choice. I'm looking for a lower emissions option.

 

Sounds pretty expensive. How many cars can you fit on a car, maybe 6? You must compare it to how much they can get for using this car to do other forms of business, like shipping a container as usual, or a car full of gas or coal.

 

That's one of the things I'm wondering about. If it costs more than driving, it won't work. People won't use it. If it costs about the same though, I think a lot of people would.

 

There's already plenty of rail traffic, so it could started by adding cars to trains. I think that you could realistically get 10 to 15 vehicles on a rail car, depending on the size of the vehicle, if you went with a two level design.

 

Actually as I understand it most automobiles have been on a train at some point in time (at least in the US). That's how they typically get from the factory or shipping port to the region, at which point they're reloaded onto a truck for local delivery. Trucks are just too small to carry enough cars to make cross-country shipping in that manner efficient, so trains do the job most of the time.

 

(That's why if you get a new car you have to clay it immediately to get off that really fine, gritty, metallic dust that settles on the finish from the train ride.)

 

Ah, see I wasn't aware of the metal dust thing. That's the kind of thing I need to know.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

All you have to do is re-use the type of train that goes through the Channel Tunnel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurotunnel_Shuttle

[insane_alien]

yep eurostars been doing that for a while now. i've never been on it myself(used the boat kind of ferry) but it works.

[tvp45]

A little more luxurious, but it's been around for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train

[Rev Blair]

Ah, so this already exists. Which makes me wonder why we don't have it already. Canada is way bigger than any of the routes described in the links. Hell, the relatively short trip I was thinking about is longer...and quite possibly duller...than those in the articles. It would seem to me that this would be a natural here.

[CaptainPanic]

It's quite common in Europe. People takes these trains to go on holiday.

In case anyone has plans for the near future in Europe: you can book your trip here: http://www.dbautozug.de/site/dbautozug/en/start.html

 

Another train which takes loads of cars: the eurostar train connecting the UK to mainland Europe. (Was already mentioned in replies 6 and 7).

 

I agree that the other side of the Atlantic should be using the train a bit more!