this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

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Trains Are Cleaner Than Planes, Right? The surprising carbon footprint of an Amtrak trip across America. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 3 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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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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[–] elgordio@kbin.social 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] You999@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

For long haul amtrak is in the beginning stages of selecting a manufacture to replace the superliners with expected rollout in "early 2030"

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.

[–] elgordio@kbin.social 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the informative reply and the references. Very interesting!