Sorry, didn't read this statement correctly the first time. I took you to mean that you had a high mpg vehicle that you could not maintain on your own.
Well, if you've already gotten in your mind that the product offered is a POS, whichever product you've looked at, I doubt we'll get very far into this convo. People with large weights to be hauled are obviously going to be saddled with larger, less fuel effecient vehicles.
Where there is a will, there is a way. If we as consumers create the demand for local food, it will be fufilled. Will our food supplies change much? Probably not. At least not with the crazy subsidies we hand out yearly. If we wish to keep discussing the merits of encouraging local foods, I suggest we move it to another thread.
Actually, its the best alternative we have available. Most of the infrastructure, as far as right-of-way and major industrial connections are there. Improving what we already have is mostly all thats needed. Well, and a system to seperate the freight from the passenger timetables to make rail travel appealing.
With more reliance on rail we'd be taking the large cross country trucks off the roads. They would be replaced with local drivers making the deliveries from the local depots and vice versa. Jobs still there, local now infact. Goods still delivered. And it would take less fuel, helping to ease our reliance on foreign evergy.
Doubt it. Unless we're the ones starting it. Everyone else is making money off it being so expensive.
Bongaroo, I'd like to point out a couple of things, especially with the farming scheme. Firstly, many of the large cities' in the U.S. are not really in ideal locations' for farming, or have expanded so much that the arable land has been paved over. Take Los Angeles, for example. They used to grow Oranges where Disneyland is now, But as soon as you come from the direction I live in (North of L.A.) and drop into the San Fernando valley, the only thing's growing green are lawns. The city has spread up to, and actually up, the foothills. To find any open land that would be farmable, you would have to go over to the coast near Ventura or Oxnard, which are both still pretty heavily built-up) Or way south, into San-Bernadino...these places are over 100 miles' or more apart. You're still gonna have to use fuel to move anything from a local farm even close to city markets.
Then, there's water. LA county depends' on water from the Sierra Nevadas, HUNDREDS of miles to the north, Via the california aqueduct. Nevermind farming; It's everything Water districts can do just to give Angelino's water for their baths' and lawns. I'm not sure what the water situation is in other cities, but I do know that L.A. hurts in the summers.
As to rail...It does have one major drawback. That is time; It can take a BNSF freight train, such as the ones' my Brother-in-law runs, an entire day simply to go from someplace like Bakersfield to Barstow. I used to be able to make the same run in a FLD-120 Freightliner running right at 80,000 pounds in less than 5 hours; The same from Bakersfield to San Fransisco, If I didn't stop. It takes AMTRAK 12 hours from here to the Martinez station, and it run's at 80 m.p.h., and that's with no holdups, due to freight schedules, or anything else. Trucking has been, and more than likely, will continue to be, the way to go for freight-especially if it's something that's time sensitive, such as refrigerated loads' from places like the Imperial Valley, or whatnot.
