Oil-fueled transport during the transition phase

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 21 Jun 2005, 09:16

Each day on my way to work I pass two things that stand out as good examples of viable oil-fueled transport during a post-peak transition phase.

One is a busy freight rail line - a quick google suggest most such trains are hauled by single 3500bhp (!!) locos and often contain about 1000 tons of goods. If you take out of the Uk the huge pile of valueless consumer good that make up a big slice of freight and you move most of the rest onto rail then the tail-end of the North Sea would likely keep such trains running for a very long time.

The other is a local chemical factory that is sited along side a canal - they have started taking deliveries of (very likely) some nasty chemicals from a large canal tanker. They seem to have one delivery per week. Unusual that this makes commercial sense today...
I believe such canal tankers can contain 200+ tons but need only approx 100bhp to move.
Very likely this tanker is from Goole docks (near Hull) and I would guess it only takes one day to get to this local factory. Such a delay is seemingly acceptable to this firm today so would very likely be totally acceptable to others in a post-peak world where road tankers (you'd probably need 5 for each canal-tanker load) cost a FORTUNE to hire.

Anyone got any comments on these or any other similar ideas?

grinu · Post by **grinu** » 22 Jun 2005, 21:21

You need much less energy to move on water than you do on land so it makes a lot of sense. Also, on water there's the possibility of using wind, but not sure on what scale it would need to be.