Lex Anteinternet: A Fossil Fuel Free Future is Here.

Lex Anteinternet: A Fossil Fuel Free Future is Here.: This was obvious, but will remain unrecognized for quite some time, for the same reason that coal is almost dead, but people don't grasp...

A Fossil Fuel Free Future is Here.

This was obvious, but will remain unrecognized for quite some time, for the same reason that coal is almost dead, but people don't grasp it.

Average people's ability to really grasp an existential change in something is pretty poor as a rule.  It's not so much that people choose to live in the past as it is that they have no grasp that the past of their younger lives and of their parents lives, the latter of which a lot of people hold to in a sort of mythical way, evolves.  We see that a lot in the U.S. right now.

The entire imaginary economy of Donald Trump is one that's grounded in a mythical 1970s, when he was young and clubbing and men lusting after girls in their teens was basically okay, du e to the sexual revolution.  MAGA, for its part, imagines a mythical 1950s economy, not understanding why the economy of the 1950s was the way it was.  In both instances, and particularly in regard to the 1970s economy, things were not as rosy as imagined.

Coal has been dying ever since the Royal Navy went to oil for ships.  We've discussed that before here:

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

Labels: boats and ships, British Navy, Coal, Daily Living, Industry, Lodging, Mid-Week at Work, Petroleum, Railroads, Transportation, U.S. Navy, United States Fuel Administration

Coal is not coming back.  In fact, it's demise is accelerating.  Lot of the globe, including China, in spite of what a demented Donald Trump thinks, is racing towards renewables.  Trump can't really imagine it as he's 80 years old and in the 70s there weren't very many big windmills, although even then there was a push towards renewable power.

Indeed, that push was started by the Arab Oil Embargo and people have been working on the technology ever since.  Now renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels for power generation.  Only nuclear can compete.

Every since the 70s engineers have been working on electric vehicles as well. Their day has arrived.

And Donald Trump started a war that will accelerate the pace of this change, rapidly.  Trump might end up being recalled as the greenest President ever, accidentally.

The change just won't be a switch to clean electrical power, and that switch is rapidly coming and no amount of John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman calling for the mythical "clean coal" will stop it.  It's also going to be a switch away from the sort of vehicle based economy we have now.  People aren't going to stop owning cars, but already a younger generation really isn't all that enamored with them.  Self driving vehicles, as much as I hate the idea, are coming in. With them will come self driving semi tractors and more importantly, in my view, remotely driven electric trains.

There's no reason that railroads can't be controlled like giant model train layouts.  Model trains already provide the model for it.  We're not far from that day.

That day is coming now whether Donald Trump, Harriet Hageman, John Barrasso, or people with an emotional tie to fossil fuels like it or not.  Your livelihood depending on it won't matter either.

It's already happening.

Railhead: UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.

Before the highways were decent:

Railhead: UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.: The great UP 4014 is making the rounds of the West/ UP 4014 Rounding the Corner Outside Rock River, WY 2026.  MKTH Photo. This is my favorit...

UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.

The great UP 4014 is making the rounds of the West/

UP 4014 Rounding the Corner Outside Rock River, WY 2026.  MKTH Photo.

This is my favorite engine.  It's the third time I've seen it. Every time was accidental.

MKTH Photo.

MKTH Photo.

Big Boy UP4014 in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  MKTH photo.

MKTH photo.

MKTH Photo.

MKTH Photo.

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado...:   I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know! I've been looking into local passen...

The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

 

I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!

I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel.  What I found is that I knew very little about it.  Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it.  I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.

I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH.  the result is fascinating.

It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily.  This article takes a look at it.

What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas.  I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station as viewed from in front of Denver's Oxford Hotel.

 

 

Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered.  It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern.  In fact it probably does.

Jersey Creamery Inc.

The trip took 19 hours.  It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc.  The train moved about 34 miles an hour.

We'll look at the return trip first.  The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning.  Uff.

It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.

Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming

What I imagined?  

Not really.  And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad.  This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior.  That makes piles of sense, really.  Of course there would be.  How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?  

It simply hadn't occurred to me.

In my imaginary trip., that'd be it.  If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock.  Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.

What about the other way around?

Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper.  Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse.  The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne.  Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours.  The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure.  So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews.  That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense.  Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.

By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.

These times are almost unimaginable now.  When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9.  I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.

And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive.  Normally that takes me a little under three hours.  I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.

Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?

Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them.  They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple.  Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather.  Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had?  Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster.  It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.

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