Where Did America’s Electric Railroads Go?
This is perhaps one of the most unfortunate things to happen to America, and that is switching to diesel fuel for locomotives.
I’ve always loved trains growing up as a child. I used to ride the steam locomotives in New Hampshire up to Lune Mountains every fall. I collected train sets and helped build scale models that worked in people’s backyards. Many don’t know this but the trains we are using today are far more damaging to the environment in terms of emissions than in the past.
The first locomotive in America was built by George Stephenson on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. This was followed by the John Bull locomotive imported from England in 1831 by Robert Stephenson & Company. These first locomotives ran on a carbon neutral biomass.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients
As you can see they ran on wood, and later on we switched to coal for improved performance. Let’s talk about coal for a second. the US Energy Information Agency reports that bituminous produces when burned 205Btu of CO2 per pound. Diesel fuel produces 161Btu so not that big of a drop, especially when you factor in the emissions from the diesel refineries. Both diesel and coal when burned release nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Not to mention that a good chunk of steam engines ran on oil not coal dating back the 19th century. Heating oil has around the same emissions as diesel. Even more to mention would be to ask what produces more emissions? A steam engined train carrying 200 passengers, or 200 cars idling in a traffic jam on the Los Angeles freeway?
However we can even look closer and see that coal produces more horsepower. An SD90 diesel engine puts out 6,000HP. The Big Boy steam powered train built in 1941 for example pumps out 7,000HP making it a more efficient design. We really made the switch not for environmental reasons but because it saves costs. Even though to this day you have environmentalists wanting to ban steam engine trains which unfortunately actually did happen. We have even started driving our trains with natural gas which is far worse than coal, because now you factor in methane emissions from the gas industry.
However, I will now get to my point. There was an entirely new technology sweeping the nation in the 19th century. You see there was once a time in America when a lot of major train routes produced zero greenhouse gas emissions. Not carbon neutral, zero. This is sort of a forgotten piece of history. Many people believe we discovered the light bulb and electric transportation came later. In reality, the only reason the United States became an electrified country was because of trains. You see railroad companies were the original electric companies, and with every town they passed through they brought electricity to the community.
Yes my friends I’m talking about the electric train. By the 1910’s we were well on our way to switching over from steam powered by coal to electric lines. Some great examples were “Milwaukee Road” that cost $60 million, equal to $1.71 billion today to build in 1927 with 207 miles of electrified track. The project was never finished with plans to expand all the way to the Pacific ocean. Some more examples are the largest electric lines ever built spanning 438 miles, the Rocky Mountain Division. The Great Northern Railway was well on its way to becoming fully energized by the 1930’s.
Many of these trains were powered by hydroelectric plants in the area. Electrification in the US reached its maximum of 3,100 miles in 1935. However, government regulation by FDR put this innovation to a stop. We entered a Great Depression and he came into the White House with a plan to nationalize the electric companies to obtain more tax dollars.
“Judge me by the selfish purposes of these utility leaders who have talked of radicalism while they were selling watered stock to the people and using our schools to deceive the coming generation. My friends, my policy is as radical as the Constitution of the United States. I promise you this: Never shall the Federal Government part with its sovereignty or with its control of its power resources while I’m President of the United States.” — Roosevelt (1932)
You see, prior to President Roosevelt, railroad companies were the electric utilities. They were fully privatized. This meant that electric trains could be financially lucrative because railroads were simply a tax write-off. Railroad companies would use money gathered from utilities to support the railroads during slow periods when their rails were not in use. This was considered okay in return for railroad companies building infrastructure. Hence during the Great Depression and prior to WWII, they were essentially paying zero federal taxes on their railroad business when times were slow.
This was the relationship that existed in America from 1830–1935. However in 1935 President Roosevelt signed two laws. Public Utility Holding Company Act and the Rural Electrification Act. This followed a 1906 Supreme Court ruling that broke up Northern Pacific Railway. What this essentially did was break up railroad lines. It essentially banned railroad companies from controlling or owning utilities. From 1938 to 1958, railroad holding companies declined from 216 to 18. From 1940 to 1973, electrified railroads dropped from 3100 miles in half to 1778 miles.
This led to the closing and dismantling of Milwaukee Road after the industry switched to double-stack freight by the end of the 70s, and hundreds of planned railroad projects. In the year 2020, only 122 miles of solely electrified track carrying freight are left. There is no way else to look at this predicament. With time we have seen what government regulation in this case has done to carbon-free trains. America has seen a 97% decrease in electric rails. We have made it not financially lucrative to build green railroads anymore. The Heritage Foundation ranked the United States #18 on the score of economic freedom in 2019. Switzerland ranked #4. Hong Kong ranked #1.
The United States currently has 4 industrial electric lines left in America, and 16 commuter lines left in operation around the country making up 994 miles of electrified line. Switzerland in comparison has 9 industrial rail lines that move freight, and over 120 commuter lines making up over 3,000 miles of electric line. Keep in mind Switzerland is 38 times smaller in population than the United States. China has 52 electric lines spanning over 56,000 miles, consisting of at least 2,800 pairs of bullet trains that can reach speeds of 217mph. United States today ranks #33 for size of electrified rail infrastructure. Behind Iran, North Korea, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and far behind Russia. Yet in the 19th century we were first place.
List of countries by rail transport network size — Wikipedia
A more visual representation is if you take the entire population of the European Union which is around the same as the United States. You get over 72,000 miles of electrified track, while the United States has 994 miles today. Also, keep in mind that these electric lines could be powered by solar, wind, nuclear, and hydroelectric plants. America could have a much cleaner grid, and in fact, had much cleaner trains two centuries ago. The United States population has more than quadrupled since the turn of the 19th century, yet railway infrastructure measured out in mileage has decreased in half since the year 1916.
I believe this is a serious discussion we should all be having. If we have any consideration for decarbonizing America’s energy grid, we need to include trains in the transportation conversation. It is an extremely underutilized category of America’s infrastructure, and where we were once the winners we are now the losers of an important technology.
