17 Responses to “It’s tubular, dude – Tubular Rail that is”

1. 1 John Michael Spinelli on September 13th, 2008 2:24 pm

   Thanks, Jill, for helping to spread the word about Tubular Rail and the important role we think it can play in Ohio’s plans to restore jobs and prosperity to a state that has clearly lost a lot of both.

   Current rail plans in Ohio and across the nation are trying to chase European technology, which for us in the States is astronomically expensive because we’ve squandered our rail system and to catch up to them will call for hundreds of billions of dollars that Washington or Columbus doesn’t have. Instead, our visionary, affordable, clean energy and environmentally friendly technology can leap frog us to an innovation that can work for both passengers and freight.

   Tubular Rail is seeking partners, public or private, to help our “Trackless Train Technology” get on track here and elsewhere. We are now being considered by the Port of Los Angles as a new way to deliver increasing numbers of foreign ship containers being delivered to the Port of Long Beach northward to LA. Ohio has seven ports, so if LA is interested in us, we think Ohio ought to be interested in us.

   In contrast to all other train schemes — magnetic levitation or bullet — which need new lines, dedicated track and roads and bridges to travel over, we don’t need either of them. Right off the bat, we think our capital costs are 50% or more less.

   The reason why don’t we have even one mile of “high speed” train travel here, even after 30 years of a state rail development commission, is because the costs are astronomical and only headed higher.

   Thanks for putting us in play. Ohio media has been asleep at the switch on our story, even though they can’t put out enough stories on the trivialities and inanities of this year’s presidential contest.

   With Tubular Rail, Ohio has a chance to be home to a new industry of jobs — which we sorely need now — that could retrofit our state with a new transportation infrastructure that can give us a huge competitive advantage by connecting regions and cities like never before. And every where Tubular Rail goes, we can carry on board cell phone service, broadband Internet, solar cells and green energy. So even though we are designed first to carry people and goods, we can also carry communication technology.

   For a state whose leaders are tireless at saying innovation is the turn key to the future, we’re some what curious as to why my knocking on the doors of key state decision makers has gone unanswered.

   We are confident, nonetheless, that the compelling features of our patented “Trackless Train Technology” will rise like cream to the top of the milk bottle for anyone who sees what we are offering.

   We’re hoping to generate enough buzz and excitement that a meeting of potential stakeholders — investors, manufacturers, construction and engineering firms, software developers, commercialization specialists, among others — to understand why they need to get on board Tubular Rail now. Otherwise, the kind of rail service (and we may not even qualify as a “railroad” since we don’t need tracks to run on) being talked about now will likely remain decades off still.

   With a Federal budget deficit in the hundreds of billions and a state budget looking into the great abyss come 2009, don’t expect help from those quarters any time soon. We are less expensive and can be built out in a matter of years compared to decades. Ohio has an opportunity to birth a new industry. If it’s really looking to create jobs, it needs to look at Tubular Rail.

   If any reader has entre to any person, group, company or institution interested in moving our concept forward, you can get your ticket punched by contact us at ohiotubularrail@gmail.com

   All aboard!

2. 2 Anon on September 13th, 2008 4:37 pm

   Intriguing technology. It would be interesting to see ballpark estimates of Tubular Rail total costs per mile, compared to other approaches. (I couldn’t find any on the Tubular Rail web site.)

3. 3 John Michael Spinelli on September 13th, 2008 8:27 pm

   Anon: I can help you out on cost per mile comparisons. According to research we’ve done on the capital costs of current train technology, from light rail to high-speed to bullet trains including “Mag Lev” systems, Tubular Rail is a magnitude less expensive than any of them because we don’t need to build roads or bridges; our system is 95% airspace.

   High speed rail lines (greater than 120 miles per hour) are in the range of $60-100 million per mile. Mag Lev technology speeds along at $150 million per mile.

   Further comprehensive engineering studies and eventual design build scenarios lead us to believe we can do our for $20 million per mile, a magnitude less expensive than current schemes.

   San Francisco LRT: $98 million/mile.

   Orange Co. Centerline Rail (partially elevated): $124 million/mile

   Houston Light Rail: $65 million/mile.

   Dallas: @ 20 miles of system at $53 Million/mile.

   Los Angeles: @ 14 miles of system at $62 Million/mile.

   Proposed) University of Minnesota/ Minneapolis/St. Paul: @ 11 miles at $81 million ($892 Million Project cost).

   Cities with Post WWII Light Rail Systems:
   Portland
   Houston
   San Diego
   St. Louis
   Baltimore
   Denver
   Dallas
   Salt Lake
   Sacramento

   Cities with Pre-WWII Light Rail Systems:
   Boston
   Philadelphia
   New Orleans
   San Francisco

   40 cities nationwide currently with streetcar desires or plans; 12 have existing lines.

   July 2008: 2.75 million Amtrak riders; most in 37-year history.

   South Carolina moving forward with state rail plan.

   Also, California voters will have Proposition 1A on the November ballot, a $10 billion, 700 mile, high-speed, dedicated passenger rail line that if passed would be the first down payment on the state’s proposed $45 billion plan.

   Ohio rail funding is premised, unrealistically in our opinion, on an 80/20 federal/state ration. California thinks it will be lucky if it pulls down as much as 30% federal funding. So Ohio ought to swallow hard and open its eyes to the realities of these staggering figures — which we don’t have and won’t have — and open their eyes and minds to Tubular Rail technology that can dramatically lower the capital costs.

   Just yesterday a rail accident between a freight train and a passenger train, not unlike the collision that made Casey Jones famous, killed and injured lots of people.

   This would never have happened with Tubular Rail because one of our asset features is it is “grade separated,” meaning it can’t run into you and you can’t run into it. Security and Safety are strengthen with us, compared to grade-level systems that can run into each other.

   JMS

4. 4 Carole Cohen on September 13th, 2008 8:33 pm

   My suggestion (and this sounds very cool!) Is to get the Ohio Hub going since it’s already in the pipeline and take it from there. As development gets planned and ‘done’ along the rail stations, this could be a great way to go.

   I checked Urban Ohio to see if they had any info but so far can’t find anything. I just contacted three of my fav train people to ask their opinion and I provided the link, Jill.

5. 5 Anon on September 13th, 2008 11:31 pm

   Mr. Spinelli, many thanks for the information. Tubular Rail’s numbers look very nice.

   BTW, if your list of cities with light rail systems is intended to be comprehensive you might want to consider including Cleveland’s Blue/Green lines.

6. 6 John Michael Spinelli on September 13th, 2008 11:33 pm

   Our marketing strategy is not to denigrate other forms of transportation, like traditional rail, or plans like the Ohio Hub Plan. But you must understand that the Ohio Hub Plan is based on traditional “steel wheel on steel rail” technology. We don’t use steel tracks, so we don’t need expensive right-of-way, like Amtrak-style trains, which means our technology is of a totally different nature.

   The Ohio Rail Development Commission was started in 1994, as an outgrowth of its forerunner, the Ohio Rail Development Authority, ,which was started in the mid 70s to promote and build high-speed rail in Ohio. It’s now about 33 years later, and even though hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions have been spent to develop plans like the Ohio Hub plan, we still don’t have one mile of high-speed rail to show for it.

   I encourage you to read the Ohio Hub Plan in detail. If you do, notice the following: 1) It’s operational year, if all presumptions and assumptions go according to hoyle, is 2025; 2) The plan admits to a level of accuracy and detail that could be off by 30% +/- (but with costs rising along with inflation and fuel costs, I’d rather not make that wager); 3) The capital costs used in the plan are, by the author’s own admission, in $2002; 4) It presumes 80% federal funding (not a chance in the world of that happening); 5) and state funding that doesn’t isn’t “harmful to the state’s biennial budget;” It is contingent upon other federally sanctioned rail corridors, each of which is projected to take 7 years to build; 6) a very revealing chart shows that, even in the year 2025, when the system is operational, of the 11 city-to-city trips that compare the time getting from one place to another by car versus high-speed train (110 miles per hour — not federally designated high-speed rail), 9 of those trips still have the train arriving 15 minutes or so slowly than a car; and 7) and the state cost, based on $2002 is nearly $5 billion.

   What’s this all about? What’s the point? What’s the purpose?

   Germany rail operations, a Gold Standard for railways, says that people will move from their cars to trains if the train ride can cut 50% off their travel time. The Ohio Hub Plan, driven by trains that run $18 million each, fails miserably on this measure. People look to airplanes when distances are over 400 miles, but with jet fuel prices rising as high as a 747, the costs to the flying public are escalating, meaning consolidation will take place and small regional airports, like Dayton or Toledo, will suffer in the process because it will be too costly for an airline to fly into them. This is already happening. Here in Columbus, where we have a long history of one airline after another coming, setting up shop and then disbanding after the business model proves unprofitable, air traffic is already down.

   The cost of retrofitting traditional train rails to high-speed trains is difficult and costly. Freight rails can’t safely and securely accommodate traditional railroads without improvements. The Hub Plan admits that grade crossings between Cincinnati and Columbus, for example, are numerous and add lots of cost to the project.

   Given our observations of the Ohio Hub Plan, we don’t really think it’s a realistic, achievable plan, despite it’s “in the pipeline” status. A Tubular Rail system, for reasons of cost, ease of construction and not needing a railroad bed or bridge to operate can be built out and operational and making money for whomever owns it 15 or more years ahead of the train system outlined in the Ohio Hub Plan.

   So we think Ohio, if it really wants to start to expands its logistics and distribution infrastructure to include passenger and freight traffic, absolutely has to look at us carefully. We would propose to Ohio that more engineering be done and that when it comes back as “all systems go,” we receive a commitment from the state to build a 2-mile “proof of concept” track.

   Moreover, where the Ohio Hub Plan can’t compete with us at all, but what should be uppermost in the mind of any Ohio leader thinking about jobs, is that our entire system can be built in Ohio. Remember, all the bullet, MagLev or light-rail train parts come from Germany, France, California or some where other than Ohio. For every mile of Tubular Rail built, Ohio will gain hundreds if not thousands of jobs. The Ohio Hub Plan speculates that maybe about 16,000 jobs will be created in their 2025 plan. We can deliver a system and the jobs needed to build that system in fewer than 5 years.

   As a personal note that’s a bit humorous but shows my passion for Tubular Rail technology, I just got my Golden Buckeye Card this February. One arrives in your mail the month before you turn 60 years of age. Frankly, when I read plans like the Ohio Hub Plan that project to 2025 or beyond, it just doesn’t work for me. My life-line clock is ticking and all of us at Tubular Rail would like to leave a legacy of our technology to the world while we’re still around to enjoy it.

   If the Strickland administration heeds the call of those who have fresh ideas to restore jobs and prosperity to Ohio, one of which is to give metropolitan planning organizations the funding and authority to make regional decisions, we think Tubular Rail would represent just-in-time delivery of a transportation infrastructure program that leap frogs traditional rail and deliver paying jobs that can provide a meaningful, realistic alternative to driving a carbon-based car, while creating paying jobs that help refill the public revenue tanks of the state and its various subdivisions.

7. 7 Carole Cohen on September 13th, 2008 11:54 pm

   Mr. Spinelli you are very enthusiastic and I like that. While there are certainly people who know more about The Hub Plan I’m pretty aware of the details for the average person and it’s been a passion of mine for a few years now.

   Having said that, I think there is always room for ways to save money, especially as far as light rail is concerned. We have a vast system of steel rails all over this country that we can tie into with The Hub, but that doesn’t preclude your idea from moving forward and helping us save money in places where there are no rails, if in fact after it’s been built somewhere it proves to be as cool of an idea as it sounds. I share your frustration about how long things take, believe me. Keep us posted as to the State of Ohio’s response.

8. 8 John Michael Spinelli on September 14th, 2008 12:12 am

   Indeed, as you say, there is room for all of us. But our “trackless train technology” represents the “black swan” of passenger and freight rail traffic. Black Swans are unforseen events that have a major impact on the status quo. We think our technology, since it was patented in 2006, wasn’t on the radar screen of people who planned the Ohio Hub Plan. But we’re here now, and we think we ought to move to the front of the class for all the reasons I’ve cited in my posts. When a game-changer enters the field, the existing players must take notice and adjust accordingly. With a little help from the media, even during this tense and hard fought presidential campaign, you’ll hear from us, one way or another.

   The blogosphere, of which Jill is a major player despite her arguments to the contrary, will find and give lift to a story that main-stream reporters may not pick up on, which seems amazing given they have no problem writing about all things great and small, which is the purpose of a newspaper. We’re news. We hope the newspapers recognize that fact soon.

   I’m hoping to meet with ODOT officials soon, if they would just give me 30 minutes of their time. I’ll even bring the PB&J sandwiches.

9. 9 Stu Nicholson on September 14th, 2008 12:28 am

   John,

   You say your strategy is not to “denigrate” other forms of rail, and yet that’s exactly what you wind up doing. That’s hardly a way to win friends.

   You’re asking the State of Ohio to completely shift gears in mid-stream for an untested concept that has no protortype in operation.

   The service envisioned under the Ohio Hub can use state-of-the-art rail technology to achieve high-performance speeds of 110 mph. True high-speed rail, which is found virtually everywhere else in the world is now pushing speeds in the mid 200’s to over 300 mph and is on it’s third generation of that technology.

   Elevated mag-lev is moving along in fits and starts at best and the costs are keeping it from advancing.

   This is not to say tubular rail is a bad concept, but at this point, it doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on other than the word of the man who developed it.

10. 10 Stu Nicholson on September 14th, 2008 12:42 am

    It is worth noting also that I work for the Ohio Rail Development Commission. The Ohio Hub Plan is one of the passenger rail plans we are developing and both Governor Strickland and ODOT are in full support of the Hub Plan, including the funding for the planning process.

    At Governor Strickland’s request, the ORDC is also advancing start-up, conventional speed Amtrak service in the 3-C (Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati) Corridor to re-introduce passenger rail service to most of Central Ohio. Governor Strickland has committed to obtaining funding for the state’s share of such service.

    The ORDC believes that taking incremental steps toward more and better is the best strategy the state can take. Each step sets the table for the next improvement in both speed and service. It is a tried and tested approach in states like California, Illinois, Maine, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin and other states.

    We are also on the cusp of realizing the first-ever federal passenger rail funding program in Senate Bill 294. This funding can greatly elevate and accelrate passenger rail development in Ohio and the nation.

11. 11 John Michael Spinelli on September 14th, 2008 12:44 am

    The Wright Brother’s technology didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, either, until it took off. We don’t see ourselves as any different than them. All we want is funding to test fly our idea. Then we’ll let the market place work its magic.

    I’m not denigrating traditional rail, as you imply I am. I’m just stating the facts in the Ohio Hub Plan, nothing more, nothing less.

    The question arises from your comment as to why the rest of the world has high-speed rails but we don’t, even after all these decades. One answer is cost. Another is the power of the auto industry and, up until now, affordable fuel. Those days are changing rapidly, and we’ve appeared on the scene. For a relatively small price compared to the costs already sunk into scads of transportation plans, Ohio, or maybe another state for that matter — and we’re not picky about what state we’re developed in — would know what our technology is all about; whether it does what we say it can do. You are correct, I can’t take you in a Tubular Rail car today, but that’s the point of our campaign. As I told you when I first presented the technology to you in July, if I could tap Richard Branson or Paul Allen, I would, and I’d sidetrack government officials who, for better or worse, are risk averse even though they talk a good game about innovation and the like.

    I also mentioned to you as I left your office that the very presence of the world “rail” in your agencies name implies a bias toward “railroads,” which is exactly what we don’t need but what costs so much that we have little real passenger rail options available to us.

    I apologize for stating facts directly out of the Ohio Hub Plan, but they are what they are. And while the technology in other countries may be more advanced, on future generations, we can’t say the same for Ohio. So while the legs of the Ohio Hub Plan may be substantial, given the time, effort and cost of developing it, those legs haven’t produced a statewide rail system and I don’t forsee those legs moving us down the track to any great degree in the foreseeable future. Thanks for commenting Stu. I know you are a big fan of rails. I’m still waiting for a time to present to the ORDC board.

    It’s hard to win friends and influence people if we’re not given a chance to show what we can do. Banging on the big door of the status quo is all we’re doing now. No offense intended. We play well with all modes of transportation. That’s one of our strengths.

12. 12 Sparky on September 14th, 2008 9:00 am

    The facts about the Ohio Hub plan being what they are, the Ohio Hub is going to cost less than $10 million/mile, since it’s using existing infrastructure. You say your technology costs about $20 million per mile.

    Given Ohio’s budget situation, I’ll take the cheaper one, which is based on a proven technology that is currently being utilized successfully in many states.

13. 13 Ed on September 14th, 2008 9:38 am

    I noticed that the pictures on the Tubular Rail website don’t show this thing going around any curves. In every picture, it’s always traveling straight as an arrow. How does this technology go around curves? Just curious…

14. 14 Bill Hutchison on September 14th, 2008 10:49 am

    Please allow me to interject a bit here. I hate to sound like a luddite, but over the years, we’ve seen one pie-in-the-sky scheme after another come and go. Invariably, they were based on the latest technological glitz and ended up going nowhere and proved to be nothing more than a distraction.

    Maglev, monorail, 500 mph underground high speed tubes and God-knows-what-else have dazzled and then fizzled. In my view, this looks like more of the same.

    This proposal looks a lot like maglev and if it does and has many of the same advantages we might ask why aren’t more maglev lines being built? One reason is that steel-wheel high speed rail has been refined to the point where maglev offers little advantage. I suspect the same would apply to the tubular train idea.

    There are a lot of technical questions concerning this proposal, but I’ll leave that to others. I can see a couple of problems at first glance, though.

    One is the fact that this technology is incompatible with existing rail systems. In other words, passengers will be forced to transfer to continue their journey, in many cases, and that loses ridership. One of the advantages of the TGV is that it might run on high speed tracks, but can operate over a conventional rail line to an off-line city.

    Another is environmental. What about the esthetics of supports which look like a row of upside down fly swatters marching off to the horizon? NIMBY’s and Enviros might not be too keen on that.

    I think that as we move into a new era of high energy costs, we are going to be faced with having to find ways to move the masses at the lowest cost. Upgrading or expanding existing or little used rail lines will likely be the best bet. Likewise, we will have to focus on proven, off-the-shelf technology to accomplish this.

    I’m not even talking high speed rail here. I’m talking about keeping the country moving under rapidly changing conditions. This proposal won’t do that, but what is going on with state rail programs around the country is a start.

15. 15 Bill Hutchison on September 14th, 2008 11:04 am

    How indeed do these trains go around curves?

    And while we’re at it, what happens if a train breaks down? Is the entire line shut down because no trains can pass the disabled vehicle? What about passengers stranded high above the ground in one of these things? How do rescue and repair crews get to this train if it’s high above gound?

    What about energy efficiency? How would this technology compare with other forms of transportation?

    A final point. Even though we’d have a series of towers rather than a conventional right of way, there will still be property acquisition costs, especially in urban areas. Land will have to be acquired for the supports and that might mean removing bildings. Terminals will require still more land and all of this will probably be subject to a rigorous environmental review.

    Again, I think it’s smarter to go with proven, reliable technology.

16. 16 Stu Nicholson on September 14th, 2008 12:17 pm

    BTW: If anyone wants to learn more about the Ohio Hub Plan, here is the website:

    http://www2.dot.state.oh.us/ohiorail/Ohio%20Hub/Website/ordc/index.html

17. 17 Ed on September 14th, 2008 2:37 pm

    They have a very general but long-winded explanation on their website of how it turns. For the general public to understand, you’re going to have to simplify your explanation, too. Anyway, let’s cut to the chase: what’s the tightest turning radius that this can do? (I’m asking for specific numbers here).

    Another question: It appears that there is a pretty tight tolerance for keeping the vehicle aligned with the pillars. It seems like any shifting or settling of a pillar could cause it to come out of alignment. Exactly how much can a pillar be out of alignment with out creating any problems? (I’m asking for specific numbers here too).

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