Heavy Vehicle Amendment - Act now

[Ixion]

'Course not, perfect safety record.

Over 100 years they've been around, and NOT ONE of 'em ever failed to come down.

Um, I don't like to disagree but the Hindenberg didn't come down. It went up.

[Ocean1]

Um, I don't like to disagree but the Hindenberg didn't come down. It went up.

Meh, it ain't up there any more is it?


Reminds me of a story about concrete submarines. Fucking good idea as it happens...

[Ixion]

Meh, it ain't up there any more is it?


Reminds me of a story about concrete submarines. Fucking good idea as it happens...

Well, yes, it is. Hydrogen, k'know. Lightest substance known. Probably what's left of the Hindenberg is spreading out past the orbit of Jupiter by now. Mixed with all the other interplanetary hydrogen of course.

[Ocean1]

Probably what's left of the Hindenberg is spreading out past the orbit of Jupiter by now.

That was just the ballast dude, all the freight is on tera firma.

[jono035]

The best point for electrification is that it doesn't really matter WHAT you use to generate the electricity, you still use it in the same way.

And even if you generate it from fossil fuels, it's still more efficient to generate at a centralised power station with careful emissions control and designed for a lot more efficiency. With good infrastructure the transmission losses are minimised so the total fuel to movement efficiency ends up favorable. Then, when you come up with some other form of generation (I was reading earlier that energy costs in some parts are at fuck all at the moment due to overflowing hydro dams, or maybe we'll finally figure out fusion) you simply supply that onto the grid, never mind converting all the engines to some other form of fuel/engine.

The other advantage is that it makes it a lot easier to do other things (less important for trains admittedly) like having brakes that recharge a capacitor bank rather than dump the energy as heat, which is where more than half the energy used by a car driving around town goes...

[bogan]

What's needed is for all you lazy youff type persons to get off y' chuffs and start inventing stuff.
Us old buggers, we've done our bit. We've invented shit loads of good useful things. Roads, trucks,airships, cars, motorbikes, petrol, pies, condoms, hamburgers, beer, wine, nachos, cell phones, crash helmets, false beards, sex,radar detectors, reticulated water supplies, democracy, spaceships, skull face masks, blow up dolls, two strokes, just about every useful thing y' can think of.

Time for you younger ones to do your bit and get on with inventing new useful stuff. Like anti gravity, matter translocation, taps that don't drip, inter galactic travel, that sort of thing. Should be easy , cos we've laid the foundations f' y'.

Just get on with it , okay.

EDIT: I left out roast dinners. We invented them too.

EDIT EDIT : Curry. that's another good thing we invented.

you guys invented two strokes, theres simply no way us yunguns can compete with that, i think may of us are disheartened and perhaps even afraid to try, but fear not ye olde citizens, im currently working on artificial intelligence at massey university, we have a great team there and should crack it any day now.

[NDORFN]

Ok ok I'm convinced.


Just one condition - show us a country with mountainous islands (like NZ) and small population, somewhere in the world where rail runs profitably. Without any support, subsidies, or protection. In fact just show us a profitable rail operation which serves any nation?

Indian Government Railways US$6.25 billion '07 - '08

That's one in the world without support, subsidies or protection. There are thousands more. Most rail companies throughout the world make annual operating profits in the billions.

In the mid 90's when Ed Burkhardt (from the Wisconsin Central, a massive American company) got involved and bought NZR and renamed it Tranzrail, they made profit. Quite alot actually. If you want to know what an efficient and profitable rail operation in a mountainous island with a small population looks like, google Tranzrail.

[Kickaha]

one train from a to b

50 trucks from a to b...

Most of the time your stuff is delivered by Truck Auckland to Chch long before the train even gets into town

Fuck the trains, they're to slow

I distinctly remember a sign (several of varying degrees of idiocy) on State Highway 27 between Matamata and Auckland (and I'm googling trying to find a picture of the freakin thing) saying something like 47% of all crashes involve trucks. But hey, statistics and full of it anyway!!

Does it say how many are actually caused by the trucks?

[James Deuce]

The best point for electrification is that it doesn't really matter WHAT you use to generate the electricity, you still use it in the same way.

And even if you generate it from fossil fuels, it's still more efficient to generate at a centralised power station with careful emissions control and designed for a lot more efficiency. With good infrastructure the transmission losses are minimised so the total fuel to movement efficiency ends up favorable. Then, when you come up with some other form of generation (I was reading earlier that energy costs in some parts are at fuck all at the moment due to overflowing hydro dams, or maybe we'll finally figure out fusion) you simply supply that onto the grid, never mind converting all the engines to some other form of fuel/engine.

The other advantage is that it makes it a lot easier to do other things (less important for trains admittedly) like having brakes that recharge a capacitor bank rather than dump the energy as heat, which is where more than half the energy used by a car driving around town goes...

We don't have a good electricity supply infrastructure (losses at 40% and up) and no political will to do anything about it. Trucks are key to our economy. Start using the trains for everything and watch supermarkets empty in a matter of days.

What about roading hubs constructed around railheads? Not there at present, so expect worse congestion if heavy vehicles are confined to a radius around current distribution infrastructure.

[Cajun]

Most of the time your stuff is delivered by Truck Auckland to Chch long before the train even gets into town

Fuck the trains, they're to slow

Trains from my work to akl, take little over 3 hours, a truck wouldn't be that much quicker

And we are moving 100's a day of containers north & south.

[The Stranger:Me]

Load gets lost on a siding and is suspiciously found empty a week later.

To those that are all nostalgic and yearn for the days of old - and those who have trouble working out which is the red and which is the green bling button.


Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. We had rail - it was protected (of necessity) it didn't work. That's life, get over it, move on, because rail hasn't.

Still going back and trying failed paradigms again and again seems to be a big part of life in NZ of late.

[NDORFN]

To those that are all nostalgic and yearn for the days of old - and those who have trouble working out which is the red and which is the green bling button.


Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. We had rail - it was protected (of necessity) it didn't work. That's life, get over it, move on, because rail hasn't.

Still going back and trying failed paradigms again and again seems to be a big part of life in NZ of late.

You're suggesting we encourage NEW paradigms to fail?. People who support trucks don't do so with any indepth logic behind thier arguement, they just argue for trucks because they're passionate about them. It's always the same old fall-backs "NZR failed, how would we get goods from railheads onto shelves, blah, blah, blah...". Never with any scope on WHY they failed, or how road and rail actually inegrate etc... Stop worrying truck-heads... there will still be trucks for you to put posters of on your walls and draw pictures of and make models of and generally idolise. There just wont be so many of them ruling the roads whilst chewing them up, and because there's less of them, each of your beloved boner-inducing rigs will be even more special

[Ixion]

NZR didn't fail. It actually succeeded very well. Thing is, the measurements of succeed and fail changed. NZR was set up to maximise the public good. It succeeded by that measure. But Rogernomics demanded that everything be measured by private profit. At which NZR (naturally) failed. Public good and private profit are almost always incompatible. Then of course Tranzrail failed the private profit test as well. Also not surprising. Rail systems are capable of generating large social dividends. They're not good at generating corporate dividends if they are competing with trucks and such like. Not because trucks are "better" than rail, but because everything about trucking exists to maximise corporate profit. Which is very seldom the case with rail. To assess whether Kiwirail succeeds or not, it is first necessary to decide whether it should be run to maximise private profit; or to maximise public good. I prefer the latter.

[Crazy Steve]

Mainly because the roads can't cope with these loads.

Damage done to the road rises exponentially with the weight. That's why in most countries there are VERY strict penalties on overloaded trucks.

1 x 55 tonne trucks will do a lot more road damage than 5 x 40 tonne trucks so the potential fuel savings may be outweighed by the cost of road repairs and the certain increase in lives lost due to poor road surfaces.

Essentially the trucks cause pretty much all the damage to the roads. Never mind bikes, your average family sedan caused feck all wear and tear in comparison.

Not true....I have driven 55Ton Semi with Quad trailers and 8wheeler semi........Dosnt do any damage...State one.

Now if you put that 55Ton on a Semi with a Tri trailer and a 6wheeler semi you might get some lifting of the road here and there...State one.

Crazy Steve..

[xwhatsit]

Essentially the trucks cause pretty much all the damage to the roads. Never mind bikes, your average family sedan caused feck all wear and tear in comparison.

Completely anecdotally, of course, but one can easily see an example of that just near where I live. If you're going north from Mangere Bridge and take the Neilson St exit, it curves around and goes back under the motorway, but not before going past little old Onehunga Port. There's trucks going in and out of there all day, to load the ships up and take cargo away.

There's a little section of road, about 200m long, which comes from the motorway and goes as far as where one must turn off the road and into the port. This strip of road -- and only this strip of road -- is the roughest, most horrible, rutted (?!), bumpy piece of crap ever. You can see the deep furrows in the road where the trucks hit the brakes before making a right-hand turn across the road.

Past the port, the road becomes a perfectly-sealed ordinary NZ road once more, free of surface imperfections.

That small section of road has been resurfaced twice in the last 18 months. Each time it takes roughly 3-4 months before it turns back into shit.


Ixion makes a good point. Public good vs. private profit... you don't charge money for hospitals. Treat rail as a public service, if you can't make it profitible. Lots of modern tech these days to reduce operating costs.