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Trains

Efficient: Books That Explain Train Travel In North America

October 9, 2008

Train travel is one of the most efficient forms of transportation. However, in North America, traveling by rail is not particularly systematic or comprehensive. It’s difficult to get an overview of what’s available. Thankfully, there are several good books on North American train travel, which I read recently. Here’s a brief review:

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Biogas: Producing Ultra-Efficient Fuel From Sewage

August 24, 2008

We could be generating huge amounts of power from sewage. The process is fairly simple — just ferment sewage to produce a fuel called biogas. Biogas is almost entirely methane, and so is natural gas, so the two are essential interchangeable. The potential to produce biogas is almost entirely overlooked by most countries — except [...]

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Allison Rogers: Commuting Overnight By Train: Efficient

April 24, 2008

Train travel — it’s an efficient form of travel that really should revived in this country. Air travel, as we know it today, doesn’t make much sense, if closely examined (although I’d like to see zero-emission planes and airship-based travel). But I digress — Allison Rogers, an optimal living trailblazer, has been commuting up and [...]

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Highly Efficient “Kid Friendly” Trains

December 9, 2007

I’ve never been on a train like this. Here are two superbly designed trains from Japan, that take the idea of ‘child-friendly public transport’ to the next level. Designed by Eiji Mitooka, the two trains seen here are the ‘Omoden’ (toy train) and ‘Ichigo Ec’ (strawberry train). They are a couple of regional trains [...]

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High Speed Trains For The U.S.

April 24, 2007

We are exchanging post with the Ecotality blog today. This post looks at Europe’s expanding high speed rail systems:
While America’s leaders fiddle around and our rail seems to go down in flames, Europe is strengthening its rail system. Two interrelated items to consider: High-Speed Trains are expanding in Europe and are cutting travel times, and [...]

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