The Benefits: A Cleaner Environment

High-speed rail means you and your family, friends, and neighbors breather cleaner air and help mitigate global warming. Spanish officials estimate the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line will save an estimated 77.9 million liters or 490,000 U.S. barrels of oil annually, and eliminate 169.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – one of global warming’s biggest causes – from entering the atmosphere.

Less Air Pollution

Fuel-powered vehicle engines, all of which use some type of petroleum, primarily emit three types of harmful gases: Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), carbon monoxide CO), and nitrous oxides (NOx).

Assuming eight 110-mph trains between Chicago and St. Louis each day, compare the emissions of rail vs. those of air and car per passenger per mile:

Tons / Millions of Passenger Miles

Pollutant	Rail	Air	Car
VOC	0.084	1.582	0.703
CO	0.703	2.619	5.981
NOX	1.214	1.164	1.955

110-mph rail would produce fewer of each of the emissions than cars, and less of VOC and CO than airplanes.

Better Fuel Efficiency

Completing the Chicago to St. Louis corridor would save more than 6-1/2 million gallons of fuel each year.

If, in 2010, our transportation choices remain as they are today between Chicago and St. Louis, the four available modes would use almost 82 million gallons of fuel. If eight daily 110-mph Chicago-St. Louis round-trips were available fuel consumpstion would be reduced to 75 million gallons.

90% of the travel between Midwestern cities is actually by car. The amount of fuel saved could be significantly higher if a greater number of those drivers than predicted choose the railroad instead of driving.

Emissions-Freight

Railroads transport more than 40% of our country’s intercity freight "ton-miles" (one ton hauled one mile), but account for just 9% of NO2 freight emissions. That’s because a typical truck emits about three times more NO2 than a typical locomotive per ton mile.

Congestion-Freight

Freight trains often carry highway truck trailers or containers. Each of these "intermodal" trains can remove up to 280 trucks from our highways. Trains carrying the goods themselves can remove up to 500 trucks from our highways.

Fuel Efficiency-Freight

Per ton-mile, various studies have shown that a freight train uses between one-third and one-ninth as much fuel as trucks.

You can learn more about the environmental benefits and fuel efficiency of trains at The Climate is Right for Trains.