Track electrification has served society well for about 120 years and where it exists, it will continue to contribute for many years more. But the cost of adding electrification to a rail line is two to four and a half million US dollars per mile of track. Hydrail electrifies the rolling stock without this expense. You don’t have to be a plant extensions engineer to see how this will play out. What needs a lot of thought is how best to manage the daunting transition.

A comparison is in Stanley Kubrick’s movie classic, “2001″ when the haywire computer has trapped astronaut Dave in the pod without his space helmet. He must blow the hatch and survive a few torturous seconds of the vacuum of space to regain the mother ship and resume an odyssey to a better future.

We are secure in a “pod” of track electrification but can’t stay indefinitely. There is a daunting hydrail “vacuum” until the new technology hits the market. Minimizing the duration of the vacuum is probably the least unpleasant option open at this point.

I think H2 rail would be great– but ANY rail is better than either trucking or air freight. But I wonder if diesel and electric rail can’t compete favorably with trucking, how will H2 rail?