Life support is heavy

[bellinghman]

Inspired by a post by major_clanger, it's interesting to note fuel consumption for crossing Canada.

On the way out, The Canadian train from Toronto to Vancouver: 72,000 litres of diesel.
On the way back, WestJet 737-700 from Vancouver to Montreal (which is further): 13,000 litres of jet fuel.

The 737 carries 140 passengers.
I'm under the impression that The Canadian carries about 250 passengers in total, though I can't actually find figures.

Conclusion: per passenger mile, extreme long distance trains can end up burning more fuel than planes, due to the train carrying along bunk beds, showers, kitchens, etc., etc.

Edit: crazyscot pointed out some corrections, with most importantly the plane drinking about half what I'd assumed.

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yes. Still, there's going to be all that friction internal to the engine.

Hmm, I wonder if the use of twin engines means that the one of the two doesn't have to do this.

[vatine]

I suspect they're running on one engine at a time under "no load". The one larger ship (a cruise ferry on the Stockholm-Helsinki route) that I've looked inside more closely (A Silja Line ship, can't remember the exact ship, though) had four massively huge 12 cylinder diesels, running between 1 and 4 constantly, at the peak-efficiency RPM, driving one or two generators through gearboxes.

As I understand it, they run on a single engine while docked, one engine on each generator while at sea, but having the option of pulling more power if they need it. They also have accumulator banks for produced, but not used, electricity.