Dear Editor,
I would be grateful for an opportunity to follow up on my letter published on November 17 under the title “We should not give up on railway along the embankment.”
Rail transport is, in my view, possible, relevant, and indefinitely profitable. Using just a few points as food for thought, I want to make an attempt to elaborate on why I believe this to be true. On suggesting such a megaproject as raised rail, the question of how it would pay for itself is likely to be the first one to arise.
To make anything viable, anything at all, that thing that we invest in must be fully utilised. Our perception about whether the return on investment is sufficient would depend upon our preference for time – that is, when we feel that something should finish paying for itself. This is actually up to us (or how well we can negotiate with those we get in bed with).
Fully utilising something like a railway system might involve the following: defining the number of services (touring/business, coach, economy, cargo etc.) offered, and their departure frequencies; defining which distances would be covered when, and thereby determining how often each train stops, some would shuttle short distances, and some may go further and stop less frequently; then deciding about the number of lines to construct in the raised rail zone to make it all work.
These numbers would then be constrained to either minimise cost or maximise revenue – both of these effectively mean the same thing. In other words, we make trains work for us by solving the problems implied by trains. We do the same for highways; we do the same for streets, drains and other things; and, in most cases, we use the same applied math to think rigorously about everything.
Another question may follow from the first: would a rail in Guyana be fully utilised? I believe very strongly that rail would be fully utilised, and especially so in light of the future. The future involves momentary labour shortages due to labour force impacts like low birth rates or migration. The future involves the need for the transference of workers between industries during moments of vulnerability on world markets.
The future involves increased local and attracted tourism – more bars, nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, resorts, specialty hospitals – and the need for a transport option that does not involve driving while inebriated. The future involves getting to far-out places cheaply and quickly – places like the proposed Wales Industrial Estate (which cannot be viable without expanded transport for workers). The future involves a growing population that does more business across regional centres. The future involves opening up areas of the country to individuals, empowering them to optimise themselves by giving them more options. The future involves making it safer for our bodies to move around in the context of an increased truck-and-car traffic; and last, but certainly not least, the future involves adopting electricity as the primary energy source for almost everything, because oil is not going to be the main driver forever. Trains can put us on track to handle these outcomes gracefully.
Editor, we are about to build bridges with our little sister state to the west. There are Surinamese documents evidencing visions of power-sharing via transmission lines embedded in highways and bridges. Why not add raised rail to the list while we are at it? On these same transmission lines, renewables from multiple sources could join the grid from anywhere on the map – rail powered by hydro dams from all sides, carrying the nation’s power across the entire coast and beyond.
What could be more secure? What could be more future-proof? It is estimated that if we add just 160MW of hydroelectric capacity, our fossil fuel bill would fall by US$140M. How much fossil fuel reliance could we eliminate altogether with rail? How much more economic activity would we unlock? What if raised rail is as much the key to securing our energy future as it would be a boon to business for everyone, including the buses and taxis that take us from our stops?
Sincerely,
Emille Giddings
