Do away with cars

[Napoleon IV]

Without cars I would not be able to live where I live now. I live in a fairly small town with a lot of farmland, and in fact my house is about 45 minutes to an hour's walk from town. We have a bus system, but the buses only come to my area every few hours. And here's the thing: that's all they could do it for that makes economic sense. There are simply too few people to even have bus service on the hour, and if they ran it more often it would mean picking up one or two people per trip at some times, which would be a huge waste of money for the city. So without a car you would either have to walk (which keep in mind takes 45 minutes to an hour, and this is Washington State so in the winter that means 45 minutes to an hour of being out in heavy rain), or take the bus at the closest time to your appointment, and find a way to kill up to several hours before and after the appointment.

And my town is not extremely small. This is an issue for a lot of small farming communities, since there are a small amount of people spread out over a wide area.

 

[anotherlurker]

i'm imagining a society with no internal combustion engine but train railways everywhere and everyone has his own coal driven model t mini locomotive.

that would probably be far far worse for the climate and nature. people want personal transportation without having to do sports and there's only so much horse shit you can tolerate....

 

[MattII]

Even without the ICE you'd have cars, they'd just be steam and/or electric powered.

 

[hx87]

Let them stay for a few weeks in an American style city though and they would change their mind when they see how dead the place is. Shops inconveniently scattered, very few people on the streets....

OTOH, they might love it.

 

[marathag]

i'm imagining a society with no internal combustion engine but train railways everywhere and everyone has his own coal driven model t mini locomotive.

Behold, the [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica]Locomobile Steam Runabout,[/FONT]with the twin Stanley Brothers(of later Steamer fame) designed this in 1899

$599 6HP 20 mph top speed, range 30 miles on several gallons of Kerosene and more water. Engine weighed 35 pounds, Boiler, 90

It so impressed others during an exhibition in Boston, beating all other Steam and IC autos in a race and other events that they got their interest bought out, to the profit of $230,000, that they would use for their own new car in time.
Back at Locomobile, things were not well between the new owners, and had a falling out with one to make his own company, Mobile Automobiles. (in time, they bought back their original patents and factory back for $20,000) Those two were shrewd operators, but hated advertising.

Anyway, you had three companies, all making near the same steam car in 1901.

 

[BlueTrousers]

Let them stay for a few weeks in an American style city though and they would change their mind when they see how dead the place is. Shops inconveniently scattered, very few people on the streets....

Or, they would remark on the convenience of being able to collect one's goods from the shelves of an air-conditioned warehouse oneself, load them directly into one's conveyance, and transport them directly to their destination without danger of pilfering or delays in shipping. To say nothing of the remarkable variety of merchandise available, given the size of shops made possible by removing them from the confines of the city and the ease of goods transport brought by motorised tractors pulling railway wagons.

 

[MattII]

In the world they came from though, roads were (outside of major highways), as much for socialising as transportation.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

i'm imagining a society with no internal combustion engine but train railways everywhere and everyone has his own coal driven model t mini locomotive.

I was thinking about that, too. Without a light and powerful enough piston engine for automobiles, there certainly isn't one for aircraft. It is also doubtful that there is one for locomotives, either. Shipping shouldn't be a problem, I wouldn't think.

So you get a world with few/no private automobiles, no airplanes, and no diesel locomotives. Railroads are run by steam or electric locomotives (including electric streetcars and interurban railways); highways are traveled by steam "road locomotives" for local farm, bus and/or truck traffic; air travel (if it even exists) is by lighter than air craft. An interesting world, indeed.

Besides the lack of military aircraft, without a small enough internal combustion engine, you don't get submarines with a range beyond batteries. The dreadnought age extends to...1950?

 

[MattII]

Actually, I think you could get a steam engine light enough, with sufficient work, though it wouldn't have much range or payload. Likewise, submarines will be doable, but won't become the silent terrors they were OTL, at least partly because it would take them a minute or so to prepare for a dive.

 

[KittyKat]

Cars are awesome. You can't get rid of them because of the sheer awesomeness they exude. The ability to go wherever you want whenever you want without being at the mercy of someone else is something even the most robust public transportation system cant match. Less roads? More SUVs earlier on, that's not even taking into account how much off road time Model Ts actually got.

 

[marathag]

Actually, I think you could get a steam engine light enough, with sufficient work, though it wouldn't have much range or payload. Likewise, submarines will be doable, but won't become the silent terrors they were OTL, at least partly because it would take them a minute or so to prepare for a dive.

Upthread I listed the original Stanley engine, 6HP for 35 pounds.

Now Steam HP isn't exactly like IC HP, as they had maximum torque at 1 rpm and didn't need a power robbing transmission, and were more limited by steam generation for continuous rated power.The actual '20 HP' engine could do around 125HP of work, when given enough steam

The Later 20HP Stanley was used for the record breaking 127mph 1906 run, it just had a larger boiler

The regular Stanley had about a 30 mile range( 1 gallon per mile), since it was a total loss system, no condenser at first. It got around 10 miles per gallon of Kerosene for the burner

 

[mrmandias]

Out in my part of the country, private individual transportation has always been necessary. We basically transitioned from everyone, even kids, having their own horse, to the automobile.

 

[Legofan4]

Out in my part of the country, private individual transportation has always been necessary. We basically transitioned from everyone, even kids, having their own horse, to the automobile.

But aren't horses expensive to own, feed and take care which makes if cheaper to buy a car that can last for years with proper maintenance.

 

[RodentRevolution]

I was thinking about that, too. Without a light and powerful enough piston engine for automobiles, there certainly isn't one for aircraft. It is also doubtful that there is one for locomotives, either. Shipping shouldn't be a problem, I wouldn't think.

So you get a world with few/no private automobiles, no airplanes, and no diesel locomotives. Railroads are run by steam or electric locomotives (including electric streetcars and interurban railways); highways are traveled by steam "road locomotives" for local farm, bus and/or truck traffic; air travel (if it even exists) is by lighter than air craft. An interesting world, indeed.

Besides the lack of military aircraft, without a small enough internal combustion engine, you don't get submarines with a range beyond batteries. The dreadnought age extends to...1950?

There was a steam powered biplane designed by the Besler Brothers based on an Air Travel 2000 in 1933. There are numerous examples of steam cars and steam trucks... the British K-class (the engine worked fines the rest of the submarine didn't) is just one example of a steam powered submarine (many SSNs and SSBNs being others...reactor heats the water that drives a turbine..it is a steam engine folks) .

There are limitation to what you can do with steam engines of various kinds but there is also evidence that even today we are far from exploring the limits.

 

[MattII]

I wasn't going to mention the K-class for that exact reason. Also, while the power-plants technically did work okay, the way they were set up meant a dive was difficult to achieve in less than five minutes (record being 3 minutes 25 seconds).

 

[marathag]

But aren't horses expensive to own, feed and take care which makes if cheaper to buy a car that can last for years with proper maintenance.

You can let a car sit out all winter, put in fresh fluids and a battery, you're good for motoring in the Spring.

The same with a horse? you get fertilizer and some bones.

You have to feed and water a horse every day, no matter if all it does is be in the Stable

And what gets put into one end of a horse, is seemingly multiplied by time it comes out the other end.

You have to clean that, too.

I've taken care of both horses and autos.

Auto the hands down cheaper path

 

[MattII]

And if need be you can remove a car's engine entirely and replace it.

 

[marathag]

And if need be you can remove a car's engine entirely and replace it.

The only advantage Horses have, is procreation and a limited self repair ability.

Oh, and make better Stars of TV shows than Cars when they 'talk'

 

[ennobee]

The only advantage Horses have, is procreation and a limited self repair ability.

Oh, and make better Stars of TV shows than Cars when they 'talk'

A talking horse? May be if you were growing up in the 60's. With me, in the 80's, it was all Knight Rider and his talking robot car.

 

[Beedok]

If you have a very nationalised economy and the government just spent a load of cash building streetcars when the automobile becomes practical I could see the government not wanting to undo all the money they invested (and if there's a voting public they'd probably not want to see all their tax dollars wasted, especially when housing would be built along streetcar lines so cars don't benefit a large chunk of the populace). Rural users are a bit harder to stop, but farmers' trucks are basically commercial so would just fit in that category.