discuss amongst yourselves....

[boogieshoes]

so today's question is:  where do you think air transport falls on the line of economical shipping options?  there are obviously trade-offs depending on circumstances, but in general, what do you think?  justify your answer.

the background:  lukejaywalker is fleshing out some background for a steampunk novel, and has decided not to have airplanes, although he does have dirigibles.  i told him that i thought airplane technology would have been developed even if, as he surmised, WW1 happened in 1890, and the US went into a severe economic depression for 30-40 years due to European powers defaulting on their loans.  one of the reasons i gave him was that air shipping was actually pretty darned economical for certain goods and services, better than trains and automobiles, even, although i don't know that they'd ever outrank ocean ships in economics.  now... i'm not so sure of my position, and it's bugging me, and i turn to you, my flist, to help me sort this out.

i still maintain that airplanes would be more economical than dirigibles for shipping, and that given that the majority of the research was done, the railroad industry would spur the development of gas-powered engines (which are needed for flight), thus fixing any lack produced by setting the Great War earlier than usual.  the rest of my arguments... i'm just not sure.


discuss, people, i want to see wild speculation in the comments!

-bs

Comments

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Sorry, water still wins by a long shot. If you restrict it to overland transport rail is king. When you look at cost per mile*ton (or kg*km if you prefer) water costs pennies, rail dimes, and everything else dollars or tens of dollars. Unfortunately it's rather challenging building a navigable river across a mountain range, for some reason they all want to move downhill.