I can quit driving, but what I have a hard time doing is not heating my house. I have an oil furnace and the price of heating oil this year has really cramped my style, so much so that I am trying to put together some money to replace the heating system by next fall.
When I was living in Beaverton, we only turned on the heat on the worst days. That's what sweaters are for. I think I've actually turned on the heat more down here simply because there's less heat retention in the desert and the insulation isn't as good. Gas is still running about $4/05 a gallon. Luckily, I can take the train up to Fullerton which is a good stop gap railfan place. As for the NMRA convention. It's not the convention that worries me, but all the side trips up to tahachapi and down to San Diego. The home tours. ...
The doc’s shut me about 3 years ago, so my rail fanning was down to “going some place with the wife trips anyway”, but those are even fewer and shorter. I can still watch the CSX tracks outback from home, though the view isn’t so good now thru the trees.. SteamDonkey, Keeping warm is high priced here too. Propane prices have gone to $3.35+ a gallon here and some with electric heat have seen prices nearly double. As has the cost of natural gas. We put in a wood pellet stove 3 years ago as our main heating source [intead of propnae] and cut our heating cost almost in half, so that’s helped. inch
For me it will be railfanning along the way on any travelling I do, either business or personal. It looks like from what everyone is saying that railfanning will be more constrained to our own local areas. We can still use the wonder of the internet to get up with people and check out what is going on in their areas. So that said, we all can continue our hobby, be local experts or at least know generally what is going on in our own areas and use the internet to bring us all together.
At $3.75 a gallon for regular gas...It's a lot cheaper to railfan on-line. I've never really been a big railfan... in the sense of 'chasing' trains... or going to specific locations to see them. Now with gas prices on the rise... theres even less of a chance I'd begin to do that. One thing that I can say has been affected are unnecessary trips outside of a 15 mile radius from home. I used to go to hobby stores which were 20 to 30 miles away just to visit and have an excuse to buy something. Now... it's strictly hobby e-tailer... or the hobby shop about 5 miles from home.
It's completely affected my railfan photography in an highly adverse manner... Gone are the days where I would leave the house with only an *idea* of where I was going to go and play the trip by ear. Over the last couple years I had to come up with a definite plan and vist locations that I had in my mind a particular shot and sit and wait. No more randomly driving around 'scouting' locations. I can't afford the gas. Actually, I can afford it, I just refuse to pay any more than I have to. :tb-mad: In the last year or so, I've completely stopped all long-distance railfanning, and have stayed in my local area much to my disappointment. I simply find it hard to get inspired in town. What the gas prices HAVE done, is make me want to get back into model railroading again. It's been about 4 years or so since I had my layout up and running. Only problem is, the same issues that I had with modeling back then are still there ready to welcome me back!
My railfanning has been cut back now anyway,regardless of gas prices,due to the fact racing season's started up again and my money goes towards that for now. Lately though I've just been doing 15 mile trips to Lebanon Junction.
Gas prices have taken a toll on both my hobbies. Yesterday Champaign IL had gas prices at $3.80 a gallon and we have heard rumors of $4.00 a gallon by this weekend. Our only vehicle is a SUV so gas milage is horrible. I live only a mile from work and love biking, but the weather here is forcing us to drive, rain for the next 10 days! Between the wet winter and spring, the farmers are late to the fields and with gas and grocery prices going up, our local economy is not looking good at all. The only railfanning I do is by my house and when we go to Galesburg. We cut back on vacation too. We had planned on going to the N scale nationals, Dayton Air Force Museum and Galesburg RR Days. We are just doing Galesburg this year. The model airplane shows I usally go to are also being cut back. No more driving 200 miles for a weekend RC WWI & WWII flying meet. I would love to "stick it" to the gas companies and ride my bike if the weather would clear up!:tb-mad: Jim
Were it not for the purchase of my truck (a 1996 Isuzu Hombre) in September of last year, I would be paying out the wazoo for gas. It has a 4-cylinder engine and 5-speed manual transmission, and was built side by side with the Chevrolet S10 (which it looks very similar to) in Shreveport, LA. I feel better about taking the truck places I wouldn't take a car. It isn't four-wheel drive, but unless I get back out to Wyoming, I won't need one. But I reckon discussing railfan rides is better left to another thread (which there has been in the past).....................:tb-wink:......................even though the two are related.
You forgot mention the UK tax is a double wammy Phil; we're paying 68p a litre tax, and then we pay tax on the tax - 17.5% VAT. Of the £1.089 a litre, after the Government and the Oil company have had their share, the forecourt Franchisee only gets approx 5p a litre. I've just put £64.00 in my car; that's 58.77 litres (my tank has a 70 Litre capacity) @ £1.089. At today's exchange rates that's $124.98 for 15.53 US Gallons. That makes it more like $8.05 a US Gallon, but $10 a UK Gallon - a US Gallon is 0.8 of a UK Gallon, because a US Pint is only 16 Fluid Oz instead of 20.
Question for the gentlemen from the UK in regards to tax on fuel: What does the bulk of the fuel tax generated support in your country? Does any of it support the health care system? I recently saw the U.S. movie called "Sicko" and was amazed that health care is free in the UK and other EU countries! Only catch is, the money has to come from somewhere. Is it from fuel? Here in the U.S., we get taxed from our paychecks for Medicare (health care for retirees), we pay a national tax (or federal tax), and we also pay Social Security (to help for retirement). Meanwhile, our tax that is built into the price of gasoline supports our roadway infrastructure. Even though our price per gallon was relatively cheap compared to the rest of the world, we still have to pay for our health care. :thumbs_down: Sometimes I think the grass is greener elsewhere, but I just don't know. What's it like living in the UK?
Fuel tax is another 'catch all' tax in the UK designed to fund general government spending. Healthcare is free to most at the point of delivery, although on top of our income tax which is deducted from salary there is another deduction called National Insurance. This in theory pays for the National Health Service, the healthcare providers. Whilst in places this service is very good, people often take out private heathcare insurance on top of this to ensure premium service, such as jumping very long queues for surgery etc. The UK, probably in common with most other countries, is a rapidly changing place in which to live. I won't go into too much detail about my own feelings about it, suffice to say I am hoping to move to France to see out the rest of my days. As it stands, I just can't afford to retire in the UK.
This past week I was bragging how I made it a full seven days and used less than half a tank of gas commuting to & from work. Saturday, I went railfanning on the other side of town. Since my town is the rather large city of Atlanta, GA, I ended up finishing off that remaining half tank. To make things worse, this morning after church we had to drive around for quite a while with the trip computer showing "0 MILES UNTIL EMPTY" looking for a gas station that had gas. Still having supply problems here in the aftermath of hurricane Ike. Can't believe just a year ago I was driving all over town shooting train videos with reckless abandon; that has been abandoned almost entirely with $4/gallon gas. Jamie
Gas has Dropped for me to below $4.00 dollars a gallon since I have to run 91. But the nice thing is the UP yard in Newark is a block from my work get stopped for lunch every day by the switch crew so I park want watch an enjoy lunch. Oh and I can make it back and forth to work on 1/2 a tank. so not to bad for 6 gallons.
