Road structure and representation...

[gilgamec]

Gilgamec> I'd be guessing you've never visited a non-first world nation. I've been to a number of places where fridges and large goods are delivered short distances (less than 1 or 2km) by people-power. China is a really good case in point.

I hadn't been thinking about developing nations, actually; your point is well taken. However, I would still ask: if, for example, the bicycle courier in the picture Ghostman posted had the opportunity, would he replace his bicycle with a cargo van? I suspect that much of the human- and animal-power we see in the developing world is not because automobiles would not be useful, but because they would be too expensive to be efficient. (Of course, the relative (in)efficiency also has to do with infrastructure, so it's not entirely possible to disentangle these.)

I stand by my claim that the internal combustion engine is just too damn useful to not be used. It gives you a tremendous power/weight ratio, the energy density of the fuel is enormous (compared to coal or wood), and it's highly scalable, from the two-stroke engine in a lawnmower to the enormous diesels running cargo ships. The precursors of the internal combustion engine go back at least to the seventeenth century; the only thing they lacked then was a reasonable fuel source and the precision machining needed to make an efficient engine. Really, the only way I can see automobiles not being used is if the fuel were too expensive, which brings us to:

The only thing that really facilitates modern personal transport is oil. If we hadn't really developed oil to run vehicles, we'd probably not be driving cars at all.

And, presumably, the trains would be running on coal and not diesel. Smoke city!

Even in this case, though, I'm not at all certain that you wouldn't have small-scale transport, maybe electric. Let's look at your proposed movement of a refrigerator:

"Westinghouse makes a Fridge in (Insert Town A) and loads it into a cargo carriage sitting on rails outside their factory. Their factory is like almost every other and has a rail-line immediately behind it.

The (Insert Rail Company Here) sends an engine to collect the various goods along the rail line behind the Westinghouse Factory that are to be delivered to (Metropolis B). Heavy rail transports the white goods, along with numerous other goods, to (Metropolis B).

At (Metropolis B), a number of haulage companies have warehouses immediately next to the rail line and unload into their warehouses from the cargo train. The train leaves.

No problems so far. These are all high-volume, regular movements that rail is good at.

Hand-based pallette jacks and hydraulic forklifts move and store the goods until they are distributed to the next step in the chain. In particular, the Westinghouse Goods are stored for shipment tomorrow.

Just a small nitpick here: while it's entirely possible to have steam-powered hydraulics, in our universe hydraulics only really took off (over direct-powered steam tools) because they could be powered by small (mobile) internal combustion engines, rather than large steam engines (compare steam shovel vs. backhoe). But we'll go with the hand-jacks at least, and maybe larger-scale steam cranes.

The Westinghouse Goods are then moved from the warehouse out onto a hand-operated hydraulic cart, allowing the goods to be easily placed on with hand-operated vehicles. This if fine since the store selling this shipment is only a few blocks away.

Another shipment of Westinghouse Goods needs to be transported roughly 4km away. These get placed on the back of a bicycle-powered cart, like an over glorified goods rickshaw. Also loaded is a hydraulic-hand-palette-jack. The cart will be lowered down and the goods removed from the back along a gangway into the store. As the Westinghouse delivery is coming in, some of the store's delivery staff are leaving on another bicycle-powered cart to deliver what appears to be a washing machine, an armchair and a study desk."

Yes, this is certainly feasible. I wonder, though, if our bicycle washing-machine-armchair-desk driver would prefer a nice electric cart?

Actually, this does raise a question: how much can you pull with a bicycle? The courier in Ghostman's picture may have a lot of boxes, but they can't be that heavy (or he'd tip over) ... and it must take a lot of torque to pull a washing machine, armchair, and desk (say, one ton in total). The bike in the picture doesn't look especially heavy-duty, either -- what's the weight limit on one of those? If you use a cart?