Peak does not mean that we ran out, just that demand is outstripping supply. The dollar value of a barrell of oil will increase with that demand - and yes things will change - but Amish in 10 years, I highly doubt it. As long as we are on a "bad things are comming" kick, I might as well tell you my theory of near future events. What is very likely to happen 5, 10, 20 years away, as the ecomomies of the world try to swallow this new energy pill, is that the Amercians, the Europeans, and the Asians, will likely get in to some WWIII senerio because of all of this. Politicians in all three of those areas will most likely make much "hey" out of energy prices. Eventually your average Brit, Frenchy Poo, Chinese, or American family will think they are justified to do whatever is neccissary to keep there current quality of life over the quality of life of that other S.O.B. across the water ( who is thinking the same thing of him). Eventually some "head of household" will put down his cheese burger and Wall Mart bag and look in the television and say "nuke em'" and that's just what we'll do. Now after all that is said and done, I'll take you up on the Amish thing, as we'll all be getting a little closer to God by that time.
On a lighter note, if it does not get that bad, I beleive that RR's will increase in number, speed, and efficiency, out of the sheer fact that the amount of tonnage moved per gallon of fuel / watt of electricity is the most efficient and economical means of transportation ever created. Airports on the other hand need to figure out what to do with all of those spare concourses. The down side to RR's will be that they will probably not resemble much of what we now know as RR's if the worlds economies do indeed rely on them. Most current rail corridors would be two tracked. Curves would be eliminated to a much larger degree than the current lines run. But on the bright side cool things like tunnels and large bridges would probably become much more prevelant, especially on newly constructed lines. It would be very interesting ( to me at least) to see what future engineers would bring to the table in widening the gage and making out current "standard" gauge RR's become the narrow guage, especially on a large east west route.
Enough rambling for one night.
Rodger Polley