Recent content by neroden

The landslide zones south of Seattle have mostly gotten permanent fixes which seem to be working. North of Seattle, there are no permanent fixes; the line needs to be relocated inland. It's an inherently bad location.

It seems like the work renovating the ceiling is going to be done under very interesting conditions by workers standing on decking over those steel beams.

Enough to tell whether the newspaper is actually decent, I think. Which takes more than three articles. The Guardian probably has the best business model: owned by a not-for-profit, free to everyone, but encourages Patrons.

Empire Corridor please :-) Also Chicago-Syracuse, NY trains.

https://www.thenextmiami.com/brightline-says-miami-to-orlando-rail-line-construction-is-now-50-complete-on-schedule/ OK, so it looks like Cocoa-Orlando is actually well ahead of the upgrades from WPB-Cocoa. Cocoa-Orlando is expected to be done June 2022 (I think I know what the slowest bit is...

How popular *is* Okechobee and Sebring service? (Oh, I know the passenger numbers, I've looked it up.) I see Amtrak service to Tampa disappearing when Brightline gets there. I fully expect Brightline to end up with a Lakeland station; despite that new station not being downtown, Lakeland seems...

There isn't enough CHI-NOL demand. There is enough CHI-NYC demand. But Amtrak has been notoriously unwilling to properly serve even the regular (without-a-car) CHI-NYC demand, for convoluted and stupid politics reasons. #1 and #3 metro areas in the US, and the morons who've mismanaged Amtrak...

I expect Wilmington would take the *extremely straight* CSX route from Hamlet and Pembroke, which is intact, not the abandoned route which goes north from Wilmington. If you're going for high speed rail... straight is good

I hadn't thought about it (where I am, Chicago to Florida is not personally relevant), but based strictly on population, it's obvious that "via Atlanta" is the way to go. This might mean that it should be thought of as two potential services: Atlanta to Florida and Atlanta to Chicago. Atlanta...

People have given the answer before: the train's funded by Illinois and essentially not funded by Missouri, so the times are optimized for Illinois and Missouri gets the result. If Missouri would stop electing right-wing anti-train nuts, and provide more secure funding, this would probably change.

The design I'd like to see is a single-level Viewliner "observation-cafe". Take your cafe design, add a glass roof, and open some space up to lounge chairs, basically. Some design points: Viewliners generally only have a single vestibule with exterior doors, and a cafe certainly doesn't need...

Every car with a bathroom must have an ADA bathroom. It's legal to have cars with no bathrooms at all.

NJT is not likely to actually build this any time soon, but it would provide the first concourse with elevators to every single track.

I am really suspicious that this "closed from 1 AM to 5AM" thing will, in the end, not actually apply to the customers on #66/67. These trains take *checked baggage*. The entire baggage checking operation is being relocated to Moynihan. Does Amtrak want to maintain two checked baggage...

There is an interesting plan to narrow the columns. Apparently the structural steel part of the support columns, which provides the actual support, is smaller than the concrete wrapping, so the plan is to remove most of the concrete wrapping on the columns.