6 hour delay between cities 200 miles apart is preposterous!

[adamj023]

Are flyovers even used in rail networks? I’ve heard of bypasses, crossovers, interlockings, switches, sidings, double tracking, and the like.

Rail upgrades have been funded by Amtrak/Federal govt, state governments, local governments and even the freight railroads themselves. Amtrak Acca Yard bypass included funding by CSX which owned the yard and was the host tier 1 railroad there.

The Wig Wag signal that Amtrak used to pass in Delhi, CO was removed on the BNSF line which I believe was the Amtrak Southwest Chief. As Amtrak got funding and the route is staying, the line is seeing upgrades I presume.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Are flyovers even used in rail networks? I’ve heard of bypasses, crossovers, interlockings, switches, sidings, double tracking, and the like.

Yes they are.

In the Indiana example to get from one track to another you use a series of switches and crossovers but all of the tracks have to be clear to do that. In order to eliminate freight train interference you’d have to have a flyover to take you over the freight rails.

 

[jis]

Are flyovers even used in rail networks? I’ve heard of bypasses, crossovers, interlockings, switches, sidings, double tracking, and the like.

Since you asked - here is a grand daddy of flyovers, the Sawtooth Bridge where the NEC crosses over NJT's Morris and Essex Line and PATH adjacent to the Passaic River.

You can see the Midtown Direct connections that branch off from the M&E at CP Kearny (about the middle of the photo) and join the NEC at CP Swift (outside the bottom right corner of the photo). This is facing towards Newark.

You can also see the Reverse Kearny Connection at the lower left corner of the photo. It leaves the NEC at CP Hudson and joins the NJT M&E beyond the lower left corner of the photo at CP Meadows. The track branching off from it to its left is the lead to the NJT Meadows Maintenance Complex jokingly called the Mickey Mouse Club.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Since you asked - here is a grand daddy of flyovers, the Sawtooth Bridge where the NEC crosses over NJT's Morris and Essex Line and PATH adjacent to the Passaic River. You can also see the Midtown Direct connections that branch off from the M&E at CP Kearny (about the middle of the photo) and join the NEC at CP Swift (outside the bottom right corner of the photo. This is facing towards Newark.

I was thinking of this one but wasn’t sure exactly where it was located on the NEC!

I used to stay in NJ to save money when visiting nyc and I would intentionally take all different routes into the city. The infrastructure just amazes me!

 

[Seaboard92]

Something anyone who is wondering about dispatching should try is the game Train Dispatcher3.5. There are plenty of great territories that will give you experience keeping the fast disrupting Amtrak trains on schedule as they run a gauntlet of opposing freight traffic. My general operation method is whomever will get to the siding first is the one who gets lined in, so that whatever they are meeting doesn't have to slow for the reverse points. It's hard even in double track lands to keep Amtrak on schedule. The CN Kingston Sub (Toronto-Montreal) is a good example of this with VIA. A lot freight uses the line which is running substantially slower, and the VIA trains oftentimes take over a slow moving freight while also being mindful of other trains on the opposite main. It's quite the challenge.

 

[jis]

I had built for myself two territories, using the sister tool Track Builder, that took a long time to get vaguely right mainly because of their complexity.

One is the NEC from CP Bergen (at the exit of the North River Tubes) to CP Morris (Morrisville, just across the Delaware River past Trenton).

The other is the entire ex-Lackawanna portion of NJT, together with the Lackawanna Cutoff to the Delaware Viaduct.

I should probably go and dig them out from my archives.

Anyway, one thing that you learn very quickly about the NEC is that if a train is vaguely close to its slot, it is more important to maintain the sequencing to stay out of trouble, than to have the train be precisely on time. If you lose the sequencing in a major way during rush hours you will delay many more trains much more than if you destroy the time of one delayed train further and keep everything else in sequence.

 

[zephyr17]

Well, to put it very simply Federal Law gives Amtrak priority by explicit statute. Period. It has the authority to since railroads are common carriers and must still serve "public convenience and necessity" and the railroads still providing passenger service in 1970 were never fully relieved of their obligations to carry passengers. Operational responsibility was transferred to Amtrak, but underpinning Amtrak is the railroad obligation to provide support for Amtrak. That is how railroads now discharge their responsibility for passenger services. It is also why Amtrak has access to the railroad network at very low rates (avoidable costs). It is given that access by law.

Unfortunately, there was no practical enforced mechanism, other than lawsuits, until recently. The Surface Transportation Board now has the authority to enforce it, and has a detailed, explicit standards defining timeliness and passenger delay. The STB is now in the process of implementing it.

 

[Seaboard92]

I had built for myself two territories, using the sister tool Track Builder, that took a long time to get vaguely right mainly because of their complexity.

One is the NEC from CP Bergen (at the exit of the North River Tubes) to CP Morris (Morrisville, just across the Delaware River past Trenton).

The other is the entire ex-Lackawanna portion of NJT, together with the Lackawanna Cutoff to the Delaware Viaduct.

I should probably go and dig them out from my archives.

Anyway, one thing that you learn very quickly about the NEC is that if a train is vaguely close to its slot, it is more important to maintain the sequencing to stay out of trouble, than to have the train be precisely on time. If you lose the sequencing in a major way during rush hours you will delay many more trains much more than if you destroy the time of one delayed train further and keep everything else in sequence.

Could you send me the territory you built? As I would love to try both of those.

That is something most people don't think of a lot but there is a sequence to the way trains run. Expresses that skip stops are generally ahead of locals that are making all of the stops as those have the longer run time. BNSF tends to run the SWC right ahead of the Z Train parade into California because it paves the way for everyone else following.

 

[jis]

That is why just merely staring at a timetable you cannot get a feel for the fine choreography that goes on. This is even more so on a territory with 2.5min headway mixing slow Locals, medium speed Regionals and higher speed Acelas all with different stopping patterns requiring them to be moved from the fast tracks to the slow tracks for their stop, like at Metropark, and even a few freight trains.

On the NEC I have found that during the rush hours the choreography is quite exquisite.

I have to find all the Train Dispatcher stuff in my backups somewhere, which will take time. But I know they are there. They might require some work to get them to work on the newer version of Train Dispatcher too. And the Track Builder does not exactly have the friendliest UI either.

 

[railiner]

Are flyovers even used in rail networks? I’ve heard of bypasses, crossovers, interlockings, switches, sidings, double tracking, and the like.

JIS illustrated just one of many on the former PRR, which was famous for them, and their engineering in general, in the early 20th century.

Another 'flyover' of note, if you call it that, is the St. Charles Air Line linking Chicago Union Station with the former Illinois Central main line. Just imagine crossing all of the railroads it 'flew over' at grade...

 

[MARC Rider]

I remember going over a flyover on the Pacific Surfliner right before we arrived at LAUS.
And there's the Englewood flyover outside of Chicago.

 

[jis]

I remember going over a flyover on the Pacific Surfliner right before we arrived at LAUS.
And there's the Englewood flyover outside of Chicago.

The one on approach to LAX from the south is a very new one, I think less than five years old, well maybe ten.

The most complex collection of flyovers and duck unders in the US that I am aware of brings two to mind:

1. PRR (now Amtrak) Zoo Interlocking north of Philadelphia 30th St. Station.

2. LIRR Jamaica Station (Jay and Hall)

 

[adamj023]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/v...amtrak-csx-to-expand-rail-service/ar-BB1f87Sf
Took them a long time just to do Acca bypass. Will take by 2030 to complete this project which doesn’t even start high speed rail, but just lays the framework for it.

 

[Seaboard92]

That is why just merely staring at a timetable you cannot get a feel for the fine choreography that goes on. This is even more so on a territory with 2.5min headway mixing slow Locals, medium speed Regionals and higher speed Acelas all with different stopping patterns requiring them to be moved from the fast tracks to the slow tracks for their stop, like at Metropark, and even a few freight trains.

On the NEC I have found that during the rush hours the choreography is quite exquisite.

I have to find all the Train Dispatcher stuff in my backups somewhere, which will take time. But I know they are there. They might require some work to get them to work on the newer version of Train Dispatcher too. And the Track Builder does not exactly have the friendliest UI either.

The map I really want to play is Chicago Union Station but it's password protected and I can't buy the territory now.

 

[Trogdor]

The one on approach to LAX from the south is a very new one, I think less than five years old, well maybe ten.

If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s got to be at least 10 years old. Maybe not much more, but it was certainly around in 2011.

 

[railiner]

The one on approach to LAX from the south is a very new one, I think less than five years old, well maybe ten.

The most complex collection of flyovers and duck unders in the US that I am aware of brings two to mind:

1. PRR (now Amtrak) Zoo Interlocking north of Philadelphia 30th St. Station.

2. LIRR Jamaica Station (Jay and Hall)

Both of those further illustrate the amazing PRR engineering in that era. PRR owned and controlled the LIRR when that Jamaica complex was built.

 

[jis]

The Harold Complex adjacent to the Sunnyside Yard, with the addition of the ESA connections and the Amtrak through duck unders is becoming quite a piece of work too.

 

[MARC Rider]

The one on approach to LAX from the south is a very new one, I think less than five years old, well maybe ten.

I remember riding on it about 2002 or 2003.

 

[jis]

I remember riding on it about 2002 or 2003.

Indeed! The Redondo Junction Flyover, a part of the Alameda Corridor North Project, was completed and put into service in 2001, when the Redondo Tower which controlled the at grade Redondo Junction and Crossing was decommissioned.



All I can say is time flies faster than I thought. I do remember flying out to LA mainly to ride the flyover, but had forgotten how far back that was.

 

[Trogdor]

Indeed! The Redondo Junction Flyover, a part of the Alameda Corridor North Project, was completed and put into service in 2001, when the Redondo Tower which controlled the at grade Redondo Junction and Crossing was decommissioned.

View attachment 21382

All I can say is time flies faster than I thought. I do remember flying out to LA mainly to ride the flyover, but had forgotten how far back that was.

I'll always remember that track for having an oddly specific 44 mph speed limit.

 

[jis]

I'll always remember that track for having an oddly specific 44 mph speed limit.

You mean like 79mph? Regulations have a strange way of creating bizarre things, often as an unintended consequence.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I'll always remember that track for having an oddly specific 44 mph speed limit.

I asked about this once and was informed that several years ago there was some industrial safety research that found unusually specific limits were more likely to be followed with greater precision than round number limits. That being said some oddly specific numbers are merely the result of exclusive round numbers that create a 10-1 or 5-1 limit.

 

[Trogdor]

You mean like 79mph? Regulations have a strange way of creating bizarre things, often as an unintended consequence.

79mph makes sense in the context of the regulation on trains traveling 80 or more mph (or 59, IIRC, as the requirement is for signals on lines where trains travel 60 or more mph). There is no regulation I'm specifically aware of governing trains traveling "45 or more mph" that would make that speed limit required. Given that there are plenty of 45 mph speed limits on railroads around the country, and virtually every non 59 or 79 mph speed restriction is in a multiple of 5, the 44 always got me as a bit out of place.

 

[Cal]

The eagle lost nearly five hours between two stops this morning. As far as the crew said on board, no derailment or stalled train.

 

[Willbridge]

Both of those further illustrate the amazing PRR engineering in that era. PRR owned and controlled the LIRR when that Jamaica complex was built.

What is truly impressive is that they did all that stuff without computer simulations or CAD drawings. (When our Denver light rail lines became more complex in 2006 there were people who thought that it wouldn't work even with simulations having been run. Based on studying the Berlin S-Bahn I worked out the junctions in Excel and then transcribed it into the low-bid transit software.) I've seen photos of the guys who did this working in arm garter and bare incandescent light days and they did miracles.