Maybe this is another one of these "turn off the sound and watch the action moments."
The Desert Wind (between Los Angeles area and Salt Lake City area) and Pioneer (between Denver area and Portland area) did run on UP lines, right?
But remember that Amtrak had nothing on D&RGW initially, and the San Francisco Zephyr (not California Zephyr which started when Amtrak moved to D&RGW) ran on the Overland Route between Denver and Ogden, and that was always UP. So strictly speaking NO Amtrak service on UP pre-merger is incorrect. Any of the trains that are running today AFAICT did not run on UP back then unless you consider the California Zephyr to be a latter day incarnation of the San Francisco Zephyr.
The SFZ ran via the UP Overland Route from Amtrak's inception in 1971 until 1983, when the D&RGW finally signed an Amtrak contract. The Desert Wind and Pioneer both ran on UP from their start in the early 1980s until their discontinuance in 1997. The pre-merger UP hosted their share of Amtrak trains. My recollection is they ran all these trains well at the time. No horrendous delays, reasonably good dispatching. One strong memory is that UP's track in that era was superb, the UP sections always had a notably smooth ride.
Supportive? Really? I thought they were merely non-combative.
BNSF does, for the most part, run their trains on time on the former Santa Fe trackage, although that hasn't been the truth lately with speed downgrades on the Kansas lines. The California Zephyr and Empire Builder haven't been as much on time, although in the case of the CZ I think much of the blame goes to Uncle Pete for turning the train over to BN late in Denver.
I thought sure that track work would be finished by now; but the the following comes from the current CZ timetable:
Actually, in the case of the Zephyr, most of the blame goes to the fact that, during the worst point in the summer, BNSF had as much as 90 minutes worth of slow orders on the route through Iowa and Nebraska. UP has actually been running their part of the train pretty much on time.
Actually George my memory of MoPac is just the opposite. They remained very pro-passenger into the 60's, only giving up when it was obvious the hand writing was on the wall. The exact opposite of the SP for instance.
But that's for a line that currently doesn't see passenger service and for a line that may or may not have needed PTC to be installed if Amtrak doesn't run there.
Most of the worst sections were indeed fixed back when time was added into the schedule. But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that not every slow section was fixed back then. Even if it were, new problems develop over time, so there will always be track work on any route. And in the case of the CZ, for most of the run that work has to happen in the summer, as laying/fixing track with a foot of snow on it isn't exactly practical.
Condemnation is a bad option for Amtrak.
I think that all those in the US who believe that true high speed rail will run on any existing active RoW are smoking something potent. Such has not happened anywhere else. What is it that would make the US different? I believe that the likes of CSX and UP are correct in their protests regarding use of their active RoWs for true HSR.
Regardless if it makes sense or not, there is simply no money to build a whole other right of way. Which I suppose may simply mean the US will never have true high speed rail.
The same thing that always makes us different. Lots of self-centered politicians from vastly different states all vying for the most pork with the least oversight in a zero-sum budget game. We've somehow managed to build a national government that is virtually guaranteed to be both wasteful and impotent. Within this absurd framework we are forced to rely on the few clunky tools still available to us. Namely, those ancient agreements that allow passenger service to run on freight networks. It's not that we want everything to run on the same rails, we just know nothing better is ever going to come along.
Totally agree if we're talking high speed rail, over 100mph. Not only would scheduling be a massive challenge, imagine the disaster if a high speed train somehow or other sideswiped a freight train at those speeds. Not a pretty picture. I do think you could share a right of way corridor, however, provided sufficient distance between tracks to prevent problems. The main problem would be if there are businesses served on the side of the ROW which the HSR tracks sit. This could require some extra tracks and signaling, which would be the responsibility of the HSR agency.
The above is one of many reasons why equating our railroad system with that of Europe's when it comes to operating a realtively fast pasenger service on tracks carrying any significant volume of freight is just plain wrong. A few years ago I read a piece of a study done in one European country about running freight trains of 2,000 tons. You have got to be kidding. That issues was passend in this country something like a century ago.
Yes George, I've seen European through freights that weren't much longer than a holiday section of a 1950's varnish train. One other thing I would like to add; the amount of incentive money for good OTP is chump change for someone like the UP. Delay a UPS hot shot and you've got to refund the entire shipping cost. Money talks while pax rust to the rails !
My definition is 150mph+. And my point is it is unlikely that any such line will be built on existing RoWs that are in active use otherwise.
Referring to the Le Poste Yellow TGVs as freight trains is misleading. The European freights that run at 90mph are very different and much lighter than freight trains we are talking about in the context of US freight. Of course there is potential for developing a class of freight service at 90 - 125mph which does not exist today, given the availability of higher speed infrastructure. But that has little to do with not causing harm to the currently profitable freight service in the US.
True. But the freight railroads have to convince themselves that there is a business case for such and actually step upto it. Alternatively, additional players have to find it attractive enough to step upto it. The current problem is that the freight railroads are not convinced that there is sufficient business for them in that niche to make it worth their while.
