High Speed Rail is a white elephant just like the Monorail

[RCrierie]

The GATEWAY project up in the Northeast to build a HSR line next to the existing Right of Way is supposed to cost $13.5B by 2020.

This would be all fine; except Amtrak has a $5.5b backlog of maintenance on the NEC and needs to cough up $12.3b over 15 years to replace 1,300 cars and 350 locomotives to maintain present service levels.

Think of all the money that's tied up in sexy sexy HSR that could revitalize a significant portion of Amtrak's fleet...

 

[Anderson]

The GATEWAY project up in the Northeast to build a HSR line next to the existing Right of Way is supposed to cost $13.5B by 2020.

This would be all fine; except Amtrak has a $5.5b backlog of maintenance on the NEC and needs to cough up $12.3b over 15 years to replace 1,300 cars and 350 locomotives to maintain present service levels.

Think of all the money that's tied up in sexy sexy HSR that could revitalize a significant portion of Amtrak's fleet...

It's a matter of priorities. IMHO, on the NEC mainline we're looking at diminishing returns once you get the tracks straightened out where you can and break a few bottlenecks (such as some speed-limited bridges). At some point, the costs start soaring to knock a couple of minutes off of service to Boston or DC...at some point, it simply ceases to be a good investment and you're better off either slapping additional tracks down next to the existing line to simply buffer capacity, buying new cars, or moving onto other projects. We can go on all day and all night about where that line is, but I don't think anyone is going to claim it doesn't exist.

So, let's weigh two alternatives: The doorstopper that Amtrak issued last year tallies about $40-75bn in costs. *ahem* $40-75 billion in costs for an alignment . The California project has a similar problem, cost-wise, but that's CA's baby. So, let's assume that we can do that project. Or let's look at projects with a broader base...say, 125-150 MPH service down to Atlanta. The average cost per mile for the Charlotte-Atlanta segment runs $4.9-7.8m/mile, depending on the speed and whether you're putting up wires and whatnot (per the SEHSR folks' study). Even going at the high end, at $8m/mile, the cost is 1/10th of the NE HSR project's low-end estimate ($87.7m/mile) and about 1/20th of the high-end estimate ($164m/mile).

For the same cost that we can get the NE project done, in other words, we could upgrade...oh, I dunno...maybe half of the country's rail lines? Even assuming that you couldn't keep the cost under $20m/mile, $75 billion will get you 3750 miles of train corridor. In that, I can probably put the Washington-Atlanta line (634 miles) and two entire Washington-Miami alignments (assuming 1200 miles apiece), and have about 700 miles to throw in somewhere else (maybe upstate NY? How about Philly-Pittsburgh? Or even both?). Considering that a fair share of your WAS-MIA alignments are going to coincide, you'll probably have even a little more wiggle room...this is really a no-brainer to me.

The other, cynical advantage of this is that if you bundle this together with some other things, you can probably short out a decent amount of opposition because of local job creation. Not all (we all know that some Tea Party elements will be implacable), but a decent share all the same.

Edit: Another bone to chew on: Even assuming that you only sped things up down to Raleigh, NC...if you could hold an average of 80 MPH until Raleigh and then ran on the same timetable we have now, you'd whack just over two hours off various trains' schedules. Now, I know that part of this is coming out of engine switches in Washington, DC...but I think this is emblematic of what is doable at least on paper. I think an 80 MPH average on the Silver Meteor gets you to Miami in a hair over 17 hours, an improvement of something like 10 hours on the current timetable. On the Crescent route, you're looking at about 10:45 rather than the current 17:58. Big improvements? Yes. Doable on a far saner budget than what gets thrown around for those 220 MPH trains? I'd be shocked as anything if this wasn't far cheaper to set up and run than those other alignments.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Gateway is NOT hsr. It is a reincarnation of a standard transhudson tunnel and general capacity improvement project. The main beneficiary is NJTransit.

 

[jis]

Gateway is NOT hsr. It is a reincarnation of a standard transhudson tunnel and general capacity improvement project. The main beneficiary is NJTransit.

Well, coming out of the New Haven meeting, if the Lackawanna Coalition manages to kill and bury the Penn South part of the project then NJT will get close to zero benefit - weel additional reliability both running and timetable, which would be hard to get rid of if the tunnels are built). And if they further manage to reduce the 4 tracking plan to no additional tracks between Newark and Swift and only one additional track from Swift to the tunnels, then if anything NJT might have to reduce a few trains as Amtrak frequency picks up. Certainly the Raritan Valley folks won't get their one seat ride into penn Station under the LC plans.

I agree that what is euphemistically called Gateway I is all about Hudson Tunnels and 4 tracking between Newark and New York + Penn South.

Ironically what in the original Gateway proposal for HSR between Newark and Philadelphia, is what partly got funded, instead of Portal which would have been part of what is in Gateway I. But then again, since Christie was involved in some of the funding for Portal, I am not surprised that it got bypassed.

 

[jis]

The GATEWAY project up in the Northeast to build a HSR line next to the existing Right of Way is supposed to cost $13.5B by 2020.

This would be all fine; except Amtrak has a $5.5b backlog of maintenance on the NEC and needs to cough up $12.3b over 15 years to replace 1,300 cars and 350 locomotives to maintain present service levels.

Think of all the money that's tied up in sexy sexy HSR that could revitalize a significant portion of Amtrak's fleet...

The GATEWAY project involves no HSR line, unless you consider 90mph as HSR - well maybe so in rest of the country, but on the NEC it is pokey slow speed. It has more to do with reliability and capacity than speed. That is why it is not surprising that it did not get any significant funding from HSR grants (well there are other political reasons too, but let us ignore that for the moment ).

If the issues addressed by the Gateway project are not addressed in the next decade, with the Portal Bridge at the bottom of the river or stuck perpetually open and the tunnels becoming less and less reliable (already one is shut down for the entire weekend every weekend), then all those 1300 new cars and locomotives will be able to maintain two separate services, - one between Newark and Washington DC and the other between New York and Boston. Coming to think of it we can also save on the money since without through service to New York demand will go down drastically thus not requiring those cars anymore

So there is nothing sexy about Gateway. It is all about critical redundancy, reliability and capacity work. Pretty nuts and bolts stuff.

 

[RCrierie]

So there is nothing sexy about Gateway. It is all about critical redundancy, reliability and capacity work. Pretty nuts and bolts stuff.

What, you mean Wikipedia lied to me? Say it ain't so!

 

[jis]

What, you mean Wikipedia lied to me? Say it ain't so!

:hi:

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The GATEWAY project involves no HSR line, unless you consider 90mph as HSR - well maybe so in rest of the country, but on the NEC it is pokey slow speed.

On my trips along the NEC we averaged somewhere in the 65-75 MPH range. Which is about what I average driving across Texas. I guess I missed the option for the train that averages well above 90MPH. :huh:

 

[jis]

The GATEWAY project involves no HSR line, unless you consider 90mph as HSR - well maybe so in rest of the country, but on the NEC it is pokey slow speed.

On my trips along the NEC we averaged somewhere in the 65-75 MPH range. Which is about what I average driving across Texas. I guess I missed the option for the train that averages well above 90MPH. :huh:

Take any Acela from Metropark to Philly. You will average above 90mph.

OTOH I think in the context of this thread you are confusing average speed with max speed, because when I said 90mph in the earlier post I was talking of max allowed speed.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Take any Acela from Metropark to Philly. You will average above 90mph. OTOH I think in the context of this thread you are confusing average speed with max speed, because when I said 90mph in the earlier post I was talking of max allowed speed.

Sometimes the measurement that evokes a far stronger emotional response but plays a far lesser role in the final outcome isn't the best one to focus on. That's all I'm trying to get at. ^_^

 

[Anderson]

The GATEWAY project up in the Northeast to build a HSR line next to the existing Right of Way is supposed to cost $13.5B by 2020.

This would be all fine; except Amtrak has a $5.5b backlog of maintenance on the NEC and needs to cough up $12.3b over 15 years to replace 1,300 cars and 350 locomotives to maintain present service levels.

Think of all the money that's tied up in sexy sexy HSR that could revitalize a significant portion of Amtrak's fleet...

The GATEWAY project involves no HSR line, unless you consider 90mph as HSR - well maybe so in rest of the country, but on the NEC it is pokey slow speed. It has more to do with reliability and capacity than speed. That is why it is not surprising that it did not get any significant funding from HSR grants (well there are other political reasons too, but let us ignore that for the moment ).

If the issues addressed by the Gateway project are not addressed in the next decade, with the Portal Bridge at the bottom of the river or stuck perpetually open and the tunnels becoming less and less reliable (already one is shut down for the entire weekend every weekend), then all those 1300 new cars and locomotives will be able to maintain two separate services, - one between Newark and Washington DC and the other between New York and Boston. Coming to think of it we can also save on the money since without through service to New York demand will go down drastically thus not requiring those cars anymore

So there is nothing sexy about Gateway. It is all about critical redundancy, reliability and capacity work. Pretty nuts and bolts stuff.

Part of the reason I throw it in with that doorstopper of a project is that Amtrak does so as well. The tunnel is probably the single best part of the plan (even if it is expensive as anything).

By the way...split services at NYC blocked by the Hudson River...wow. Now there's a setback to the 19th century.

 

[Anderson]

A point on earlier discussions: On chewing through numbers in my head, I'm actually starting to think that there isn't a solid market for ultra-HSR in the NYP-WAS or BOS-NYP markets unless Amtrak is willing to either back down on the Acela's prices, wipe out First Class on the Acela, or to "eat" some of the extra operating cost. WAS-BOS may indeed be another story entirely, but that market is far smaller than the other two.

From a business standpoint, Amtrak has a de facto monopoly on high speed rail, and that isn't likely to go away. Assuming a $40 billion price tag for such a project, a 5% return on investment would require a $2 billion/year profit, or $50/passenger (about what the Acelas are pulling down right now) on 40 million passengers. Unless ultra-HSR somehow starts attracting daily commuters from Arlington to Manhattan (something that sounds like science fiction in many ways...a daily commute that passes through eight states), and the daily cost is likely to be prohibitive in the extreme for that (again, to get to $50/passenger, you're going to be looking at near-peak tickets running somewhere around $250-300 in real terms each way...in BC. That's $3000/week...not happening). Mind you, $40 billion is the lowball...at $75 billion, you're looking at having to pull that on 75 million passengers per year.

So the private sector won't be building their own alignments in the region, except possibly as additional corridors to feed into the trunk line...and even there, you'd be looking at lower-cost options that can work with narrower alignments. Even then, though, the margins versus construction cost just don't seem attractive enough to pull in large-scale private sector investment. As such, you've got a monopoly, and Amtrak is increasingly going to be competing with itself: It has the airlines on time for the largest market in the region, and it's never going to win on price alone.

So we move on to a question of rational action. Let us assume that time is money, as the saying goes. If time is money, however, then time ultimately has a finite value. If you could teleport between two locations but it cost $10,000...most folks would obviously take a pass. If time is valued at $100/hour, then paying an extra $100 to save 45 minutes traveling from NYP-WAS is going to be an irrational decision. At $150/hour, it is a rational one. So it's going to come down to how much you can sell folks on rushing from A to B just a little bit faster. Simply making ultra-HSR the new "first class", if Amtrak sales figures are any indication, isn't going to be enough to support such an operation on its own...the 45 minutes might do it for some folks, but it'll likely price a lot more people out of the market at the same time.

Chewing this through, the answer seems to be to instead focus on arranging additional 125 MPH/160 MPH alignments with competitive travel times between locations if Amtrak needs more capacity. On BOS-NYP, this might mean a Springfield or a Hartford alignment that can use "Acela compatible" equipment. On NYP-WAS, it might mean an alignment that skips Philadelphia (obviously not ideal) or one that takes a bit longer while picking up other areas to the north or south of Philly. And of course, adding side-alignments that hook into the overall operation with guaranteed connections can't hurt the core's numbers (extending the line down to Richmond jumps to mind, albeit with obvious technical issues...though electrifying and upgrading the RF&P main is probably an easier prospect than entirely new alignments through CT or MA), though whether any of the feeder alignments could justify themselves financially in this context is a tough question.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Well, coming out of the New Haven meeting, if the Lackawanna Coalition manages to kill and bury the Penn South part of the project then NJT will get close to zero benefit...

Speaking as myself, Jishnu, I am not onboard with Joe Clift and Jim Raleigh's plan for their so-called "affordable ARC". I think it is the largest piece of cost-cutting to bring numbers down nonsense I have ever heard. If $13.5 billion is what it takes to build an intelligent capacity improvement and redundancy to NJ-NY transit, than so be it. So long as it is an intelligent project, which with some reservations, Gateway is- and ARC was not.

I respect and am friends with both Jim and Joe, but I disagree with them on this issue.

 

[Nexis4Jersey]

I think Amtrak can take some of the pressure off the Tunnels by rerouting the long distance trains to Hoboken. Which has enough Capacity and services to handle Amtrak. The Kearny Connection / Waterfront Connection provides a connection to the NEC , so its not like Amtrak would be disconnected from the NEC. I think they should run a trial period over a couple months to see if this can be successful or not.... I mean from New York Penn to Hoboken is a big upgrade in terms of Station looks and appearance. Also maybe rerouting a few Daily Regional Trains between DC and NY to Hoboken wouldn't be such a bad idea , Hoboken is the main portal for most business professionals working in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. As for the Gateway Project , i think the whole project is a good idea , however i don't think the Capacity Expansion will last 3 decades in this region.

 

[jis]

I think Amtrak can take some of the pressure off the Tunnels by rerouting the long distance trains to Hoboken. Which has enough Capacity and services to handle Amtrak. The Kearny Connection / Waterfront Connection provides a connection to the NEC , so its not like Amtrak would be disconnected from the NEC. I think they should run a trial period over a couple months to see if this can be successful or not.... I mean from New York Penn to Hoboken is a big upgrade in terms of Station looks and appearance. Also maybe rerouting a few Daily Regional Trains between DC and NY to Hoboken wouldn't be such a bad idea , Hoboken is the main portal for most business professionals working in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. As for the Gateway Project , i think the whole project is a good idea , however i don't think the Capacity Expansion will last 3 decades in this region.

Removing 3.5 trains in an entire day to another station so as to verily kill the ridership on those trains is neither going to relieve pressure on Penn Station, nor will be an intelligent move IMHPO. But then again, what do I know?

Amtrak's offered load on Penn Station and through the Hudson Tunnels is 3 to 4 trains per hour max each way, and more usually 2 per hour each way. There is no capacity problem at Penn Station except in the two morning and afternoon rush hours, and most LD trains do not come to Penn Station at those hours.

So IMHO this is yet another complicated solution looking for a problem rather than the other way round.

 

[jis]

Well, coming out of the New Haven meeting, if the Lackawanna Coalition manages to kill and bury the Penn South part of the project then NJT will get close to zero benefit...

Speaking as myself, Jishnu, I am not onboard with Joe Clift and Jim Raleigh's plan for their so-called "affordable ARC". I think it is the largest piece of cost-cutting to bring numbers down nonsense I have ever heard. If $13.5 billion is what it takes to build an intelligent capacity improvement and redundancy to NJ-NY transit, than so be it. So long as it is an intelligent project, which with some reservations, Gateway is- and ARC was not.

I respect and am friends with both Jim and Joe, but I disagree with them on this issue.

Likewise. Thanks.

 

[jis]

Take any Acela from Metropark to Philly. You will average above 90mph. OTOH I think in the context of this thread you are confusing average speed with max speed, because when I said 90mph in the earlier post I was talking of max allowed speed.

Sometimes the measurement that evokes a far stronger emotional response but plays a far lesser role in the final outcome isn't the best one to focus on. That's all I'm trying to get at. ^_^

Well, you made what appeared to be an oblique claim regarding speed and refuted it with facts. Now you are making a different claim and I pretty much agree with it to a point, though I also suspect that you have not done the analysis to definitively come to any conclusion about what the implications are of achieving various average speeds in terms of operational efficiency. But in any case, it was hard to understand what is it that you were trying to say in your previous message.

Even at whatever slow pokey (by world standards) speed that the Acelas run at they actually do well enough for the folks using them apparently. But operationally they require more equipment than is feasible with a shorter end to end time. So focusing on raising the speed from 82 mph (which the current Acela average between New York and Washington DC) progressively to something closer to 100 is useful. Purely from a customer perspective, even at 82mph, it is quite impossible for anyone to get even close to that by car, provided of course one is traveling from city to city. Apparently enough people do find it useful to actually use it, even at what some consider to be exorbitant fares.

The project that has been funded will cut some 3 mins from the net running time, and the full Gateway I and II will cut minimally another 5 mins. So about 8 mins cut from 2:47, an almost 5% reduction in running time (avg speed to 85mph), is not a particularly bad thing, specially since it starts getting close to a point where each Acela set can start making an extra turn thus immensely raising equipment utilization. Ideally one would want to get it down to 2:30 (90mph) to ensure the ability to do the extra turn.

 

[Nexis4Jersey]

I mean't to say the Tunnels , but o well....how would it kill ridership?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I mean't to say the Tunnels , but o well....how would it kill ridership?

I love Hoboken Terminal. Architecturally, it is one of New Jersey's most stunning edifices. But I'll be damned if I'm going to take a ferry or PATH train with all my luggage across the river! There is a reason that the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad vastly dominated the New York-Chicago market compared to the Lackwanna, Erie, and Nickel Plate. And the fact that their train cars crossed the river for you is a major part of that.