North East Corridor (NEC) speeds, new stations and state of repair

[jis]

Here is a nice fact sheet for the new Susquehanna River Bridge which got funded recently, and work is about to begin.

https://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Susquehanna-River-Bridge-Project-Fact-Sheet.pdf
Here is the artists rendition that appears in that fact sheet:

 

[cirdan]

And does the theoretical, new line HAVE to be downtown? France's TGV calls some major cities' stops TGV, and they are not in the city itself, at all. Valence, is one of them.

Valence has 64,000 inhabitants, so not exactly a major city. Not even by French standards. Even if you try to make a "metroplex* out of it and start adding to this the smaller towns and villages in its broader catchment area, you would struggle to find 140,000 inhabitants.

In bigger cities such as Lyon, Marseille, Lille, Strasbourg etc the TGV invariably does serve centrally located stations.

 

[jis]

And does the theoretical, new line HAVE to be downtown? France's TGV calls some major cities' stops TGV, and they are not in the city itself, at all. Valence, is one of them.

Depends on how much money one wants to spend. Station does not have to be downtown, but can be if there is willingness to spend gobs of money to bring it downtown. Typically it involves tunneling under the town to build a new station under an existing station, somewhat similar to what has been done at Grand Central Terminal by LIRR.

 

[cirdan]

Depends on how much money one wants to spend. Station does not have to be downtown, but can be if there is willingness to spend gobs of money to bring it downtown. Typically it involves tunneling under the town to build a new station under an existing station, somewhat similar to what has been done at Grand Central Terminal by LIRR.

In the French cases what is often done is that the high-speed line will by-pass the town, but have connections to classic rail lines on either side of the town so that trains serving the downtown station use the old line for a short section. There are only very few examples in France of high speed lines being built into downtown or even inner suburban areas. Obviously the Japanese and Chinese pursued a different philosophy here.

In Spain in some cases downtown stations have been abandoned entirely in favor of new stations located directly on the high-speed line. Orihuela comes to mind for example. In Barcelona the high speed line approaches central Barcelona almost entirely on new-built lines, although the geometry was rather constrained. The approach from the south is in a tunnel under the classic rail line and to the north the alignment is in a new tunnel but its geometry was dictated by the need to stay under streets wherever possible and weave its way around the numerous older metro, rail and highway tunnels. The result is that although the line can be called new-build, the speeds on the urban part are not higher than they would have been had one of the old lines been used instead. The urban section of the new line is thus provided more for capacity reasons than to actually bring high speed all the way to the station.

The graph below shows the speed profile of the Madrid (Atocha) - Barcelona - La Jonquera high speed line (source Wikipedia).

 

[railiner]

I guess the high speed railways took a page from Interstate Highways...new construction bypassed most cities, and either had a
"business loop", or a stub, or a beltway, or all to serve the bypassed city....

 

[Tlcooper93]

I guess the high speed railways took a page from Interstate Highways...new construction bypassed most cities, and either had a
"business loop", or a stub, or a beltway, or all to serve the bypassed city....

Though interstate highways didn’t bypass most cities.

They had in interesting system where depending on the city’s size the highway would either go directly through its downtown, or bypass it altogether. Every large city has/had an interstate through its core. Some cities were more successful than others at protesting this.

 

[MARC Rider]

In the French cases what is often done is that the high-speed line will by-pass the town, but have connections to classic rail lines on either side of the town so that trains serving the downtown station use the old line for a short section. There are only very few examples in France of high speed lines being built into downtown or even inner suburban areas. Obviously the Japanese and Chinese pursued a different philosophy here.

In Spain in some cases downtown stations have been abandoned entirely in favor of new stations located directly on the high-speed line. Orihuela comes to mind for example. In Barcelona the high speed line approaches central Barcelona almost entirely on new-built lines, although the geometry was rather constrained. The approach from the south is in a tunnel under the classic rail line and to the north the alignment is in a new tunnel but its geometry was dictated by the need to stay under streets wherever possible and weave its way around the numerous older metro, rail and highway tunnels. The result is that although the line can be called new-build, the speeds on the urban part are not higher than they would have been had one of the old lines been used instead. The urban section of the new line is thus provided more for capacity reasons than to actually bring high speed all the way to the station.

The graph below shows the speed profile of the Madrid (Atocha) - Barcelona - La Jonquera high speed line (source Wikipedia).

View attachment 34793

You mean it's going ~75 km/hr when it hits the Barcelona station? Wow, one needs to be very careful and quick getting off the train!

 

[cirdan]

You mean it's going ~75 km/hr when it hits the Barcelona station? Wow, one needs to be very careful and quick getting off the train!

Those are highest permitted speeds. Going through a platform track in a creepy underground place such as Barcelona Sants at 75km/h is still pretty hairy though.

I guess Barcelona is so important though that nobody will want to run trains through without stopping anyway. Except freights maybe. I don't know if there is a bypass line for freight, but then I'm not sure if any freight is going via the high speed line at all.

 

[jis]

There is a nice page on the Dock Bridge Rehabilitation Project. Dock is currently a lift bridge across the Passaic River next to Newark Penn Station. In course of its rehab, it will be converted to a fixed structure and all the mechanism for lifting will be removed. The counter weights will be permanently fixed in the locked down position and most of the lifting cables will be removed. The Miter Rails will be removed and replaced with through welded rails across the bridge.

https://www.amtrak.com/about-amtrak/new-era/infrastructure-projects/dock-bridge-rehabilitation.html