Northeast Corridor high-speed-rail plan slows to 160 m.p.h.

[CHamilton]

Northeast Corridor high-speed-rail plan slows to 160 m.p.h.

Has Amtrak abandoned its vision of 220-mile-per-hour bullet trains speeding up and down the Northeast Corridor?

The railroad recently issued draft specifications for new trains to replace its existing Acelas that call for 160 m.p.h. trains, not the 220 m.p.h. versions Amtrak said in January that it was seeking.

Amtrak and the California High-Speed Rail Authority in January announced they were jointly seeking proposals for trains that could run at 220 miles an hour on the West Coast and the East Coast. California still wants 220-m.p.h. trains for its planned high-speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco....


Amtrak last year outlined a $151 billion vision for high-speed travel on the Northeast Corridor, with 220 m.p.h. trains between New York and Washington by about 2030 and between New York and Boston by 2040. That plan envisioned 37-minute trips between Philadelphia and New York.

The Obama administration urged Amtrak and California to develop a joint high-speed train order to attract foreign train manufacturers to build factories in the United States, creating jobs and a new industry here.

In January, Amtrak and the California High-Speed Rail Authority said in a news release that they were "joining forces in the search for proven high-speed-rail train sets currently being manufactured and in commercial service that are capable of operating safely at speeds up to 220 m.p.h. on both Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and on California's developing HSR corridor."

The same month, Amtrak published proposed performance requirements that called for a maximum operating speed of 220 miles per hour, with a maximum test speed of 225 mp.h.

But when Amtrak issued draft specifications for the new trains on Nov. 19, gone were the requirements for 220 m.p.h service on the Northeast Corridor. Instead, the requirements were set for 160 miles per hour....

 

[jis]

This should not be a surprise for anyone that was paying attention. Where exactly were they going to run faster than 160mph before say 2030 (if that) on the NEC? Why spend extra money now on an unnecessary capability?

 

[the_traveler]

Northeast Corridor effectively limits maximum speeds to 160 MPH.

:huh: That's news to me! So why is Amtrak testing Acela runs on (I believe) 4 segments at 165 MPH? :huh:

 

[PRR 60]

Northeast Corridor effectively limits maximum speeds to 160 MPH.

:huh: That's news to me! So why is Amtrak testing Acela runs on (I believe) 4 segments at 165 MPH? :huh:

They tested Acela at 165 to qualify for 160. FRA requires testing at 5mph above the proposed maximum operating speed (used to be +10 mph, but FRA was "convinced" to lower that to +5 mph to accommodate Acela which can't make 170).

 

[the_traveler]

I thought AE power was rated to operate at 200 MPH, but is only tested and operates at 150 MPH currently?

 

[jis]

I haven't heard that one before. The technology is from 1st gen TGV which would place the top speed at somewhere between 150 and 180mph, given the added weight. I don;t think that they are really capable of sustained running at 170mph.

 

[George Harris]

I haven't heard that one before. The technology is from 1st gen TGV which would place the top speed at somewhere between 150 and 180mph, given the added weight. I don;t think that they are really capable of sustained running at 170mph.

Remember, way back when the TGV made their highly advertizes speed record, that was the normal straight out of the box trainset. A few of the variations if I remember right were volage int eh wire above 25kV, shortened trainset, larger diameter driving wheels. Not to mention, if you see the pictures, basically you see a headlight in a cloud of dust, which is a great advertisement for ballasted track on high speed lines. There are some of the poeple involved that said that the trainset was heavily instrumented and a lot of information was collected and analyzed. This likely went into improvements in the later edition TGV trainsets.

 

[Anderson]

One thing that was interesting is just how different the specs were between the two sets. I can't open mine now (I may need to beg a replacement copy from someone since I think my download may have been bad), but as I recall Amtrak wanted shorter trains than CA did by a wide margin as well.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

This should not be a surprise for anyone that was paying attention. Where exactly were they going to run faster than 160mph before say 2030 (if that) on the NEC? Why spend extra money now on an unnecessary capability?

Cause this is 'murica. An in 'murica things are overpowered, unnesary and supplied for instant gratification. The author of the article seems to embrace this philosophy. That, and they didn't do much thinking before typing, or researching.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

This should have been closer to the beginning of the article. The author poses a question, spends about 2 pages engaging in asinine speculation, gets comment from a nearly completely unrelated party, and then finally puts in Amtrak's comment.

 

[afigg]

One thing that was interesting is just how different the specs were between the two sets. I can't open mine now (I may need to beg a replacement copy from someone since I think my download may have been bad), but as I recall Amtrak wanted shorter trains than CA did by a wide margin as well.

No, the trainset lengths were the same. Amtrak is looking for single trainsets of 200 meters in length. What CHSRA is asking for is 2 combined trainsets of 400 meters. When the entire system is built, splitting a origin LA train with 1 trainset to SF and 1 to Sacramento could be routine.
I can send you a copy of the specs if you need it. I had to do some fussing with a PDF editor to make the downloaded document readable.

 

[MattW]

I'm not sure Amtrak will find much that can only do 160 that can't do 220 and meet the other requirements and be significantly cheaper. I personally don't see this particular decision as Amtrak backing away from 220mph vision just yet.

 

[jis]

They are just stating their requirement for the currently proposed order. Of course the bidders are free to offer a train with greater capabilities than the stated requirements, and if that is at an acceptable price. Great. One fact that is more or less a given is that there will not be any trackage on the NEC capable of carrying a train at much greater than 160mph before 2030. This is just Amtrak's acknowledgement of that.

As for how this has anything to do with Obama's much vaunted HSR plan, beats me. Recall that the NEC was not eligible to get any of Obama's grossly mismanaged HSR funds. It became eligible only after granted funds were turned down or reverted from a few states.

 

[Train person]

Not to mention, if you see the pictures, basically you see a headlight in a cloud of dust, which is a great advertisement for ballasted track on high speed lines.

Given the French have been running high speed trains over ballasted track since about 1980, it obviously is a 'good' advertisement.Or have they been 'wrong' all these years??

 

[jis]

I'm not sure Amtrak will find much that can only do 160 that can't do 220 and meet the other requirements and be significantly cheaper. I personally don't see this particular decision as Amtrak backing away from 220mph vision just yet.

As for 220mph, that is a decision for the NEC Futures PEIS to make first. Amtrak just gets to execute whatever LPA the PEIS comes up with and the NEC Commission endorses. The fact that Amtrak is silently backing off from 220mph may be indicative of the direction that the PEIS is taking in its LPA selection. One of the loud and clear feedback that they got from the participants was that the LPA should not be a pie in the sky that will bankrupt each state participating in the NEC Commission above and beyond how bankrupt they already are. The NEC Futures PEIS group meets again in January or February to go through the LPA selection process.
It should be interesting to see how the cards fall out. There was considerable opposition in the last meeting to mindless pursuit of 220mph. A lot of time was spent on discussing what is the incremental ROI of going from 160-175mph to 220mph, and the answers were not satisfactory. The incremental ROW cost is absolutely huge since it will require increasing track center distance, which will require very significant land acquisition along the current ROWs and in many places outright new ROW.

 

[Andrew]

Does the PEIS include any Gateway Project information?

 

[jis]

A PEIS is not detailed enough to take such things as specifics of Gateway into consideration. But on the whole I believe Gateway as a concept is not part of the "No Build" in the analysis. But I can't say that that is absolutely correct without looking at the documents Which I don't have with me right now out here in California. But that has nothing about 220mph in it anyway. Gateway is a 90mph railroad from Newark to New York.

 

[cirdan]

I haven't heard that one before. The technology is from 1st gen TGV which would place the top speed at somewhere between 150 and 180mph, given the added weight. I don;t think that they are really capable of sustained running at 170mph.

Remember, way back when the TGV made their highly advertizes speed record, that was the normal straight out of the box trainset. A few of the variations if I remember right were volage int eh wire above 25kV, shortened trainset, larger diameter driving wheels. Not to mention, if you see the pictures, basically you see a headlight in a cloud of dust, which is a great advertisement for ballasted track on high speed lines. There are some of the poeple involved that said that the trainset was heavily instrumented and a lot of information was collected and analyzed. This likely went into improvements in the later edition TGV trainsets.

Absolutely, they performed a large number of measurements on those runs, which is why they know precisely what the dynamics are doing at such speeds. How much force here? How much pressure there? It's all recorded and analyzed. In fact apart from the few clusters of seats reserved for journalists, the rest of the train was completely full of advanced instruments.

 

[grover5995]

I haven't heard that one before. The technology is from 1st gen TGV which would place the top speed at somewhere between 150 and 180mph, given the added weight. I don;t think that they are really capable of sustained running at 170mph.

The new generation of Acela trainsets being ordered now are going to be a lot lighter and faster than the current ones. Speed will likely be limited by infrastructure instead.

 

[cirdan]

They are just stating their requirement for the currently proposed order. Of course the bidders are free to offer a train with greater capabilities than the stated requirements, and if that is at an acceptable price. Great. One fact that is more or less a given is that there will not be any trackage on the NEC capable of carrying a train at much greater than 160mph before 2030. This is just Amtrak's acknowledgement of that.

It would be interesting to know what Amtrak thinks will happen to these trains when 200mph running starts in 2030. They should have plenty of life in them still then.

Will they go to the Keystones? Or as Regionals? (in which case we should ask what will happen to the ACS-64s) Or is Amtrak expecting there to be additional electrification by then?

 

[jis]

They are just stating their requirement for the currently proposed order. Of course the bidders are free to offer a train with greater capabilities than the stated requirements, and if that is at an acceptable price. Great. One fact that is more or less a given is that there will not be any trackage on the NEC capable of carrying a train at much greater than 160mph before 2030. This is just Amtrak's acknowledgement of that.

It would be interesting to know what Amtrak thinks will happen to these trains when 200mph running starts in 2030. They should have plenty of life in them still then.

Will they go to the Keystones? Or as Regionals? (in which case we should ask what will happen to the ACS-64s) Or is Amtrak expecting there to be additional electrification by then?

A quick glance through the RFP suggests that they are exploring designs that are easily upgraded to higher speed capabilities. The NEC Future proposals envisage a Super Express service above the current Acela level service, so it is not clear that the Acela II sets would necessarily become redundant with the addition of higher speed service. Stopping patterns of Super Express followed by two levels of Express srvice followed by Regional and Commuter services have been discussed at the NEC Future meetings. So the plans being considered are much more leaborate than people seem to realize.