typical cost of upgrading conventional rail?

[birdy]

This rail thing is taking off. Even the Arizonans included a $3.5 million earmark in the federal budget to study a link between Phoenix and Tucson. As many on this forum have pointed out, there is a real need for conventional commuter rail, say for distances to 125 miles.

So, leaving aside right of way aquisition costs, what is a rule of thumb cost to upgrade track from say, Class IV to Class VI so as to accomodate a Talgo train going 110 mph? Is the savings that significant over HSR?

 

[amtrakwolverine]

amtrak used to go to phoenix untill the host rr abandoned the line and amtrak didn't have the $$$ to buy it outright so they ripped up the tracks.

 

[gswager]

amtrak used to go to phoenix untill the host rr abandoned the line and amtrak didn't have the $$$ to buy it outright so they ripped up the tracks.

I thought the UP ripped up the track somewhere in the west side of Arizona, not between Phoenix and Tucson.

 

[wayman]

amtrak used to go to phoenix untill the host rr abandoned the line and amtrak didn't have the $$$ to buy it outright so they ripped up the tracks.

The abandoned rails you're thinking of extend from Phoenix west some thirty-or-so miles until that line joins up with the main line from Maricopa west to Yuma. At some point in the past year George Harris gave a very thorough milepost-by-milepost description of that line. As I recall, the rails are technically still there and still usable, but with speed restrictions of around five or ten miles per hour for large stretches--in other words, essentially useless.

But the rails from Phoenix to Tucson are presumably still in use and in decent shape. Those extend southeast from Phoenix.

 

[WICT106]

Back to the original topic of the post.

There can be a lot of conjecture here, unless it is from someone who is a licensed Civil Engineer. the cost depends a lot upon the terrain the route crosses, and how dilapidated the tracks are at the beginning of upgrading. Anecdotally, judging from the reports that Dane County and the Wisconsin State DOT have written over the past two decades regarding their plans for high speed rail, the cost of upgrading from one FRA Class of track to another is somewhere in the region of $ 1 million per mile. That may or may not include the cost of Automatic Train Control, or Automatic Train Stop, Cab Signal Systems, or PTS installation of any kind. But figure on $ 1 million per mile of upgrade.

Disclaimer: I'm not a State licensed Civil Engineer, so feel free to be skeptical of what I just wrote.

 

[George Harris]

Back to the original topic of the post.
There can be a lot of conjecture here, unless it is from someone who is a licensed Civil Engineer. the cost depends a lot upon the terrain the route crosses, and how dilapidated the tracks are at the beginning of upgrading. Anecdotally, judging from the reports that Dane County and the Wisconsin State DOT have written over the past two decades regarding their plans for high speed rail, the cost of upgrading from one FRA Class of track to another is somewhere in the region of $ 1 million per mile. That may or may not include the cost of Automatic Train Control, or Automatic Train Stop, Cab Signal Systems, or PTS installation of any kind. But figure on $ 1 million per mile of upgrade.

Disclaimer: I'm not a State licensed Civil Engineer, so feel free to be skeptical of what I just wrote.

I am a licensed Civil Engineer, and because of that I would not even make a guess. The upgrade could vary from replace a few ties and run the tamper over the line all the way up to complete rebuild from the subgrade up, depending on how near the boundary of the class the track is and how much maintenance effort you want to have to keep it in class. Someone, preferably a team of someones, with a lot more experience in analysis of in-service track conditions than I have would have to walk the line to make an intelligent estimate. And for the signal issues, I am not qualified ot even make a guess at that one.

Also, when throwing around the FRA "Class" numbers, remember, these are SAFETY standards, not comfort standards. Meet them, and the track will be safe, which is not to say at all that it will ride comfortably. If you are just barely in class on crosslevel, dips, etc., it can be a very rough ride.

 

[birdy]

Well then, lets approach it from a different direction: What is the cost per mile of a proper catenary?

* * * *

The quotes I've read recently about the proposed upgrade from Chicago to St. Louis seemed to put the cost in a little over a million or two million bucks per mile, which seems awfully cost effective for shortish distances, and corresponds with what Wict106 says.

* * * * *

I'm pretty sure the Zonies would very much appreciate a near high speed train to the Old Pueblo. Its a little over 100 miles. That's not really long enough to justify true HSR. yet, since they would be competing with auto traffic they would need to go out of their way to get the speed up.

 

[VentureForth]

One rule of thumb that I heard back when DART rail was being discussed in the Dallas area was that to upgrade existing rail to just 79 MPH was around $1 Mil/mi. To build an electrified double track was in the range of $10 Mil/mi.

Just a rule of thumb, wag, finger in the wind, yadda yadda yadda. But I think that it would be exponentially more to go "High Speed".

For an interesting read, check out the Adelaide-Darwin Railway page on Wikipedia. If I read it right, they upgraded nearly 1,420 km of track (882 Miles) for about AUD$1.2B (USD$777Mil) using 112lb welded rail and concrete ties. That was done in the last decade for a cost of about USD$880k per mile. Granted, very little imminent domain probably had to be paid out, but that's gotta be some model for modern steel wheel rail construction!