Work of stimulus package to add some speed to train routes

[WICT106]

See link from the NYT : New York times article on rail portion of stimulus

Also look at the comments. Wow, is there ever a lot of ignorance in the general public regarding rail issues. I think the incremental way may be the best way to go - for now. Wait on the Bullet Train type rail for later.

 

[George Harris]

I think the incremental way may be the best way to go - for now. Wait on the Bullet Train type rail for later.

I don't agree. If we can get ONE good high speed line up and running in this country, its advantages will be so overwhelmingly obvious that many more will follow as fast as the money can be found.

 

[Guest_timetableflagman_*]

With only $8 billion funding, I agree that incremental increase in speed to at least 110 mph is the best way to introduce as many travelers nationwide to higher-speed rail. That would give them a good taste of how faster service can be.

That amount of funding could help upgrade the Silver Meteor, Capitol Limited/Pennsylvanian or Lakeshore Limited, Southwest Chief, and Coast Starlight lines at least closer to 110 mph service, coast-to-coast. Those lines are already at least 90 mph in some places. Upgrading these lines could speed up connections with other conventional-speed trains, making the entire system more attractive to national passengers.

If scheduled to depart origins in the evenings and arrive at final destinations in the mornings, conventional and higher or high-speed trains could be more usable by overnight sleeping car business and rush hour coach commuter passengers as well as general travelers needing to leave after work and return before business hours refreshed and ready to go to work upon deboarding. That could transform AMTRAK into a high revenue ridership, national rail commuter service for the largest cities every rather than focusing only on discretionary travelers only. This could give AMTRAK's current long-distance lines overnight business sleeping car service and local rush hour commuter service for th largest cities every 400-600 miles for conventional speed, 700-900 miles for 110-mph and 1,000-1,200 miles for 150 mph.

Presumably, double tracking and additional signals are the minimum needed for 110 mph. Grade separation, while desireable for any line, would be necessary for 150 mph. Electrification (again, desireable, especially for green and even dynamic breaking-generated power for trains) would be necessary above 150 mph.

While 150 mph could give us cross-country service in only two nights or one day, if scheduled to depart each coast in the evenings and arrive at the other in the mornings, 110 mph service could still give us only three night or two-day service coast-to-coast. That beats the current three-days and three-nights needed now (which is still twice as fast as legal driving with adequate breaks). Flying necessitates the better part of a day to arrive late in the day, largely in time only to go to bed and do one's business the next day!

 

[Guest_timetableflagman_*]

Correcting myself, the Coast Starlight line does NOT have 90 mph that I know of. It does have some double track.

 

[jackal]

Correcting myself, the Coast Starlight line does NOT have 90 mph that I know of. It does have some double track.

Correct. The CS travels primarily over UP (former SP) trackage. ATS was installed primarily by the ATSF (now BNSF), which is why the PS and SWC both feature 90mph running. AFAIK, the UP/SP never installed anything beyond normal ABS/CTC, since the route (along the coast and through mountains) did not allow for higher speeds, anyway. In fact, relatively little of the track allows 79mph, not to mention anything higher.

At this point, I would focus on the HSR corridors the FRA has already defined. Cross-country 110mph or even 150mph service is not something that would, at this point, be a very good ROI--even at knocking transcon travel down to two nights or a full day, that long of a time is still not competetive with a 4.5-hour transcon flight.

Even in high-speed-rail mecca Europe, trains do a much smaller percentage of cross-continental service. You can take high speed rail from London to Rome, but even on their developed network, it still takes the better part of, IIRC, a day and a half. With LCCs offering nonstop service on the same route for pennies, pence, or Eurocents, the market for longhaul train service isn't as large as people here seem to think it is.

Develop the HSR corridors and then incrementally expand them to the point where they begin to intersect. As much fun as it would be to see our country building out a transcontinental high-speed railroad, it would be at such a tremendous cost and without a corresponding huge benefit that it really is just a pipe dream by some overzealous railnuts here!

 

[WICT106]

I also strongly hope that this spending will not be rescinded, or repealed at a later date.

Do any of the fellow members here know what would have to take place in order for the amount of funds to be reduced, or eliminated completely ?

 

[wayman]

I also strongly hope that this spending will not be rescinded, or repealed at a later date.
Do any of the fellow members here know what would have to take place in order for the amount of funds to be reduced, or eliminated completely ?

Sure. At this point it would take a veto-proof vote by both houses of Congress on a new measure superceding the Stimulus Bill. In a Congress where both houses have solid majorities favoring the Stimulus, this won't happen.

 

[birdy]

An editor at the NYT must be asleep at the switch. Thrust of the article is that "experts say" it will never work and be too expensive. The factual people who they quote with attribution either say the opposite, or mildly suggest, as so many in the forum do, that a lot of intermediate level track improvements would be helpful.

The factual articles with attributed sources say that Secretary LaHood has already suggested several routes in a "comprehensive" memo to the president, and that they expect to spend considerable money on the projects going forward and that the dog and pony shows from the various route proponents will take place within 60 days. The plan, apparently, is to have several projects going at once and to get more funding through Congress. A lot of the good routes go through Republican territory, so they only have to carve off one or two of those guys out of ten or twelve Senators.

I doubt that President Obama would settle for track improvement projects. His people have stated publicly that this is meant to be a legacy. I doubt he wants to be remembered as the president who improved the Catenary in Connecticut.

The track improvement projects should be in addition to the HSR. They are very much worthwhile, but remember, they are all but useless to those of us in the West. True HSR can be deployed in any region in the country. I do think they will be noticed and appreciated by the public as it becomes more sensitized to the availability and benefits of rail.

 

[Guest_timetableflagman_*]

We may be called "overzealous railnuts" now but, with depleting oil reserves, the environmental need for greener forms of energy and an emerging realization that alternative fuels have unacceptible costs of their own or are downright impractical; relatively much more sustainable rail, in its most practical form, will most sensibly salvage our mobility, and our economy as a result. There are actually many even now who either attempt to use AMTRAK-- with all its rather unusable scheduling or lack of capacity-- for commuting or overnight business trips or at least enquire into rail passenger service but turn away only because it doesn't fit their needed departure or arrival times.

It's not always about speed, at least within "corridors" between larger cities along current long-distance lines. It's about when trains leave and arrive-- not always about how long it takes to get there. I think. however, that even two-night, coast-to-coast sleeping car travel by train would woo many away from the planes and driving (which is definitely not "time-competitive" with flying, yet is chosen by many, mainly out of habit but also because of no largely available rail passenger service-- rail being more accommodating than buses for long, especially overnight trips). For an economy woefully and anemically based largely on aviation, oil, the highways and the automotive industries; a transition to the more frugal, green and efficient system that rail can provide, if operated by those with a rail mentality, rather than an automotive or aviation mentality, is imperative.

 

[birdy]

Well, we are a lot closer to the mainstream I suspect.

I'm one of those people you talk about. I'm not really a railhead. I never gave rail much thought, then what should be a highly marginal project opened near me and I saw what rail could do for a community. Really, all that stands in the way of the projects is unfamiliarity with the benefits, and a kind of irrational knee-jerk reaction against Amtrak. I'm convinced that a lot of that anti-rail sentiment is Amtrak being victimized by its own success.

Amtrak is generally understood to be dependent on government subsidy. Its also really visible ,and so useful to so many people, that a lot of people just assume that it receives a much bigger subsidy than it does. There should be more talk about how much it does for so little money.

There's a real reservoir of support for HSR I suspect among Country Club type republicans. Relatively affluent businessmen who have to travel a lot are "sick of taking their pants off at the airport" as one rail advocate mentioned the other day. Also, they are affluent enough to have used HSR in Europe and have seen first hand its benefits.

When the Wall Street Journal ran a somewhat skeptical article the other day, along the lines of: "$8 bil will only build one line" the comments from their readers responded, "Fine. Appropriate the $8 bil and build one every year."