Obama pushes high-speed rail!

[salm]

On the other hand the arguments of the oposition claiming that such projects shouldn´t be started because a couple of historic building getting destroyed or envoironmental issues such as destroying a couple of biotopes are simillarily weak.

Depends on the building and the biotopes, don't you think?

Agreed. There are allways some extreme cases. But i´d argue that it´s the exception.

[Broomstick]

Certainly. Different biopes and different historical landmarks have different values. There are some people who would like to turn the entire world into a nature preserve or museum but that's not realistic. Any infrastructure project will have to weigh and consider many factors.

[Sea Skimmer]

Tunnels in trains are also safer than rails on ground - far fewer motorists and children getting run over because physical access to the rails is so much more difficult. If money really was no obstacle and resources were unlimited I'd argue we should put all rails in tunnels but that is completely unrealistic.

Yeah for random idiots a tunnel is safer. For the train and people on the train? Hell no. Derailments and fires (which can easily cook to the point that concrete walls are destroyed) are huge problem. One made worse by the fact that when something does happen rescue crews have to come into the tunnel to help people. Never mind how long it would take to clean everything up and repair the tunnel.

Tunnels are inherently dangerous. Always will be even if they aren’t deathtraps waiting to collapse in the next earth tremor. We go to huge efforts to avoid them with new highways with good reason, and we should only accept them for new rail and road projects when no alternative exists as is the case for building a new line through a busy city. If money was no issue, then we could just elevate all railroad track, with nice big sound barriers which would also prevent derailments from falling off. It’d cost even more then tunnels, but the open air is a good thing.

[CmdrWilkens]

repeatedly asking why the hell France gets to have 300+mph supertrains and our fastest train hits 150mph "for maybe 0.2 seconds.

Because you moron, the northeastern corridor is 19th century trackage way of rights. All the surrounding area is heavily built up; and there's one particular section of the NEC where trains have to slow down to like 50~ or so MPH, because of a huge kink in the track line near Philly.

Well the NEC COULD be improved to actually run the service that Amtrak wants to run (the Acela at full speed for the majority of the length) but it woudl require a LOT of individual projects:

- You need to standardize the catenary, right now there are something like 3 different voltages across the distance just from DC to NY and another 2 or 3 from NY to Boston so you have to build your power systems to cope with that.

- The Baltimore Tunnel system, currently this involves, not counting the station stop, something on the order of 30 minutes at 35mph or slower. It also prevents (along with the NYP approaches) using the Superliner cars for long distance trains as the plate dimensions for the tunnels are too small. The optimistic plans I've seen call for roughly 1.5-2billion in order to drill a new 2 track tunnel (leave the existing 2 tracks for commuter rail) and integrate it with Penn Station.

- Susquehana crossing, probably need at least another track but if Maryland ever gets off their ass and puts money where their mouth is plans are in the works to quad track the line from Wilmington to New Carrolton.

- Philadelphia approaches, all of the inteconnections with the existing SPETA network mean that you have a lot of lower speed interchanges. The money and materials need to be there to upgrade this equipment and/or quad track everything so that SEPTA can run on the "local" lines and Amtrak on the "thru" lines. This is even before i get into the spotty power situation near 30th Street, virtually every time I've ridden through there the trainlost power

- NYP approaches, the tunnel leading in to Penn Station is still THE governing factor in terms of grade and plate for the NEC. The 2.2 degree grade comign into and out of the station remains the ruling factor along the line and the clearence restrictions here are the second place where the Superliner is restricted.

- Metro North segment, its the only portion of the line which is NOT owned by Amtrak and is also the one with the largest limitations in terms of not being fully grade-seperated along with a host of smaller speed, timing, and signalling issues.


So yeah that's just the off the top of my head issues so I'm sure there are more. Fixing all of these issues would consumer the entire $8bn in the stimulus, the $5bn additional in 2010 and the $1.3Bn for Amtrak and still leave short changes everywhere.

[Sea Skimmer]

- Philadelphia approaches, all of the inteconnections with the existing SPETA network mean that you have a lot of lower speed interchanges. The money and materials need to be there to upgrade this equipment and/or quad track everything so that SEPTA can run on the "local" lines and Amtrak on the "thru" lines.

The main line already is quad tracked, eight tracks in some places around the station when a freight line runs parallel.. The SEPTA airport line has to cross over the Amtrack tracks just south of 30th Street, and New Jersey Transit has to cross over at Frankfort Junction but I can’t imagine it would actually be necessary to build over passes for either line. Other then that Amtrack does run on completely separate track, and you can see the difference as the Amtrack line has concrete ties, while everything else in the area is wood. Installing higher speed switches (Not sure what the standard is now, but not high) at those cross overs might give most of the same modest improvements a billion dollars of overpasses would. As I recall a fair bit of the planned railroad stimulus is for improved switching. Most American switches are only good for 25mph, raising that even to 35mph is a big gain. IIRC the French now have some switches on the TGV lines that can take a train at 50mph but god only knows how expensive those are to install and upkeep.

Big problem though is the curve north at Frankfort Junction which has a pretty low speed limit that affects even the slower Amtrack services. Absurdly the Pennsylvania Railroad actually bought land to increase the radius of the curve about 100 years ago, but just never did the work and then ended up selling off the land after about 50 years. Now we’d either have to start demolishing buildings and some of the (still used somewhat) of the Frankfort yard to do it. This might actually be reasonable, a new bridge over a creek would be needed but most of the buildings are unused or at least low value (mostly warehouses). A scrap yard would also have to move too or at least lose some of its land.

The curve at Zoo interlocking is also a limitation, though the track layout has been rationalized from its former status as the most complex junction in North America (and indeed, it would rank high in most of the world). However I’m not sure the breaking and acceleration time for Acella is good enough for this to matter, its less then 1.5 track miles from the station so they’d always be going fairly slow. It also already does have several underpasses so that SEPTA trains don’t have to cross the lines used by Amtrack.

The situation in North Philly will always be a little more complex then it might otherwise be, because its home to several of the surprisingly rare cross links between the freight lines and the Amtrack-SEPTA lines. Indeed they already ripped out all the excess ones they could, particularly at Zoo to speed up all trains and reduce maintenance costs.

This is even before i get into the spotty power situation near 30th Street, virtually every time I've ridden through there the trainlost power

I never rode Acella, does it stall out or just lose internal lighting? I've never noticed either happened on the lesser amtrack trains. The electrification system in Philadelphia has several phase breaks but a train that long with a power car at each end should be able to span them and keep going like nothing happened. Very occasionally short SEPTA trains with only one active pantograph get stuck in the neutral sections but it shouldn’t happen, its operator error going too slow. I don’t think the breaks can be moved without major changes to the entire SEPTA grid, which is fed by just a handful of substations integrated with the main line tracks also used by Amtrack since the Pennsy used to own everything. The former Reading system now used by SEPTA is completely separate, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t have any interaction with the main line electrification now in use. Its phase break north east of Market East is the number one trouble spot for SEPTA trains being stalled.

- NYP approaches, the tunnel leading in to Penn Station is still THE governing factor in - Metro North segment, its the only portion of the line which is NOT owned by Amtrak and is also the one with the largest limitations in terms of not being fully grade-seperated along with a host of smaller speed, timing, and signalling issues.

The situation in Connecticut is retarded, I know someone who lives right by the tracks in the state, and now ironically is a civil engineer working for Norfolk Southern. They have eleven grade crossings, and local residents have blocked funded efforts to build over passes for the roads for the last several decades. They’d rather keep a low standard of safety, and accept waits at the gate crossings, then allow the evil railroad to run faster and thus make more noise.

Speaking of money… to make everything worse, Amtrack has found that most of the concrete crossties it installed in the 1990s at great cost are in fact defective and will last no longer then wooden ties. It’s going to cost a small fortune to replace them all very prematurely. To make it worse the ties also increase train noise, which has really hurt Amtrack efforts to make people not bitch and moan. Newer ones are supposed to be better designed to reduce noise, but it’s a fairly inherently problem of steel rails sliding on concrete. They already put rubber pads between the two surfaces but does little to help.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I had a look at the map for the proposed HSR and I was wondering why it will be extending to certain of the cities on it. Most them make sense, but Tulsa, Oklahoma and Eugene, Oregon aren't really major urban centers. Does it presage an intention to link the different HSR systems (like with Tulsa-Kansas City or Eugene-Bay Area rails) or is it something else?

[Questor]

I had a look at the map for the proposed HSR and I was wondering why it will be extending to certain of the cities on it. Most them make sense, but Tulsa, Oklahoma and Eugene, Oregon aren't really major urban centers. Does it presage an intention to link the different HSR systems (like with Tulsa-Kansas City or Eugene-Bay Area rails) or is it something else?

Not sure about that question, but I would like to see them put in an easier route around the gulf coast. Maybe extend the line from Oklahoma to Arkansas to Alabama. Maybe also link Tulsa and Kansas City.

[CmdrWilkens]

I had a look at the map for the proposed HSR and I was wondering why it will be extending to certain of the cities on it. Most them make sense, but Tulsa, Oklahoma and Eugene, Oregon aren't really major urban centers. Does it presage an intention to link the different HSR systems (like with Tulsa-Kansas City or Eugene-Bay Area rails) or is it something else?

A lot of older mid size cities are actually very well suited to linking by rail, paticularly in the plains states, as they were originally built around the railroads coming out of the east. Re-orienting around new high speed rail lines would allow those cities to continue to grow and flourish despite the seperation from other cities that occurs in the plains states in paticular.

[erik_t]

I had a look at the map for the proposed HSR and I was wondering why it will be extending to certain of the cities on it. Most them make sense, but Tulsa, Oklahoma and Eugene, Oregon aren't really major urban centers. Does it presage an intention to link the different HSR systems (like with Tulsa-Kansas City or Eugene-Bay Area rails) or is it something else?

Eugene is not massive in and of itself, but it is second largest city in the state and is the southern tip of the Willamette Valley, which contains something like 70% of the population of the state of Oregon.

A connection to the Bay area, meanwhile, is impossible to imagine in the immediate future. There are a few mountain ranges in the way; indeed, the damned interstate between them closes regularly in the winter.

[Cecelia5578]

I had a look at the map for the proposed HSR and I was wondering why it will be extending to certain of the cities on it. Most them make sense, but Tulsa, Oklahoma and Eugene, Oregon aren't really major urban centers. Does it presage an intention to link the different HSR systems (like with Tulsa-Kansas City or Eugene-Bay Area rails) or is it something else?

Eugene is not massive in and of itself, but it is second largest city in the state and is the southern tip of the Willamette Valley, which contains something like 70% of the population of the state of Oregon.

A connection to the Bay area, meanwhile, is impossible to imagine in the immediate future. There are a few mountain ranges in the way; indeed, the damned interstate between them closes regularly in the winter.

When I was the UofO, I didn't have a car, and sometimes took the train home to Portland. I don't really see the kind of demand there that could support HSR, or even a regular commuter rail line between Eug-PDX. If it was the southern terminus of a Seattle-Eugene route, then it might be viable, but PDX-EUG? Surely not.

[Uraniun235]

Right now, a lot of people who do go between Portland and Eugene who own cars aren't going to dick around with waiting on a train, they're just going to drive - it's only a little less than two hours by the interstate. On the other hand, they might plan their trip around taking the HSR if it means a transit time of only an hour or less (or when gas is way more expensive or just plain unavailable).

Besides, I'm pretty sure the trains aren't going to just shuttle back and forth between Portland and Eugene, but rather go up and down the corridor - so someone could step on the train in Eugene and step off in Vancouver, BC.

[Losonti Tokash]

Something else affecting the demand on the west coast is the completely shit service Amtrak provides. I've never had a delay of less than four hours and there's been more than one occasion where I boarded the train after I was originally supposed to arrive at my destination.

[Cecelia5578]

Something else affecting the demand on the west coast is the completely shit service Amtrak provides. I've never had a delay of less than four hours and there's been more than one occasion where I boarded the train after I was originally supposed to arrive at my destination.

I remember that well in my Eugene-Portland jaunts. IIRC (I may very well be wrong) alot has to do with the weather, plus having to share tracks with freight trains and giving them the right of way.