This is something I've been thinking about for quite a while now and I wanted to see what other people thought about this. It has to do with the Northeast Corridor and Amtrak's long-term plans of turning it into a true high speed rail line with a top speed of about 220mph or somewhere around that. Basically, upgrading it to where you can run trains as fast as the high speed trains in Europe and Asia. I've heard about these plans ever since I was a kid but recently, as in like 2 years ago, I've come to question weather these goals would be achievable for the Northeast Corridor. There's no denying that the route is a hogde podge of old and new infrastructure, from concrete ties laid as far back as the 80s and as late as the 2000s, to catenary gantries that are 90 years old, to bridges and viaducts that are well over 100 years old like Canton Viaduct which (fun fact) opened two years prior to the death of James Madison, one of the Founding Fathers. Of course, some of these pieces have been maintained better than others but the point still stands. And while replacing old track, bridges and tunnels can increase speeds, I dont know if it would be enough to have trains run at 200mph. If you look at high speed rail lines that were upgraded conventional rail lines similar to the NEC in other countries, most of them have a top speed of 150 to 160mph, like Cologne to Aachen High Speed Railway in Germany which opened back in the 1840s. With anything going faster than that running on a brand new rail alignment dedicated to faster trains. Because on those upgraded high speed lines, you aren't just running fast trains. You also have slower regional, commuter and freight trains sharing the tracks which would make running at faster speeds borderline dangerous. You don't see slower commuter trains running on the LGV Atlantique route for example. Its because of this that I feel like the Northeast Corridor will never be able to host speeds higher than 150 or 160, because it doesn't matter how much you upgrade the existing right of way to modern standards. You will still be dealing with slower trains, and there is a limit to how far you can push the speed limits on an existing right of way before you have no other choice then to build a new railroad. And I honestly, I think that's okay. Sure, 125 and 150 is nothing compared to 220mph, but its definitely better than the 79mph top speed 90% of the trains in this country are limited to. Even in Europe and Asia, that's a reasonable top speed for a majority of upgraded higher speed rail lines over there. The Northeast Corridor doesn't need to have a top speed of 200+mph to be good. Its this reason why I'm glad that the top of speed of the Avelia (once it enters service) will be 160mph which I think is a reasonable top speed given the limitations the NEC presents.
But this is just what I think. This is just based on what I have seen with other rail lines similar to the NEC and building said route in Trainz Railroad Simulator. I just wanted to see what others thought about this
But this is just what I think. This is just based on what I have seen with other rail lines similar to the NEC and building said route in Trainz Railroad Simulator. I just wanted to see what others thought about this