# Funding approved for Atlanta-Chattanooga...MAGLEV study



## MattW (Sep 12, 2009)

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-high-136662.html

I'm all for expanded rail service, but a maglev makes no sense. You can't easily expand service on down to Macon, or Jacksonville without building totally new RoW. I'd be more behind a high-speed conventional line running on CSX RoW, or possibly NS as far as Rome.

http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/...l_Map_plain.pdf


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## DET63 (Sep 12, 2009)

If it goes through (though I, like MattW, tend to be a bit skeptical), will they have to write a new song, called "The Chattanooga Maglev"?


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## jis (Sep 13, 2009)

MattW said:


> http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-high-136662.htmlI'm all for expanded rail service, but a maglev makes no sense. You can't easily expand service on down to Macon, or Jacksonville without building totally new RoW. I'd be more behind a high-speed conventional line running on CSX RoW, or possibly NS as far as Rome.
> 
> http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/...l_Map_plain.pdf


This is a way of making sure that one ca say " See we tried in good faith and HSR is too expensive and does notwork.... so there! I told you so in the first place. Now see, you made us waste so much taxpayer money with which we could have balanced the budget instead". 

Am I cynical? NOOOoooooo!


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## MikefromCrete (Sep 13, 2009)

jis said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-high-136662.htmlI'm all for expanded rail service, but a maglev makes no sense. You can't easily expand service on down to Macon, or Jacksonville without building totally new RoW. I'd be more behind a high-speed conventional line running on CSX RoW, or possibly NS as far as Rome.
> ...


When will all this fascination with Maglev end?


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## MattW (Sep 13, 2009)

When they've spent 50 quadrillion bucks on studies only to determine it's too expensive and people start thinking Maglev == HSR.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Sep 15, 2009)

MattW said:


> When they've spent 50 quadrillion bucks on studies only to determine it's too expensive and people start thinking Maglev == HSR.


Well I was a passenger on the last train out of town, Chattanooga, to Atlanta on Amtrak Day May 1, 1971. It was the remnant of the once fancy and famous Georgian, which had been an overnight sreamliner from Chicago to Atlanta and with thru cars from St.Louis to Atlanta.

Of course that was the last day for lots of trains all over the country.Last days for a lot of big downtown train stations, also, It being the first day of Amtrak.

IF ever there is some sort of train restored to Chattanooga, I want to be on it, the first day.

But I,too, do not want Maglev.I think it would not even feel like a train.

In recent years I was looking at the newspaper clipping I had saved showing the last train out of Chattanooga. I noticed the name of the conducter and it sounded familiar. Come to find out that conducter was the father of a guy I knew at work at my job in Atlanta. The guy at work was not a train fan but we did swap some stories.

It is a small world.


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## Green Maned Lion (Sep 16, 2009)

You know, we really like to play around with grandiose studies, and then pretend that you can't do it because there isn't enough money.

Its like this:

"We need to buy a car."

"But a Rolls-Royce costs $350k and a Bentley costs $200k! We can only afford $50k! We can't afford to do this!"

"By god, you're right!"

Never mind that you could buy a mid-size Mercedes for $50k, or 2 full size loaded Ford Crown Victories, or 2 mid-sized Honda Accords, or 3 midsize Hyundai Sonatas, or 4 Kia Souls, or 5 Nissan Versas, or 10 10-year-old Mercedes e-classes, or 20 perfectly adequate, running used cars.

Nope. We can't afford a Rolls-Royce or Bentley, man. We simply can't afford a car.

I could get you running, for about $20 million, an Atlanta-Chattanooga train. It would use some old cars- ex-Metra bi-levels. It would use old but refurbished engines - ex-NJT GP40s or something like it. The track would be upgraded a little, but probably to no more than 50 mph average- but that's competitive with driving for that distance.

But then we have a train. And when funding becomes available, we can piggyback on an order for new cars- Bombardier bi-levels, or if Amtrak is ordering, Pacific Surfliner-style cars, with 125 mph trucks. Later, we can buy ourselves some decent engines. Alstom PL42s, if NJT ever places another order for those awesome items. Or less impressive engines, such as an MP40, if they don't. Later still, we can realign the track and try to get average speed to higher rates, 65-70, and blow the cars away.

And then we can say, over 15 years, it cost about $4 million a year in capital expense. And people won't sit there with smoke coming out of their ears about the silly $10 billion mag-lev.


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## George Harris (Sep 16, 2009)

Green Maned Lion said:


> I could get you running, for about $20 million, an Atlanta-Chattanooga train. It would use some old cars- ex-Metra bi-levels. It would use old but refurbished engines - ex-NJT GP40s or something like it. The track would be upgraded a little, but probably to no more than 50 mph average- but that's competitive with driving for that distance.


While I agree completely that Maglev is a boondoogle, what you are dreaming of doimg is not possible either.

At its best, on the CSX line (formerly NC&St.L) a passenger train could cover the 138 mile distance in 3 hours. The time over the NS (ex Southern) line was at best around 3.5 hours for a brief while but generally the best passenger train time was about 4 hours. These lines are cross grain to the tail end of the Appalachians, and as a consequence very curvey. Just one hint: To go toward Atlanta, both lines leave Chattanooga headed sligthly north of northeast before turning south.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Sep 16, 2009)

George Harris said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > I could get you running, for about $20 million, an Atlanta-Chattanooga train. It would use some old cars- ex-Metra bi-levels. It would use old but refurbished engines - ex-NJT GP40s or something like it. The track would be upgraded a little, but probably to no more than 50 mph average- but that's competitive with driving for that distance.
> ...


George I remember being on the Georgian one morning and overheard one trainman remark to another trainmen. We were crossng over some early construction of I-75. One said to the other, "That will be the end of us",

I just buried my head back in the sand and thought, surely not!

And as you say the fastest trains made the trip in 3 hours. That would be the Georgian and the Dixie Flagler(later re named Dixieland). But the drive from city center to city center on I-75 is two hours. Yep, that was the death of it.


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## George Harris (Sep 18, 2009)

Bill Haithcoat said:


> George I remember being on the Georgian one morning and overheard one trainman remark to another trainmen. We were crossng over some early construction of I-75. One said to the other, "That will be the end of us",


And a lot of other trains, as well. By 1965, there was enough of I-40 in place that greyhound and trailways could both beat the Tennessean by 2 hours between Memphis and Knoxville.


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## Carter (Sep 25, 2009)

George, do you happen to know what route the Tennessean followed? Somehow I seem to have never heard of that train.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Sep 28, 2009)

Carter said:


> George, do you happen to know what route the Tennessean followed? Somehow I seem to have never heard of that train.


The Tennessean began in 1941. It was one of the Southern's original streamliners. Some stops were NYC, WAS,Charlottesville, Lynchburg,Roanoke, Bristol,Johnson City,Greeneville, Morristown,Knoxville,Lenoir City,Loudon,Sweetwater,Athens,Cleveland,Chattanooga,Stevenson,Scottsboro,Huntsvi

lle,Decatur,SheffieldTuscumbia,Corinth.Grand Junction,Memphis.

It lasted until about 1969.It was just a shadow of its original self when it as discontinued and was by no definition still a streamliner.


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