# Interesting Article Opposing High Speed Rail



## Cal

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/high-speed-money-sink-why-united-states-should-not-spend-trillions-obsolete#citation



Long read, but interesting. I'm intrigued to see what some of your thoughts on it will be.


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## PaTrainFan

I see enough to know that I won't waste my time reading anything from the CATO Institute.


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## sttom

I'm not reading anything from the Cato Institute. It's as valuable as reading something from "Baby Seals for Seal Clubbing".


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## Willbridge

PaTrainFan said:


> I see enough to know that I won't waste my time reading anything from the CATO Institute.


One of the founders of the Cato Institute provided access for the money from his family share of the sale of Pacific Trailways to Greyhound. His father hated Amtrak so much that his ticket agents were instructed to insert attack ads in ticket envelopes. He was the key person killing our 1975 proposal for what is now the Oregon portion of the _Cascades _(including the bus portions).

To be fair, I once searched for any papers that Cato might have sponsored on the subject of highway user cost responsibility. Real libertarians have interesting ideas about highway finance. I found *one* in the midst of a steady flow of anti-rail and anti-transit papers.

This paper is by experienced data-twister Randall O'Toole, who always turns up when the opportunity presents itself. Much of what he writes, going back to his days fighting New Urbanist planners in Oak Grove, Oregon, misdirects readers not familiar with his specific example projects.

Perhaps the biggest thing that he avoids is that some of the state projects that he criticizes for benefiting the private railroads were actually intended to benefit the private railroads' freight operations AND public passenger services -- to the benefit of the states that they serve.

In this paper he does advocate for a better system of charging for the use of highways but it's deep in the article. The lobbies that rely on his output for criticism of rail projects are the same people who fight his preferred method/s of highway financing.

He is the author of "Silver Age" rail nostalgia on a separate website. Appropriately, he likes Ayn Rand's favorite, James Hill's Great Northern Railway.

For an analysis of O'Toole's recent return to attacking high-speed rail by Alon Levy, the most knowledgeable interpreter of international comparisons:

Randal O’Toole Gets High-Speed Rail Wrong | Pedestrian Observations


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## sttom

Willbridge said:


> This paper is by experienced data-twister Randall O'Toole, who always turns up when the opportunity presents itself. Much of what he writes, going back to his days fighting New Urbanist planners in Oak Grove, Oregon, misdirects readers not familiar with his specific example


I had to watch an interview with him while I was in college and the subject was public transportation. He heaped praise on Megabus because "it's private" but Amtrak steals your freedoms because it's public. That was when I learned he and most other anti rail people are not serious people. At best they exist to do a song and dance for people to get their beliefs confirmed by someone in a suit or to dupe less informed people into thinking roads are good and essentially free with no downsides. And transit always costs 1000 times its cost estimates and will lure in poor people to steal your TVs.


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## George Harris

Cato has an anti-rail obsession. Generally if their writings get around to recommending alternatives they are nonsense. I don't read anything the put out relating to rail unless I am needing to develop some counter-arguments.


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## Willbridge

sttom said:


> I had to watch an interview with him while I was in college and the subject was public transportation. He heaped praise on Megabus because "it's private" but Amtrak steals your freedoms because it's public. That was when I learned he and most other anti rail people are not serious people. At best they exist to do a song and dance for people to get their beliefs confirmed by someone in a suit or to dupe less informed people into thinking roads are good and essentially free with no downsides. And transit always costs 1000 times its cost estimates and will lure in poor people to steal your TVs.


The tv thefts go back to a telephone recorded message (the Liberty Lobby?) opposing the original MARTA rail transit project. O'Toole avoids that sort of thing; someone else is always willing to take the low road.

And speaking of the olden days, Alon Levy points out that O'Toole uses highway construction costs from the 1960's (adjusted for inflation but not for modern highway costs). I was alarmed by the haphazard way that the Interstates were built through Portland so I took these and other photos. Ahh, the good old days with no environmental considerations, no ADA, no relocation assistance for renters, etc.

Gravel landscaping by Kiewit.




Safer than using the three ped underpasses to be navigated safely.




The underpasses reeked of urine.




The ADA unheard of.




In the 1960's I walked every Portland bridge except for the SP&S Willbridge and the newer the bridge was the less suited it was for pedestrians. Finally, the Marquam Bridge (I-5) was built with no provision for pedestrians.


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## neroden

O'Toole is, as others have said, a notoriously dishonest anti-passenger rail hack for hire. There's another one: Wendell Cox. There's a third one but I've forgotten his name since he seems to have stopped the anti-rail hack career and gone on to something else. Literally, it's always those three.


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## Cal

Didn’t know about the bias and credibility issues.


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## Willbridge

Cal said:


> Didn’t know about the bias and credibility issues.


Well, we can learn from anything but it does help to know some of the background. The internet is weird that way in that sometimes it's easy to figure where someone is coming from and sometimes it tosses up gibberish.


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## Exvalley

There is definitely some confirmation bias on this forum. People were happy to read a Greenpeace article in support of rail, but refuse to read a Cato Institute article opposed to it. Both organizations are unabashedly biased. 

I want to know what the opposition is saying. It helps my advocacy when I can anticipate their objections.


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## PaTrainFan

Here's a story from from last fall in which O'Toole said the pandemic was the perfect opportunity to shut down the Washington Metro permanently and replace it with buses and give poor people low interest loans to buy cars. Lunacy.


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## sttom

Exvalley said:


> There is definitely some confirmation bias on this forum. People were happy to read a Greenpeace article in support of rail, but refuse to read a Cato Institute article opposed to it. Both organizations are unabashedly biased.
> 
> I want to know what the opposition is saying. It helps my advocacy when I can anticipate their objections.


It's one thing to read an article that actually supports it's arguments with verifiable data. And it's not hard to find studies comparing a mostly electric rail system vs air travels emissions. Thinking Greyhound or Megabus is better than Amtrak almost entirely because it's privately owned is an ideological point that has at best little evidence of being better than a publicly run system and at worst piles of evidence to the contrary. On the contrary to the anti rail people, there is plenty of evidence to show that transit improvements and the cost of operations are significantly cheaper than road alternatives, generate more overall economic activity and a well built rail project deals with less traffic. People like O'Toole need to result to falsehoods to convince others to not like rail since most people have a built in sympathy for trains and the evidence is dramatically on the side of rail over highways even when railroads get some public money.


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## Exvalley

sttom said:


> It's one thing to read an article that actually supports it's arguments with verifiable data.


The Cato Institute paper has 139 footnotes with citations.

I don't agree with their conclusions, but you can't say that the paper is merely an opinion piece that is devoid of evidence.

Greenpeace advocates for what is best for the environment - some of their views make a lot of sense and others are considered to be radical by many people. Greenpeace sees government as the vehicle to institute these policies - regardless of the economic and practical realities. The Cato Institute lies at the other end of the spectrum. They believe in the free market rather than government. As with most things in life, the truth is probably somewhere in between.

I want to see an expanded rail network as much as anyone else. But the reality is that we need a cultural change in this country. The Cato Institute makes some very good points about our inability to make improvements just along the Northeast Corridor. If we are going to spend billions of dollars on rail, I want to know that we are committed to maintaining that system and to building infrastructure to enhance the system. With our two party system, there is reason to be concerned about that.


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## jis

Cal said:


> https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/high-speed-money-sink-why-united-states-should-not-spend-trillions-obsolete#citation
> 
> 
> 
> Long read, but interesting. I'm intrigued to see what some of your thoughts on it will be.


I am more curious to learn what your thoughts are on it. Since afterall you’re the one who took the time to read it.


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## Tlcooper93

Randal O'Toole is a very interesting person who is so ideologically opposed to rail that it almost seems as though someone is paying him to be so.

To actually believe that every metro system aside from NYC should be shut down (stated in some of his other articles) because of cars being endlessly accessable is a fable at best. He is a wealthy white individual who cannot see past his own privilege of living outside of the city in a small-town, upscale neighborhood with a, likely, high end car (or two) to suit his needs. Bus Rapid Transit has its uses, but simply cannot deliver the numbers that subways can.

The fact that he believes that most people have the means to live like him makes me scoff at his ignorance and idiocy, and essentially voids his argument. Boston seeing the MBTA shut down (without a replacement) would be catastrophic at best.

It's one thing to oppose HSR in the US (on some level, I oppose it as well). This paper has some good points on why it may not work in the US. Its another thing to have a fanatical devotion to cars, and a religious crusade against trains.


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## saxman

He even went on to talk about Japan's failure of the Shinkansen. Literally even anti-transit article that gets circulated is by him and him alone, (along with maybe Cox). I haven't seen anything from Cox in quite a long time though. Whats even more bizarre is that he calls himself a rail fan.


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## John from RI

I have read articles before by Randall O'Toole opposing new high speed rail systems. I have never heard of anyone in the Biden Administration making such a proposal. Does anyone know of one?
What I have heard of is replacing the catenary between New Haven and Washington. The present one was built in the 1930's and is worn out. That would enable increased speed for the Acela on the existing rail line. The state of California is building a new rail line but that has nothing to do with the Federal Government. Finally, Joe Biden does want to extend service on existing rail lines but that again is not building a new high speed rail line. 
I have no idea of what Randall O'Toole is writing about.


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## Cal

jis said:


> I am more curious to learn what your thoughts are on it. Since afterall your the one who took the time to read it.


Well I am much less knowledgeable than most on this forum. I thought they made some decent points, especially about the NEC backlog and the rising costs of the California High Speed Rail project. On their other points, such as about the economic growth and costs, I was surprised. And I was definitely questioning the accuracy of some of their statements by halfway through. And I will say that them talking about China's highway miles compared to their railway miles was an interesting surprise. 4

I was also curios about the section where he was talking about the improvements that were made to various corridors with money given to them years ago. I don't have a comment, as I'm unsure of the accuracy of it.


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## George Harris

Generally O'Toole and Cox I ignore. Even when they have some of their facts right their conclusions tend to be nonsense.


saxman said:


> He even went on to talk about Japan's failure of the Shinkansen.


Do WHAT?? This is utter nonsense. Their only failures are being near overwhelmed with passengers and trying, and in a lot of locations succeeding, running faster on parts of the system than the original design anticipated. Maybe he should visit the place and ride around some. 

DC without WMATA? Equally silly. WMATA has a lot of problems, most of their own making, but the area without the system would be far more traffic congested. I recall when I was working there some of the more "upper crust" neighborhoods even opposed bus service into their areas. 

There are many other O'Toole conclusions that are also equally disconnected from reality. 

When bringing up the issue of the increasing cost of the CAHSR, it is conveniently forgotten that this is endemic to all public works in California. For example, the replacement East Bay portion of the Bay Bridge cost several times the original estimate. I have heard 20 times, but do not know more precisely. To go even further, that it was replaced at all instead of repaired was entirely political. The existing bridge probably could have been repaired and upgraded as needed for less than one percent of the cost of the replacement. Is the new equivalent to the old? Pretty close. The number of lanes is the same, I think there were some improvements in alignment geometry and shoulders. A bike lane was added, but it only gets you to the mid bay island, not all the way across.


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## sttom

I remember the last time BART was shut down when they went on strike. The whole Bay Area was backed up by 6am. Shutting down our public transit systems would be beyond stupid.


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## Willbridge

Exvalley said:


> The Cato Institute paper has 139 footnotes with citations.
> 
> I don't agree with their conclusions, but you can't say that the paper is merely an opinion piece that is devoid of evidence.
> 
> Greenpeace advocates for what is best for the environment - some of their views make a lot of sense and others are considered to be radical by many people. Greenpeace sees government as the vehicle to institute these policies - regardless of the economic and practical realities. The Cato Institute lies at the other end of the spectrum. They believe in the free market rather than government. As with most things in life, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
> 
> I want to see an expanded rail network as much as anyone else. But the reality is that we need a cultural change in this country. The Cato Institute makes some very good points about our inability to make improvements just along the Northeast Corridor. If we are going to spend billions of dollars on rail, I want to know that we are committed to maintaining that system and to building infrastructure to enhance the system. With our two party system, there is reason to be concerned about that.


I recommend reading Alon Levy's work regarding transit infrastructure costs. In the blog post that I linked above he critiques O'Toole's paper. Some of the information cited was misused. Unrelated to transit or railways I've run across that problem with others in my history research.

The reason that I posted the Greenpeace story link is the significance of a non-transportation group taking an interest. In the past, intercity rail travel has often been ignored by environmental groups.

Here's Alon's critique of O'Toole's paper again:
Randal O’Toole Gets High-Speed Rail Wrong | Pedestrian Observations


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## Tlcooper93

Willbridge said:


> I recommend reading Alon Levy's work regarding transit infrastructure costs. In the blog post that I linked above he critiques O'Toole's paper. Some of the information cited was misused. Unrelated to transit or railways I've run across that problem with others in my history research.
> 
> The reason that I posted the Greenpeace story link is the significance of a non-transportation group taking an interest. In the past, intercity rail travel has often been ignored by environmental groups.
> 
> Here's Alon's critique of O'Toole's paper again:
> Randal O’Toole Gets High-Speed Rail Wrong | Pedestrian Observations



Thanks for this link.
This is such a helpful article, especially given it comes from someone as regarded and thorough as Alan Levy. Just sent this article to many friends and family who are O’toole fans.


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## west point

John from RI said:


> What I have heard of is replacing the catenary between New Haven and Washington. The present one was built in the 1930's and is worn out. That would enable increased speed for the Acela on the existing rail line.



Only partially true. 
1. First MNRR. It has almost completed or maybe finished installing Constant tension CAT New Rochelle - New haven. That will not enable higher speeds. MNRR has not shown interest to increase MAX authorized speed that would only benefit Amtrak and Acela. Plus you have the problem of track centers too close for higher speeds. Then the problem of bridge replacements along the MNRR route. Walk bridge is the first example that will not be complete for several years . The work causes for only 3 track choke points and will also cause 2 track impediments for several months at a time. Then the other movable bridges will need replacement. Probably all bridges will not be complete before 2050 ? Now if infrastructure funds can be found to do all the bridges at once ??

2. Next New Rochelle -NYP. Amtrak has installed 12.5 Kv 60 Hz constant tension cat New Rochelle - Gate. However the Pelham bridge is needing replacement to allow 100 MPH operation over that full segment. The MNRR proposal for service over Hell Gate will have effect on speeds until complete. When the Harold separation project is finished then consistent timing there will be enabled.

3. Now the PRR style is worn but has had renewal in places. Mainly the vertical support poles were buried in dirt and are rusting out at ground level. The design is obsolete and that is a big problem. PRR suspended support cables from the verticals on each side of all tracks. All tracks ( being 2,3,4 ,5,6 ) had the cat suspended from that support wire. That often causes more than one track's cat to have its cat pulled down when just one track had cat snagged. For constant tension to fix this a cross beam across all tracks is installed to allow each track's cat wire to be separately hung. But there is a problem. PRR had vertical support columns installed at about 180 feet apart. For constant tension to work properly at the 160 MPH speeds the vertical poles need to be approximately no farther than 120 feet apart. Now PRR curve verticals were often at shorter distances You can imagine the difficulty to install new verticals and horizontals over live wires and tracks. 

Amtrak at present is only planning to install constant tension on higher speed tracks,

Note the MNRR new Haven line conversion already had horizontal beams that allowed for separation of each track's cat. But look how long MNRR has taken to convert to constant tension!....


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## George Harris

To add to what West Point said: There is not much to be gained in speed northeast of New York, regardless of what you do to the catenary due to the curves of the line. Higher speed for short distances is near meaningless. Calculate the difference in time in running 5 miles at 125 mph versus 90 mph, then remember that acceleration and braking near the ends of the higher speed sections eats up a lot of distance. Hence, raising maximum speeds northeast of New York is more for bragging rights than anything else. As to track centers: I have seen plans of some of these areas on the ex-NH&H and had no idea anyone in the US ever built tracks that close together. 13'-0" is about as close together as you will find tracks anywhere outside the northeast.

As to the Pennsy side: I think you can make constant tension work with 180 feet support spacing. In fact, somebody may be able to prove me wrong, but I would have thought you could get away with wider support spacing on constant tension systems. Crossbeams replacing cross track support wires, yes, that should be done post-haste. At least much of the Pennsy is straight enough that increasing speed limits would have some real value, but getting rid of the slow spots first gains more.


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## jis

I believe the new catenary installed by Amtrak between erstwhile Shell and Gate is new but not constant tension, the last time I looked. But I will verify in December if my recollection is right. Since the all of Harold has also gotten new catenary. 

In any case you don’t really need CT catenary for 100mph.


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## Qapla

"Interesting" is all in the eye of the reader. The article bemoaned the cost of building rail and derided the cement used for ties ...


new track construction is *between $1 Million - $2 Million per mile*, depending on who is constructing the track 

Construct a new 6-lane Interstate highway – about *$7 million per mile in rural areas*, $11 million or more per mile in urban areas. Mill and resurface a 4-lane road – about $1.25 million per mile. Expand an Interstate Highway from four lanes to six lanes – about $4 million per mile


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## George Harris

Qapla said:


> new track construction is *between $1 Million - $2 Million per mile*, depending on who is constructing the track
> 
> Construct a new 6-lane Interstate highway – about *$7 million per mile in rural areas*, $11 million or more per mile in urban areas. Mill and resurface a 4-lane road – about $1.25 million per mile. Expand an Interstate Highway from four lanes to six lanes – about $4 million per mile


Would like to know the source of these numbers. All may be on the low side. The highway numbers look low, particularly the urban area highway cost seems extremely low. As a guess, these are probably basic construction costs and excludes right of way. Basic earthwork and drainage work costs can vary wildly, and I mean wildly, not widely, based on terrain an multiple other factors. Exclusive of track, a railroad's earthwork is not that much different from that for a two lane highway.


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## Charles785

I can't comment on the anti-high speed rail article because I haven't read it.

But frankly, I'm not convinced of the demand for high-speed rail in general. 

Instead of high speed rail, and as an ardent fan of overnight long-distance conventional rail I would like to see any additional dollars for passenger rail spent in this fashion:
1. more frequencies for current LD routes
2. additional LD routes (and I'm sure most of us have ideas on just what additional routes)
3. elevating the dining car cuisine quality to, say, for example, equal to the Fred Harvey quality of old, along with expanded dining car hours.

Anyway, I wonder if many more travelers nationwide would be better served by those three ideas rather than so-called high speed rail.


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## Cal

Charles785 said:


> I can't comment on the anti-high speed rail article because I haven't read it.
> 
> But frankly, I'm not convinced of the demand for high-speed rail in general.
> 
> Instead of high speed rail, and as an ardent fan of overnight long-distance conventional rail I would like to see any additional dollars for passenger rail spent in this fashion:
> 1. more frequencies for current LD routes
> 2. additional LD routes (and I'm sure most of us have ideas on just what additional routes)
> 3. elevating the dining car cuisine quality to, say, for example, equal to the Fred Harvey quality of old, along with expanded dining car hours.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder if many more travelers nationwide would be better served by those three ideas rather than so-called high speed rail.


However I think if Amtrak wants to improve they also need more corridors, there's a lot of cities in the east, and some in the west (looking at you Las Vegas) that they should serve if they want a good, connected network. And trying to decrease trip times would be good too so they're at least not too much slower than driving.


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## Qapla

Qapla said:


> "Interesting" is all in the eye of the reader. The article bemoaned the cost of building rail and derided the cement used for ties ...
> 
> 
> new track construction is *between $1 Million - $2 Million per mile*, depending on who is constructing the track
> 
> Construct a new 6-lane Interstate highway – about *$7 million per mile in rural areas*, $11 million or more per mile in urban areas. Mill and resurface a 4-lane road – about $1.25 million per mile. Expand an Interstate Highway from four lanes to six lanes – about $4 million per mile





George Harris said:


> Would like to know the source of these numbers.



Costs of a Rail Siding - ACW Railway Company 
Frequently Asked Questions - The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA)
Cost Per Mile Models (fdot.gov)


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## Ziv

Charles I agree with you but Cal has a good point about making Amtrak's average speeds a bit faster so that it is quicker than taking a car. Perception is crucial and Amtrak is not just perceived as being slow, it is slow. If Amtrak's LD routes could go from averaging 55 mph to averaging 70 mph it would be a VERY nice improvement, though a difficult one to achieve here in the States. 
But I have to admit that having the more popular LD routes go to twice daily, bringing back some of the old pre-Amtrak LD routes (and maybe some new ones) and going to back to high quality, cooked to order meals would be phenomenal! I think the first and third would come close to paying for themselves, but the second one would take a while to even come close to breaking even.



Charles785 said:


> I can't comment on the anti-high speed rail article because I haven't read it.
> 
> But frankly, I'm not convinced of the demand for high-speed rail in general.
> 
> Instead of high speed rail, and as an ardent fan of overnight long-distance conventional rail I would like to see any additional dollars for passenger rail spent in this fashion:
> 1. more frequencies for current LD routes
> 2. additional LD routes (and I'm sure most of us have ideas on just what additional routes)
> 3. elevating the dining car cuisine quality to, say, for example, equal to the Fred Harvey quality of old, along with expanded dining car hours.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder if many more travelers nationwide would be better served by those three ideas rather than so-called high speed rail.


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## Qapla

Ziv said:


> I think the first and third would come close to paying for themselves, but the second one would take a while to even come close to breaking even.



Why should it need to "break even" or even "pay for itself" since no one expects the highway system to do either?? Th "profit" comes in the economies the transportation serves - but many want to ignore that aspect of the return and only look at the "bottom line" when it comes to Amtrak while giving a green-light pass to DOT highway projects.


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## Ziv

In a perfect world it wouldn't need to break even. But we live in a world where Amtrak has a limited budget. I wish that budget was a bit larger but what I think about Amtrak is not completely in line with what the politicians are going to fund.


Qapla said:


> Why should it need to "break even" or even "pay for itself" since no one expects the highway system to do either?? Th "profit" comes in the economies the transportation serves - but many want to ignore that aspect of the return and only look at the "bottom line" when it comes to Amtrak while giving a green-light pass to DOT highway projects.


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## Tlcooper93

Charles785 said:


> I can't comment on the anti-high speed rail article because I haven't read it.
> 
> But frankly, I'm not convinced of the demand for high-speed rail in general.
> 
> Instead of high speed rail, and as an ardent fan of overnight long-distance conventional rail I would like to see any additional dollars for passenger rail spent in this fashion:
> 1. more frequencies for current LD routes
> 2. additional LD routes (and I'm sure most of us have ideas on just what additional routes)
> 3. elevating the dining car cuisine quality to, say, for example, equal to the Fred Harvey quality of old, along with expanded dining car hours.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder if many more travelers nationwide would be better served by those three ideas rather than so-called high speed rail.




I agree with you in principal, but disagree on your solution. Adding LD frequencies will help in specific cases, the only one coming to mind being LSL, but overall, a corridor approach between cities proving higher speed rail service is, in my opinion, a far superior way to expand service.

I don’t disagree regarding dining options and service aboard, but let’s first run slightly faster, more frequent and reliable trains between city pairs that desperately need service.

Mass electrification would probably be the best route to go rather than full on HSR. 
The US simply isn’t capable of 220+ In most places (without a Herculean wartime type effort) and we shouldn’t be trying for that. Getting everything to 125 would be more than enough, and certainly pose a formidable challenge anyways.

Imagine a California Zephyr doing Chicago to Denver is 12 hours. That portion could be electrified, and perhaps would qualify for an additional daytime train. Would be nice...


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## MARC Rider

Charles785 said:


> I can't comment on the anti-high speed rail article because I haven't read it.
> 
> But frankly, I'm not convinced of the demand for high-speed rail in general.
> 
> Instead of high speed rail, and as an ardent fan of overnight long-distance conventional rail I would like to see any additional dollars for passenger rail spent in this fashion:
> 1. more frequencies for current LD routes
> 2. additional LD routes (and I'm sure most of us have ideas on just what additional routes)
> 3. elevating the dining car cuisine quality to, say, for example, equal to the Fred Harvey quality of old, along with expanded dining car hours.
> 
> Anyway, I wonder if many more travelers nationwide would be better served by those three ideas rather than so-called high speed rail.


Sorry, but while long distance routes and overnight services are a legitimate part of the country's transportation system and deserve some funding, the real point of massive funding (especially by the government) to improve rail service in this country is to provide an alternative to driving and short-haul airline flights for the bulk of the county's population. And the bulk of the country's population lives in medium to large metropolitan areas. Thus, the top priority for anyone running a national rail system is to grow corridor service that connects these metropolitan areas and focuses on people taking up to 4-5 hour trips at most. High speed rail would allow the distance of the corridor to be increased and would make longer distance trips more competitive with flying in many markets. 

The long distance network is a complement to the corridor service in some cases (like the Lake Shore Limited corridor), where a long distance train can share costs with the corridor service. In other cases, it provides connectivity to rural populations and also helps bring in political support from rural politicians whose constituents really don't need passenger rail as the major part of their total transportation system.

The most important thing here is to get as many people out of their cars and planes (especially short haul flights, which are the most harmful in terms of emissions.) This is both to reduce the emissions from transportation and to enable the conversion of our cities into a walkable transit dependent form that will further reduce emissions from other sources and provide social benefits that aren't obtained in our current sprawl lifestyle.


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## neroden

Exvalley said:


> The Cato Institute paper has 139 footnotes with citations.


O'Toole and Cox do several things: they cite each other and themselves; they make false citations (i.e. the citation does not say what they claim it says); and they make irrelevant citations which don't support their arguments. Occasionally they use a slightly higher class of dishonesty and engage in the cherry-picking fallacy, picking one example which supports their argument while ignoring a dozen which debunk it.

I dug through every single citation in an O'Toole piece once. Never again. He's intellectually dishonest and would be expelled from a university for academic dishonesty if he were a professor and someone investigated.



> I don't agree with their conclusions, but you can't say that the paper is merely an opinion piece that is devoid of evidence.


It is worse than that; it is a fraudulent piece which is devoid of evidence, but manufactures *fake* evidence. I could make lots of fraudulent "citations" if I were dishonest as O'Toole, and it means nothing. Don't be snowed by ********.


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## neroden

Willbridge said:


> I recommend reading Alon Levy's work regarding transit infrastructure costs. In the blog post that I linked above he critiques O'Toole's paper. Some of the information cited was misused. Unrelated to transit or railways I've run across that problem with others in my history research.
> 
> The reason that I posted the Greenpeace story link is the significance of a non-transportation group taking an interest. In the past, intercity rail travel has often been ignored by environmental groups.
> 
> Here's Alon's critique of O'Toole's paper again:
> Randal O’Toole Gets High-Speed Rail Wrong | Pedestrian Observations



Alon Levy is an actual honest researcher whose work is generally respected, whose citations are accurate, who corrects any errors he makes, and who changes his views when he gets new evidence. Unlike that hack O'Toole. Levy has some very cogent and accurate criticisms to make of the way rail construction in the US has been overpriced and underperforming. Well worth reading anything Levy writes.


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## neroden

saxman said:


> He even went on to talk about Japan's failure of the Shinkansen. Literally even anti-transit article that gets circulated is by him and him alone, (along with maybe Cox). I haven't seen anything from Cox in quite a long time though. Whats even more bizarre is that he calls himself a rail fan.


Yeah, maybe Cox retired or his funder (Reason Foundation) decided to drop him? I can find him writing nonsense as late as 2019.

I finally remembered the third anti-rail hack writer -- Joel Kotkin. I suspect he was influenced by Cox, who he worked with personally. Unlike Cox and O'Toole, Kotkin is less dishonest. He actually does have expertise in geography, and his history and urban planning papers are defensible and have honest citations although he's got a sort of pro-suburbia fanaticism. But when he gets onto rail, his intellectual standards appear to fall out of his head -- possibly because Kotkin collaborates with Cox directly, and Cox is very dishonest.


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## 87YJ

You have to near "fill" the trains you have to get expansion to new lines(sadly the way it works). BUT first you need to have them on time! The SL has been on average so late the last month it could be a freight train. If there are laws saying Amtrak first, where are the lawyers??? 
Get on ASMAD and check the #1 sunset for the last 45 days average. Then want to ride it to make it from MRC to OKJ.


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## neroden

Sooooo, there are some studies -- I do not have the citations on hand -- which show that people judge trip time by a 10th percentile or 5th percentile rubric. So with the 5th percentile rubric, if 1% of the trips take 12 hours, people blow it off as a one-time event -- but if 5% of the trips take 12 hours, they treat it as taking 12 hours, even if most of the trips take 4 hours.

This means that if there's variability in trip time -- like there is with Amtrak due to corrupt freight rail companies causing delays -- people mentally judge the trip time by the worst 5% of trips. All of you rail travellers can probably confirm that this is how you think, though there's probably some variation in whether it's worst-5% or worst-10%.

This means that on-time performance is, in many ways, far more important than scheduled trip time, in terms of perceived trip time, and therefore customer acceptance and customer demand.

I believe that the purported distinction between "corridor" trains and "long-distance" trains is essentially bogus, and I would classify the NY-Pittsburgh-Chicago corridor, the NY-Albany-Buffalo-Chicago corridor, the Chicago-Denver corridor, the NY-Miami corridor, and the NY-New Orleans corridor, and the Chicago-Minneapolis-Fargo corridor, as corridors.

The Salt Lake to Bay Area route probably doesn't qualify as a corridor, and the same with the Eugene to Sacramento route, and the same with the cross-Rockies portion of the Empire Builder and the Raton Pass section of the Southwest Chief, and the desolate sections of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and Tucson. Call these outliers "system connectivity routes", perhaps. These all have the characteristic that there's a severe absence of intermediate population centers. A corridor, in my opinion, has decent-sized cities located less than two hours apart.

But most of the so-called long-distance routes are corridors. The problems with these corridors right now are that (a) they are not running on time, and (b) they are not fast enough even when running on time (even between intermediate cities -- we're not talking end-to-end), so they are not working as corridors right now. They also (c) don't have enough frequencies per day, but I think that is largely due to (a) and (b). I think the top priority for "corridor development" should be the Lake Shore Limited because it interconnects the Northeastern network with the Chicago-centered network, so it has the maximum benefit in terms of the synergies caused by network effects.


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## MARC Rider

neroden said:


> I think the top priority for "corridor development" should be the Lake Shore Limited because it interconnects the Northeastern network with the Chicago-centered network, so it has the maximum benefit in terms of the synergies caused by network effects.


Another priority might be to better connect the other parts of the NEC (i.e. Philadelphia and Washington) with Chicago via Pittsburgh, although this is more difficult because crossing the mountains really slows things down and finding the funding to rebuild the lines for faster operation across the mountains would be really difficult.


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## Cal

MARC Rider said:


> Another priority might be to better connect the other parts of the NEC (i.e. Philadelphia and Washington) with Chicago via Pittsburgh, although this is more difficult because crossing the mountains really slows things down and finding the funding to rebuild the lines for faster operation across the mountains would be really difficult.


What do you mean by better? More service? Faster service? Both? They already have direct lines linking them (although no direct train from Philly to Chicago via Pittsburg). 

I think that Amtrak should be trying to expand corridors and get new ones as a priority to create a much connected and useful network before trying to tackle huge and expensive projects such as those (although more service can be added). Cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Nashville, Cincinnati, Louisville, Columbus, and more which aren't even served by Amtrak at all and can become a part of a corridor, although I am unsure of what track conditions would be, from what I've heard the running times would be quite slow.


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## Qapla

There are many areas that could use service even if it runs at today's speeds - like a direct route from Florida (JAX) to Atlanta then on to Chicago


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## sttom

neroden said:


> Sooooo, there are some studies -- I do not have the citations on hand -- which show that people judge trip time by a 10th percentile or 5th percentile rubric. So with the 5th percentile rubric, if 1% of the trips take 12 hours, people blow it off as a one-time event -- but if 5% of the trips take 12 hours, they treat it as taking 12 hours, even if most of the trips take 4 hours.
> 
> This means that if there's variability in trip time -- like there is with Amtrak due to corrupt freight rail companies causing delays -- people mentally judge the trip time by the worst 5% of trips. All of you rail travellers can probably confirm that this is how you think, though there's probably some variation in whether it's worst-5% or worst-10%.
> 
> This means that on-time performance is, in many ways, far more important than scheduled trip time, in terms of perceived trip time, and therefore customer acceptance and customer demand.
> 
> I believe that the purported distinction between "corridor" trains and "long-distance" trains is essentially bogus, and I would classify the NY-Pittsburgh-Chicago corridor, the NY-Albany-Buffalo-Chicago corridor, the Chicago-Denver corridor, the NY-Miami corridor, and the NY-New Orleans corridor, and the Chicago-Minneapolis-Fargo corridor, as corridors.
> 
> The Salt Lake to Bay Area route probably doesn't qualify as a corridor, and the same with the Eugene to Sacramento route, and the same with the cross-Rockies portion of the Empire Builder and the Raton Pass section of the Southwest Chief, and the desolate sections of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and Tucson. Call these outliers "system connectivity routes", perhaps. These all have the characteristic that there's a severe absence of intermediate population centers. A corridor, in my opinion, has decent-sized cities located less than two hours apart.
> 
> But most of the so-called long-distance routes are corridors. The problems with these corridors right now are that (a) they are not running on time, and (b) they are not fast enough even when running on time (even between intermediate cities -- we're not talking end-to-end), so they are not working as corridors right now. They also (c) don't have enough frequencies per day, but I think that is largely due to (a) and (b). I think the top priority for "corridor development" should be the Lake Shore Limited because it interconnects the Northeastern network with the Chicago-centered network, so it has the maximum benefit in terms of the synergies caused by network effects.



I wouldn't say its a bogus distinction so much as inadequate terminology. Thinking of the routes more like the railroads did before Amtrak would make more sense, such as having a route being the path of the train travels and the long distance vs corridor vs whatever you want to call the Palmetto as being service level distinctions. Considering the Lake Shore one corridor, but not the western ones is an inconsistent standard. Considering the path a train could take be thought of separately from the level of service of the trains makes more sense, and its not like there isn't historical precedence in railroading to do so. The SP had the Coast Route and the Daylight and Lark were a class of service along the route.


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## neroden

I think my main distinction is between sections of routes where there *is* a "chain of pearls" along the way each of which has substantial population and therefore substantial ridership potential, and routes where you go for 3+ hours without a meaningfully populated station (such as the vast gap between San Antonio and El Paso). 

The former routes, those with a "chain of pearls" along them, *all* have high potential for popular, frequent service. The latter routes, with nothing in the middle, don't. Does that make sense as the distinction?


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## daybeers

neroden said:


> Sooooo, there are some studies -- I do not have the citations on hand -- which show that people judge trip time by a 10th percentile or 5th percentile rubric. So with the 5th percentile rubric, if 1% of the trips take 12 hours, people blow it off as a one-time event -- but if 5% of the trips take 12 hours, they treat it as taking 12 hours, even if most of the trips take 4 hours.


Wow, this is really really interesting! I'd love to see those studies if you do find them


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## sttom

neroden said:


> I think my main distinction is between sections of routes where there *is* a "chain of pearls" along the way each of which has substantial population and therefore substantial ridership potential, and routes where you go for 3+ hours without a meaningfully populated station (such as the vast gap between San Antonio and El Paso).
> 
> The former routes, those with a "chain of pearls" along them, *all* have high potential for popular, frequent service. The latter routes, with nothing in the middle, don't. Does that make sense as the distinction?



I see the method to the madness but still disagree with it. I'm looking at it from a level of service standpoint. Long distance as a service being over 24 hours in run time, coachs, sleepers, dining car and cafe car. And corridor as a service level being coaches, business and cafe car. There is some distinction to be made between an "Interstate" and "State" and I have my thoughts on what that line should be. But, why I disagree with just considering long distance routes corridors when we feel like it is that extra service from say Chicago to Cleveland shouldn't be and doesn't need to be thought about in context of what it means for the Lake Shore Limited whether as a route or level of service. Same thing if the LSL can justify a second departure from New York or Boston. Since aside from potential schedule conflicts, the LSL running 2 or 3 times a night has very little to do with the utility and function of say 8 round trips between Chicago and Cleveland. Amtrak doesn't plan the NEC around what the Silvers are doing, so why should additional services anywhere else be planned around whatever the long distance train a local shares tracks with is doing?


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## west point

George Harris said:


> . At least much of the Pennsy is straight enough that increasing speed limits would have some real value, but getting rid of the slow spots first gains more.



Correct getting rid of slow spots helps the most. Can you imagine how much time could be saved if the section from north PHL thru the Frankford CP location of the overturn accident was straightened for 160 MPH ? No more 50 - 60MPH slow sections. IMO that is the one location that straitening the track would help the most for the whole PRR section of the NRC. Of course Elizabeth "S" curve would help as well but not as uch. HAZ MAT soil remediation will be needed around Frankford.


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## Deni

neroden said:


> Sooooo, there are some studies -- I do not have the citations on hand -- which show that people judge trip time by a 10th percentile or 5th percentile rubric. So with the 5th percentile rubric, if 1% of the trips take 12 hours, people blow it off as a one-time event -- but if 5% of the trips take 12 hours, they treat it as taking 12 hours, even if most of the trips take 4 hours.
> 
> This means that if there's variability in trip time -- like there is with Amtrak due to corrupt freight rail companies causing delays -- people mentally judge the trip time by the worst 5% of trips. All of you rail travellers can probably confirm that this is how you think, though there's probably some variation in whether it's worst-5% or worst-10%.
> 
> This means that on-time performance is, in many ways, far more important than scheduled trip time, in terms of perceived trip time, and therefore customer acceptance and customer demand.
> 
> I believe that the purported distinction between "corridor" trains and "long-distance" trains is essentially bogus, and I would classify the NY-Pittsburgh-Chicago corridor, the NY-Albany-Buffalo-Chicago corridor, the Chicago-Denver corridor, the NY-Miami corridor, and the NY-New Orleans corridor, and the Chicago-Minneapolis-Fargo corridor, as corridors.
> 
> The Salt Lake to Bay Area route probably doesn't qualify as a corridor, and the same with the Eugene to Sacramento route, and the same with the cross-Rockies portion of the Empire Builder and the Raton Pass section of the Southwest Chief, and the desolate sections of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and Tucson. Call these outliers "system connectivity routes", perhaps. These all have the characteristic that there's a severe absence of intermediate population centers. A corridor, in my opinion, has decent-sized cities located less than two hours apart.
> 
> But most of the so-called long-distance routes are corridors. The problems with these corridors right now are that (a) they are not running on time, and (b) they are not fast enough even when running on time (even between intermediate cities -- we're not talking end-to-end), so they are not working as corridors right now. They also (c) don't have enough frequencies per day, but I think that is largely due to (a) and (b). I think the top priority for "corridor development" should be the Lake Shore Limited because it interconnects the Northeastern network with the Chicago-centered network, so it has the maximum benefit in terms of the synergies caused by network effects.


Yeah, people's perceptions v. reality is an interesting concept. There have been similar studies on lines at grocery stores when they ask people how long they've been in line. Say a person has been waiting in a line for 5 minutes, they walk up and ask him how long he's been waiting and and he's more likely to say something like 15 minutes instead of the real time of about 5 minutes. Major grocery stores work on line management based on people's perceptions of how long it takes rather than the actual amount of time.

I agree whole heartily with you about corridor v. long-distance. We've got to get rid of this mindset expectation that going some of these long distances has to take so damn long. If we had high speed rail between Chicago and NYC (the biggest problem with our state system is that this corridor could have been a great first place to start with HSR rather than LA-SF, but harder to do with multiple state entities to deal with) we could go between those cities in five hours. I would never fly that route again if that line existed.


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## neroden

sttom said:


> I see the method to the madness but still disagree with it. I'm looking at it from a level of service standpoint.


Fair enough; that's a different, and in some sense, orthogonal distinction.

I believe corridor "level of service" can and should be supported on all the routes I think are "corridor-suitable", while long-distance "level of service" should be provided when such corridors get long enough to support passengers travelling overnight. Then there are a few places (the "connnectivity routes" I mentioned) which can't support corridors due to lack of online population, but can still support a minimal long-distance service.

Because people get on and off all the way along, I don't think "corridor level of service" should be limited to trains running a certain distance; running a "coaches and cafe car" train all the way from NYC to Chicago makes sense if half the passengers are going from NYC to Toledo and the other half are going from Chicago to Buffalo.


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## neroden

Deni said:


> I agree whole heartily with you about corridor v. long-distance. We've got to get rid of this mindset expectation that going some of these long distances has to take so damn long. If we had high speed rail between Chicago and NYC (the biggest problem with our state system is that this corridor could have been a great first place to start with HSR rather than LA-SF, but harder to do with multiple state entities to deal with) we could go between those cities in five hours.



In particular, the utter anti-rail obstructionism which has been present in Ohio and Indiana has made it very hard to make any NYC-Chicago improvement plans operational. :-( 

Illinois disinterest in eastward access has also hurt such projects -- one of the most important speedups which could cut an hour off trip times and increase reliability is from Chicago to Porter, Indiana (which is still in Chicagoland); the trackbed is mostly sitting vacant; and it's just been impossible to get the political coalition together for it. 

Unfortunately my political tea-leaf-reading doesn't see the political winds shifting in Ohio or Indiana soon, though the approval of the West Lake Corridor for NICTD may signal some softening in the anti-rail fanaticism of the Indiana legislature.


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## George Harris

Qapla said:


> Costs of a Rail Siding - ACW Railway Company
> Frequently Asked Questions - The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA)
> Cost Per Mile Models (fdot.gov)


OK, checked your references. As said, I believe you understated costs, and all of these confirm this. First, the track reference: It says "siding", that is the cost of an industrial track, not a main line. In its description is says used rail, and several other things that would not be acceptable for a main line track. Here is another set on this one:
From:


> Commentary: Do you want to build a freight railroad?
> 
> 
> The cost to build a railroad is staggering. Jim Blaze gives an overview of the costs involved in such an endeavor.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.freightwaves.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a broad rule of thumb when trying to estimate what a railway line’s new construction might cost.
> 
> Ignoring the land cost, the basic rails + ties + ballast + sub-compaction and grading might as a capital budget expense come to between $3.5 million and $4.5 million for each route mile when built as a single-track main line.
> 
> If you build a parallel second main track, then consider adding another $1 million to $1.5 million per mile to the budget plan.
> 
> Are you building this track in an urban area? Prudently add another $2 to $4 million a mile to the capital construction budget. Add more if the terrain requires tunnels and bridges. Add even more if utilities or structures need to be relocated.


While this says freight, once you get to a solid track structure for main line traffic, there is very little cost difference between heavy duty track for freight or for high speed passenger service, other than allowed tolerances in deviation from perfection. By the way, the "grading" in this reference is fairly incidental and does not include significant cuts and and fills, drainage structures, utility issues or bridges.

Your highway references are from Florida DOT. There are few states, maybe some of the fairly flat farming states in the western plains where road construction costs could possibly be lower. The numbers in the reference do not include any significant grading beyond basic smoothing, so area times depth of cut or fill and cost per unit thereof needs to be added. Also there is an allowance for some minimal culverts, but not for any bridges or significant drainage structures, overpasses, underpasses, etc.

For a single track line, you can use their two lane highway number, subtract pavement, add track, for double track, use the three lane or four lane undivided highway number, again subtract pavement add track. 

I stand by my original statement, you cost numbers for both rail construction and road construction are low. In fact, I would say significantly low.


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## Qapla

Low they may be - but building and/or widening Interstate highways is not cheaper than building and/or upgrading rail and no one is asking for the very expensive highways to "make a profit" ... that was the point of my post.


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## sttom

neroden said:


> Fair enough; that's a different, and in some sense, orthogonal distinction.
> 
> I believe corridor "level of service" can and should be supported on all the routes I think are "corridor-suitable", while long-distance "level of service" should be provided when such corridors get long enough to support passengers travelling overnight. Then there are a few places (the "connnectivity routes" I mentioned) which can't support corridors due to lack of online population, but can still support a minimal long-distance service.
> 
> Because people get on and off all the way along, I don't think "corridor level of service" should be limited to trains running a certain distance; running a "coaches and cafe car" train all the way from NYC to Chicago makes sense if half the passengers are going from NYC to Toledo and the other half are going from Chicago to Buffalo.



Why I think this is still not any better has to do with how Amtrak would treat this. Amtrak has a bias towards the NEC and the rest of us are lucky to be considered an afterthought. If additional service is justified somewhere, existing once a day trains don't need to be considered for short and medium haul services that they might be sharing tracks with. And they probably shouldn't be forced to be planned through a needless lens of "what is the LD train doing?" This is why there needs to be better terminology to discuss these topics rather than claiming that the existing terms are bogus and then still living within their perceived constraints. And the terminology does need to change, even on Amtrak's pathetic 2035 map, the service between St Paul and Chicago that they want is a different animal than what they normally consider "corridor" service. Which is why I personally think their needs to be a better definition between what is a "state service" or an "interstate service". I'll elaborate more if you'd like.


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## neroden

Well, I frankly think that Amtrak should be treating the entire NY-Chicago route the way they treat the NEC, or at least the way they treat the Pacific Surfliner. If that tells you where I'm coming from!

And I think Amtrak needs to take sleeper service on the NEC more seriously, too (restoring #66/67 is a start). If that tells you where I'm coming from, too!


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## sttom

neroden said:


> Well, I frankly think that Amtrak should be treating the entire NY-Chicago route the way they treat the NEC, or at least the way they treat the Pacific Surfliner. If that tells you where I'm coming from!
> 
> And I think Amtrak needs to take sleeper service on the NEC more seriously, too (restoring #66/67 is a start). If that tells you where I'm coming from, too!


Why I don't think additional service along any existing or historical LD route should be planned in the same light is the logistics involved. To have NEC level service along the entire length of the route would essentially make it a 24 hour operation. I grew up in a family of postal workers, so I have heard what its like maintaining something like that all my life. The people needed to maintain 24 departures per direction would take a lot and frankly Amtrak doesn't have it in them to do that. And my concern with trying to plan the whole route as a corridor is that it does take 18 hours to run from end to end. And even if service expanded, I doubt their would be much of a speed improvement anytime soon. And even if the run time did get to the 10-12 hour range, that would still be a much longer run time than any existing corridor routes. And given how short "long distance trips" tend to be (100-300 miles per direction on average). Chicago to Cleveland is about 350 miles, Toledo to Buffalo is about 300 miles, and New York to Buffalo is about 450 miles. Given the city pairs and the mileage, it really does make sense to plan prospective additional services separately from each other. And given the possible city pairs, Chicago to Cleveland should be the priority and its not even on Amtrak's radar. Couple with this with other discussions on here about advocacy, just shows to me, as someone who lives outside of the NEC that Amtrak isn't serious about the rest of the country. Chicago - Cleveland is such low hanging fruit and as far as leadership is concerned its not something they think can happen in 15 years!


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## Cal

neroden said:


> Well, I frankly think that Amtrak should be treating the entire NY-Chicago route the way they treat the NEC, or at least the way they treat the Pacific Surfliner. If that tells you where I'm coming from!


The Capitol Corridor doesn’t do too bad either, they have more daily round trips than the Surfline (at least pre covid),


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## neroden

In practice, practically everyone on the NEC is travelling either north of NYC or south of NYC (almost nobody travels across it), and half the population of the train changes at Philladelphia too. It's still planned as one corridor.

Obviously, Chicago to Cleveland and Syracuse to Cleveland and Detroit to New York should all be part of the considerations for the Chicago-NY corridor. Only a minority of people will travel the whole way. It still deserves holistic planning. Unfortunately, Ohio and Indiana rural-dominated governments provide a very difficult obstacle. Unless there are major population migrations I'm not sure what would reverse the attitudes of those governments.


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## Qapla

Interesting article with the opposite point of view









Why the US needs to get on track with high-speed rail | Greenbiz


The possibilities for high-speed rail innovation are many, and once the lasting infrastructure is built, the benefits to communities are long-lasting.




www.greenbiz.com


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## George Harris

Qapla said:


> Low they may be - but building and/or widening Interstate highways is not cheaper than building and/or upgrading rail and no one is asking for the very expensive highways to "make a profit" ... that was the point of my post.


Understood, however my intent was to have us use more realistic numbers. You do notice that the relationships did not change. Understating costs was and is one of the major problems in the California HSR is that low ball costs were used throughout. Many "side issues" that tend to run up costs appear to have been ignored. The same is done in highway work, but that seems to be conveniently forgotten. However, there is something of a "heads you win, tails I lose" problem here. Case in point, in the first round of DART studies the intent was and actual results were to avoid low balling costs. This was proven out when some of the first contracts came in well below engineer's estimates. Unfortunately, the politicians and public just assumed that as usual elsewhere the cost were understated and reacted accordingly, so the project died a political death for a few years.


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## Tlcooper93

Qapla said:


> Low they may be - but building and/or widening Interstate highways is not cheaper than building and/or upgrading rail and no one is asking for the very expensive highways to "make a profit" ... that was the point of my post.



What you say is mostly true. Politicians and the general public have no problem overlooking cost overruns in certain areas (highways, airports, and military projects), but the moment rail is put on the podium, everyone cries a scandal.

It is simply innacurate so say that High Speed Rail is cheaper than interstate highways. I think with regular rail, the numbers get a lot closer, and perhaps swing against interstates, but HSR is incredibly expensive to build and maintain, especially when you are enter the 186mph+ range. This is more or less the reason I think the focus should be on getting our existing rail network faster (getting as many routes as possible to 125), rather than shooting for some arbitrary number such as 220mph, and therefore shooting any rail project in the foot. Not even in Japan do they have all HSR lines traveling over 200. Most of the lines actually have similar top speeds to the Acela (with overall higher average speeds).

Your larger point about hypocritical attitude favoring some modes of transportation over another, falsely citing costlyness, is extremely valid, and one which much be brought up again and again.

Roads don't pay for themselves, and this country most certainly does subsidize transportation: cars.


George Harris said:


> Understood, however my intent was to have us use more realistic numbers. You do notice that the relationships did not change. Understating costs was and is one of the major problems in the California HSR is that low ball costs were used throughout. Many "side issues" that tend to run up costs appear to have been ignored. The same is done in highway work, but that seems to be conveniently forgotten. However, there is something of a "heads you win, tails I lose" problem here. Case in point, in the first round of DART studies the intent was and actual results were to avoid low balling costs. This was proven out when some of the first contracts came in well below engineer's estimates. Unfortunately, the politicians and public just assumed that as usual elsewhere the cost were understated and reacted accordingly, so the project died a political death for a few years.


PS - do you mean "heads I win, tails you lose?"


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## sttom

Per mile cost is probably not the best way to look at the value of transportation projects. The dollar value for some measure of capacity is probably better. Even if a high speed rail project and a highway project have similar per mile costs, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that more than likely the rail project will have a greater capacity than the highway project. This doesn't mean that you don't need to balance cost with outcome, but that there is a bigger picture than the cost. For example, if California allotted a similar amount of money on conventional rail, we'd have gotten a lot more capacity out of it than with highways we're spending the money on. Which isn't to say that just spending money on rail is enough, there are other issues that play into the success of various forms of transportation, mostly building patterns.


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## PaTrainFan

You wonder how many large scale privately financed construction projects exceed their budgets. Those are rarely known to the public. The engineers on here would know better, but you have got to believe that almost any project of magnitude is fraught with uncertainty as to rising costs, delays, unforeseen design challenges, change orders, you name it. But it is also true that private enterprise usually finds a way to lock in some sort of public financing for large projects, which does make the costs more transparent.


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## jruff001

sttom said:


> Chicago - Cleveland is such low hanging fruit and as far as leadership is concerned its not something they think can happen in 15 years!


There is a lot of focus in this thread on the NY-Chicago rust belt route. I know this won't be a popular view here but frankly, I am not sure it makes sense to make such a huge and controversial infrastructure investment in an area of the country that is shrinking (or at best growing only very slowly compared to other parts of the country), especially when it won't be done for at least another 15 years. 

The demographic trends have been inexorable for many decades now. The focus should be on areas that are growing and will need more infrastructure to handle that growth.


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## sttom

jruff001 said:


> There is a lot of focus in this thread on the NY-Chicago rust belt route. I know this won't be a popular view here but frankly, I am not sure it makes sense to make such a huge and controversial infrastructure investment in an area of the country that is shrinking (or at best growing only very slowly compared to other parts of the country), especially when it won't be done for at least another 15 years.
> 
> The demographic trends have been inexorable for many decades now. The focus should be on areas that are growing and will need more infrastructure to handle that growth.


Considering this is based on Amtrak's lackluster 2035 map and all of the outside the NEC work was meant to cost $25 billion, the overall cost of adding service wouldn't be that high in the grand scheme of things. Based on the cost of the Gulf Coast extension, at least the estimates of ~$600,000 per mile. Chicago to Cleveland would have a cost starting around $210 million. In the grand scheme of investments, that's peanuts. Especially considering that added service of 4 round trips per day would turn every station into a magnet for economic activity. Even if it cost three times that, it's still not a lot of money. And frankly, this reflects poorly on the NEC, not the rest of the country. Ohio deserves more Amtrak service and so does Texas, Minnesota and basically everyone of the lower 48 regardless of demographic trends. One train per day if you're lucky is below worthless as a minimum, especially for short trips. At best you can make a convenient day trip in one direction across most of the Amtrak network and that's before we get into sizeable cities that don't have service or service to anywhere useful.


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## MARC Rider

jruff001 said:


> There is a lot of focus in this thread on the NY-Chicago rust belt route. I know this won't be a popular view here but frankly, I am not sure it makes sense to make such a huge and controversial infrastructure investment in an area of the country that is shrinking (or at best growing only very slowly compared to other parts of the country), especially when it won't be done for at least another 15 years.
> 
> The demographic trends have been inexorable for many decades now. The focus should be on areas that are growing and will need more infrastructure to handle that growth.


Just because those demographic trends have been "inexorable" for the past decades doesn't mean they'll be "inexorable" in the future. In the long run, climate change may make a lot of the southern and western parts of the country uninhabitable, or at least a lot less pleasant place to live. On the other hand, projections indicate that the Great Lakes area may have the least negative effects from climate change. No droughts, no wildfires, no hurricanes and the winters may be milder than than they have been in the past. Plus, urban infrastructure is already built up. If I were locating a business, I'd take a nice long look at Toldeo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, etc.


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## neroden

jruff001 said:


> There is a lot of focus in this thread on the NY-Chicago rust belt route. I know this won't be a popular view here but frankly, I am not sure it makes sense to make such a huge and controversial infrastructure investment in an area of the country that is shrinking (or at best growing only very slowly compared to other parts of the country), especially when it won't be done for at least another 15 years.
> 
> The demographic trends have been inexorable for many decades now. The focus should be on areas that are growing and will need more infrastructure to handle that growth.



First of all, NY and Chicago remain the largest and third-largest cities in the US. This route is essential. The largest interconnected rail network in the US branches out from the NEC; the second-largest branches out from Chicago. Interconnecting them has maximum network effects.

Secondly, the cities in between are no slouches; they're BIG, even if they used to be relatively bigger.

Thirdly, the prediction from the experts at this point is that there will be growth in the Rust Belt due to climate change migration -- it's got the water, and it's high enough above sea level. Things which are lacking in the Sun Belt. The demographic trend of people leaving the Rust Belt is quite the opposite of inexorable and the signs that it's reversing are already visible.


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## JLChicago

Exvalley said:


> There is definitely some confirmation bias on this forum. People were happy to read a Greenpeace article in support of rail, but refuse to read a Cato Institute article opposed to it. Both organizations are unabashedly biased.
> 
> I want to know what the opposition is saying. It helps my advocacy when I can anticipate their objections.


I remember a Fox32 (Chicago) News interview with Randall O’Toole several years back. He was so outrageous that even the Fox News folks were openly laughing and mocking him. When Fox News considers O’Toole silly you can safely say he is silly. Nothing he says stands up to any analysis. Even Fox noted that.


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## JLChicago

jruff001 said:


> There is a lot of focus in this thread on the NY-Chicago rust belt route. I know this won't be a popular view here but frankly, I am not sure it makes sense to make such a huge and controversial infrastructure investment in an area of the country that is shrinking (or at best growing only very slowly compared to other parts of the country), especially when it won't be done for at least another 15 years.
> 
> The demographic trends have been inexorable for many decades now. The focus should be on areas that are growing and will need more infrastructure to handle that growth.


You mean like the Southwest? I just attended an economic conference where they were concerned about long term investments in the Southwest because the Southwest is literally running out of water. I have relatives in Vegas and I often visit Lake Mead. It’s now dropping about a foot every couple weeks. If this continues Lake Mead will be dry in 5 to 10 years and many businesses will no longer be economically viable. They’re predicting a migration back to the Midwest and East.


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## Ziv

JLChicago said:


> You mean like the Southwest? I just attended an economic conference where they were concerned about long term investments in the Southwest because the Southwest is literally running out of water. I have relatives in Vegas and I often visit Lake Mead. It’s now dropping about a foot every couple weeks. If this continues Lake Mead will be dry in 5 to 10 years and many businesses will no longer be economically viable. They’re predicting a migration back to the Midwest and East.


Hopefully these three years of La Nina will be followed by a year or two of El Niño which should bring more rain back to the SW. 
Hopefully…

This Too Shall Pass is not just about kidney stones!


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## Shawn Ryu

The argument of cost seems to be in bad faith when we spend how many trillions on military.


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## Tlcooper93

Shawn Ryu said:


> The argument of cost seems to be in bad faith when we spend how many trillions on military.


While there is some case to be made in regard to hypocritical spending, it would be hard to justify, let alone convince anybody (especially as Germany and Europe on the whole re-arm) that we ought to be spending less on the military.

My personal reconciliation of this matter is to frame an excellent national rail network in the same light as the interstates:
A piece of crucial infrastructure that directly relates to national security and well-being.


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## MARC Rider

Shawn Ryu said:


> The argument of cost seems to be in bad faith when we spend how many trillions on military.


We need a strong and effective military, but we did flush 6 to 8 trillion dollars down the drain in Iraq and Afghanistan, and didn't get much to show for it. So, yeah, the argument of cost is in bad faith. Then there's agricultural subsidies to agribusiness that don't need it.


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## Tlcooper93

Tlcooper93 said:


> While there is some case to be made in regard to hypocritical spending, it would be hard to justify, let alone convince anybody (especially as Germany and Europe on the whole re-arm) that we ought to be spending less on the military.
> 
> My personal reconciliation of this matter is to frame an excellent national rail network in the same light as the interstates:
> A piece of crucial infrastructure that directly relates to national security and well-being.


Another thought with regard to national security,
The lessons in importance of railway that Ukraine taught the world is notable.

Now of course, Ukraine doesn’t have the highways we have, but their railroads proved to be invaluable in evacuation of large numbers of people without creating crazy congestion on their roads.


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## Ziv

Tlcooper93 said:


> Another thought with regard to national security,
> The lesson of importance in railway that Ukraine taught the world is notable.
> 
> Now of course, Ukraine doesn’t have the highways we have, but their railroads proved to be invaluable in evacuation of large numbers of people without creating crazy congestion on their roads.


This is so true!
The Ukrainian Railways system ( I won't even try to spell its name in Ukrainian! ) has not only delivered the goods, they have delivered millions of Ukrainians from the war zone to safety, either to Western Ukraine or to Poland. The employees of Ukrainian Railways have a lot to be proud of since they have been working right through the war and they have not hesitated to operate those trains in areas that are subject to Russian artillery fire!


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## Willbridge

Ziv said:


> This is so true!
> The Ukrainian Railways system ( I won't even try to spell its name in Ukrainian! ) has not only delivered the goods, they have delivered millions of Ukrainians from the war zone to safety, either to Western Ukraine or to Poland. The employees of Ukrainian Railways have a lot to be proud of since they have been working right through the war and they have not hesitated to operate those trains in areas that are subject to Russian artillery fire!


As I was briefly an Army railroader, I found it interesting to talk with and read about U.S. Army Transport Corps and UK Royal Corps of Transport veterans from the Korean and World Wars. Of course, I supposed that this was just history!


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