# The three things the US needs in rail



## me_little_me (Aug 30, 2010)

Three things:

1) High speed rail of 120 mph. Above that the price goes way up, the returns go down (air is better for long distances at high speed), and the money can be better used for more rail. Rail is best between cities 4 hours or less (at that speed) apart. They have the most traffic between them vs longer distances; rail is competitive with air for convenience; rail beats cars for time and human wear & tear.

2) More Auto-trains. Nothing can match an auto-train. You don't have to drive and you have your car at your destination. Rail is the only way to do this. (Wonder what airlines would add for fees for that "oversized" luggage?)

3) Small city to metro center AIRPORTS! Rail needs to go to the major airports from smaller cities. There would be a dramatic decrease in the airport flight congestion and the cost savings by eliminating all those wasteful small city airports could do a lot for decreasing the net cost of the rail lines. Atlanta is a good example. Columbus to Macon to Atlanta, Asheville to Greenville to Atlanta (or Charlotte) and Augusta and Savannah to Atlanta (or Charlotte) would eliminate a lot of short flights (which still take a landing slot and a gate just like flights from Atlanta to Dallas or New York do).


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## jamesontheroad (Aug 30, 2010)

I'm going to be controversial...

4) A reasoned, sensible and coherent approach to passenger DMUs. I may hate the fact that they've replaced almost every diesel locomotive hauled train here in the UK, but DMUs could revolutionise dozens of marginal Amtrak routes. A serious DMU vehicle, perhaps derived from a tried and tested European design, could become the Budd railcar of the twenty-first century. It could also signal the beginning of a renaissance in regional or rural rail systems.


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## WICT106 (Aug 30, 2010)

A dedicated source of capitol funding in the US. A great deal of the costs, and one of the issues that has held up passenger rail expansion in the past, has been the lack of capitol funding.


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## George Harris (Sep 1, 2010)

Not so sure about the DMU's If you have a demand that can be satisified with a two or three car train, then maybe. The push-pull system used by Caltrain and many commuter systems in the US works beautifully with the four car plus trains.

Absolutely, we need a consistent source of funding. Highways and airports have a virtually automatic mechanism for funding built into the various governments. When you hear aboust such stuff as the Alaska "bridge to nowhere" that represents something ADDED to the normal funding. Anything rail requires a special funding project by project, or at best, system by system,s uch as the special one cent sales tax for transit in some areas, but that is not normally fully rail, but rail plus bus, and sometimes plus carpool lanes as well.

A railroad for 200 mph really does not have to cost that much more than a railroad for 120 mph. There are very few railroad lines in this country that have both teh track capacity and the alignment to permit 120 mph running without major investment.


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## Shawn Ryu (Sep 2, 2010)

High speed rail-

-Between LA and San Francisco

-Seattle and Vancouver

-New York and Toronto

-Much faster Acela

-DC and Miami

-DC and Atlanta

-Dallas and Oklahoma City

Free border crossing between US and Canada.

Amtrak controlling all the freight trains.


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## Eric S (Sep 2, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> High speed rail-
> 
> -Between LA and San Francisco
> 
> ...


No Chicago-based corridors?


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## jis (Sep 2, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> Free border crossing between US and Canada.


Won't happen in my lifetime.



> Amtrak controlling all the freight trains.


Fortunately this won't happen either. If it did it would be the single worst disaster that could happen to the health of overall railroading in this country.


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## George Harris (Sep 2, 2010)

jis said:


> Shawn Ryu said:
> 
> 
> > Amtrak controlling all the freight trains.
> ...


Completely agree with Jis on this one. There are things about the European freight system that are still struggling to get out of the *Nineteenth* century.


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## leemell (Sep 2, 2010)

jis said:


> Shawn Ryu said:
> 
> 
> > Free border crossing between US and Canada.
> ...


I also agree with that. Most people have no clue as to the volume of freight that the rail lines haul. It is the cheapest per ton mile by a mile and it is the backbone of high volume freight movement in this country. You really don't want to mess with it. Look what happened with the UP merger a few years ago, freight deliveries and prices were a disaster for years before UP got it straightened out.


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## George Harris (Sep 2, 2010)

leemell said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Shawn Ryu said:
> ...


The Railway Gazette International publishes comparative statistics for variuos rail systems around the world from time to time. Have not seen them recently, however. In general, the US and Canadian sytems look like an abberation. They are so much more efficient in relation to man power per ton-km hauled and tons per train than anybody else that people in other coutries areskeptical about the accuracy of the results. About the only exceptions to that are the dedicated mineral lines in places like Western Australia. When it comes to passenger km per train km or per man-km, Amtrak is not too far off the world norms for passenger service, which is surprising given that the one train per day on most routes makes a lot of the efficiencies that could be used where you have multiple frequencies impossible to implement. Many of the national systems, despite higher freight rates that those prevailing in the US require significant subsidy to operate their freight systems. Any major messing with our rail freight system could easily, and most likely be disasterous.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Sep 7, 2010)

You left out one of the biggest pieces in this and thats freight.

Ideally all major rail lines should be double tracked and electrified allowing double stack intermodal trains at 80mph and passenger trains at 125mph.

With electrification and double tracking you could have freight, commuter trains, regional trains and long distance trains operating on the same line at ideal frequencies. If congestion develops add another track with the outermost tracks for slower trains and inner tracks for faster trains.

The US is not ready for true high speed rail when we lack standard passenger service. The only exception would be the California system and possibly the Florida system.

Also Amtrak doesn't necessarily have to be the sole operator of passenger service. However there should be a unified booking system that would allow for direct bookings across all trains in the US. Booking may become Amtrak's sole purpose in the future.

As for Auto Trains I would propose a trainset that would allow intermediate stops. I'm not sure if the Chunnel Shuttles would allow this but they would be a good base to start from, or possibly the Swiss rail ferries.


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## jis (Sep 7, 2010)

Crescent ATN & TCL said:


> As for Auto Trains I would propose a trainset that would allow intermediate stops. I'm not sure if the Chunnel Shuttles would allow this but they would be a good base to start from, or possibly the Swiss rail ferries.


Neither the Chunnel Shuttle nor the Swiss ferries through the tunnels have intermediate stops. They are all just point to point. So I don't see how they can be used as a model for a system with intermediate stops.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Sep 7, 2010)

jis said:


> Crescent ATN & TCL said:
> 
> 
> > As for Auto Trains I would propose a trainset that would allow intermediate stops. I'm not sure if the Chunnel Shuttles would allow this but they would be a good base to start from, or possibly the Swiss rail ferries.
> ...


Because they are loaded different. They are loaded from the side via a platform, rather than from the ends by a ramp. It would theoretically be possible to make a single level auto train with cars that have retractable sides, that way each car could be unloaded independently of the rest of the train.


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## saxman (Sep 9, 2010)

me_little_me said:


> Small city to metro center AIRPORTS! Rail needs to go to the major airports from smaller cities. There would be a dramatic decrease in the airport flight congestion and the cost savings by eliminating all those wasteful small city airports could do a lot for decreasing the net cost of the rail lines. Atlanta is a good example. Columbus to Macon to Atlanta, Asheville to Greenville to Atlanta (or Charlotte) and Augusta and Savannah to Atlanta (or Charlotte) would eliminate a lot of short flights (which still take a landing slot and a gate just like flights from Atlanta to Dallas or New York do).


Small city airports aren't really wasteful. They do serve a purpose, more than just airline service. Sure there might only be 3 flights to Columbus, GA, but there is also lots of cargo, charter, on demand and lots of private aircraft those airports serve. Not to mention most of those "wasteful" airports are quite self sufficient. I'm not saying they have never receive tax money or a little stimulus monies. But in general they are pretty much self sustaining.


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## Shawn Ryu (Sep 13, 2010)

I think that the Amtrak needs sto gain some control over every single tracks in America, otherwise the passenger rail service here will remain inferior to other countries.

The first thing Amtrak has to do to step in the right direction is to improve on time performance and i fear that the only thing getting in the way of that are the freight companies controlling the rail.


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## Eric S (Sep 13, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> I think that the Amtrak needs sto gain some control over every single tracks in America, otherwise the passenger rail service here will remain inferior to other countries.
> 
> The first thing Amtrak has to do to step in the right direction is to improve on time performance and i fear that the only thing getting in the way of that are the freight companies controlling the rail.


What sort of "control" do you have in mind?


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## Trogdor (Sep 13, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> I think that the Amtrak needs sto gain some control over every single tracks in America, otherwise the passenger rail service here will remain inferior to other countries.
> 
> The first thing Amtrak has to do to step in the right direction is to improve on time performance and i fear that the only thing getting in the way of that are the freight companies controlling the rail.


That essentially amounts to nationalizing the railroad infrastructure. Not only is that never going to happen, but given the US's track record (so to speak) on infrastructure, I'm not convinced it would be a good idea for it to happen.

As it stands now, the freight railroads have a very good incentive for keeping their on tracks in good condition up to a certain point. Granted, they'll never pay to upgrade to high-speed standards, but that requires a specific dedicated investment that only recently have we seen forthcoming (and how much longer that money will be available remains quite in doubt). But, on busy freight routes where Amtrak operates, the tracks are generally in pretty good shape.

On lightly used routes, the tracks aren't in as great of shape, because the freights don't need them (at least, not very much). These routes have little in the way of freight traffic, and therefore, little in the way of freight train interference causing passenger train delays. However, Amtrak certainly doesn't have the money to maintain the track, because it would require a significant amount more labor and resources. Recently, we've seen the downgrading of NS's Michigan Line, and BNSF's route through Kansas and Colorado, plus questions over the future of service around Devils Lake. If the money were there to maintain those tracks, they'd be in better shape than they are now.

Regardless of who "controls" the track, you still have a serious lack of *capacity*. To solve that problem requires *money*. If Amtrak is going to be in control, then Amtrak will have to find the money.


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## jis (Sep 14, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> I think that the Amtrak needs sto gain some control over every single tracks in America, otherwise the passenger rail service here will remain inferior to other countries.


Considering the difficulty that Amtrak has in keeping their own trains on time on their own NEC, what makes you think Amtrak owning the freight tracks or controlling them would make things any better? All it will do is destroy the efficient freight railroad system in addition to continuing to run passenger trains late as usual unfortunately.


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## Shawn Ryu (Sep 14, 2010)

Trogdor said:


> Shawn Ryu said:
> 
> 
> > I think that the Amtrak needs sto gain some control over every single tracks in America, otherwise the passenger rail service here will remain inferior to other countries.
> ...


I am not suggesting that we nationalize the rail. But Amtrak should fully control the tracks where theres a lot of passengers (NEC, Pacific Surfliner route). And work with freight companies to double track as many rails as they possibly can, or need.

If there should be any highspeed rail plan that actually goes through, Amtrak has to own the track.


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## George Harris (Sep 14, 2010)

Shawn Ryu said:


> I am not suggesting that we nationalize the rail. But Amtrak should fully control the tracks where theres a lot of passengers (NEC, Pacific Surfliner route). And work with freight companies to double track as many rails as they possibly can, or need.
> If there should be any highspeed rail plan that actually goes through, Amtrak has to own the track.


Amtrak already controls the Northeast corridor, with t he exception of Newy Yorrk to New Haven, which controlled by the local commuter service, therefore is entirely passenger oriented in its operation.

Fullerton to San Diego and Los Angeles to Redondo junction are also owned and controlled by passenger train oerators.

Conversely, the track down the Central valley is still owned by BNSF. It carries 6 California sponsered trains each way and a considrable freight volume on a line that still has a lot of single track, but operates with a high on-time frequency. In fact, after quite a few rides, there have been several delays, and with one exception all were within the control of Amtrak, or due to an Amtrak-Amtrak meet. The one exception was weather related, and it was on the first few miles out of Oakland that are owned by Union Pacific.

I do not believe that government ownership and operation will solve anything. Conversely, it will turn the US railroad system into the sinkhole for money that is the situation in much of the rest of the world.


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