Speed limit

[Joel N. Weber II]

Then again, maybe the long term solution to the LSL Boston Stub performance problem is a train that goes from Boston to Chicago via Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Cleveland.

If you take a look at Wikipedia's Table of United States Combined Statistical Areas and assume that building new high speed cooridors between any pair of areas in the top 20 on that list is worthwhile when the the pair of areas are within, say, 400 miles of each other, you can build a Chicago to Cleveland high speed corridor, a Cleveland to Pittsburgh high speed corridor, and a Pittsburgh to Philadelphia high speed corridor. If you could average 170 MPH through that series of new high speed corridors, you'd have a travel time of under five hours going from Philadelphia to Chicago, and Boston to Philadelphia is currently about 5 hours on the Acela Express. If you want to give people time to eat dinner and breakfast and sleep for a reasonable amount of time, you'd actually want an average speed somewhat less than 170 MPH to make an overnight train work well.

 

[MrEd]

Thanks Rafi, nice job on the stats.

I can say for sure Adirondack is slow. Two months ago I rode 35 miles in 2.5 hours. Vermonter is high speed in comparison.

 

[Rafi]

You forgot Carolinian.

So I did. It's in there now.

Rafi - I think you have way too much time on your hands, or is it a slow news day! :lol: :lol:

I'll put it this way: My wife is getting ready for us to go see Sex and the City. I'm delaying. Desperately.

Rafi

:lol: I don't blame you.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. I guess if you go in expecting the worst, you're in for a better movie. 2 and a half hours was pushing it, though!

-Rafi

 

[Rafi]

Vermonter (St. Albans-NYP ONLY): 39 MPH (note that from St. Albans to Springfield, however, it's averaging 49 MPH!)

251 miles divided by 6.166 hours (6:10 minutes) seems to be giving me about 41 MPH, not 49 MPH.

Right you are. For some reason I miscounted the run time at 5:10 minutes (subconscious wishful thinking, I guess). It's corrected now.

Rafi

 

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

Not to mention the AutoTrain could finally exceed 70mph.

First I suspect that the new car carriers introduced about two year ago are cabable of going fast than 70 MPH.

However, doing so would be useless to the Autotrain. A faster runing time than what they have now would either mean having to drop dinner service since they'd need to leave later, or it would have them arriving too early at the other end, such that breakfast could not be served.

This is one train that won't benefit from a faster running time.

The schedule shouldn't change but 79 vs 70 would be great to make up time, all of Amtrak's trains are scheduled to run slower than they actually do, this would just add extra make up time.

 

[AlanB]

Not to mention the AutoTrain could finally exceed 70mph.

First I suspect that the new car carriers introduced about two year ago are cabable of going fast than 70 MPH.

However, doing so would be useless to the Autotrain. A faster runing time than what they have now would either mean having to drop dinner service since they'd need to leave later, or it would have them arriving too early at the other end, such that breakfast could not be served.

This is one train that won't benefit from a faster running time.

The schedule shouldn't change but 79 vs 70 would be great to make up time, all of Amtrak's trains are scheduled to run slower than they actually do, this would just add extra make up time.

And if they actually need to make up time then it could be useful. But if they don't, then what happens is the train arrives too early for the terminal. If there is no yard crew in the terminal yet, then the train just sits on CSX's mainline, something that CSX just loves. And even without 79 MPH running, this has happened where the AT arrived at SFA before the yards crews scheduled arrival time and so it just sat on the main tying up traffic.

Additionally it should be noted that 9 MPH isn't going to give you that much extra time. And consider that if the delay happens early on, like say in Virginia for a southbound run, then maybe that extra 9 MPH helps to make up time. But if they were cruising along at the normal 70 MPH because everything was running just right, and then hit a delay just south of JAX, well 9 MPH isn't going to make up very much time at all over the remaining length of the run.

 

[SUNSETLIMITED02]

Why is it that trains are limited to 79mph on the majority of trackage that amtrak runs on.

Its all found here

Even though this is a little off topic do you think freight trains will ever go past 70mph?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

If there are indeed a significant number of freight cars out there that are limited to 70 MPH, there may be a lot of inertia to be overcome to get real value from running at 79 MPH instead.

If you're a freight conductor on a busy double tracked mainline, even if you've carefully verified that every car on your train is capable of 79 MPH operation, and even if you have a 79 MPH capable locomotive, if even 10% of the total freight car fleet is limited to 70 MPH, you're probably going to find yourself traveling right behind a 70 MPH train (or maybe behind another 79 MPH train that's traveling right behind a 70 MPH train, or maybe behind several 79 MPH trains that can't pass that 70 MPH train), at which point that extra speed doesn't really buy you anything.

Plus, if someone screws up and wrecks a 70 MPH car by forgetting it's not a 79 MPH car and running it too fast, you may have delays that rather exceed the benefits those extra 9 MPH were getting you.

If all the big railroads were to start announcing that 10 years from now (or whatever, but giving car owners lots of time to prepare) they really want all the cars to have 80 MPH trucks, and there will be large handling fees for not having 80 MPH trucks, that might make a conversion happen.

The French TGV has some dedicated mail trains that presumably run at passenger speeds, and maybe we'll also someday see some of that if we get enough high speed track. Right now, the Regional Formerly Known As The Twilight Shoreliner, even if it maxes out at 110 MPH, does a fine job of running with a schedule that would work for carrying overnight mail in its corridor, if Amtrak and USPS wanted to make that happen. But carrying lighter weight freight on passenger track is sort of a different subject than the speed of the typical heavy freight train.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

I think one of the reasons they stopped carrying mail was the delays to Amtrak passenger trains caused by onloading/offloading mail, switching delays, etc. I suppose if it was simply an end-to end mail run, i.e., from origination to destination for that train, with no intermediate mail onloads/offloads, so that they were not having to do any adding or cutting of a mail car enroute, perhaps that would be worthwhile. And also, perhaps, with the huge increases in fuel costs, if the airlines start charging more, or the cost of mail transport by truck jumps high enough, then the Postal Service might be more interested in Amtrak again handling mail. But if doing so would result in additional delays for Amtrak trains, it's counterproductive to Amtrak's primary business of efficient transport of passengers. So if they could do it without delays AND if doing so would increase revenue more than it increased cost, including the cost, if necessary, of additional rolling stock certified to maximum passenger-train speeds, go for it. History, unfortunately, would tend to say it won't work, and Amtrak has amply demonstrated a marvelous ability to shoot itself in the foot, but that's not to say that it couldn't work.

 

[Rafi]

I think one of the reasons they stopped carrying mail was the delays to Amtrak passenger trains caused by onloading/offloading mail, switching delays, etc. I suppose if it was simply an end-to end mail run, i.e., from origination to destination for that train, with no intermediate mail onloads/offloads, so that they were not having to do any adding or cutting of a mail car enroute, perhaps that would be worthwhile. And also, perhaps, with the huge increases in fuel costs, if the airlines start charging more, or the cost of mail transport by truck jumps high enough, then the Postal Service might be more interested in Amtrak again handling mail. But if doing so would result in additional delays for Amtrak trains, it's counterproductive to Amtrak's primary business of efficient transport of passengers. So if they could do it without delays AND if doing so would increase revenue more than it increased cost, including the cost, if necessary, of additional rolling stock certified to maximum passenger-train speeds, go for it. History, unfortunately, would tend to say it won't work, and Amtrak has amply demonstrated a marvelous ability to shoot itself in the foot, but that's not to say that it couldn't work.

I've actually been told that the majority of mail delays the trains encountered were due to the mail cars not getting switched onto the trains until well after departure time. Chicago was apparently very bad about getting the mail sorted, into the cars, and then attached to the train in time for departure. I recall sitting on the Three Rivers in Chicago for about an hour and 45 minutes after the train was due to depart on one occasion.

-Rafi

 

[Green Maned Lion]

They could still do it with that old-fashioned on-the-fly pick up and drop off system. I wonder why that brilliant concept died.

 

[Guest]

"But if doing so would result in additional delays for Amtrak trains.."

Wouldn't this be the other way around? The USPS needs timeliness and dependability, particularly with certain categories. What was the story with Amtrak and the USPS? Was Amtrak able to provide the level of security that the mail requies? I'm pretty sure that the USPS currently uses commercial carriers (possibly including other parcel carriers) in some manner.

 

[jackal]

And also, perhaps, with the huge increases in fuel costs, if the airlines start charging more, or the cost of mail transport by truck jumps high enough, then the Postal Service might be more interested in Amtrak again handling mail.

I don't think it's a matter of the airlines charging more--I think the USPS sets the price of mail transport in their contracts. Right now, even with fuel costs, transporting mail remains a very profitable operation for airlines. If the revenue brought in by mail ever drops below what the cost of hauling it in fuel is, and if the USPS doesn't raise their rates they pay to the airlines, what will happen is the airlines won't renew their contracts, leaving the USPS without a method to move their mail. The USPS would then either counteroffer with higher rates or look at alternative solutions (including Amtrak). I doubt it will ever come down to that, though.

I'm pretty sure that the USPS currently uses commercial carriers (possibly including other parcel carriers) in some manner.

I'm not sure how the USPS handles surface mail (i.e. Parcel Post, Media Mail, etc.)--I believe they do contract with trucking companies--but first-class mail is transported under contract by passenger airlines (for example, Continental holds the contract between ANC and SEA) and Priority Mail is flown by FedEx. The ground operations for these services (i.e. to and from the airports) remain USPS operations.

Surface mail could be contracted out to freight railroads (as UPS does for their Ground shipping product). Priority Mail could probably be handled by Amtrak on high-speed runs (the NEC--maybe on the overnight former Twilight Shoreliner), but for most other runs (even, say, NYC to CHI), train travel is just not time-competitive enough with FedEx flights (even when the packages are routed through and sorted at their Memphis hub).

And I suspect that first-class mail would simply be too much volume for Amtrak's baggage staff to deal with. With today's junk mail levels, what was a few bags in the olden days would now be half of a baggage car--just for a single station stop! Then again, if a ramp crew of 3-4 people can offload all of the mail coming into ANC in a half an hour, maybe Amtrak could do it. I don't know enough about the mail system to speculate.

 

[BobWeaver]

I'm not sure how the USPS handles surface mail (i.e. Parcel Post, Media Mail, etc.)--I believe they do contract with trucking companies--but first-class mail is transported under contract by passenger airlines (for example, Continental holds the contract between ANC and SEA) and Priority Mail is flown by FedEx. The ground operations for these services (i.e. to and from the airports) remain USPS operations.

FedEx also handles some of USPS's First Class Mail, for the record.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

With today's junk mail levels, what was a few bags in the olden days would now be half of a baggage car--just for a single station stop!

Egad, I hate that! I get a constant stream of garbage mail from a "Rev. Peter Popoff", who sounds like a certified, ordained crook more than a ordained minister, for a former employee. At first, well, "what the mail man bringeth, the garbageman taketh away!" But I finally decided that I wanted to cost this nitwit as much money as I could, so I would tear up the envelope, stuff it and its contents in to the included "Business Reply Mail" envelope (which suggested that in furtherence of "god" you could pay the postage by placing a stamp on it... *vomits*), along with some very valuble coupons and spectacular special offers (read: my other junk mail), and send the whole thing back to the depths of hell from whence it came.