200MPH+ on the NEC: Is it practical?

[MARC Rider]

Forget about 200+ mph. Right now I'm on 94, which is creeping along at 9 mph, in a stretch of track that's normally 110 mph.

 

[Siegmund]

Expanding a little on the comments already shared about the European high speed experience:

For the most part, *nobody's* old right-of-way is good for 200mph. If you want those speeds, you build custom new track.

But what Europe is really good at, and we are really terrible at, is achieving speeds of 80 or 90 or 100, from 30 seconds after departure until you are out of the suburbs. This is *huge*. The place I noticed it most was departing from Ancona. If you drive, you go several miles at 30 or 35 with frequent roundabouts and intersections, and finally get on an highway with a speed limit of either 55 or 70. The train reaches 80 in the first minute of the journey. (Eventually the highway speed limit goes up to 80, in wide-open flat territory -- but there, the dinky little commuter train goes 100 or 110.)

They also are quite good at running a train every 5 minutes on mixed-use double track, and at running freight *very* fast. Yes, they mostly run passenger in daytime and freight at night. But that Ancona to Bologna mixed-use track has long stretches where freight runs at 90 without stopping, and passenger runs at 100 or 110 with stops every 15 or 20 miles. At stations, the usual setup is to fan out two tracks to five -- four passenger platforms, two mostly-northbound and two mostly-southbound, so that expresses can overtake stopped locals, and a bypass track so that freight doesn't have to go past the platforrm.

They do this largely on the historic right-of-way, too. The one downside is that it is *loud*... trains going 90 through the suburbs make a lot more noise than they do at 30... and I imagine they got all the same noise complaints that we get near highways and airports.

If we did that kind of rebuilding, Chicago-St. Louis in 3½ hours instead of 5, Portland-Seattle in 2 or 2½ instead of 3½... heck, Chicago-New York day trains in 10 or 12 hours... are very much within reach, without building thousands of miles of Shinkansen style concrete overpasses like CAHSR is doing.

 

[user 13416]

Lastly, one issue that impacts trip time is that there is no sense of urgency with Amtrak trains. We spend billions to save a minute or two, but if focused on training the Amtrak staff to run their station stop procedures like an elite commuter agency would, they would save 1,2,3,4+ minutes per stop without changing a darn thing to infrastructure. Sure passengers have large suitcases, but having the staff announce and show on screen notifications to tell them to get up and ready a min or two ahead of time can mitigate this. Fly in and out of stations--I've clocked most stops at Trenton or Newark Penn and they average 3-5 minutes of time where the doors are open. That can be cut to 30-45 seconds EASILY.

High platforms would go a LONG way towards shortening stops as well. This is especially true of the Virginia NER stops. RVR could be a 30-60 second stop instead of the 10+ minutes it often takes to board everybody through one or two doors. FBG and PTB could be much shorter stops as well.

 

[River in Sight]

High platforms would go a LONG way towards shortening stops as well. This is especially true of the Virginia NER stops. RVR could be a 30-60 second stop instead of the 10+ minutes it often takes to board everybody through one or two doors. FBG and PTB could be much shorter stops as well.

ALX and CVS are also often very long stops when they open 2 doors for dozens of pax with luggage. Very frustrating waste of time.

 

[rs9]

I agree with the consensus here.

Long time NJ->NY commuter who just spent a week traveling Italy via train and experiencing 200+ mph.
The 200mph+ is great, but its brief and any slow down nukes the entire benefit. The costs are also huge. The real priority needs to be always staying above 100mph from Wash to Boston at all costs. In the event of any slow downs, it needs to be planned out (ie the curve right outside the Hudson tunnels in Sec is rated for ~75mph which is fine because its 90mph limit through Secaucus station and (soon) portal north bridge too anyway.

Build the Wilmington station cutoff for the express, eliminate the Elizabeth curve, super elevate/tunnel/straighten out the Metuchen/Metropark curves. Pull every lever you can to speed up the curves, and if you break things and cause issues with NIMBYs or freight operators in the process, tell them to pound sand and adjust. These should be the top priorities of the rail network because as someone who lives near one of maybe 3 areas that support 150+mph (Princeton Junction), its much more important so get rid of the 60mph areas than adding 150 areas. Sure the low hanging fruit should be grabbed (upgrading speeds across Princeton junction was the right call but poorly executed), but I am more interested in traveling at 100mph non stop into Penn St than I am hitting 150 before slamming the brakes down to 60 for Elizabeth and 40 for Newark Penn.

Lastly, one issue that impacts trip time is that there is no sense of urgency with Amtrak trains. We spend billions to save a minute or two, but if focused on training the Amtrak staff to run their station stop procedures like an elite commuter agency would, they would save 1,2,3,4+ minutes per stop without changing a darn thing to infrastructure. Sure passengers have large suitcases, but having the staff announce and show on screen notifications to tell them to get up and ready a min or two ahead of time can mitigate this. Fly in and out of stations--I've clocked most stops at Trenton or Newark Penn and they average 3-5 minutes of time where the doors are open. That can be cut to 30-45 seconds EASILY.

I don't know if this happens on the NEC, but a good example of this is on the Lake Shore Limited, especially when it runs with five coach cars. Passengers are informed they can "only exit where a uniformed Amtrak employee is present." It's up to you as a passenger to figure out where this is, and inevitably people end up walking the length of a car or two to get to an exit.

On the LSL, with two Boston coaches and 3 NYP coaches, there should be ample doors for embarking passengers to board through...but they have to wait for all the passengers to exit out of the mystery doors before they are allowed to board through the same exact doorways.

As you said, 3-4 minutes per station that could be shaved off adds up over time.

 

[dlagrua]

Even on the straight stretches that exist on the NEC the track center distance is grossly insufficient to operate at 200mph, or even 186mph. Increasing track center distance without losing capacity will require acquisition of extremely expensive property and re-electrification of the segment ground up since the current electrification infrastructure will get in the way. The return on investment would be so low that it would be hard to justify the expenditure even on the straight segments.

I would say Jis nailed by providing info supporting the argument on the unlikely possibility of 200 mph operation on the NEC.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

I saw this post and by now some have already said it, but I'll say what I told someone else on the same topic. The cost to upgrade the existing NEC for higher speeds than 160mph would be astronomical. You're better off building a new dedicated right of way, assuming you're able to get by the NIMBYs, the political back and forth between local governments on who will pay for what, and the many other obstacles that'll definitely delay the project, like the environmental reviews being one. If you're able to get by the obstacles, it'll be far cheaper then trying to upgrade the existing NEC.

 

[NE933]

I read on here alot of ideas about straightening and eliminating g curves. But I thought the tilt feature was supposed to take care of all that. It was touted as THE way for high speeds on curvy territory. Why or how are the trains' tilting machines not enabling the e visioned reduced travel times?

 

[flitcraft]

I
Lastly, one issue that impacts trip time is that there is no sense of urgency with Amtrak trains. We spend billions to save a minute or two, but if focused on training the Amtrak staff to run their station stop procedures like an elite commuter agency would, they would save 1,2,3,4+ minutes per stop without changing a darn thing to infrastructure. Sure passengers have large suitcases, but having the staff announce and show on screen notifications to tell them to get up and ready a min or two ahead of time can mitigate this. Fly in and out of stations--I've clocked most stops at Trenton or Newark Penn and they average 3-5 minutes of time where the doors are open. That can be cut to 30-45 seconds EASILY.

Is 30-45 seconds of door open time practical? I'm thinking about those with suitcases and wheelies, those using wheelchairs and walkers, some getting off and others pressing to get on. Commuters are generally less encumbered than Amtrak rail passengers, but our light rail, street cars, and busses still need more time than that for stops.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Agree with the posters suggesting eliminating slow zones and speeding boarding. Even Portugal, a relatively poor country, can get trains between their two main cities, Lisbon & Porto - approx. 200 miles - in as little as two and three quarter hours with stops.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

Money would be better spent on other things, IMHO. Eliminate bottle necks, increase service, run on time.

 

[jis]

I read on here alot of ideas about straightening and eliminating g curves. But I thought the tilt feature was supposed to take care of all that. It was touted as THE way for high speeds on curvy territory. Why or how are the trains' tilting machines not enabling the e visioned reduced travel times?

Tilt is only for passenger comfort. It does not enable any extra superelevation underbalance for safe operation on curves. So at the limit it doesn't allow for higher safe speeds of operation.

 

[Tlcooper44]

Tilt is only for passenger comfort. It does not enable any extra superelevation underbalance for safe operation on curves. So at the limit it doesn't allow for higher safe speeds of operation.

Is it just me, or is Amtrak + others crafty in their press regarding tilting.
I feel like I see language like such:
“New tilting tech to help handle/round the tight curves of the NEC,” conveniently omitting the fact that tilting does nothing for speed.

Could be just me.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

Is it just me, or is Amtrak + others crafty in their press regarding tilting.
I feel like I see language like such:
“New tilting tech to help handle/round the tight curves of the NEC,” conveniently omitting the fact that tilting does nothing for speed.

Could be just me.

You can't go faster than speeds with which passengers are comfortable.

 

[railiner]

What tilting does, is give passengers the perception that the train is not going as fast as it safely can, around a curve. It transforms sideways centrifugal force on a curve into gravity, making you feel heavier, but not thrown to the side. Tilting for the train does not make the train safer going around the curve, as it does not defy the laws of motion. Only banking, or superelevation allows trains to safely go faster around the curve. The downside, is if the train is not going the design speed for the curve, it puts too much force on the inner rail of the curve, especially for slower moving freight trains. If a passenger train has to stop on a superelevated curve, it feels uncomfortable, as if the train may topple over. When passenger and freight trains, or local and higher speed trains are mixed on a line, everything has to be compromised.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

The Rye NY station was like that, back before Amtrak switched to New Rochelle in the early 1980s. And MNR at some point took out the tilt at the station I think.

 

[UserNameRequired]

What tilting does, is give passengers the perception that the train is not going as fast as it safely can, around a curve. It transforms sideways centrifugal force on a curve into gravity, making you feel heavier, but not thrown to the side. Tilting for the train does not make the train safer going around the curve, as it does not defy the laws of motion. Only banking, or superelevation allows trains to safely go faster around the curve. The downside, is if the train is not going the design speed for the curve, it puts too much force on the inner rail of the curve, especially for slower moving freight trains. If a passenger train has to stop on a superelevated curve, it feels uncomfortable, as if the train may topple over. When passenger and freight trains, or local and higher speed trains are mixed on a line, everything has to be compromised.

Is the axis of the tilt (roll center) (RC) located normally at the center of gravity (CG), or is the CG above or below the RC on a typical tilting train? (Like an auto normally has the CG above the RC, and a ship normally has the CG below the RC, what is normal for a tilting train)

 

[railiner]

Is the axis of the tilt (roll center) located normally at the center of gravity, or is the CG above or below the RC on a typical tilting train? (Like an auto normally has the CG above the RC, and a ship normally has the CG below the RC, what is normal for a tilting train)

Not sure about that...beyond my knowledge...maybe this can explain it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_train

 

[UserNameRequired]

I found this figure, it seems to be 'generic' enough, but the CG looks to be above the RC. If so, during tilt would there not be be a weight transfer to the inside that may not happen on a non-tilting train car. This leads one to think the possibility exists to safely corner at a slightly higher speed than a non-tilting car? Maybe the effect is so small as to not provide any speed benefit.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

I found this figure, it seems to be 'generic' enough, but the CG looks to be above the RC. If so, during tilt would there not be be a weight transfer to the inside that may not happen on a non-tilting train car. This leads one to think the possibility exists to safely corner at a slightly higher speed than a non-tilting car? Maybe the effect is so small as to not provide any speed benefit.
View attachment 34904

Would that depend on super-elevation? Naturally Wikipedia has an article called Tilting Trains, and it mentions force on the rail in whatever circumstances.

The left hand image appears in the freely available article New Insights on Robust Control of Tilting Trains with Combined Uncertainty and Performance Constraints (I found it using Google reverse image search, now apparently better than Tin Eye.) The article has many references. The first is: Iwnicki, S. Handbook of Railway Vehicle Dynamics; CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2006, and you can read random pages of that one here (or all of it if you have access): Google Scholar

 

[jis]

The thing that needs to be clarified is that at present the amount of tilt that is available is sufficient to compensate for the the speed that is permitted around curves given the amount of imbalance allowed. So even if trains tilted more they could not travel any faster around curves until FRA allows more imbalance which someday it might over exclusively passenger usage tracks, which most of the NEC is not.

 

[cirdan]

I found this figure, it seems to be 'generic' enough, but the CG looks to be above the RC. If so, during tilt would there not be be a weight transfer to the inside that may not happen on a non-tilting train car. This leads one to think the possibility exists to safely corner at a slightly higher speed than a non-tilting car? Maybe the effect is so small as to not provide any speed benefit.
View attachment 34904

The weight transfer to the inside rail would be minimal, with the COG moving inwards by maybe several inches (?), maximum (I am guesstimating) by a foot or so.
I expect that the margin of safety with regard to stability should be far greater than that.
It could for example be that a car is not loaded uniformly , or it could be that a tilting mechanism malfunctions unexpectedly or a software error occurs.
These scenarios may possibly lead to brief passenger discomfort but should should never be the cause of an instability or derailment.

 

[west point]

Do not forget that the Talgos on BNSF had speed limit signs that on some curves had a higher speed than regular passenger trains/ Some one have a picture?

 

[jis]

Do not forget that the Talgos on BNSF had speed limit signs that on some curves had a higher speed than regular passenger trains/ Some one have a picture?

Those speed limits are based on passenger comfort standards, not raw safety standards. Afterall the same locomotives operate both Talgos and regular coaching stock at their respective speed limits, and the locomotives do not tilt. On the NEC Acelas have higher speed limit with tilt on. But the power heads do not tilt.

 

[cirdan]

Do not forget that the Talgos on BNSF had speed limit signs that on some curves had a higher speed than regular passenger trains/ Some one have a picture?

Furthermore speed limits are not dictated purely by derailment stability limits, but also be other concerns, for example potential wear on track or disalignment caused by repeated hammering by heavy trains.

A lighter train will cause less of this type of damage, and lighter trains can thus under certain conditions be permitted to run at higher speeds.