High speed train travel on the Northeast Corridor

[Casey Jones]

This from Railway Age.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/william-vantuono/guest-editorial-high-speed-on-the-nec-an-engineers-perspective.html?channel=00Bill

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Pretty realistic article.

 

[west point]

A point of article is not getting higher speeds but eliminating the lower speed sections. Why cn't the pols see that ?

 

[railiner]

An interesting viewpoint, but I am not so sure I agree...

I think that if true "TGV" like speed was offered at a premium on the Northeast Corridor, it would be very popular, at least from business traveler's...

probably not so from leisure traveler's....

 

[CraigDK]

An interesting viewpoint, but I am not so sure I agree...

Nor do I.

A few points. Most of the projects that are in various stages of development (even if they aren't all to the construction phase) for the NEC are for precisely what he claims to want; improvements to allow more dependable and reliable service with the possibility to support additional trains (including the Acela-2s). The claim that Americans are not in a hurry, yet want timely travel is a contradiction. The Acela Express that he claims was force fed, is a commercial success and the major limit on its growth is the number of seats and number of trains that are available. The new trainsets (with more trains with more seats) will actually improve the bottom line while providing more capacity. None of this would have happened with the refurbishment of existing equipment that he suggest. The idea that the entirety of the European and Japanese rail systems where 100% destroyed in the war and that comparisons can't be made to them is nonsense as well.

 

[Casey Jones]

An interesting viewpoint, but I am not so sure I agree...

Nor do I.

A few points. Most of the projects that are in various stages of development (even if they aren't all to the construction phase) for the NEC are for precisely what he claims to want; improvements to allow more dependable and reliable service with the possibility to support additional trains (including the Acela-2s). The claim that Americans are not in a hurry, yet want timely travel is a contradiction. The Acela Express that he claims was force fed, is a commercial success and the major limit on its growth is the number of seats and number of trains that are available. The new trainsets (with more trains with more seats) will actually improve the bottom line while providing more capacity. None of this would have happened with the refurbishment of existing equipment that he suggest. The idea that the entirety of the European and Japanese rail systems where 100% destroyed in the war and that comparisons can't be made to them is nonsense as well.

You make a lot of criticisms yet you offer no proof that they are valid. Also your reading comprehension is suspect as is evidenced by your above post. I never said Americans are not in a hurry. I said they are not in that much of a hurry. Post a point you would care to debate.

 

[Eric S]

What point or comparison is being made by "not in that much of a hurry?" Is this just looking at rail travel in the US as compared to elsewhere in the world? Does it also include air travel? I'm not sure arguing that the comment said "not in a hurry" instead of "not in that much of a hurry" helps explains things all that much.

Also, I too think that it is absolutely reasonable to compare and look at European and Asian rail systems. For the most part, high speed rail did not emerge immediately after the war in the late 1940s and early 1950s but later in the 1960s, 1970s, and on, around the time the US was experimenting with the Metroliner. Other countries continued to make advances while the US largely stopped. And it's perfectly reasonable to compare the Japanese approach of building essentially a completely stand-alone system to the French approach of building new high speed lines but using legacy lines in dense urban areas to the German approach of building shorter segments of high speed line and upgrading existing legacy trackage and look at which might be more appropriate to various US regions. Seems that the California approach is roughly analogous to the French model and the NEC plans are somewhat similar to the German model.

 

[CraigDK]

You make a lot of criticisms yet you offer no proof that they are valid. Also your reading comprehension is suspect as is evidenced by your above post. I never said Americans are not in a hurry. I said they are not in that much of a hurry. Post a point you would care to debate.

I can admit I made a mistake in what I read, I do not claim to be perfect.

I think Eric S captured my thoughts (all though I will admit I did not articulate them) about your statement on not being able to make comparisons to the European or Japanese systems fairly well.

How should timely travel be defined in the case of the NEC? Is there a point where it no longer matters if they shave off anymore travel time?

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Thing is, they have to spend Billions just to get to State of Good Repair. New tunnels under the Hudson are needed asap so that the existing tubes can be repaired. Likewise the 100-year-old tunnel under Baltimore needs repair or replacement, even if the plan didn't save 3 or 4 minutes.

Then look at bottlenecks. For capacity, nevermind the minutes to be saved, the Susquehanna Bridge needs to be replaced, a new station with more tracks at BWI, etc.

Maybe an interim goal could be to cut enuff minutes to beat the air shuttles' trip time and one airline drops out of the competition. I could see the Acela IIs/ Avelias grabbing 90% of the air/rail market NYC-DC.

No matter how fast the train trip gets to be, I don't expect that Amtrak can get many drivers from behind the wheel. Drivers got to drive. It's what they do.

So before we spend big Billions on the last few projects to get the fastest time possible, I might want to say, "This is good enuff. Let's spend this money around Chicago and down South instead."

 

[railiner]

I have no scientific data to support my opinion expressed above. I only have my impression, based on my experience observing the behavior of people in the Corridor, and especially that of fellow New Yorker's, who are always "in a hurry", and will jump from local to express trains, even if it means giving up a seat, in order to shave a few moments of time from their trip...

 

[Don Newcomb]

I wonder if it would be possible to build a Shinkansen-like trackage actually along the BosWash I-95 corridor or if it would have to be built farther inland with branch lines running out to the high-speed stations? I'd think that it would be very difficult to obtain the rights-of-way through the middle of the most densely populated region of the country. Without special right-of-way you'll be limited to whatever can be done with the existing right-of-way.

BTW, when I say "farther inland", I mean 25-50 miles.

 

[jis]

The narrative given about what happened in Europe is pure fantasy, and it is not clear why it is presented that way.

Actually the damaged railway assets that came out of the War were all repaired in place and full service restored way before anyone did anything with high speed rail on dedicated ROW. Building of the LGVs or the Neubaustrecke happened way after everything had been rebuilt and up and running, and indeed some speed improvements had been made on existing infrastructure. The first LGV was built in France between Paris and Lyon when the classic route ran out of capacity and there was no cheap way left to increase capacity along the existing ROW. The motivation for building the LGV Atlantique and LGV Nord Europe were similar, with the latter including the first two international use of the technology and methodology.

Ironically, what happened in Europe actually supports the hypothesis that first what is maximally achievable out of the existing NEC assets should be realized before building separate very high speed ROW. The only place that is currently necessary is in New England on the NEC North. It is not possible to get too much more in the way of capacity and speed out of the current ROW, which was essentially built along what appears to be meandering cow paths. On the NEC South, there are significant stretches of the ROW where with some relatively cost effective investments (curve realignment, restoration/addition of additional main line trackage, constant tension catenary, judicious rearrangements of blocks and signaling etc.) significant capacity enhancement and running time reductions can be achieved, and that precisely is the plan in the NEC Futures proposals

 

[west point]

There is a interesting happening in France that has been documented. French National railways has noted a big increase in Commuters traveling on the TGVs to / from Paris. Those trips seem to be mostly 1 hour and under. If the North PHL <> Newark section 77 miles can get to 30 minutes the 15 minutes Newark - NYP and ~5 minutes PNE <> PHL can get Acelas under 1 hour every train then maybe 3-5000 extra passengers a weekday would really bump up ridership ?

Just rid of the slow sections.

 

[jis]

The X2000 when it ran managed to do NYP to PHL in an hour and a couple of minutes. I rode it back then.

Indeed Lille has become a suburb of Paris as a result of the TGV service connecting the two at the right price point. This would never have happened over the classic route through Amiens. And to boot the TGV route is a longer distance since it dog legs through the Fretin Triangle, than the Classic route AFAIR. But it is blazingly faster.

 

[Casey Jones]

What point or comparison is being made by "not in that much of a hurry?" Is this just looking at rail travel in the US as compared to elsewhere in the world? Does it also include air travel? I'm not sure arguing that the comment said "not in a hurry" instead of "not in that much of a hurry" helps explains things all that much.

Also, I too think that it is absolutely reasonable to compare and look at European and Asian rail systems. For the most part, high speed rail did not emerge immediately after the war in the late 1940s and early 1950s but later in the 1960s, 1970s, and on, around the time the US was experimenting with the Metroliner. Other countries continued to make advances while the US largely stopped. And it's perfectly reasonable to compare the Japanese approach of building essentially a completely stand-alone system to the French approach of building new high speed lines but using legacy lines in dense urban areas to the German approach of building shorter segments of high speed line and upgrading existing legacy trackage and look at which might be more appropriate to various US regions. Seems that the California approach is roughly analogous to the French model and the NEC plans are somewhat similar to the German model.

The SST comparison was to help make the point that enormous outlays of dollars for minimal results are simply not worth it. Were the taxpaying public presented a choice of a dedicated infrastructure costing billions, not to mention the environmental upheaval, or an upgraded in place system, which could be accomplished for a fraction of the cost, I am confident they would choose the latter which gives credence to my statement that "the American public is not in that much of a hurry".

"high speed rail did not emerge immediately after the war in the late 1940s and early 1950s but later in the 1960s, 1970s"

The above is true however high speed in Europe used the ROW that was constructed/replaced by the Marshall Plan. The notion that another poster had that it was rebuilt on the exact pre-WWII ROW is nonsense. Where curves once existed because of obstructions i.e. buildings that were no longer there the ROW was allowed to proceed in a straight line. This is not so on the NEC where the ROW, with minor deviations, dates back to the 1800’s is still taking a circuitous route to service large population centers. A "stand alone" system will not happen on the NEC (refer to the original article).

 

[Casey Jones]

Have any of you ridden the Acela Express recently? The ride quality is horrendous, the equipment has significantly deteriorated in it's short life span and yes regional equipment that now is powered by the ACS-64 could indeed, free of it's restrictions, equal the running time of these antiquated (by their own admission) 'trains of the future'.

Most of you folks here are railroad enthusiasts and it seems that your 'romance of the rails' precludes an objective, lucid view of the non-feasibility of a dedicated high speed infrastructure on the NEC.

Don't forget guys, this never happened.

 

[jis]

"high speed rail did not emerge immediately after the war in the late 1940s and early 1950s but later in the 1960s, 1970s"

The above is true however high speed in Europe used the ROW that was constructed/replaced by the Marshall Plan. The notion that another poster had that it was rebuilt on the exact pre-WWII ROW is nonsense. Where curves once existed because of obstructions i.e. buildings that were no longer there the ROW was allowed to proceed in a straight line. This is not so on the NEC where the ROW, with minor deviations, dates back to the 1800’s is still taking a circuitous route to service large population centers. A "stand alone" system will not happen on the NEC (refer to the original article).

The bit about "constructed/replaced by Marshall Plan" is just not true in general. Most of Europe's railroads were substantially repaired and put back into service on their existing ROW with some minor changes before any resources poured in under the Marshall Plan. Of course some minor adjustments were made where the opportunity permitted. So to claim that nothing was rebuilt until Marshall Plan arrived is just patently false. Could you please give specific examples of what sort of improvements you are talking about using Marshall Plan funding and exactly when and where they were put in place, so that we can have a meaningful discussion instead of the current hand waving generalities? Please try to be specific.

After the reconstruction was completed in the '50s how many scheduled trains were running at higher than pre-war speeds? Marshall Plan pretty much ended in the early '50s (1951 to be precise). AFAIK there was no case of large number of train running at a speed higher than what they did before the war in Europe at the end of Marshall Plan. Can you provide any concrete examples to the contrary?

Just as a reminder, Marshall Plan resource infusion lasted between 1948 and 1951. There is a lot of folklore about Marshall Plan and its effects and also very well documented actual reality of how things worked out. This paper titled "The Marshall Plan:History’s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program" is a good read on the subject. The bottom line is, all Marshall Plan funded projects were pretty much done by 1952-3, so any claims of what the outcome of Marshall Plan by itself was should be based on the state of the affairs around 1954.

One important quote from the paper:

Europe’s transportation infrastructure was in fact quickly repaired.

As Figure 8 shows, by the last quarter of 1946 almost as much freight

was loaded onto railways in Western Europe as had been transported in

1938. Including British railways, total goods loaded and shipped in the

last quarter of 1946 amounted to ninety-seven percent of pre-war traffic.

Weighted by the distance traveled—measured in units not of tons carried

but multiplying each ton carried by the number of kilometers traveled—

1947 railroad traffic was a quarter higher than pre-World War II traffic.

European recovery was not significantly delayed by the lack of track and

rolling stock.

suggest that the railways had already recovered their pre-war capacity and then some before Marshall Plan was put into place. So clearly that would indicate that they had been reconstructed in place as is and were pretty much upto pre-war capacity, thus supporting my contention that they were already built in place before any further resources from Marshall Plan were expended to improve things here and there, and obtain more rolling stock.

Notice that what I said was that the railroads were rebuilt, then enhanced on existing ROWs and when capacity became an issue the true HSR construction began. Which part of that statement do you find to be inaccurate? Also note that I do not use the term "High Speed" to refer to anything that runs at less than 150mph. Now let us have a discussion about when the first High Speed service was introduced by whom using what ROW. Yes of course before that existing ROWs had been improved to 100mphwhich in many case was just bringing it back upto pre WW II standard. In the early - mid '60s even occasionally 115mph and even 125mph had been achieved, But no one calls that High Speed rail today.

As for whether significant bypass routes will be built or not along the NEC, that is a matter of opinion and conjecture. I have no problem with you having an opinion, like you should with anyone else having a contrary opinion. We cannot tell what the future will bring in 50 years. Selective construction of straightened diversion routes around the more curvy parts does not constitute a "self-standing" route. Actually I have no problem myself believing that there will possibly not be a self standing separate route on a separate ROW. But I do believe some selective bypasses may get built eventually

Actually one of the significant changes that was made to NEC South between Newark and Wilmington was to convert the two center tracks which were freight tracks in the original PRR scheme of things, into 125mph tracks, and while doing so curves were realigned, spirals were changed and catenary was modified. In details the outcome of NECIP was very different from the 1880s railroad, and BTW, the entire elevated corridor in NJ in itself is very different from the originally built 1880 railroad. So while you claim is melodramatic, it is not even true about the NEC in some sense.

What is happening now is taking the logical step of continuing with incremental improvements, building some diversion routes around the really slow segments (e.g. B&P Tunnel replacement), building grade separation at interlockings to reduce conflicts (e.g. Harold reconfiguration, potential reconfiguration of Hunter), just plain using a straighter alignment (the proposed changes between Arsenal and Baldwin), and addition/ restoration of additional main line tracks (e.g. in Delaware and Maryland, and of course the Gateway Project between Newark and New York which adds two main line tracks while increasing speed limits).

Anyway, I am still not quite sure why you are trying to make melodramatic statements where none are necessary to make the core point that you are trying to make. But, hey, it is your article....

 

[Casey Jones]

No melodrama here jis just facts and the fact is the construction of a dedicated ROW to attain 'true high speed' on the NEC is not feasible. You as much as admit that in your post.

The ROW on the NEC does indeed date from the 1880's and of course improvements were made but the route is the same (my point).

This is just one of the many links to the Allied bombing of Germany, France, Romania etc. which confirm that the European infrastructure including railway systems were indeed bombed in to rubble as was the design to defeat and demoralize the enemy and the population. Homes, historic buildings, factories, businesses, transportation centers were all targeted. Then came the Marshall Plan.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden

 

[jis]

You are arguing a point that is not contested. Dresden also was not really a recipient of Marshall Plan at all. Being in the Eastern Block, it was the beneficiary of the Soviet Molotov Plan.

The railways in the western block were substantially reconstructed before Marshall Plan was instituted. that is my point. I see that you have carefully avoided addressing that issue and diverted attention to something quite irrelevant. That's OK by me. I take that as your really don't have any objection to my point on the subject.

 

[Casey Jones]

You are arguing a point that is not contested. Dresden also was not really a recipient of Marshall Plan at all. Being in the Eastern Block, it was the beneficiary of the Soviet Molotov Plan.

The railways in the western block were substantially reconstructed before Marshall Plan was instituted. that is my point. I see that you have carefully avoided addressing that issue and diverted attention to something quite irrelevant. That's OK by me. I take that as your really don't have any objection to my point on the subject.

You can take it anyway you choose but your point lacks. You are essentially saying that from the cessation of hostilities in 1945 that the railways were "substantially reconstructed" by 1948? That is your point? Less than three years to rebuild a country's rail system? Dresden is indicative of the devastation wreaked on Germany, France et al by the Allied bombing campaign. Your point is dull.

 

[A Voice]

Discussion of European reconstruction after the second World War is a red herring.

The article dances around many legitimate and correct points, but the evidence presented fails to support the conclusions.

That said, in fairness, what the Northeast Corridor really needs is further (and continuing) incremental improvements, adding capacity, removing bottlenecks and 'slow sections', and generally maximizing the utility and efficiency of the railroad to the extent both possible and practical. But Amtrak has never had a budget for this, beyond doing little more than 'just enough' to accommodate the new trains (in fairness, Acela has worked as a marketing strategy, as will the new trains). Leasing flashy new trainsets is the easy part; What is difficult is persuading a (often critical) Congress to fund all the (mundane) infrastructure which supports the service; New trains are sexy and an easy sell, new tunnels and rebuilt roadbed aren't. It's a bit like the middle-aged guy who buys a new Porsche instead of using the money to fix the leaky roof on the house.

The exact same problem exists across the nation, where true high-speed rail is not what the market really needs. Time and again "new" dedicated high-speed lines are proposed at a cost of billions, when for a fraction of that the existing railroad could be incrementally improved to better meet the needs of the travelling public. People may not truly be in "that big" a hurry, but often they think they are; Again, it is a very difficult sell for plain, "boring" conventional passenger rail (though ultimately improved to higher speeds) that a given region really needs compared to the flashy Acela (or similar) that they think they want.

 

[railiner]

.

Don't forget guys, this never happened.

Interesting historic ad....

I rode the "Nonstop Metroliner" in the early seventies from New York to Washington when it was carded for 2 hours and 30 minutes...and we arrived Union Station almost two minutes early....

 

[leacrane]

True high speed will never ever happen. Need new right of ways. Can't have 200 or even 150mph trains sharing tracks with slow amtrak and commuter rails Metro North. Even if taxpapers voted billions, you have NIMBY. Look at what's happening in Connecticut where wealth towns don't want a bypass put it. I will never understand why they are buying Acela II trainsets that have capabilities that will never be used. It was a big leap when they electrified NY to BOS and got rid of the need to change engines in New haven.

 

[leacrane]

That would be true high speed.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

.

Don't forget guys, this never happened.

Interesting historic ad....

I rode the "Nonstop Metroliner" in the early seventies from New York to Washington when it was carded for 2 hours and 30 minutes...and we arrived Union Station almost two minutes early....

It did happen. The current Acela schedule shows a 2 hrs 45 min run time D.C.-NYC. And is reaches speeds of up to 150 mph for several miles. LOL.

Well, yeah, Boston not so much. The north end of the Acela route is more like 3 hrs 40 min. It's gonna be a helluva struggle to get it down to 3 hrs. But at least the air shuttle competition hasn't gotten any faster either.