More on Wisconsin trains

[BigBlueBuddha]

Money for 2 Talgo trainsets approved by Wisconsin legislature last Tuesday , but vote broke along party lines with all 4 Republicans voting against it. :angry:

In today's Journal Sentinel:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/52626442.html

Trains to be painted Green and Gold.

Just kidding. :lol:

 

[FrankStar]

Trains to be painted Green and Gold.
Just kidding. :lol:

Wouldn't it be better to paint them cardinal and white - with Bucky Badger on the locomotive?;-)

- UW-Madison Alum

 

[Steve4031]

How about one in orange and blue and the other in cheese head colors. Lol. Can't wait until 2011 to ride them no matter what color.

 

[BigBlueBuddha]

Trains to be painted Green and Gold.
Just kidding. :lol:

Wouldn't it be better to paint them cardinal and white - with Bucky Badger on the locomotive?;-)

- UW-Madison Alum

Or that.

-Another UW-Madison alum

 

[Steve4031]

On a serious note, LOL, the article stated that the trains could be running by 2011. That would be pretty cool. Can't wait.

 

[Kramerica]

I noticed that they said there will be no cafe car. That seems odd, especially with the plan to go to Madison and beyond.

I'm disappointed that they're only "studying" bike racks. You'd think government officials would understand by now that bicycling and transit are complimentary.

As for the Milwaukee to Madison train, I'm not counting on it by 2013. First of all, the only way it is going to happen is if the state gets stimulus money for it. Otherwise it is dead for at least another budget cycle. But if the state does get stimulus money, I'd count on there being delays and surprises.

 

[Steve4031]

I noticed that they said there will be no cafe car. That seems odd, especially with the plan to go to Madison and beyond.
I'm disappointed that they're only "studying" bike racks. You'd think government officials would understand by now that bicycling and transit are complimentary.

As for the Milwaukee to Madison train, I'm not counting on it by 2013. First of all, the only way it is going to happen is if the state gets stimulus money for it. Otherwise it is dead for at least another budget cycle. But if the state does get stimulus money, I'd count on there being delays and surprises.

I think we all might be pleasantly surprised. Quite Honestly, Wisconsin has been a leader in advocating for high speed rail. People there have been active in advocating for the midwest high speed rail plan for several years. And Wisconsin was the first to order equipment. I have driven between Chicago and Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison via Rockford. Neither drive to Madison is fun, and traffic is a serius issue on either route. Sometimes it takes an hour just to get out of the Chicago area, and you still have a 30 mile drive to the border to get to Milwaukee.

When these trains arrive, people will ride them. And the improved comfort level will attract additional passengers too.

 

[BigBlueBuddha]

I noticed that they said there will be no cafe car. That seems odd, especially with the plan to go to Madison and beyond.
I'm disappointed that they're only "studying" bike racks. You'd think government officials would understand by now that bicycling and transit are complimentary.

As for the Milwaukee to Madison train, I'm not counting on it by 2013. First of all, the only way it is going to happen is if the state gets stimulus money for it. Otherwise it is dead for at least another budget cycle. But if the state does get stimulus money, I'd count on there being delays and surprises.

I think we all might be pleasantly surprised. Quite Honestly, Wisconsin has been a leader in advocating for high speed rail. People there have been active in advocating for the midwest high speed rail plan for several years. And Wisconsin was the first to order equipment. I have driven between Chicago and Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison via Rockford. Neither drive to Madison is fun, and traffic is a serius issue on either route. Sometimes it takes an hour just to get out of the Chicago area, and you still have a 30 mile drive to the border to get to Milwaukee.

Couldn't agree more. Saying its "not fun" is being kind: its a nightmare! And the Milwaukee-Madison run is just as bad. When I drive to Madison several times a week, I take the 2-lane back roads and state highways. I get there just a quickly and I'm not stressed out.

When the trains come, I'll drive to Brookfield or Oconomowoc and hop on there to go to Madison. I can't wait!

When these trains arrive, people will ride them. And the improved comfort level will attract additional passengers too.

Absolutely right. There is no question that these trains will be an instant hit. And Doyle and other rail supporters like me will say "I told you so!"

 

[Mark]

While this is great news I am a little disappointed in the selection of the Talgo train sets. I've never ridden the Talgos but I ride the Hiawathas regularly and in the past couple of months Amtrak as added a few Amfleets in to each set which makes it a little more fun to ride the different equipment. I think the Talgos look weird with the distinctly larger locomotives coupled to them but that's just me. I would have thought they would have selected a bi-level style of car similar to the surfliners. The capacity is much greater with these cars. I also am curious about the maintenance aspect for these sets and the fact that they only look like they plan on buying two at this time, what if one set goes down? Is this the wave of the future? The states will begin selecting whatever equipment they want with little regard for interoperability? Just a few thoughts.

 

[Steve4031]

Once you ride them, you will like them. The talgos have huge windows.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Form follows function.

 

[AlanB]

The states will begin selecting whatever equipment they want with little regard for interoperability? Just a few thoughts.

If the states are paying for it, then they can select whatever they want.

I wouldn't argue that it would make more sense to first consult and follow Amtrak's advice about what to buy, so as to allow Amtrak to attempt to have equipment that it can interchange with various services, but again it is the state's choice if they're footing the bill.

 

[Kramerica]

I think we all might be pleasantly surprised. Quite Honestly, Wisconsin has been a leader in advocating for high speed rail. People there have been active in advocating for the midwest high speed rail plan for several years. And Wisconsin was the first to order equipment. I have driven between Chicago and Milwaukee and Chicago and Madison via Rockford. Neither drive to Madison is fun, and traffic is a serius issue on either route. Sometimes it takes an hour just to get out of the Chicago area, and you still have a 30 mile drive to the border to get to Milwaukee.
When these trains arrive, people will ride them. And the improved comfort level will attract additional passengers too.

I don't question that people will ride the Madison train. I'm just saying that getting this train running is far from certain, especially in the timeline given. If Wisconsin is not awarded about $0.5 billion of the $8 billion in high-speed-rail money, the state will simply not have the money to build it. Wisconsin can advocate all it wants (and I'm glad they are), but if there's no federal money then there's no train.

I do think the Madison ridership will be fine, but I think they really could have hit a home run if the train went right to downtown. That's where people going to Madison want to go. I think most of the ridership, with the airport station, will come from Madison residents driving to the airport and then taking the train to MKE or CHI. Not so much people coming into Madison.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

How many districts want a piece of the 8 billion dollar pie?

 

[Steve4031]

I'm not an authoriity on the guidelines for who gets what, but in several places I have seen that California and the Midwest are two regions that are front runners for getting federal funds. So I would not be surprised to see Wisconsin get this. Heck, who even thought there would ever be a president that would mention the words "high","speed", and "rail" in the same sentence.

 

[Kramerica]

I'm not an authoriity on the guidelines for who gets what, but in several places I have seen that California and the Midwest are two regions that are front runners for getting federal funds. So I would not be surprised to see Wisconsin get this. Heck, who even thought there would ever be a president that would mention the words "high","speed", and "rail" in the same sentence.

I'd say Wisconsin has a 60/40 shot at getting the funds, which is pretty good considering that applications are about 10x the available funds. The Milwaukee-Madison route has been studied and I believe is ready for final engineering and construction. Not many other projects can say that.

 

[battalion51]

While this is great news I am a little disappointed in the selection of the Talgo train sets. I've never ridden the Talgos but I ride the Hiawathas regularly and in the past couple of months Amtrak as added a few Amfleets in to each set which makes it a little more fun to ride the different equipment. I think the Talgos look weird with the distinctly larger locomotives coupled to them but that's just me. I would have thought they would have selected a bi-level style of car similar to the surfliners. The capacity is much greater with these cars. I also am curious about the maintenance aspect for these sets and the fact that they only look like they plan on buying two at this time, what if one set goes down? Is this the wave of the future? The states will begin selecting whatever equipment they want with little regard for interoperability? Just a few thoughts.

Well there obviously will have to be certain maintenance cycles that the sets will have to go through per FRA. However, there are a few things that should reduce down time. Amtrak has moved towards a progressive maintenance cycle. For cars IIRC it's a 180 day cycle for when they have to have a full work up done. However Amtrak has taken that checklist and broken it up into smaller pieces that they do over the course of 180 days rather than doing it all in one whack. I know they've done this with the Acelas, and I believe they're doing it with other fleets as well. So for example you can build your schedule so that one of your sets can be down for 15 hours or so on the weekends and let mechanical to get in there and do their thing. In the instance that the sets need to go in for refurb, you'll likely see what they've been doing with the Talgos in the Northwest. Amtrak has rotationally pulled the sets out of service and substituted a Superliner set for the Vancouver run. Assuming Illinois and other states don't buy matching sets down the road you would likely see Amtrak pull both sets out of service for a few months and substitute in Horizons or Superliners while the work is done.

 

[birdy]

Sounds great. A really good example of where "mid-speed" rail makes a lot of sense. Madison is just a terrific little town. No doubt it would be a howling success.

I hope they don't set their sights too low, though. Chicago- Milwaukee- Minneapolis as a true HSR line would be terrific. It would really solve a lot of passenger transportation problems in the upper midwest. They would have to optimize for speed to compensate for the dog leg to Milwaukee, but it should be very doable.

 

[wrjensen]

Does anyone know what the FRA speed rating for the Talgo are? Could they upgrade the track in the future and find faster loco (might have to be electric) and not need new cars? I thinking to 150 MPH. I know that there is not money for this today but maybe in 5 years there could be more money. We can dream

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Does anyone know what the FRA speed rating for the Talgo are? Could they upgrade the track in the future and find faster loco (might have to be electric) and not need new cars? I thinking to 150 MPH. I know that there is not money for this today but maybe in 5 years there could be more money. We can dream

It depends on the track, not so much the train. In the Cascades corridor they max out at 79mph. However in many sections they can go 10-15% faster than the EB/CS. So where freights are rated for 60, regular Amtrak trains can go 70 and the Talgos 79.

The sets themselves (dependent upon the model) can reach 220.

 

[AlanB]

Does anyone know what the FRA speed rating for the Talgo are? Could they upgrade the track in the future and find faster loco (might have to be electric) and not need new cars? I thinking to 150 MPH. I know that there is not money for this today but maybe in 5 years there could be more money. We can dream

It depends on the track, not so much the train. In the Cascades corridor they max out at 79mph. However in many sections they can go 10-15% faster than the EB/CS. So where freights are rated for 60, regular Amtrak trains can go 70 and the Talgos 79.

The sets themselves (dependent upon the model) can reach 220.

And Washington and Oregon continue to dream of even higher speeds, and have been trying to find the needed monies to upgrade the tracks for several years. They'd love to get some of that High Speed Stimulus money to actually start doing some work towards getting sections of the run up to 90 MPH. They already have the plans, it's the money that's always been the problem.

And the current equipment can handle 90 and for that matter even 110 MPH.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Does anyone know what the FRA speed rating for the Talgo are? Could they upgrade the track in the future and find faster loco (might have to be electric) and not need new cars? I thinking to 150 MPH. I know that there is not money for this today but maybe in 5 years there could be more money. We can dream

It depends on the track, not so much the train. In the Cascades corridor they max out at 79mph. However in many sections they can go 10-15% faster than the EB/CS. So where freights are rated for 60, regular Amtrak trains can go 70 and the Talgos 79.

The sets themselves (dependent upon the model) can reach 220.

And Washington and Oregon continue to dream of even higher speeds, and have been trying to find the needed monies to upgrade the tracks for several years. They'd love to get some of that High Speed Stimulus money to actually start doing some work towards getting sections of the run up to 90 MPH. They already have the plans, it's the money that's always been the problem.

And the current equipment can handle 90 and for that matter even 110 MPH.

And they can't go much higher than 110 without buying new motive power.

 

[AlanB]

It depends on the track, not so much the train. In the Cascades corridor they max out at 79mph. However in many sections they can go 10-15% faster than the EB/CS. So where freights are rated for 60, regular Amtrak trains can go 70 and the Talgos 79.

The sets themselves (dependent upon the model) can reach 220.

And Washington and Oregon continue to dream of even higher speeds, and have been trying to find the needed monies to upgrade the tracks for several years. They'd love to get some of that High Speed Stimulus money to actually start doing some work towards getting sections of the run up to 90 MPH. They already have the plans, it's the money that's always been the problem.

And the current equipment can handle 90 and for that matter even 110 MPH.

And they can't go much higher than 110 without buying new motive power.

They can't go any higher than 110 MPH without new power, as that's where the P42's max out at 110.

I seem to recall in the back of my mind, so this is certainly questionable, that the current Talgos in use in the NW are rated for a top speed of 150 MPH. But unless they are suddenly transfered to the NEC, I rather doubt that they'll ever see that speed in the NW.

 

[VT Hokie]

I seem to recall in the back of my mind, so this is certainly questionable, that the current Talgos in use in the NW are rated for a top speed of 150 MPH. But unless they are suddenly transfered to the NEC, I rather doubt that they'll ever see that speed in the NW.

Well, the type of Talgo used in the Pacific Northwest operates at a top speed of 220 km/hr (137 mph) in Spain. Don't know if that's their max rated speed.