Platform Heights, and Superliners

[Rob_C]

Just please, *somebody* tell me the new tunnels are high enough to handle Superliners/double stacks so that 100 years from now wherever in Manhattan the train station is, these new investments won't be as foresight-lacking as the original tunnels...?

 

[Chatter163]

Just please, *somebody* tell me the new tunnels are high enough to handle Superliners/double stacks so that 100 years from now wherever in Manhattan the train station is, these new investments won't be as foresight-lacking as the original tunnels...?

Foresight lacking? Because the railroaders of 1900 could not predict what would happen seventy years later, they were foresight lacking? How many experts in any field can make predictions that far ahead, and then plan policy based on that?

It makes more sense to chisel out the top or bottoms of the tunnels than design a whole new type of car to fit. I don't know how much it would cost, and there would be issues with having only one tunnel in use while the other one was being refitted. But that makes the most sense. IMHO.

How in the world do you you figure that?

 

[jis]

Just please, *somebody* tell me the new tunnels are high enough to handle Superliners/double stacks so that 100 years from now wherever in Manhattan the train station is, these new investments won't be as foresight-lacking as the original tunnels...?

The new tunnels go into a dead end station. There is the New York City Water Tunnel #1 at the other end of the station blocking the way currently for any eastward extension to connect up to anything. Theoretically after Water Tunnel #4 is completed, Water Tunnel #1 may be decommissioned allowing for boring of tunnels eastwards from the dead end station, but no one believes that this will happen in our lifetimes.

The new tunnels are tall enough to accommodate Superliners but they are also steep enough to make them difficult to use with any kind of freight trains. There would be no reason to send a double stack train into a dead end passenger station. There really is no reason whatsoever to run a double stack train through/under Manhattan in any case. Then again Superliners may have a bit of a problem getting to the tunnels since I am not sure they can pass through Newark Penn Station unscathed. They certainly cannot come through Summit on the M&E. They could possibly make it through from the North on the Main/Bergen Lines or even on the CSX River Line, but none of those are used by Amtrak and are unlikely to be used by Amtrak. Also even if the new tunnels were connected into Penn Station, Superliners would not fit under the wires in Penn Station anyway. They will most likely fit in the 34th St terminal station being built in association with the new tunnels, but again such a train would have nowhere to go once it gets into that station. They could not for example make it out to Sunnyside Yard for servicing.

There is a separate freight tunnel project that is being talked about and being pushed by Mr. Nadler to connect NJ to Long Island and specifically for use by freight trains, with possibly some minor passenger use. But at present that project is pretty much sitting in limbo.

So bottom line is, unfortunately at present no one can give you any assurance that the new tunnels will be useful for operating either Superliners or double stacks to anywhere useful.

 

[Rob_C]

Foresight lacking? Because the railroaders of 1900 could not predict what would happen seventy years later, they were foresight lacking? How many experts in any field can make predictions that far ahead, and then plan policy based on that?

I dunno, am I the only one that thinks if you spend adjusted millions to build a tunnel just barely large enough for the trains of the day to fit, you might be working yourself into a corner? Maybe they just assumed that we'd never have labor laws and it would still be relatively cheap to build new tunnels whenever it sounded useful to New Yorkers?

 

[Chatter163]

Foresight lacking? Because the railroaders of 1900 could not predict what would happen seventy years later, they were foresight lacking? How many experts in any field can make predictions that far ahead, and then plan policy based on that?

I dunno, am I the only one that thinks if you spend adjusted millions to build a tunnel just barely large enough for the trains of the day to fit, you might be working yourself into a corner? Maybe they just assumed that we'd never have labor laws and it would still be relatively cheap to build new tunnels whenever it sounded useful to New Yorkers?

Wow, you just go from one non sequitur to another, don't you?

 

[the_traveler]

Foresight lacking? Because the railroaders of 1900 could not predict what would happen seventy years later, they were foresight lacking? How many experts in any field can make predictions that far ahead, and then plan policy based on that?

I dunno, am I the only one that thinks if you spend adjusted millions to build a tunnel just barely large enough for the trains of the day to fit, you might be working yourself into a corner? Maybe they just assumed that we'd never have labor laws and it would still be relatively cheap to build new tunnels whenever it sounded useful to New Yorkers?

When airports were built in the 1950's and 1960's, they built them bigger for the "new jets" that were coming out. Nobody at that time envisioned a plane such as the A-380! It's wingspan is so big that other planes can not use nearby taxiways or runways when it is on them.

I don't think the railroad builders 100 years ago thought there would be Superliners. I guess those people 40-50 years ago had no foresight either.

But they predicted flying cars for everyone by the turn of the century! :lol: Have you seen many lately? :huh:

 

[AlanB]

30 years ago when IBM built the first PC and Microsoft wrote the DOS operating system, they couldn't imagine how anyone could ever write a program that would be larger than 64K, but they decided to be visionary and multiple that by a factor of 10, giving us that now infamous 640K limit for programs that existed for so many years.

They also throught that they were being grossly extravagent in putting in a 10 mega-byte hard disk. That was huge, far bigger than any program could ever be by a multitude of factors. Today, that's a laughing joke if you still have a working 10 MB disk. We now talk in Giga-bytes, and anything less that 200 GB is considered useless.

 

[battalion51]

I would argue that 200 GB number. A large number of computers that are only a few years old have 80 GB hard drives. Even the one year old Mac I'm using has 160 GB hard drive. Point taken though. :lol:

 

[alanh]

I don't think the railroad builders 100 years ago thought there would be Superliners.

I guess the cutoff was 85 years ago. The Moffat Tunnel (started construction in 1923) was constructed 24 feet high for a full six miles.

 

[Rob_C]

Wow, you just go from one non sequitur to another, don't you?

Thanks to Alan and Traveler for some rather enlightening responses that encourage discussion rather than Chatter who unlike his namesake might be better off with the nickname, "Troller".

 

[George Harris]

Foresight is a highly variable quantity.

Fro example: In the early 1960's when Southern decided to enlarge tunnels to be able to handle pggyback they made them 30 feet high and 20 feet wide, with the track being off-center so that there was 12 ft on one side and 8 ft on the other. This despite the piggyback trailers were never higher than about 17 feet above the top of rail. Teh comment made at the time was they took a long look at future potential train sizes and also provided room for electrification. Yet their corporate successor, Norfolk Southern is going through a program of clearance increases in the tunnels across West Virginia so that they can clear double stacks, and are doing it to the just barely enough size.

Another example: Both of the Mississippi River bridges at Memphs: The second, the Harahan Bridge opened in about 1916, currently UP, was built double track with the tracks on 14 ft centers and with overhead clearances of 22 feet. Plenty of room for double stacks built when the maximum height freight car was about 15 feet. The first bridge, commonly called the Frisco bridge opened in 1892 is single track, but with a 22 ft clear width between trusses. Quite a few years ago the cross memebers above the track were modified sufficiently to clear double stacks, even though this was done before the era of the double stack. Also, loading: Currently the bridge is cleared to pass double stacks and coal trains having axle loads over double those used in the load tests made at the time the bridge opened.

This last brigs me to the San Francisco Bay Bridge: They are having issues with the eye bars in the trusses. This form of design of tension memebers in trusses ceased to be used not long after the Bay Bridge was built, so there is some moaning about the basic design both for the use of these members and for structural adequacy. But, wait a minute: Eyebar tension members is exactly what you have in both these bridges at Memphis, one now being 117 years old and still functioning and the other 93 years old and still functioning.

 

[battalion51]

George, the one thing that I will say is a factor also is cost. In the current business market people want to do things as cheaply as humanly possible, and exactly to the specifications of what's needed. Major companies don't want to spend money today for something that they don't need to day. Foresight and the availability of it is a HUGE variable along with the funds to make said project happen.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

And then people wonder why we are in a recession.