Acela & Amtrak NEC (HSR BOS-NYP-WAS and branches only)

F-Line to Dudley said:
And Westerly-Greenport is no panacea because it skips too much, is the longest and most complicated build over deepest water, and requires land-taking road or rail because the tie-ins (road or rail) are all 2 or more miles inland from touchtown...on both sides.


Honestly, of all the available options East Shoreham/Wading River to East Haven/New Haven is the most attractive for north-south demand that doesn't overload shoreline routes (95 or NEC), and shortest distance to plow from touchdown point to the tie-in points. And that one's still brutal for land-taking on the East Haven side. And we haven't answered the question of whether the Long Island source routes (495 or the LIRR mainline) can handle it.


...and now you know why 9 different proposals--more than half of them proposed multiple times over--all fizzed out.
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You don't go via East Haven , theres space for a portal in the New Haven Yard next to the City Point neighborhood.
 
Nexis4jersey said:
That makes no sense given the age of some of tunnels in this region...
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Yeah...that's completely false. The North River tunnels need a major rehab, which has never been done at a substantial level because taking one tunnel out-of-commission for 1-2 years reduces the NEC to single-track between Penn Station and New Jersey. This is a midlife overhaul that can't be put off or else major structural problems are going to come up making it unsafe to run trains. Nothing is being closed forever. Not here, and not the B&P tunnels...when that replacement is built the old decrepit one is going to be taken offline and fully refurbished so there's 4 good-condition tunnel tracks out of Baltimore.


That's the doomsday warning to build the Gateway Tunnel within 20 years...or else Amtrak has to do the painful thing and take 1 tunnel North River tunnel offline, rehab, then take the other tunnel offline. Which probably means delay-filled Amtrak-only traffic for years on end and all NJ Transit marooned at Hoboken Terminal for the full duration of the rehab.


The East River tunnels are already been taken offline one at a time for major rehab. Although that's not going to be nearly as painful because there are 4 bores instead of 2 and it's very slightly under-capacity. So that one won't cause delays for Amtrak or LIRR.

A lot of this is just flood protection. Both the North River and East River got fucked up by saltwater intrusion from Sandy. Track/electrical/signals were fixed immediately but the walls weren't and now the outermost concrete's starting to flake away and needs a full sealing. All of them have to be equipped with better drainage and flood barriers because this is only going to get worse with sea level rise.


At least the Portal Bridge is finally funded for replacement with a brand new high fixed span. That's the most decrepit piece of infrastructure on the entire NEC, the #1 most frequent failure point when the movable span gets stuck, and the #1 traffic bottleneck of them all because of the frequent openings and painful speed restrictions. New bridge is supposed to handle 90 MPH.

Norwalk River swing bridge on the New Haven Line is also finally funded for total replacement. That's far and away the most unsafe and delay-prone one one in CT. And it has to open way often because of commercial barge traffic. Being replaced by a lift bridge with separate lifts for each pair of tracks for redundancy. Lifts are way faster and less maintenance-intensive than swings, and can be adjustable height (which means only has to rise partway for barges).

Connecticut River Bridge is in expedited design/EIS...that's the last one needing replacement on the Shoreline, and the #1 Shoreline bottleneck. Still needs funding for construction, but that replacement will be a much higher bascule tall enough to rarely need to open.


Still impossibly deep in the funding hole for the other 3 New Haven Line movables, Susquehanna River Bridge in Maryland, and Pelham Bay in New York. The 3 CT bridges are likewise supposed to be replaced by faster/more reliable lifts, and Pelham and Susquehanna by high fixed spans (Susquehanna expanded to 4 tracks if they can afford it). That'll remove every movable from D.C. to Greenwich, CT except for Dock lift in NJ, which opens like once every 5 years and is in considerably better condition than the other legacy ones 'only' having been built in 1935 (it's just a baby!).
 
Jahvon09 said:
Please go to the link that I provided above in post# 85. :neutral:
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For @#$%'s sake, will you read your own link before pulling this Chicken Little act on yet another thread.

“I think the point Mr. Boardman was making in his comments at the RPA Assembly is that damage from Sandy accelerated what was already an urgent need for additional tunnel capacity between New York and New Jersey,” he continued. “ We expect that the tunnels are going to need major rehabilitation, which can only happen with prolonged service outages permitted by a new tunnel. “
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Additional capacity means in addition to the North River Tunnels.

Rehabilitation means REHAB the North River Tunnels, not abandon them. Like they are rehabbing, not abandoning, the East River Tunnels right now.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Yeah...that's completely false. The North River tunnels need a major rehab, which has never been done at a substantial level because taking one tunnel out-of-commission for 1-2 years reduces the NEC to single-track between Penn Station and New Jersey. This is a midlife overhaul that can't be put off or else major structural problems are going to come up making it unsafe to run trains. Nothing is being closed forever. Not here, and not the B&P tunnels...when that replacement is built the old decrepit one is going to be taken offline and fully refurbished so there's 4 good-condition tunnel tracks out of Baltimore.


That's the doomsday warning to build the Gateway Tunnel within 20 years...or else Amtrak has to do the painful thing and take 1 tunnel North River tunnel offline, rehab, then take the other tunnel offline. Which probably means delay-filled Amtrak-only traffic for years on end and all NJ Transit marooned at Hoboken Terminal for the full duration of the rehab.


The East River tunnels are already been taken offline one at a time for major rehab. Although that's not going to be nearly as painful because there are 4 bores instead of 2 and it's very slightly under-capacity. So that one won't cause delays for Amtrak or LIRR.

A lot of this is just flood protection. Both the North River and East River got fucked up by saltwater intrusion from Sandy. Track/electrical/signals were fixed immediately but the walls weren't and now the outermost concrete's starting to flake away and needs a full sealing. All of them have to be equipped with better drainage and flood barriers because this is only going to get worse with sea level rise.


At least the Portal Bridge is finally funded for replacement with a brand new high fixed span. That's the most decrepit piece of infrastructure on the entire NEC, the #1 most frequent failure point when the movable span gets stuck, and the #1 traffic bottleneck of them all because of the frequent openings and painful speed restrictions. New bridge is supposed to handle 90 MPH.

Norwalk River swing bridge on the New Haven Line is also finally funded for total replacement. That's far and away the most unsafe and delay-prone one one in CT. And it has to open way often because of commercial barge traffic. Being replaced by a lift bridge with separate lifts for each pair of tracks for redundancy. Lifts are way faster and less maintenance-intensive than swings, and can be adjustable height (which means only has to rise partway for barges).

Connecticut River Bridge is in expedited design/EIS...that's the last one needing replacement on the Shoreline, and the #1 Shoreline bottleneck. Still needs funding for construction, but that replacement will be a much higher bascule tall enough to rarely need to open.


Still impossibly deep in the funding hole for the other 3 New Haven Line movables, Susquehanna River Bridge in Maryland, and Pelham Bay in New York. The 3 CT bridges are likewise supposed to be replaced by faster/more reliable lifts, and Pelham and Susquehanna by high fixed spans (Susquehanna expanded to 4 tracks if they can afford it). That'll remove every movable from D.C. to Greenwich, CT except for Dock lift in NJ, which opens like once every 5 years and is in considerably better condition than the other legacy ones 'only' having been built in 1935 (it's just a baby!).
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The only other way out of all this, it seems, is to try one of the 3 options for the separate rehab program that would eventually bring higher-speed Bullet-type trains in service.

To redo any of the existing tunnels, yes you're right, it would slow down Acela service considerably, possibly to a crawl - and Amtrak would not be able to keep their passenger assured for on-time performance of the trains.

Amtrak would then start to lose some of its loyal customers back to the airlines, which in turn, could cause them to start losing valuable revenue. And that is a hassle that they don't need.

The Acela DOES cut travel time, which makes for fewer stops & quicker arrival times. I travel on it every chance I get - up to and including first class. I'm waiting to hear about which plan that they will decide on next year. :cool:
 
FWIW - Amtrak seems to be raising the cheapest base fare on the NE regional from $49 - $52 for trips from Boston to NYC - and I'm assuming other price points have nudged higher as well.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
For @#$%'s sake, will you read your own link before pulling this Chicken Little act on yet another thread.



Additional capacity means in addition to the North River Tunnels.

Rehabilitation means REHAB the North River Tunnels, not abandon them. Like they are rehabbing, not abandoning, the East River Tunnels right now.
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Whatever.

For Pete's sake, I only know what I've read at other websites, so stop trying to shoot the messenger. I've read the link before posting it!


If you feel that I'm pulling so-called Chicken Acts on threads, then why won't you just put me on your ignore list?

:rolleyes:
 
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Jahvon09 said:
New York to Washington in a hour?!!!

That would probably match the speed of a jetliner!!! :eek:
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You don't even need to match the speed of a plane to beat it:

There are about 2-3 hours of time built in to taking a (commercial) airplane that you don't currently have with a train. Consider most people get to the airport 1-1/2 hours before their flight, most airports are located farther from the CBD than train stations and there is additional wasted time taxing and circling to land. All told - you probably aren't getting anywhere on a plane in less than 3-4 hours.

Which means that there is little need to get to 1 hour when a 2 hour trip between NYC and DC/Boston will never be beaten by a plane, car or bus. Add in the convenience factor of trains, and if you are even on time you are probably ahead overall. This also means travel times of ~3 to Philly & ~4 to D.C which makes this trips much more feasible.
 
BPLange7 said:
You don't even need to match the speed of a plane to beat it:

There are about 2-3 hours of time built in to taking a (commercial) airplane that you don't currently have with a train. Consider most people get to the airport 1-1/2 hours before their flight, most airports are located farther from the CBD than train stations and there is additional wasted time taxing and circling to land. All told - you probably aren't getting anywhere on a plane in less than 3-4 hours.

Which means that there is little need to get to 1 hour when a 2 hour trip between NYC and DC/Boston will never be beaten by a plane, car or bus. Add in the convenience factor of trains, and if you are even on time you are probably ahead overall. This also means travel times of ~3 to Philly & ~4 to D.C which makes this trips much more feasible.
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Plus trains are way more comfortable. I always take the train to NYC, even though I can usually find flights for roughly the same price and duration. Being able to get up and walk around whenever I want, stretch my legs, and visit the bar car, is huge.
 
I did train to NY and plane back this past weekend. Both trips were about 4.5 hours door to door.

I'd do train both ways normally but Amtrak is getting crazy popular. I snagged the last cheap ticket south, 3 weeks before the trip. Nothing was available for the return leg less than $100. Plane was $60. Go figure.
 
Matthew said:
I did train to NY and plane back this past weekend. Both trips were about 4.5 hours door to door.

I'd do train both ways normally but Amtrak is getting crazy popular. I snagged the last cheap ticket south, 3 weeks before the trip. Nothing was available for the return leg less than $100. Plane was $60. Go figure.
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I go to NY for the weekend after Thanksgiving every year. Cheapest round trip on Amtrak I could snag was over $285, with most of that being the Sunday return arriving at BOS at midnight. Pretty much the same for the last several years. I would not consider travelling by car or plane on Thanksgiving weekend, so it is worth it to me.
 
fattony said:
I go to NY for the weekend after Thanksgiving every year. Cheapest round trip on Amtrak I could snag was over $285, with most of that being the Sunday return arriving at BOS at midnight. Pretty much the same for the last several years. I would not consider travelling by car or plane on Thanksgiving weekend, so it is worth it to me.
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Go to New Haven & take Metro North in...
 
FitchburgLine said:
NEC Future Preliminary Alternatives Analysis has been posted, apologies if this has already been posted
http://www.necfuture.com/pdfs/2014_nov_preliminary_alts_eval_report.pdf
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Thanks for this. I hadn't seen it before, and is an interesting read for a lot of reasons. Crazy Transit Pitch fans will enjoy seeing much-more-specific routings
• WAS-PHL (including the Delmarva "bypass"),
• NYP-(CT) (including LIRR and Cross-Sound options)
• (CT)-BOS (by a mixture of Inland, Coastal, others)
 
New report, more or less the same alternatives they were discussing before.

I don't know what they were doing between the prelim alternatives and today, but they didn't cut that list of "second spine" alternatives nearly far enough. These routings are laughers:

-- Chesapeake bypass: Baltimore is the 4th largest city on the NEC after NYC, Philly, and (only by a few tens of thousands) D.C. You do not skip a metro area that big. This plan is D.O.A.

-- Stamford-Danbury bypass: The Norwalk River watershed is extremely built up. The Danbury Branch is hilly, curvey, and un-upgradeable. And this is the region that killed the US 7 Expressway about 5 times over, so clean-rooming is impossible.

-- I-84 Worcester bypass: Steepest interstate highway grades in Southern New England requiring 1 or 2 mile-long rail tunnels bored deep underground, narrow highway median in spots, huge trap-rock cliffs to the side of the highway, B&A mainline that is hella curvy through the Worcester Hills from Charlton to Worcester. Mass Pike's also got the same problems Auburn-Sturbridge with narrow median, steep cliffs of trap rock, and stiff grades higher than a RR can climb. Just drive Boston-Hartford and you'll go "Huh??? How exactly do they plan to make this work?"

-- Parallel NEC spines (anywhere): How exactly? The whole length of it is the most built-up megalopolis in the country. You can't median-run it on I-95...I-95 has been widened so many times it has no median anywhere from Maryland to New London. 95 itself can't be widened anywhere from Elizabeth, NJ to Old Saybrook, CT because of the surrounding density. Max out the NEC track capacity...sure. Parallel clean-roomed spines? Unpossible.


All of those alternatives flunk basic Feasibility 101 on geography and geology. There's still massive problems with Westchester County and Newtown-Waterbury on I-84 with the westernmost bypass and the 2 Sound crossing alternatives, but those at least are conceptually plausible enough to get gentleman's-C's to graduate to the next round of study since the potential blockers are 'only' NIMBY's and building the American version of the Chunnel. But it's a little disconcerting that some of these other wacko ones survived this round of cuts. Makes me wonder how much work really went into this.
 
My whole plan boils down to maxing out the ROW they have:
1) Rebuild Maryland ROW in place (straighter/faster in the NE, wider thru BWI)
2) Baltimore: new Charles Center station and straight-shot across city
3) Philadelphia: new Airport and City Hall (area) stations
4) NY Gateway & 2nd Tunnel
5) Moynahan Station

On the North, I think their best shot is:
6) Suffolk to New Haven (submerged sectional tunnel)
7) Springfield to Worcester (mountain/rural tunnels & bridges) as best you can threaded along I-90 or CSX (probably all-new ROW, but mostly in the same neighborhoods (which are fairly empty). It should look like one of those LGV vs Conventional things where the old line winds and the new is straight on tunnels and bridges.
 
Its 4 to 8 tracks in parts of PA and NJ and on the NY side theres room for 3 more for NEC expansion.

New York NEC Improvements
-Replace Catenary & Substations
-Grade Separate the New Rochelle JCT
-Restore 3rd Track from New Rochelle to Harold JCT
-Add a Station at Woodside on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Add a Station at Pelham Manor on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Add a Station at Pelham Bay Park on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Replace the Pelham Bay Bridge with a fixed 3 Track Bridge
-Add a Station at Co-Op City on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Add a Station at Morris Park on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Add a Station at Parkchester on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR
-Replace the Bronx River Bridge
-Add a Station at Hunts Point on the Hell Gate Line for MNRR


New Jersey NEC Improvements , addons...
-Replace Catenary and Substations
-Replace The Portal Bridge with a 5 track Fixed Bridge
-Upgrade and Fully grade seperate Kearny JCT
-Overhaul & Expand Newark Penn Station
-Replace the overpasses on the Newark Viaduct
-Grade Separate the Raritan Valley line Interlock
-Overhaul Midtown Elizabeth Station and Straighten the Curve to the South
-Extend the 6 Tracked NEC from North Elizabeth to South Elizabeth
-Straighten the Metropark Curves to Increase Speeds
-Straighten the Metuchen Curves to Increase Speeds
-Grade Separate Jersey Avenue Interlocks and Upgrade the Station
-Build a North Brunswick Station
-Grade Separate Monmouth JCT in prep of the MOM Rail Network
-Add a Balloon Loop for SEPTA trains at Trenton
-Replace the Overpasses in Trenton
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I don't know what they were doing between the prelim alternatives and today, but they didn't cut that list of "second spine" alternatives nearly far enough.
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Spending the money they were granted for the purpose it was granted them.

The fact is, plain and simple, there's no actual appetite for moving the ball forward in a measurable, concrete, or reasonable fashion. Any alternative that becomes the preferred alternative immediately becomes the focal point for all the anti-spending, anti-progress, anti-action forces dominating the political landscape today - the best thing that happens in that case is that the preferred alternative survives however many years of political trench warfare it takes to get us back to a functioning Congress and the worst thing that happens is someone takes steps to block the established preferred alternative and sends this whole thing right back to the drawing board.

They're not getting any more money to study this thing for a while, never mind design or build anything substantial, and there's really no conceivable benefit to moving the ball forward when all you really accomplish that way is drawing a bigger target on the project's back.

It sucks, and I'm not saying I agree with the attitude, but frankly the best thing for NEC Future prospects for the next four or so years is for them to spend whatever money is left in the study and accomplish absolutely nothing, rather than create an actionable proposal that can be targeted and dismantled by the same group of scorched-Earth politicians who are defined by what they're against doing rather than what they're for doing.

Arlington said:
My whole plan boils down to maxing out the ROW they have:
1) Rebuild Maryland ROW in place (straighter/faster in the NE, wider thru BWI)
2) Baltimore: new Charles Center station and straight-shot across city
3) Philadelphia: new Airport and City Hall (area) stations
4) NY Gateway & 2nd Tunnel
5) Moynahan Station

On the North, I think their best shot is:
6) Suffolk to New Haven (submerged sectional tunnel)
7) Springfield to Worcester (mountain/rural tunnels & bridges) as best you can threaded along I-90 or CSX (probably all-new ROW, but mostly in the same neighborhoods (which are fairly empty). It should look like one of those LGV vs Conventional things where the old line winds and the new is straight on tunnels and bridges.
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Why do you oppose connecting Hartford and Providence?
 
Arlington said:
On the North, I think their best shot is:
7) Springfield to Worcester (mountain/rural tunnels & bridges) as best you can threaded along I-90 or CSX (probably all-new ROW, but mostly in the same neighborhoods (which are fairly empty). It should look like one of those LGV vs Conventional things where the old line winds and the new is straight on tunnels and bridges.
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It'll never work because of the Worcester Hills. Palmer to Auburn the B&A twists all over itself and there are so many ponds and rivers the environmental hurdles to straightening or tunneling are bonkers. The Pike goes over the same hills, and has a 15 ft. median most of the way with trap rock cliffs and large drops all over the place. It's not doable, nor is it rational.

The only place you can clean-room an eastern bypass is in the flat land between Bolton, Willimantic, and Plainfield. Once you get to the end of the active NYNE tracks in Manchester and wind your way through Bolton Notch on the old ROW you hit a long stretch of level terrain in a +/- 2000 ft. radius around the Hop River and Route 6 where elevation stays level with only subtle changes. View it on Google Terrain view.

That's where all of the umpteen I-384 extension proposals over the last 50 years have charted a course. That's 150+ MPH territory on a new ROW.

East of downtown Willimantic if you head up a couple miles of the old Air Line ROW to where it meets back up with Route 6, then deviate on a straighter but still closeby path. Also the route the highway east of Willimantic was going to take. There's one problematic elevation change approaching CT Route 97 where there's a north-south hill, but otherwise +/- 2000 ft. radius of Route 6 keeps an even keel with most of the route to Plainfield (deviating further south of 6 after passing CT 169) is in the Quinebaug River valley. Until you meet up with the P&W mainline and turn either north to Worcester or south then east onto the NYNE.


Compare on Google Terrain view to 84 east of Vernon. Intersects big rise head-on after Exit 66, big drop after Exit 67, mile-long superelevated curve to go 200 ft. up, then a sharp drop at Exit 68 (this is rail tunnel #1), then a gigantic +200 ft. sudden rise intersected head-on on both sides of Exit 69 (deeper/longer rail tunnel #2). Then crosses the NECR mainline in a river valley, another sharp hill on a superelevated curve near the state line, then the eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway spread a mile apart because there's a small mountain in the median. In between the highway is carved through a narrow chasm of trap rock. Mass Pike slams into a steep hill from the interchange to the Charlton service plaza. Most of the highway through Charlton was blasted right through the middle of the trap rock with cliffs on each side.



Why would anyone of sound mind attempt that when level terrain nets equal travel times and the ability to fork to Worcester and Providence. The level terrain through Willimantic has already been EIS'd like 5 times in 60 years for the highway. It's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that something is buildable there. There has never in any point in history been a railroad attempted in Tolland County that didn't stick religiously to one of the river valleys. Wilbur Cross Highway was an engineering marvel when all that earth got reshaped in the late-30's to build the highway from Hartford to Sturbridge. But interstate highway grade tolerances are way looser than railroad, so that's basically several billion dollars in tunneling that has no discernible advantage whatsoever for travel times or destinations.

Seriously...who is vetting this stuff? This doesn't come close to passing the laugh test.
 
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