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

I haven't heard anything bad about Philly... Long Island was a case of misinformation that spread like wild fire...
 
Nexis4jersey said:
I haven't heard anything bad about Philly... Long Island was a case of misinformation that spread like wild fire...
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Philly did not take kindly to the Market East tunnel. Thought it ran contrary to their focus on building up the area around 30th St., and didn't give a rat's ass what real estate prospectors in South Jersey saw in profits for redeveloping the waterfront. Maybe if the feds hadn't gone over the heads of local politicians and business leaders in announcing it there'd be room for negotiation, but they made too many enemies with their tone-deafness. It's D.O.A.

The FRA also got attacked in that presentation for hysterically overrating the ridership upside of the Airport bypass, so much so that they got questioned for mistaking an HSR project for an airport empire-building project. I *could* see that one having legs if it were pitched more for Regional Rail's benefit. Since it bypasses 10 SEPTA stops the act of moving Amtrak trains through the Airport could enable SEPTA to do 15-minute quasi- rapid-transit frequencies to Chester. But they passed up that opportunity to evangelize airports this, airports that.

If I had to guess they're going to keep compulsively coming back to the airport bypass again and again. Until maybe someday more competent program managers will put 2 and 2 together and actually play up the SEPTA frequencies angle so it doesn't look like such a naked excuse to spend a couple bil on an airport makeover. But Market East is a nonstarter, and they have only themselves to blame for the amateur-hour faux pas of failing to engage local politics before opening their mouths.



Rejection by Baltimore is a fait accompli as soon as the FRA is put on the spot to explain why Penn Line commuter rail is banned from the new toy forcing the city's transit terminals to be further fragmented completely contrary to the aims of every regional vision put forth by the state and locals. That is a poison pill they will not swallow.

Wilmington bypass was never serious to begin with because giving a giant middle finger to an entire NEC member state and its Congressional delegation is no way to build alliances. Besides, in what universe does the math add up that the 7th busiest NEC stop, 11th busiest Amtrak stop nationwide, and largest city in an NEC member state...should be dropped off the Acela schedule?



Not a whole lot of the Alternatives left...or state Congressional delegations left to piss off...after nature takes its course here. With any luck the NEC FUTURE commission will be so thoroughly radioactive after a year of peddling this turkey that they'll be disbanded and replaced as one of the first acts of the next President's term.
 
Can I have link to the article stating that they didn't? I haven't heard much opposition except from you and people like Alon Levy...which aren't part of the local process...
 
http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/philly/blogs/in-transit&id=364929101

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/12/northeast-corridor-plans-philadelphia-airport-tunnel/

The same people quoted in the Inquirer report linked above get quoted in every official story about the Jan. 14 meeting. Either it was very poorly-attended by the media and too many outlets are quoting one reporter, or one has to be from Philly to know what wormhole the good soundbite 'gets' are because Google sure doesn't illuminate.

Pulling the center of the universe away from 30th Street was definitely the one that flummoxed people the most on the purpose of it all.




This, even though it's from one of the CT meetings, may paint a more vivid picture of how the process of these meetings are going down.

“They spent $30 million on this report – it just doesn’t feel like a finished product,” said Joe McGee, vice president for public policy at the Business Council of Fairfield County, who, along with many others, was having difficulty assessing the options because of a lack of details. “It looks more like a response to be rejected than a real option.”
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But even James Redeker, Connecticut’s transportation commissioner and the chair of the Northeast Corridor Commission that oversaw development of the study, was not sure it provided those affected by it with enough to judge it.
The problem, he said, was the process. This environmental impact statement was not a traditional one that would have provided plans to solve specific problems along with all the relevant environmental, economic and other data, such as, in the case of rail, ridership information. Instead, NEC Future offered rail corridor options consisting of general locations, little detail about what it would take to put the rails there, no service development plan, and a broad price tag - but no funding strategy.
That’s not enough for people to make even a conceptual choice, Redeker said, though that is what people are being asked to do.

. . .

“How are we supposed to make choices if we don’t know what service we’re going to get and if we don’t know yet if you’re going to turn to us to pay for that, and to what degree?” Redeker said. “I think this is going to be difficult for the public to provide meaningful input on.”
And that includes Redeker. He said he doesn’t yet know how he’ll respond. “If I can’t demonstrate to Connecticut folks that there’s a substantial and documentable and believable return on investment for transportation dollars, you might as well put them somewhere else,” he said.
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But what’s really stumping him is the New Rochelle to Westport line and its designation as “aerial.” With no real details in the report, which he called “opaque,” he sent a letter to the FRA with questions to help him make an assessment.
He received a one-paragraph form-response:
“Thank you for your comment. Please note that comments received on the Tier 1 Draft EIS during the formal public comment period will be addressed in the Tier 1 Final EIS, anticipated to be released in late 2016. We appreciate your interest in NEC FUTURE.”
“They owe us more information,” he said. “How can you make a choice if you don’t know where the thing is even located?”
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At the Capitol Region Council of Governments, Executive Director Lyle Wray was already bristling that his previously stated concerns about the Danbury to Providence link were ignored in the report. He worries that the focus on high-speed rail will effectively de-rail the Northern New England Intercity Rail Initiative – a regional rail plan to reconnect the 1.7 million people in the Hartford-Springfield, Mass., region to the 5 million in metro Boston.
That plan would re-establish a commuter-rail connection from Springfield to Boston along its former route through western Massachusetts.
“When you say ‘let’s just build something from Danbury to Providence’ – never mind how much it costs and how many eminent domain cases you’re going to have to win. It’s unconstrained by funding limits, constructability, environmental and community impacts. Well good luck on that,” he said.
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If this is typical of how the meetings are going down, the Philly room may have just been a bunch of mouths agape and somebody really wanting to ask, "Are you high?" And probably explains the chain reaction of bad information that spread like wildfire after the Long Island meeting. And explains why so much of it contradicts Amtrak's owned published NEC Improvements presentations, if Redeker's comments are accurate.


This apparently is what happens when a purely regulatory agency like the FRA decides to go rogue and launch its own empire-building conquest from inside a vacuum. You get the same people management skills that are accustomed to publishing safety whitepapers attempting to engage in human contact with the outside world and rally political support for itself for the first time ever. The results are gruesomely predictable.
 
Just let me add that at the NVision 2020 conference in Waterbury, some of the local officials were nonplussed at the "60 mile tunnel" that would do bupkis for local connectivity.
 
I just happened to realize this. That the cars on the Acela train have the same shape as the Viewliner cars.
 
Jahvon09 said:
I just happened to realize this. That the cars on the Acela train have the same shape as the Viewliner cars.
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That's mainly because when you tape-measure out the max possible single-level car dimensions for the North River tubes you wind up with that distinctive hexagonal shape shared by the Acela and Viewliners. It's not a specific design so much as what everything gravitates towards when trying to make every inch count for roomier seats and bigger windows.

The hex shape first appeared on Amtrak in 1974 when Bombardier's active-tilt Light Rapid Comfortable (LRC) cars (which are sort of the great-uncle of the Acela car design) were trialed on the NEC as a buy option for Amtrak's first mass coach order. Those prototypes performed very poorly in revenue service, so they went with the Amfleet I's (which were based on the pre-existing Metroliner EMU carbody) instead. VIA Rail in Canada did adopt the LRC's and still uses them to this day, although the last rebuild removed the always-problematic tilt mechanism and retired those weird specialized locomotives in favor of an order of the same vanilla Genesis P42's that Amtrak uses.

Couple other experimental designs used in the various "X"-series NEC trials of new equipment tech between the late-70's and early-2000's also had that distinctive hexagonal shape. No doubt if some completely other design prevails over the Viewliners in the big Amfleet-replacement bidding it's likewise going to be something with that hex bulge, for no other reason than squeezing every inch of available space.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
That's mainly because when you tape-measure out the max possible single-level car dimensions for the North River tubes you wind up with that distinctive hexagonal shape shared by the Acela and Viewliners. It's not a specific design so much as what everything gravitates towards when trying to make every inch count for roomier seats and bigger windows.

The hex shape first appeared on Amtrak in 1974 when Bombardier's active-tilt Light Rapid Comfortable (LRC) cars (which are sort of the great-uncle of the Acela car design) were trialed on the NEC as a buy option for Amtrak's first mass coach order. Those prototypes performed very poorly in revenue service, so they went with the Amfleet I's (which were based on the pre-existing Metroliner EMU carbody) instead. VIA Rail in Canada did adopt the LRC's and still uses them to this day, although the last rebuild removed the always-problematic tilt mechanism and retired those weird specialized locomotives in favor of an order of the same vanilla Genesis P42's that Amtrak uses.

Couple other experimental designs used in the various "X"-series NEC trials of new equipment tech between the late-70's and early-2000's also had that distinctive hexagonal shape. No doubt if some completely other design prevails over the Viewliners in the big Amfleet-replacement bidding it's likewise going to be something with that hex bulge, for no other reason than squeezing every inch of available space.
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Yeah, it seems like that all or most of the old baggage cars have been replaced with the Viewliner-style ones. I hope someday that ALL of the cars eventually have this shape! It is very distinctive & stylish in design and shape.
I really like it!

I DID notice however, that some of the existing fleet of coach cars have been cleaned up to look like new again. This, in my book, would help to attract more travelers and make Amtrak's image look more appealing and pleasing to the eye. :cool:
 
With respect to Philly and 30th Street Station, just this week Drexel University revealed a massive redevelopment plan adjacent to the station. This is the kind of thing that's been being planned around the station that would be messed with with a high speed bypass.

160128_IN_Project_Overview-92.jpg
 
Heavy trucks are the bane of Amtrak's existence. At least once a year there's a derailment or crash caused by one. Almost every time it's either than the truck driver got stuck on a crossing it shouldn't have been on, or did something incredibly stupid (like going 70 in a 45 in Maine, right into the path of the Downeaster).
 
After 38 years of service, final Amtrak revenue run of the AEM-7 electric locomotives scheduled for June 18 with a special fantrip train. Only running D.C.-Philly, so won't hit Boston.

https://www.amtrak.com/farewell-to-the-aem7-excursion-train



The 6 Amtrak units currently maintained in-service will run in rotation on MARC Penn Line commuter rail for the next 3 years until MARC's replacement locomotive order is delivered from the factory. So they're not gone-gone yet, just done on Amtrak. SEPTA's 7 Toasters used for hauling their small fleet of rush hour express push-pulls likewise have 3 years to go before their Sprinter replacements arrive.
 
While I understand the arguments about maintenance and the logistics of having a mixed fleet, I do wish the MBTA could order some of these for the Providence Line. Better performance and acceleration, higher speed, lots o' horsepower, less smoke.
 
Semass said:
While I understand the arguments about maintenance and the logistics of having a mixed fleet, I do wish the MBTA could order some of these for the Providence Line. Better performance and acceleration, higher speed, lots o' horsepower, less smoke.
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Not quite as simple as ordering rolling stock. In order to run electrics on the line that's already electrified, they need:

-- ...to expand Sharon substation so it can handle the power draw of commuter rail. Amtrak only built it with enough capacity to run its own trains; half of the transformer berths at the substation are empty awaiting a T-paid capacity expansion.

-- ...a southside maintenance facility that can service electrics. Amtrak Southampton shops are over-capacity for their own equipment, so outsource isn't possible. Boston Engine Terminal on the northside doesn't have a 25 kV power source for the yard or shops, so dead-towing the equipment up the Grand Junction won't work.

-- ...wiring of more storage tracks. Only Southampton Yard and Widett Loop are wired. The Widett layup tracks aren't.

-- ...wiring all 6 tracks of Pawtucket layover, which is going to require roping in some joint RIDOT funding.

-- ...wiring of the Attleboro station platform tracks. Not all tracks are electrified there.


And that's just to get to Providence station. Going to the extra RI stops requires some substantial RIDOT funding for. . .

-- ...wiring the Wickford Junction platform track.

-- ...substantial trackwork at T.F. Green, where commuter rail shares the freight clearance track. The autoracks that P&W hauls out of Port of Quonset Point in Davisville are 19'6" tall and won't clear the wire on the Amtrak tracks as they pass under the station overhang and adjacent road overpasses. The track pit on the CR platform turnout is dug 2 feet lower than the wired tracks to let them pass, but they won't clear the wire if that track is electrified. To fix this RIDOT has to:
1) Build the missing northbound-side platform at same level as the existing southbound-side platform and wire it up.
2) Temp-shift Amtrak onto that new Track 4 and take the existing 2 wired tracks out-of-service. Will entail weeks to couple months of single-tracking for a short distance.
3) Undercut the trackbed on those 2 center tracks by four feet so it's 2 feet lower than the previously undercut platform track so the autoracks can clear under the wire.
4) Reopen the center tracks to Amtrak traffic, and shift the freights there.
5) Wire up the southbound platform track.
​
In total you're probably talking $80-100M in T funding to get the in-district to-do's settled before you can even run a commuter rail electric. Terminal district and Sharon substation expansion grabbing the lion's share of that. And then RIDOT's probably got $25M and a whole lot of Amtrak red tape in order to finish the job at T.F. Green with the track work and second platform, and maybe $5-8M for remainders like the Wickford turnout and their slice of the funding pie for Pawtucket layover.

If they committed to going for it and funded it immediately, it's probably a 5-year runup for all the design-build work that'll have to be done. And then a very expensive new rolling stock purchase, because the last commuter rail AEM-7's will be long retired and scrapped by that point leaving no secondhand electrics to buy on-the-cheap.


The upside is that paying big up-front makes expanding southside electrification very economical. The expanded Sharon substation and full-equipped terminal district can absorb electric Indigo service on the Fairmount Line and Worcester Line to Riverside. Fairmount, in fact, would just need the wires and 1 paralleling station (i.e. circuit breakers) installed somewhere at the midpoint, and then a partial-or-better wiring of Readville layover. That's it. Cheap and easy. It'll probably be more difficult to calm down the crackpots at community meetings who concern-troll the sight of wires or think they're going to irradiate the whole neighborhood than it'll be to go through actual design-build. Riverside would require replacement of the Beacon St. overpass which is too low for wire to clear a bi-level coach, but other than that the infrastructure for that short-distance electrification is more or less as straightforward as doing up Fairmount (and then you can plot later extension phases to Framingham and Worcester).

So it scales exceptionally well if they take the plunge. There's just a lot of up-front cost and construction required to take the plunge, and enough bravery required by the powers that be to go through with it.
 
Your description makes a lot of sense. The infrastrucure needs are certainly a consideration. Meanwhile the roll-out of a RI-run in-state commuter rail operation could mitigate that. The plan I understood from you and EGE is that MBTA services to Boston would likely terminate in Providence while RIDOT would serve Providence to Westerly on the NEC, probably with a starter diesel service. That could leave the MA electric infrastructure and locomotive procurement which could - theoretically anyway - be in time to support but not totally alleviate the pain of the phase out of the GPs and F40s.
Still, it seems that the ROI could be compelling. We will need some new locomotives. Fuel will not be cheap forever. Electrics have good performance characteristics and long lifespans. Worcester certainly expands the scope but there is that whole north south rail link thing to consider.
 
Continued thoughts on electrifying MBTA service on NEC. This could be an idea for a value capture/tax increment finance type of bonding for a portion of this using a portion of taxes generated by the Back Bay Garage development and the the South Station Tower. Presumably, it would add value to the projects if the number of diesel locomotives under of near the buildings was reduced. They are loud and the rumble and vibrate a lot and the smoke will dirty up the windows.
Right now, the tax revenue generated by south station rail terminal tracks and air rights is probably low if anything. When complete with office, residence, hotel, etc. the tax bill will be high, in addition to the air rights lease.
If (big if) the city would commit to a reduced (but still a lot) tax revenue from the SST project in exchange for improved air quality/noise reduction, the MBTA could probably bond against that expected tax revenue to finance a portion of the terminal district electrification.
Likewise, a similar program at BBG tower would help to improve air quality and vibration in the building. Even with massive improvements to ventilation as part of the project, it will never fully manage that exhaust. Use the TIF/Value Capture for wires or whatever.
In any case, Boston benefits from the project and ends up with lots more tax revenue than they get now. The T would still need to kick in but it would be less.
 
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