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

To be fair, SSX and the other MA projects are not nearly as mission critical to the operation of the NEC in the same way that Gateway / Hudson River tunnels, CT moveable bridges or Portal North are. The things they've funded in this round probably needed replacing several decades ago by sheer magnitude of decrepitude and how much of the NEC relies on them working to move trains - without them, you've functionally got no NEC north of NYC. SSX on the other hand is just a nice to have for expanded service.
 
Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is getting some upgrades, which will only further cement Boston's stations as providing the weakest offerings of the major cities along the Northeast Corridor.

30th Street Station’s $550 million redesign: New food hall, new escalators, new outdoor plaza​

billypenn.com

Amtrak 30th Street Station redesign: Expect noticeable construction early next year

The $550 million revamp is bringing a new food hall, new escalators, and new outdoor plaza, plus the split-flap Solari board as decor.
billypenn.com billypenn.com

amtrak-30thstreetstation-rendering-5b-scaled.jpg


amtrak-30thstreetstation-rendering-4-scaled.jpg
 
Smuttynose said:
Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is getting some upgrades, which will only further cement Boston's stations as providing the weakest offerings of the major cities along the Northeast Corridor.

30th Street Station’s $550 million redesign: New food hall, new escalators, new outdoor plaza​

billypenn.com

Amtrak 30th Street Station redesign: Expect noticeable construction early next year

The $550 million revamp is bringing a new food hall, new escalators, and new outdoor plaza, plus the split-flap Solari board as decor.
billypenn.com billypenn.com
Click to expand...
Looks GREAT. It's ironic that I just posted some photos of the South Station Concourse. See my post in the South Station Tower thread:
 
Great to hear. Looks to be a decent amount higher than the old bridge too which should mean it has to open less to let smaller boats through.
 
stick n move said:
Great to hear. Looks to be a decent amount higher than the old bridge too which should mean it has to open less to let smaller boats through.
Click to expand...
Yep! In the closed position, increased from 18ft on the existing bridge to 24ft.
 
Stlin said:
set to raise speeds from 45 to 70mph.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that trains using the current bridge are limited to only 45 MPH. I thought the speed restriction over the bridge was 60 MPH. Does anyone know if this was a recent change?
 
themissinglink said:
I had no idea that trains using the current bridge are limited to only 45 MPH. I thought the speed restriction over the bridge was 60 MPH. Does anyone know if this was a recent change?
Click to expand...
From my old timetable (2011), the 45MPH speed was over the movable span only. The speed through the rest of the interlocking was 60MPH
 
Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but The Gothamist just posted an article about a HSR proposal from NYC to Boston in 100 minutes. Obviously this is talked about a lot, but this was a pretty unique map:

GSryKqLXgAApdJW.jpg


The blue line is the proposal, and it's obviously kind of a silly map without geographical markers, but it's crazy to see a proposal include a tunnel under the Long Island Sound. Seems like it would be easier to run from NYC -> New Haven -> Hartford especially since the zoning/approval pinch points are found on the NE Regional east of New Haven.

Thoughts?
 
Never going to happen. The auto folks would probably demand a highway crossing of the sound to balance it out.
 
RandomWalk said:
Never going to happen. The auto folks would probably demand a highway crossing of the sound to balance it out.
Click to expand...
It's not like that's a bad thing though, it's a fairly notable missing connection.

There are plenty of other problems with this proposal though, finding space on Long Island for a new/expanded HSR ROW and the astronomical land acquisition costs that you'd need between Hartford and Providence are probably the biggest.

IMO the best route is still NYC->New Haven on the NEC, up the Hartford Line to Springfield and then to Boston.
 
Last edited:
thepixelnation said:
Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but The Gothamist just posted an article about a HSR proposal from NYC to Boston in 100 minutes. Obviously this is talked about a lot, but this was a pretty unique map:

View attachment 52751

The blue line is the proposal, and it's obviously kind of a silly map without geographical markers, but it's crazy to see a proposal include a tunnel under the Long Island Sound. Seems like it would be easier to run from NYC -> New Haven -> Hartford especially since the zoning/approval pinch points are found on the NE Regional east of New Haven.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Here's a version of that map with geographic markers. The group that's proposing this has had it out since 2021, but hasn't gotten much uptake on it from anyone in a position to do anything about it. As a routing I would also say that it's much less squiggly, but it's very much "not serious until Amtrak has no more SGR projects."

1000034972.jpg


TheRatmeister said:
It's not like that's a bad thing though, it's a fairly notable missing connection.

There are plenty of other problems with this proposal though, finding space on Long Island for a new/expanded HSR ROW and the astronomical land acquisition costs that you'd need between Hartford and Providence are probably the biggest.
Click to expand...

I believe that there's availabile right of way in the form of what would have been the I-82/84 corridor.
 
RandomWalk said:
auto folks would probably demand a highway crossing of the sound to balance it out.
Click to expand...
the same auto folks who would demand an auto crossing are the same people who don't want more traffic on the island and wouldn't want their town to have to deal with the construction and subsequent traffic that a new bridge/tunnel would bring.

Honestly a rail tunnel would skirt a lot of that conversation. This seems to be a "we'd prefer to deal with Long Island NIMBYs over Connecticut NIMBYs" plan.
 
thepixelnation said:
Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but The Gothamist just posted an article about a HSR proposal from NYC to Boston in 100 minutes. Obviously this is talked about a lot, but this was a pretty unique map:

View attachment 52751

The blue line is the proposal, and it's obviously kind of a silly map without geographical markers, but it's crazy to see a proposal include a tunnel under the Long Island Sound. Seems like it would be easier to run from NYC -> New Haven -> Hartford especially since the zoning/approval pinch points are found on the NE Regional east of New Haven.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

One benefit of the Long Island Sound tunnel would be the trains could run a lot faster than trying to speed up the NEC through southwest Connecticut. LIRR to Ronkonkoma then through the tunnel would be a bunch of straightaways where high speed trains could run long stretches at ~200mph. The curves on the current route through CT might limit trains to half that. I can't find my source, but I read somewhere that the tunnel option to get from NYC to New Haven could be 30-40 minutes faster than any other planned improvements going through southwest CT.

That said, I agree with others that this is expensive and no one seems willing to pay.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top