Crazy Transit Pitches

themissinglink said:
I'm pretty sure that the tracks past Buzzards Bay are jointed rail, not welded rail. If you want to go faster than 30 mph, you'd need to replace the jointed rail with continuous welded rail. It's not likely to happen until the CapeFlyer gets replaced with a full Commuter Rail schedule.
Click to expand...
Jointed rail doesn't affect track class. You can run 90 MPH on jointed rail if it's maintained well enough, though it would obviously be a rougher ride than if you did the same on welded rail. Track classes have more to do with how many ties per X feet of track are allowed to be decayed, how tightly the rail must conform to gauge, how worn the rail is allowed to be, and so on. The joints don't really factor, because even Class 8/165 MPH tracks have *some* very occasional joints to them.

The Cape Main tracks east of the bridge are only maintained to Class 2/30 MPH, same as what the Falmouth Branch is for its very occasional Dinner Train runs. It's maximally good-condition Class 2 with fully up-to-spec grade crossings now, but still only Class 2 because of the tie replacement cycles. MassDOT was interested in slowly upgrading the on-Cape rail to Class 3/60 MPH like it has upgraded Middleboro-Buzzards Bay on the mainland since the Flyer's launch, but Cape politicians gave a hard no to that over some cognitive dissonance over the trains being unsafe to pedestrian trespassers at that speed. They thought since people routinely cross the tracks to get to the Canal path that there needed to be a forever speed limit. Really...they were offered it and said hell-no we want people to keep trespassing on the ROW. Tim Cahir, the late former CCRTA president and basically the Train Daddy of Cape Flyer's funding coalition, was really strident about it for some reason. Maybe with him gone they'll start to give it consideration.

Class 3 lets you do a speed limit of 59 MPH, the most you can do without a signal system. In the NYNH&H days the Cape was Class 4/79 MPH just like the Middleboro Line, but it didn't result in speeds higher than 50 because of the on-Cape curves. Again...Class 3-4 is more an idealized maintenance standard for commuter rail-class service and the wear-and-tear reps that entails than a be-all/end-all speed limit thing.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Again...Class 3-4 is more an idealized maintenance standard for commuter rail-class service and the wear-and-tear reps that entails than a be-all/end-all speed limit thing.
Click to expand...
Why did the New Haven RR pay for 79 MPH track if the ROW geometry limited speeds to 50 MPH in practice? What other “bang for your buck” do you get for making that extra level of expenditure in maintenance, besides higher speeds?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top