Missing HSR Corridor Designations

Arlington said:
What kind of efficient are you talking? Energy efficient? Labor efficient? Capital cost efficient?

Let me know when you've gotten to "cost efficient" and "time efficient" because these *do* change Europe v. America--land use, fuel prices, freeway availablity, airport convenience, all effect cost-and-time tradeoffs between modes--and things as simple as the cost of motor fuels start the list of differences between Europe and America of all the kind of things that effect market dominance here vs there.
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My comments were in reference to your claim that the ideal range is between 100-300 miles: anything under and people will opt to drive; anything over and people will tend to fly. HSR dominates the 250-500 mile range in Europe: better pricing, speed and amenities relative to either car or air travel. It gets people where they want to go in the most efficient way (time, cost, resources - you name it) for the types of trips taken.

There is no reason that the same would not be true in the US for trips of similar distances, especially when considering that most demand will be inbound to large cities with greater access to public transportation, entertainment, lodging, etc., where cars aren't necessarily needed. Even then, cities will adapt around centrally located rail hubs just as they have with airports: car rental, transportation, hotels all nearby. If true HSR is rolled out in the US, we'll see all kinds of adaptations around the current norm where cars rule just about everything <250 mi and planes carry the rest.
 
omaja said:
My comments were in reference to your claim that the ideal range is between 100-300 miles: anything under and people will opt to drive; anything over and people will tend to fly. HSR dominates the 250-500 mile range in Europe: better pricing, speed and amenities relative to either car or air travel. It gets people where they want to go in the most efficient way (time, cost, resources - you name it) for the types of trips taken.

There is no reason that the same would not be true in the US for trips of similar distances, especially when considering that most demand will be inbound to large cities with greater access to public transportation, entertainment, lodging, etc., where cars aren't necessarily needed. Even then, cities will adapt around centrally located rail hubs just as they have with airports: car rental, transportation, hotels all nearby. If true HSR is rolled out in the US, we'll see all kinds of adaptations around the current norm where cars rule just about everything <250 mi and planes carry the rest.
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But as we've had to concede to Matthew, the FRA isn't planning "true" (189mph) HSR, and I think it either unfair or dreaming to critique the map as if 189mph speeds would be available. The FRA was working with the speeds they could afford.

The FRA is planning HSR that (except in California, Nevada and the NEC) tops out at about 110mph or 125mph, and given that the US trains will go about 2/3 as fast as their Euro counterparts (110/125mph vs 170/200mph) , the FRA has basically drawn a radius about 2/3 as large (300 mi vs 500 mi).

In Europe, planes have to wait until 500 mi to start beating the trains. In the USA planes will start beating trains at 300 mi (once the NEC is operating at 165mph in places, BOS-WAS at 400mi, will probably still be a good air market, but WAS-NYC will go 90% train)

The 100mi crossover point (where cars max out and trains kick in) is probably too generous to the trains, but if you (and the FRA) dont scale the "bottom" inward you end up saying that trains only work at a range of 250mi to 330mi (a bit narrow, don't you think?)--but it does (partly)answer why they didn't grow the "tips" together and propose a PIT-CLE connection. Cars will win in city pairs as close as PIT-CLE.
 
The FRA's strategic plan, mentions "Express" HSR with top speeds of at least 150 mph and "Regional" HSR with top speeds of 110-150 mph. They also mention a 200-600 mile range.

As for the bottom of the range, the local CLE-PIT market wouldn't be the primary intent for extending the line to Pittsburgh. The major market served would be CHI-PIT which is approximately 460 miles, well within a working range for HSR even at 150 mph or less.

I'm a bit confused how you can point out the wasteful duplication of CHI-TOL-CLE and CHI-DTW but contend that there aren't some very logical missing pieces to the FRA's map. They definitely don't have it perfect - even with their performance and speed-related caveats. :)
 
Matthew said:
Europe may have mixed lines but they are certainly not running around claiming that old chugging diesels are HSR.

I think it's fair to say at a minimum that HSR requires electrification and 125+ MPH speeds.
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I'd drop the electrification requirement...at least for the U.S.'s "close enough" idea of HSR. All 200 of Amtrak's P42DC diesel locos are rated for 110 MPH (Class 6 speeds), and about three-quarters of their 2000+ coaches can go that fast. Their West Coast-only tilting Talgo coaches are rated for 125 (and need the tilting on some of that terrain), but they only go 80 MPH because it's Class 4 track.

The only non-NEC places in the entire country other than the electrified, Class 7 (125 MPH) Keystone Line where you can do as much as 110 MPH are about 100 miles from Gary, IN to Kalamazoo, MI on the Amtrak Wolverine out of Chicago and about 15 miles from Albany to Schenectady on the Empire Corridor. The Wolverine route's getting another 150 miles of Class 6 track added now...but that's frigging it.


You definitely can push diesel to 125 MPH. There's just never been a need to purchase and maintain anything that runs that fast in this country because there's nowhere to run it. At intercity stop spacing the start/stop penalty on diesel vs. electric is very small. Not even noticeable in real terms because it's track conditions that chew up the schedule efficiency to shreds far more than stops. It's only when you top 125 MPH that you have to start looking at electric or the only alternatives become weirdo modes like gas turbine engines (which have flopped in the U.S. every single time they've been tried).

I think we ought to re-brand this. Call HSR--the "sell job" of it to the public--125 MPH (or 110 rounded up) so the bar is lowered to the top speed for off-shelf, mass-produced diesel equipment. And then call true 150+ MPH HSR "Super HSR", or SHSR, or something. Separate out the NEC and Cali HSR from everything else so the investment goes first where it's needed most...track speeds, track speeds, track speeds. Electrification confuses the issue a lot by requiring This Big Extra Thing™, and wrapping brain around paying for that. It also doesn't matter in the end when a majority of the electrified intercity track we do have doesn't top max diesel speed. Focus like a laser first on track speeds. Amtrak has over 2000 pieces of equipment in use every single day that can run on Class 6 track. The goal should be getting as many track miles as possible bumped to 110. Then talk about what routes need the electrification, what routes need the tilting SuperTrains, and blah blah blah.

That's a message that'll resonate with Joe taxpayer: 2000 pieces of mass-produced equipment in-service today. Won't your tax dollars be put to better use letting them run as fast as they were born to run?

"FREEDOM...for the AmCans."

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You like freedom, don't you...proud American?
 
Hmm. I had the odd experience a few months ago of riding a NE Regional from South Station pulled by one of Amtrak's diesels. It seemed to be more sluggish. It was about 15 minutes behind schedule arriving at New Haven where they switched it out, like the old days.

Don't know if they were driving more gingerly, or if the diesel simply couldn't keep up with Amtrak's already-padded schedule.
 
Matthew said:
Hmm. I had the odd experience a few months ago of riding a NE Regional from South Station pulled by one of Amtrak's diesels. It seemed to be more sluggish. It was about 15 minutes behind schedule arriving at New Haven where they switched it out, like the old days.

Don't know if they were driving more gingerly, or if the diesel simply couldn't keep up with Amtrak's already-padded schedule.
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Yes, your diesel was more sluggish--because this happened on one of the few stretches of track (sections between Foxboro MA and Westerly RI) that the electrics regularly do 125/135 on, but on which your diesel was rated for only 110mph. Those stretches have the unique trifecta of straight track, constant-tension catenary, and full-power electric substations, so you suffered as your train was bumped back from best-in-the-USA to "only" the 110mph limit imposed by the diesel.

But as F-line points out, everyplace else, 110mph is good enough deliver city-to-city times that are about half of what a car could do.

Outside the NEC, where 110mph diesels are a downgrade, any place else, they'd be a huge upgrade (from speeds that max at 79mph at best and are all too often lower than that)
 
Hmm, I was under the impression that the Regionals don't do more than 110mph on that stretch. Anyway, I definitely agree that a solid backbone of 110mph diesel trains could do wonders for intercity travel of your given range. But it's not HSR, and I disagree with F-line about watering down the term HSR. That just makes people more cynical.
 
Matthew said:
Hmm, I was under the impression that the Regionals don't do more than 110mph on that stretch. Anyway, I definitely agree that a solid backbone of 110mph diesel trains could do wonders for intercity travel of your given range. But it's not HSR, and I disagree with F-line about watering down the term HSR. That just makes people more cynical.
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I missed the part about the "Regional", sorry. I was focused on how awesome a 110mph diesel would be for all kinds of routes today, especially ones that connect to the NEC backbone (Springfied-Hartford-New_Haven, Norfolk/Richmond-DC, PIT-Keystone)

EDIT: I think the Regionals do 125mph in the stretch where Acela does 150. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Regional)
 
Matthew said:
Hmm. I had the odd experience a few months ago of riding a NE Regional from South Station pulled by one of Amtrak's diesels. It seemed to be more sluggish. It was about 15 minutes behind schedule arriving at New Haven where they switched it out, like the old days.

Don't know if they were driving more gingerly, or if the diesel simply couldn't keep up with Amtrak's already-padded schedule.
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When they do work they turn off the wires so only Diesels can use the line , the Acela Schedule is moved around so there are less. In NJ there replacing the Catenary so at night you see Diesels along the NEC. They can replace a mile a week....which is pretty good considering the complexity of the PRR wires...
 
I talked to the conductor while they were changing locomotives in NH and he said they simply were unable to get an available electric locomotive up to Boston in time for the trip.
 
Matthew said:
Hmm, I was under the impression that the Regionals don't do more than 110mph on that stretch. Anyway, I definitely agree that a solid backbone of 110mph diesel trains could do wonders for intercity travel of your given range. But it's not HSR, and I disagree with F-line about watering down the term HSR. That just makes people more cynical.
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I have to echo this sentiment - it's nice to get everything upped to 110 mph operating speeds, but it's not HSR. And if you're going to 're-brand' anything, you should just come out and say 'no, we're not doing HSR.'

Have it be the 'new standard of the American Railroad' instead - 110 mph track from end to end, bump up your headways, buy new rolling stock that can be scaled up to 150~200 later but is just fine operating at 110 now. Let people get used to this, and come back a decade later...

'Guess what, those are the slow trains. Here's the plan for HSR.'

THEN you start electrifying and we can come back to this discussion so that I can complain about all the holes I see in the map.
 
^ This is, BTW, what All Aboard Florida seems to be about.
 
Diesels are not rare at all on the NEC. Dozens of trains running on off-wire branchlines run on diesel on the NEC. And of course they'll plug the Regional schedule with them when equipment's unavailable, a wire is shutdown for construction (they're doing a sprawling overhead replacement project on all tracks on both sides of NYC scheduled to go through 2017), or if they need to move Downeaster or Lake Shore Limited equipment to Boston. And the dual-modes that Amtrak does have are simply P42 diesels that switch to third rail (and run slowly) inside the tunnels around Penn Station.

There's a lot more of them west of New Haven, but a solid 15-20% of the intercity trains on the corridor are diesel. And they do run it all up to rated speed...that's why their nationwide equipment pool is maintained to a 110 MPH baseline. Really doesn't make that much difference to the schedule; they don't have to rejigger anything when they have to send the odd diesel out on a Regional. Unfortunately the reason it doesn't matter is that there are so few places on the NEC where the electrics get up to 125. A 15 MPH speed penalty doesn't add up to delays when there's only a few precious stretches of track where the electrics get to flex their top speed.


I'm not saying we should water down the definition of true HSR. But we're never as a country going to get that investment going if we keep thinking of it as This Huge Extra Thing™ akin to building the Interstate highway system from scratch. You don't get SuperTrains on track that today is 80 MPH diesel in one megaproject. That didn't even happen on the NEC east of New Haven. They spent 20 years zapping grade crossings, bringing the track up to state of good repair, straightening curves, and upgrading the signaling before they were ready to string up wires. Boring stuff. Nobody riding a Regional in 1991 would've thought from the mundane patch-up the track crews were doing at the time that a train like the Acela would be running on that track in 10 years. But that was the goal all along. And they're still upgrading. The 150 MPH stretches in RI and Attleboro-Sharon are likely to get a 165 MPH uprate in the next year or two. And it's decidedly unsexy stuff like the wire replacement project, bridge repairs, moving a retaining wall so this curve can be eased out 2° that'll bring a few more miles of 90 MPH to 110, a few more miles of 110 to 125, a few more miles of 125 to 150, and a few more miles of 150 to 165.

Track speed, track speed, track speed. Unsexy stuff. That money needs to be pounding the rails on these priority routes so we can break that artificial 80 MPH ceiling that no track owner seems to want to clear. Get to Class 5 and Class 6 rating before talking about Class 9. Establish the economy of scale for the equipment that can use that track. THEN talk about the electrification and the frills when that gap is narrowed.

Yeah, we all want TGV running on American soil. But you know what's going to get us critical mass to do that? Getting competitive trip times on the ol' AmCan beaters and exhaust-belchers. 110 MPH the length of New York state, Chicago-St. Louis, etc. etc. Triple digit speed is still a Big Fuckin' Deal for most of the population. And I don't think most of the country knows that's achievable on existing track with grade crossings because all they've seen are the glossy brochures USDOT is publishing about SuperTrains. All of these corridors need to pass through that 90-110 MPH diesel "adolescent" stage before there's even a basis of talking true HSR upgrades. However we want to brand HSR, near-HSR, MSR...de-boondoggle it so middle America can grasp how close that adolescent stage is to reality in their backyard if we'd only get to work on it.
 
Exactly. But how does calling it HSR "de-boondoggle it"? If anything, many people seem to think that HSR is a boondoggle. The idiocy going on in California isn't helping. Need a snappier name (presumably not "adolescent stage rail").

How about "American speed rail". Both patriotic and derogatory at the same time!

I'm not good at this whole Madison Avenue thing if you can't tell...
 
Matthew said:
Exactly. But how does calling it HSR "de-boondoggle it"? If anything, many people seem to think that HSR is a boondoggle. The idiocy going on in California isn't helping. Need a snappier name (presumably not "adolescent stage rail").

How about "American speed rail". Both patriotic and derogatory at the same time!

I'm not good at this whole Madison Avenue thing if you can't tell...
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It's all about the spin.

Call it a 'back to basics' approach. Shift the focus onto creating this adolescent pre-HSR backbone. 'Kill the HSR boondoggle.' Say we're going to put several million people back to work from coast to coast, revitalizing our railroads - restoring the backbone of our infrastructure that has fallen into disrepair. THAT'S the message that resonates with people - shit's broken, we're fixing it, and we're going to be focused like a laser beam on getting shit fixed instead of wasting your time and your money with big talk about big dreams with big price tags that we know don't excite you nearly as much as they excite us.

Joe Taxpayer looks at a 40-year, $151 billion plan and sees a boondoggle. He looks at a 5-year, $11 billion dollar plan and sees an expensive investment, but one that he's going to be around to see the payoff for. And it's going to be a lot easier for Joe Taxpayer to get on board with 'Restoring Our Railways' or 'All Aboard USA' than it is for him to get on board with 'America 2050' and trying to ride HSR into 'The Future!'
 
^I think that's a great way to look at it. Even tho I am supportive of HSR, I don't believe any of the 2035 announcements or maps. We can't even figure out paving roads and doing track work for next year, let alone organizing a 30 year initiative.

Build up the basic supporting infrastructure. 110MPH between most major cities on existing lines with existing equipment will be a huge win. It will be tangible and widespread. That will help build the constituency. Then as people more people are riding and choosing rail over airport lines and increasingly expensive driving routes, you can say, wouldn't it be great if you could go Boston to NYC in 2 hours, and people would believe and back it. Going for a homerun on the first pitch is a good way to strike out fast.
 
If you build lines up to 110mph , 125mph upgrade isn't that hard hence why I see it happening to the Knowledge corridor by 2020....
 
what would it take to do that Boston to Springfield. I think one of the best transit (non-subway) investments the MA could make would be 110MPH (preferably 125MPH) Boston-Framingham-Worcester-Springfield. I think it would do wonders for MA economy. That's Boston to Springfield in ONE HOUR! Opens up whole new levels of instate opportunity. Even more than a bunch of stop CR to NB/FR.
 
choo said:
what would it take to do that Boston to Springfield. I think one of the best transit (non-subway) investments the MA could make would be 110MPH (preferably 125MPH) Boston-Framingham-Worcester-Springfield. I think it would do wonders for MA economy. That's Boston to Springfield in ONE HOUR! Opens up whole new levels of instate opportunity. Even more than a bunch of stop CR to NB/FR.
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It would take a LOT, actually. West of Worcester, the ROW becomes an absolute nightmare.

Here's the good news. It doesn't look like there are any grade crossings left on the line west of Worcester. (Yay!)

Now for the bad news. The line doesn't have single-track segments, it has double-track segments. As in, the line's second track goes away right around the Worcester city line, comes back for a brief stretch starting just before New Spencer Road / RT 31 in Charlton and ending just after Cottage Street in East Brookfield - and is then single-track all the way to Kings Bridge Road in Palmer, where it is double-tracked right up to a horrendous junction in Palmer - at that point, the second track curves north and away from where it needs to go, and the line is single-track until Dimmock Pond, although the situation there is marginally better as you can at least see the faded outlines of where a second track used to be.

So, we can see that there are three huge problems that need to be addressed right away - all that single trackage needs to become double-track (and, if you ever want to see branching service on that main line, or WOR-SPG commuter rail, it needs to all become triple-tracked), there are several unacceptably tight curves (most of them between East Brookfield and Hadwen Park) that need to be zapped, and the Palmer Junction needs to be rebuilt from the ground up - preferably in such a way so that trains going from Springfield to Amherst don't have to back up. (On the other hand, the Vermonter being rerouted through Holyoke and Northampton instead significantly reduces the importance of making Springfield-Amherst a linear move. A commuter rail train on the hypothetical Amherst Line could happily reverse directions while stopped at the hypothetical Palmer Junction station, since all the seats face the center of the train instead of facing forward like Amtrak trains do.)

Fix those three things, and you can 110mph+ the trip from WOR to SPG no problem. Don't fix those three things, and I don't think you can ever run passenger trains WOR-SPG at all.

(As an aside, you'll never have 110+ BOS-WOR because Framingham NIMBYs don't want it. Such is life.)
 
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