Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

themissinglink said:
www.forbes.com

Brightline Hires Ex-Eurostar Chief As Vegas Bullet Train Costs Climb

Nicolas Petrovic, who led the London-Paris-Brussels train systems, will oversee the company’s expanding Florida operations and the first U.S. high-speed railway.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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Oh this is going to help: Eurostar known for its sudden, significant fare hikes and cycles of financial troubles, with recent issues including major pandemic losses requiring a £290M bailout (2021), intense scrutiny over high prices and poor service amidst record profits (late 2024/2025), and disruptions from infrastructure upgrades causing chaos, especially around Christmas.
 
www.nbclosangeles.com

Metro board approves design plan for Sepulveda Transit Corridor project

Metro’s board of directors voted Thursday to approve design plans for a proposed heavy rail project that would connect the San Fernando Valley to the Westside. The Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project Locally Preferred Alternatives included options for the project pursued to provide an alternative...
www.nbclosangeles.com www.nbclosangeles.com
The Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project Locally Preferred Alternatives included options for the project pursued to provide an alternative to navigate on of Los Angeles busiest commutes on the 405 Freeway. The board's Planning and Programming Committee recommended approval of Modified Alternative 5, a heavy rail transit option that would run underground between the Van Nuys Metrolink Station and the E Line Expo/Sepulveda Station.
The proposal would be modified to include a connection to the Metro G Line and the future East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Line at Van Nuys Boulevard. Thursday's vote was unanimous.
Modified Alternative 5 would provide nearly 13 miles of rail with seven stations. At the northern point of the proposed rail system, one station would be located at the Van Nuys Metrolink Station, followed by three unique underground stations at Sherman Way, Metro G Line on Oxnard Street, and Ventura Boulevard.
Four additional underground stations would be proposed at UCLA,(called UCLA Gateway Plaza), at Wilshire Boulevard/Metro D Line, at Santa Monica Boulevard, and a final connection to the Metro E Line Expo/Sepulveda Station.
Metro estimated the cost for the project could be between $20 billion and $25 billion. The transit agency has identified some funding from Measure M, a 2016-voter approved half-cent sales tax to support transit projects, which support the Sepulveda Transit Corridor Transit Project.
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sepulveda.png
 
themissinglink said:
www.nbclosangeles.com

Metro board approves design plan for Sepulveda Transit Corridor project

Metro’s board of directors voted Thursday to approve design plans for a proposed heavy rail project that would connect the San Fernando Valley to the Westside. The Sepulveda Transit Corridor Project Locally Preferred Alternatives included options for the project pursued to provide an alternative...
www.nbclosangeles.com www.nbclosangeles.com

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This is by far the best of the options that they studied. When this open, it is going to be transformative for people in the Valley. I really love the way Los Angeles is so focused on building cross town routes. The eventual mesh pattern is going to make for a very sophisticated system when full build-out is complete.
 
www.governor.ny.gov

Statement From Governor Kathy Hochul

“When Amtrak proposed to significantly reduce Empire Service trips for several years to accommodate the East River Tunnel project, I demanded better."
www.governor.ny.gov www.governor.ny.gov

New York State deep-sixes the plan to extend a Metro-North trip from Poughkeepsie to Albany. Will instead restore all temporarily-reduced Amtrak Empire service trips in March, as well as restoring the Maple Leaf and Adirondack as separate trains (they were temporarily conjoined). I guess that means the East River Tunnels work is progressing enough and/or there are enough loco-to-cab-car conversions now available that the supply of deadhead trains from Sunnyside Yard to the Empire platforms @ Penn is no longer choked off and normal service can resume.

Hochul says the Metro-North issue could resurface, though she sounds pretty uncommitted in the press release.
 
www.amny.com

Second Avenue Subway extension to East Harlem will continue, but could hit snag if feds don’t restore funds soon: MTA – amNewYork

The Second Avenue Subway's East Harlem extension project will keep chugging away despite the Trump administration's pause on federal funding for the project —
www.amny.com www.amny.com
The Second Avenue Subway’s East Harlem extension project will keep chugging away despite the Trump administration’s pause on federal funding for the project — but MTA officials warned they will soon need the money restored in order to award the next contract in the undertaking.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, during the agency’s monthly board meeting on Wednesday, insisted that work on Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway, which will extend the Q line from 96th to 125th Street, is not in imminent danger of being derailed by Trump’s funding freeze.
[...]
However, MTA Construction and Development head Jamie Torres-Springer said that while work will continue on the Second Avenue Subway, the project will hit roadblocks in the near future if the federal funding remains frozen.
Specifically, he said the MTA will not be able to award its next contract in the effort, to excavate a new station at 106th Street, if the money is not restored within the next couple of months.
“We need a restoration of certainty from the federal government in order to do that,” Torres-Springer said of awarding the contract. “Predictability of funding is what’s key to keeping a big capital program like this afloat. We’re doing everything we can. We need predictability of funding.”
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Oh, please. A train? In NYC? For Mamdani?

Unless Mamdani can work his magic with an in-person meet with our Dear Leader to charisma those funds out of him--though I do trust he could, the handsome devil--those funds are gone.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:

ConnDOT strongly considering re-dieselizing Shore Line East because of Amtrak's sky-high electric rates on the NEC. :(
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This is not the first time a commuter rail line running on the NEC has converted from electric to diesel to avoid paying Amtrak's fees; MARC's Penn Line did the same thing about a decade ago. Two questions come to mind:

1) If Amtrak's electricity rates are high enough to drive agencies back onto diesel, what will it take to reduce the fees? Are the fees calculated in a transparent manner that purely reflects the cost of electricity alone, or is this a situation where things are opaque enough to allow Amtrak to use the fees to "get back" at Connecticut for when Metro-North inconveniences Amtrak on the New Haven Line?

2) Could concern over the high electricity fees be part of the reason the MBTA has so far avoided electrifying the Providence/Stoughton Line?
 
Man, New England really needs to get its act together on grid supply. Inexcusable for us to be paying the highest rates in the country while everyone else is just throwing new capacity around and driving prices to such low levels.
 
Justbuildit said:
Man, New England really needs to get its act together on grid supply. Inexcusable for us to be paying the highest rates in the country while everyone else is just throwing new capacity around and driving prices to such low levels.
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Agreed, but there's been a lot of effort that has been outside of our control. Maine fought to block hydro power from Quebec, New York to block natural gas, and the feds to block offshore wind. Reducing nuclear capacity was also obviously a bad move in hindsight.
 
Justbuildit said:
Man, New England really needs to get its act together on grid supply. Inexcusable for us to be paying the highest rates in the country while everyone else is just throwing new capacity around and driving prices to such low levels.
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I don't have any details so this is guesswork, but: I don't think that's really the issue here. Power is not so expensive in New England as to make electric trains too expensive to operate for that reason.

I don't think whatever rate Amtrak is charging is really having it's costs being driven by the actual cost of the power supply coming in off the grid.

Amtrak has repeatedly proven elsewhere on the NEC that it seems to have absolutely no idea how to build + maintain overhead catenary at remotely reasonable costs. I would suspect that those blowout costs are making their way down to what they're charging other operators to use it.
 
KCasiglio said:
Agreed, but there's been a lot of effort that has been outside of our control. Maine fought to block hydro power from Quebec, New York to block natural gas, and the feds to block offshore wind. Reducing nuclear capacity was also obviously a bad move in hindsight.
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I'd like to see some nuclear power plants built in the parts of the US that need them.
 
riptide said:
This is not the first time a commuter rail line running on the NEC has converted from electric to diesel to avoid paying Amtrak's fees; MARC's Penn Line did the same thing about a decade ago. Two questions come to mind:

1) If Amtrak's electricity rates are high enough to drive agencies back onto diesel, what will it take to reduce the fees? Are the fees calculated in a transparent manner that purely reflects the cost of electricity alone, or is this a situation where things are opaque enough to allow Amtrak to use the fees to "get back" at Connecticut for when Metro-North inconveniences Amtrak on the New Haven Line?
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Amtrak definitely uses the fees as a big stick for turf warrage. Their fees NY-DC are particularly opaque because all of the NEC's power is single-sourced from Safe Harbor Dam in Pennsylvania, where 2 of the dam's 3 hydroelectric units are exclusively devoted to supplying the Amtrak 25 Hz traction network. Amtrak has a large amount of leverage to wield over tenants NJ Transit, SEPTA, and MARC because of that vertical integration, and wield it they do. MARC's partial dieselization of the Penn Line is a byproduct of that, though it's probably NJT that fights with them most openly being their heaviest-using electric tenant. The New Haven-Boston electrification has no special sources...it's all generic local-utility 115 kV single-phase lines feeding their substations, so effective rates are pretty easy to democratize from their wholesale sources. ConnDOT even put in for some upgrades to the Branford and New London substations to enable M8's on SLE, but that hasn't stopped Amtrak from jacking rates simply for touching their on-ROW infrastructure. And yes, it's totally retaliation for the constant warring between parties that goes on over all manner of ops issues in Metro-North territory. Amtrak definitely needs to grow up here, because their actions are causing direct harm to decarbonization in America. I wouldn't say ConnDOT are necessarily complete angels because they've done their fair share of turf warrage harm themselves over in MNRR territory, but for SLE they're absolutely right to be bullshit about what Amtrak is forcing on them for rates. Absolutely nothing about the infrastructure (not even the flimsy Safe Harbor-related sourcing excuses that prevail south-of-NYC) is causing them to need to be gouged like that. I don't even think Amtrak is looking for a specific concession here...it's just "pay up, or fuck right off for all we care" because they can.

riptide said:
2) Could concern over the high electricity fees be part of the reason the MBTA has so far avoided electrifying the Providence/Stoughton Line?
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It's no doubt one of the excuses plied, but really, the T is so up its own arse in avoidance of electrifying with any honesty that NEC electric rates probably wouldn't crack the Top 5 reasons they aren't doing it. Especially if the would-be Roxbury infill substation that powers the innermost NEC, terminal district, and Fairmount charging stations ends up being a wholly T-owned substation that shears them off of Amtrak rates everywhere they run outside of Hyde Park-Providence/Stoughton. The primary reason there's been no movement on Providence/Stoughton electrics is that the kooky BEMU trial for Fairmount is contractually booby-trapped to be an ultra-outsource job...Keolis-owned, not T-owned , captive to the Fairmount Line only and the Keolis/not-T -owned maintenance shed that's going to be built for only servicing the very few units of the Fairmount trial, and not free to roam to other lines unless a whole new complicated graft-on outsource contract were drawn up. They've done a superb job boxing themselves in so it's legally almost too difficult to expand electrification beyond the bounds of the limited Fairmount trial, because of the way the T has washed its hands of actually owning the BEMU's. There's actually some rumors starting to circulate online that they might be evaluating the facepalmingly stupid Siemens Charger battery loco (same 2x as expensive make that Metro-North is debasing itself with for Penn Station Access on the frigging New Haven Line) as a possible split-off option on their next diesel replacement order to cover their decarbonation asses for Providence/Stoughton. Not even multiple units on a line (Providence) where theirs and Amtrak's own internal math projects an 18% trip time reduction with EMU's...no, some $20M-a-pop unicorn battery loco hauling slovenly push-pull coaches on the same schedules forever.
 
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