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Is THIS a Viable Solution to the Current Amtrak Funding Crisis?
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by Limitedclear</i> <br /><br />[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by futuremodal</i> <br /><br />Donclark is on the right path. HSR would fill a time niche between highway and airline. Current standard 79 mph max rail operations do not beat highway travel door to door, freight or passenger. The only thing he's missing, and the most important variable for success with HSR is that it MUST be focussed on freight, first and foremost, then and only then can you add a passenger element. Freight makes money, ergo would attract the necessary private investment capital (although you would still need a significant government financial invovement, not necessarily using tax dollars but utilizing instead tax exemptions and credits). HSR freight would take market share from truckers mostly and also some airfreight, and these time sensitive freight components have higher profit margins. <br /> <br />Once you've establish HSR freight lines, it would be no problem to introduce passenger operations, even running as "mixed" consists. A HSR passenger operation over the medium distance corridors would make the most sense, since such could directly compete with medium haul airlines, but even long distance HSR passenger operations could probaby attract enough travelers to approach private sector profitability. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />Hmmm. Sounds great... <br /> <br />EXCEPT, <br /> <br />Amtrak, when it ran express, had trouble keeping the cars on the rails at 79 mph... <br /> <br />Second, there are good reasons that neither the Japanese nor Europeans run a significant amount of HSR freight. Freight is heavier and much more dense than passengers. Trains must have heavier construction, track structures must be of both heavier construction and correctly engineered for freight including little or no super elevation that is often used on passenger lines especially HSR lines. Lets not forget that merely mixing freight and passenger trains on the same tracks is likely to create dispatching headaches similar to those felt now. For example, suppose freight speeds can be increased to 100 mph. That's great until you introduce 130 mph passenger trains on the same tracks. You quickly revert to the same problems felt when freight are at 50 to 60 mph and passenger at 79 mph. <br /> <br />Without a magic wand, it just isn't gonna work. <br /> <br />LC <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />It isn't the weight of the freight so much as it is the weight per axle. For example, using three axle trucks limited to 55,000 lbs per axle would allow a gross weight of 330,000 lbs for freight cars, which is more than the proposed 315,000 standard running on four 78,750 lb axles. A lower center of gravity for heavy haul HSR freight cars in combination with a 55k axle weight limit would allow for the re-introduction of superelevation to keep speeds from bogging. When I refer to HSR, I'm talking about 100 to 125 mph, speeds that were approached using steam engines running on jointed rail during the 1930's. We're not talking the 200 mph speeds of French and Japanese passenger trains. Thus, there is no great technological hurdles to be overcome to run HSR freight and passengers at the same speeds. <br /> <br />And there is no reason freight and passenger should run at different speeds, that seems to me to be an anachronism of 1930's logistics. They run at the same speeds in the air and on our highways, let them run the same spees over the rails. <br /> <br />All a freight oriented HSR system needs is to beat the truckers' door to door times for medium hauls is a speed sufficient enough to allow for the terminal delays wherein freight is tranloaded between modes. At 125 max speed, if we can get a 100 mph average over 300 miles, we can beat the truckers averaging 65 mph in a 400 mile corridor with time to spare even with 1 hour delays for each terminal transload. And any corridor over 400 miles would belong to the HSR system in terms of best door to door times. <br /> <br />Finally, although a freight oriented HSR would dominate time sensitive traffic, it could also take on the low value goods such as grain and coal, so it would not be limited in its market share.
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