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The difference between 40 mph and 55 mph?

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[quote user="jclass"]Could a higher speed limit be employed on a specific route to increase the line's capacity to move traffic?  (higher speed allows more "throughput" per hour)? [/quote] Yes, and it's done, but not without a lot of due diligence and long thought because (a) there are usually heavy costs involved to upgrade the track structure, (b) it has to be certain that the increase in speed limits will actually be realized and not lost in terminal delays and meets, (c) that the economic payoff makes the investment more profitable than, say, U.S. Treasury bonds.  At some point the line becomes limited by curvature, and the economic cost to reduce curvature is usually prohibitive with the exception of a few key bottlenecks, e.g., the tight curves at Vicksburg, Miss., on KCS. There are numerous recent examples of this sort of process: UP (ex-SP/RI) Golden State Route, El Paso, Texas to Topeka, Kansas UP (ex-MP, ex-TP), Fort Worth to El Paso, Texas UP (ex-KP), Topeka, Kansas to Denver, Colo. BNSF (ex-Frisco), Avard, Okla., to Enid, Okla. KCS (ex-MidSouth, ex-IC), Meridian, Miss., to Bossier City, La. As you can see these are lines that either fell on hard times due to decline in traffic or decline in the financial health of the owner, or lines that were of little strategic value historically that gained value due to changes in traffic patterns and the results of mergers.  In none of these cases were there significant alignment changes; the work consisted of out-of-face rail, tie, and ballast replacement; replacement or installation of signaling; and siding extension and installation. S. Hadid
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