QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98 QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd The "all weather" arguement is, sadly, no longer true. Some of Amtrak's host RRs shut down whenever bad weather is forecast, much less occurs. I won't name names, but their initials are CSX. csx has never shut down due to bad weather... it is biz as usealy in all weather...any slowdowns are due to crew avaiablity.... if they cant get crews ....they cant run trains... csx engineer
QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd The "all weather" arguement is, sadly, no longer true. Some of Amtrak's host RRs shut down whenever bad weather is forecast, much less occurs. I won't name names, but their initials are CSX.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe My point isn't that high-speed rail doesn't have advantages; my point is that it is a non-starter because no one is willing to pay for it and it detracts from projects than could be done. Gabe
QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper I think that Amtrak is a basis to build on. Get the money to get the equipment in decent shape and the service up to par. Your statement about Amtrak being a failure is contrary to the increases in numbers of riders. There are communities that depend on Amtrak as their only public transit connection to the outside world. During winter, for some it is the only connection, public or private. To abandon such communities right now is downright cruel. The ridership arguement is really shaky. Amtrak has grown less than the population and the economy, so you have to be really careful using gross ridership. You have to look at specific markets, revenue, etc. to determine success. Gross ridership alone makes it look like a failure. For example, you could look at NY to Albany comparing the 1970s to now. Amtrak ticket prices and ridership have outpaced economic growth, so that's a win. The Silver Service may be capacity constrained, so no growth is possible. The Sunset, well, um....uh.....there's a reason this is McCain's favorite whipping boy, and he may not be too far off base, there. Now, that there are communities that depend on Amtrak for public transport - that's a pretty good arguement. The downside of this one, is that the train service might look like a "subsidy" to those towns. And, what about similar towns that have no train or bus service? Is it fair that only some get train service? The "all weather" arguement is, sadly, no longer true. Some of Amtrak's host RRs shut down whenever bad weather is forecast, much less occurs. I won't name names, but their initials are CSX.
QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper I think that Amtrak is a basis to build on. Get the money to get the equipment in decent shape and the service up to par. Your statement about Amtrak being a failure is contrary to the increases in numbers of riders. There are communities that depend on Amtrak as their only public transit connection to the outside world. During winter, for some it is the only connection, public or private. To abandon such communities right now is downright cruel.
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul Milenkovic One of the functions of the very long distance Western trains is as a kind of "land cruise ship." Does anyone have any insight as to how the Empire Builder serves as a life line to small communities in the Dakotas and Montana, or is this one of these political empire-building arguments to keep the train around? There is no sane reason why the Empire Builder runs the schedule that it does, nor the route that it goes, other than to arrive at Glacier National Park in time to watch the sunrise. That seems to be the sole reason for it's existence, as the official Glacier National Park Land Cruise. It leaves Seattle in the evening, so it does not serve the towns of Washington and Idaho at a decent hour. It hits the towns of Eastern Montana and North Dakota in the middle of the night. It bypasses the larger population areas of Montana along the I-90 corridor. Only the towns of North Central Montana have the option of decent boarding times. It has been mentioned in TRAINS and elsewhere that the Empire Builder would do better to leave Seattle in the morning, at least on a every other day schedule, so that Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho stops can occur at decent hours. It has also been suggested that the Empire Builder reroute along the I-90 corridor through Montana, perhaps again splitting at Billings into a northern route along the I-94 corridor through North Dakota and a southern route into Wyoming and Colorado, or into Nebraska.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul Milenkovic One of the functions of the very long distance Western trains is as a kind of "land cruise ship." Does anyone have any insight as to how the Empire Builder serves as a life line to small communities in the Dakotas and Montana, or is this one of these political empire-building arguments to keep the train around?
QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe Will a train that travels 145 mph generate that much more riders than a train that travels 79 mph? I don't think so. Fixing the passenger rail system we have would generate more bang for the buck when increased ridership is compared to the amount of money necessary to implement and sustain high-speed rail.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe For the foreseeable future, I think you will sooner get the public--much less investors--to put their money in Winter-only Ice Cream shops in Nome Alaska than they will high speed rail. My point isn't that high-speed rail doesn't have advantages; my point is that it is a non-starter because no one is willing to pay for it and it detracts from projects than could be done. Gabe
QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul Milenkovic In all fairness to NYC and their jet-propelled RDC, I believe it was more serious than a stunt. I don't think they were ever serious about pulling the drive trains out of RDCs and sticking jet engines on the roof. From what I have read, the idea was to get a rail car going around 160 MPH by whatever means and collect some data as to what kind of forces it put on the track and whether truck hunting was a problem, and the jet engines were a "quick-and-dirty" solution to get the speed for the test. Along similar lines, the US Department of Transportation procurred a 4 car set of Budd Silverliner MU cars, put tall gearing on the traction motors, and ran them past 150 MPH. That test, probably encouraged by the data from the jet-powered RDC, was the impetus for the DOT-sponsored Metroliner service, which was meant to be a demonstration of a potential revival of rail travel. There were to be three parts to the demonstration -- the NY-DC Metroliner using electric MU cars, the NY-Boston Turbo Train, using turbine power and passive banking on the non-completely electrified line, and a DC-Florida auto train service where passengers would ride inside their autos inside specially built auto carriers with passenger trucks. Only the first two parts of the demonstration were implemented. And as a demonstration, the Metroliner was not supposed to be the last word on the NEC, but it was meant to be a partnership between US-DOT and PRR to show what was possible. What is interesting is the Budd Silverliner was tried-and-true technology from commuter service derived from the Budd Pioneer III -- this was a one-of coach car of conventional 85 foot length, Budd stainless steel construction, but it was ultra light weight (something like 65,000 lb) and it had exotic trucks (inside roller bearing, outside disk brake, something akin to the truck on a PCC street car). The Silverliners backed off on the ultra light weight but they had the inside roller bearing trucks (known as "Pioneer III" in the industry and used on commuter, rapid transit, and Amfleet cars). I am not sure what the III in Pioneer III means -- I guess the "Pioneer I" would be the original Budd Zephyr train. Of all of the "lightweight experimentals" of the 1950's (Pennsy Keystone, Talgo, Aerotrain), Pioneer III was perhaps the less exotic and the only post-streamliner car building practice to go mainstream, although Talgo after all of these years is making a bit of a comeback. Anyway, I digress. The actual Metroliner was a bit of a disaster, and if they had just stuck with the "hot-rodded" Silverliners, things may have worked out better. In addition to being up-geared, the Metroliners were up-powered -- I guess they figured they needed more acceleration to maintain schedules although the up-geared Silverliners could maintain whatever speed the operated on the NEC. Maybe it was "we need to keep up with the Japanese" in terms of how the Metroliner was speced, but the up-powering was a vicious cycle of adding power which added weight which required more power. My papa once told me (he worked for a consulting engineering firm that moved in those circles) that "the railroad" (i.e. the Pennsy) would have nothing to do with the Pioneer III trucks and speced a more conventional-style passenger truck, and I rode the Metroliner once, and the ride quality was a bit harsh. Anyway, the whole concept of the NY-DC demonstration was if the commuter MU was the streetcar, the Metroliner was supposed to be the interurban, but the whole plan was messed up in execution and the Metroliner MUs were "carbarn queens" (planes are called "hanger queens" with such problems), and Amtrak ditched the Metroliner MUs almost as soon as they got good results with the AEM-7s. How things have come full circle, I had read somewhere that Amtrak is of the opinion that the Pioneer III (Amfleet style) truck is hard on track, and for the Horizon cars, the speced a more conventional swing-hanger equalizer outside roller bearing truck in place of the Pioneer III truck used on the Comet commuter cars. I have not riden a Horizon car, but I rode a SEPTA Silverliner recently and liked it. Does anyone know the inside story on this?
QUOTE: Originally posted by donclark Obviously none of you have ridden a true TGV HSR train..... If you had, you would want nothing less in America.....Nothing less..... And as far as cost is concerned, its less per mile than any light rail system being built anywhere in America.....mostly because the bulk of the right of way is rural rather than urban..... If the Feds can spend up to $7 billion per year on intra city transit to build a couple of hundred miles of light rail, the Feds can spend as much on inter city HSR.... In my opinion the Europeans are on the right track, while we are on the wrong track......
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