Not exactly. I'm sure there will be a discussion of this at Amtrak, and some kind of report will be produced -- I would not be surprised to learn that some of the passengers will be filing suit and some of Amtrak's response to such suits may become part of a public record.
Overmod Flintlock76 WHY the obsession with 100mph+ speed? That is simple. The Metroliners were tested at 150mph, and Dave Klepper remembers how fast they went on occasion when first put in service for PC. The rebuilding of the Corridor was done in spots to that speed. Note where the 170mph TurboTrain record was set. Anyone remember the ads for 2 hours and 59 civilized minutes, with the 'whooosh' sound effect? Or the published claim of 3:00 service that Joe repeatedly disparages as ultimately unachieved... but for no real fault of the equipment. There was a big push in the Carter Administration to rebuild large parts of the Corridor to 150mph rating. Among other things there was a 10% setaside for minority contractors, to give them a foot in the door in general competition and gaining experience. That was kind and wise in spirit, but turned out to be ill-advised, for a variety of unfortunate reasons that left the work hopelessly incomplete but over budget. There are still many places that require extensive work to reach only middling additional speed. Keep in mind that in the late '70s, Silverliner commuter trains regularly reached speeds in excess of 100mph south of New Brunswick, even making all stops. There was no question that Amtrak planned to operate at the speeds the Amfleet equipment (derived from Metroliners, with the more 'correct' truck design originally meant to be used on Metroliners). In fact by the time of the Chase wreck, Amtrak was probably operating a great many places at 135+mph with AEM-7s. I was in Princeton Junction station in the fall of 1986, and a three-car train came through there like a thrown knife, faster than I remember seeing any other train move at that distance. There is assuredly a market for sustainable high speed between a number of destination pairs both east and south of NYP... ...oh yeah, those toasters were good locomotives. They should have built new ones. Yes, but the ACS-64s are head and shoulders better still.
Flintlock76 WHY the obsession with 100mph+ speed?
That is simple. The Metroliners were tested at 150mph, and Dave Klepper remembers how fast they went on occasion when first put in service for PC. The rebuilding of the Corridor was done in spots to that speed. Note where the 170mph TurboTrain record was set. Anyone remember the ads for 2 hours and 59 civilized minutes, with the 'whooosh' sound effect? Or the published claim of 3:00 service that Joe repeatedly disparages as ultimately unachieved... but for no real fault of the equipment.
There was a big push in the Carter Administration to rebuild large parts of the Corridor to 150mph rating. Among other things there was a 10% setaside for minority contractors, to give them a foot in the door in general competition and gaining experience. That was kind and wise in spirit, but turned out to be ill-advised, for a variety of unfortunate reasons that left the work hopelessly incomplete but over budget. There are still many places that require extensive work to reach only middling additional speed.
Keep in mind that in the late '70s, Silverliner commuter trains regularly reached speeds in excess of 100mph south of New Brunswick, even making all stops. There was no question that Amtrak planned to operate at the speeds the Amfleet equipment (derived from Metroliners, with the more 'correct' truck design originally meant to be used on Metroliners). In fact by the time of the Chase wreck, Amtrak was probably operating a great many places at 135+mph with AEM-7s. I was in Princeton Junction station in the fall of 1986, and a three-car train came through there like a thrown knife, faster than I remember seeing any other train move at that distance. There is assuredly a market for sustainable high speed between a number of destination pairs both east and south of NYP...
...oh yeah, those toasters were good locomotives. They should have built new ones.
Yes, but the ACS-64s are head and shoulders better still.
This seems the appropriate place to resurrect this.
Guest Editorial: High speed on the NEC, an engineer’s perspective - Railway Age
243129This seems the appropriate place to resurrect this. Guest Editorial: High speed on the NEC, an engineer’s perspective - Railway Age
Some good observations from a guy with his "boots on the ground" and not ensconced in a think tank.
(looking at car market):
I don't know if I'd bet on an argument that Americans (as a whole) don't like speed or new shiny things.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
An interesting part of this is that some sections of the NEC were in fact optimized for high speed. The original 'bypass' between New Brunswick and Trenton, in the 1850s, was intended for the same high ultimate speed as the roughly-contemporaneous M&O line north from the Gulf. In the '60s and '70s it was massively grade-separated as part of the general Metroliner improvement; you can still see many places where grade crossings were eliminated. I remember riding the Metroliner in early 1969 and there were still a couple of grade crossings on the south end (I think one in or around Elkton) that were passed at over 100mph... they too were eliminated not too long after.
The problems with the NEC aren't the parts that are fast, they are the parts that would be ridiculously expensive to make fast -- anything involving Philadelphia, for example, or New York north of NYP all the way to the Connecticut state line. We don't see what the engineer sees going over all those weird decrepit Shore Line bridges, which can't be made fixed a la Portal even if you had an enormous budget to throw at them because of the approach and departure grades... which could be made tolerable in energy cost for 220mph trains, but NOT tolerable in terms of construction expense.
My problem with all this, from the ivory-tower direction, is that it would be quite possible to run reasonable timings both north and south of Penn on the NEC, but where you spend the money isn't where the best political 'optics' would be. If I recall correctly the 2:59 timing between Washington and NYC involved no stops, and even then it was a little exciting... but that was in an era that a good part of the route was also the most heavily-trafficked freight railroad in the country, perhaps in the world, despite being nominally six-tracked. Much has changed since Amtrak became the owner... stuff that in my opinion ought to have produced faster timing and more reliable operation for engineers.
I keep wondering what we have to do to make the railroad safer for higher speed, in conjunction what Joe says we need to do about making the railroaders better trained and aware of the right stuff.
Great article and photo, Joe!!
While the restriction of flying super-sonic over water stifled wider use of the Concore and killed the Boeing SST, the real end was when business jets could make the same run. Why deal with commercial flying when you can go point to point avoiding JFK/LHR/CDG when you want and when cost is not the obstacle.
It was mentioned above that the sub 500 mile run is a sweet spot for rail.
Quick calculation between Atlanta and Charlotte
ATL-> CLT Flight Scheduled 1:11 (227 miles direct)
ATL-> CLT Drive Scheduled 4:01 (246 miles Airport to Airport)
ATL-> CLT Amtrak Scheduled 5:37
Add the drive to the airport, 60-90 early arrival, 30-45 mins to get out of the airport and you are getting close for the time to just drive it yourself.
Upgrading that route to support 125 mph or greater would make that a viable option.
There are 9 nonstop flights between AA and Delta on that citypair. Granted most people on those planes are going somewhere else once they get to ATL or CLT.
Robert
rdamonUpgrading that route to support 125 mph or greater would make that a viable option.
The issue is freight, and the consequences of freight. Even if we could solve the congestion issues for a HrSR-speed trip, especially at the Atlanta end, we'd still have the problem of wildly disparate two-speed operation... let alone safe operation.
As another example, we might consider the Atlanta-Birmingham pair if we rebuilt the old Seaboard line the Silver Meteor made famous (much of it has been preserved as a bike trail) to, say, 110mph with tilt. Probably not "difficult" to make freight-free, and I suspect relatively easy to do with a modern TLM. Is it worth the capital and stranded cost to establish this as an option?
Overmod... As another example, we might consider the Atlanta-Birmingham pair if we rebuilt the old Seaboard line the Silver Meteor made famous (much of it has been preserved as a bike trail) to, say, 110mph with tilt. Probably not "difficult" to make freight-free, and I suspect relatively easy to do with a modern TLM. Is it worth the capital and stranded cost to establish this as an option?
Silver Meteor NEVER operated between Atlanta and Birmingham - The Silver Comet did.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodI keep wondering what we have to do to make the railroad safer for higher speed, in conjunction what Joe says we need to do about making the railroaders better trained and aware of the right stuff.
If our freights ran at higher speeds and were less heavy (as in parts of Europe), sharing track for HrSR (top speeds around 125 mph) would be practical. But it ain't gonna happen under current environment.
Flintlock76 243129 This seems the appropriate place to resurrect this. Guest Editorial: High speed on the NEC, an engineer’s perspective - Railway Age Some good observations from a guy with his "boots on the ground" and not ensconced in a think tank.
243129 This seems the appropriate place to resurrect this. Guest Editorial: High speed on the NEC, an engineer’s perspective - Railway Age
It falls on deaf ears.
BaltACDSilver Meteor NEVER operated between Atlanta and Birmingham - The Silver Comet did.
charlie hebdo Overmod I keep wondering what we have to do to make the railroad safer for higher speed, in conjunction what Joe says we need to do about making the railroaders better trained and aware of the right stuff. If our freights ran at higher speeds and were less heavy (as in parts of Europe), sharing track for HrSR (top speeds around 125 mph) would be practical. But it ain't gonna happen under current environment.
Overmod I keep wondering what we have to do to make the railroad safer for higher speed, in conjunction what Joe says we need to do about making the railroaders better trained and aware of the right stuff.
Freight and passenger trains working together to share track!? Sounds like communism.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
The basic problem is the Private railroads have "no skin in the game" when it comes to passenger service. Amtrak to them is just a tenant that some have to put up with to keep the government & public off their backs (although there is the question just how much the public cares outside the NEC and several other corridors). That attitude could change if Amtrak's payments to them would increase enough to make a bigger difference in the private RR's income. But there's no evidence that's ever going to happen.
I'm not sure if this is still true, but ten years ago, nearly 80% of European rail traffic was passenger.
In the U.S., 95% of rail traffic is freight.
In the U.S., railroad freight traffic usually ranges from 400 to 1,800 miles, while in Europe it might range 100 to 200 miles.
It's difficult to compare the privately-owned U.S. rail system to the mostly publicly-owned European system.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
SD70DudeFreight and passenger trains working together to share track!? Sounds like communism.
There actually is Class 9 track that handles HAL; you can read the research report in the FRA library. (You can also read what is involved in laying it; what you can't read is the fun involved in long-term geometry maintenance with that construction -- which I think is manageable, but those like mudchicken who actually do this for a living might think is not.
The thing that has changed in this respect is, paradoxically, the rise of PSR as a mentality. Once you can arrange the 'slack' in the schedule to optimize fuel burn (even if the crew scheduling still gets shafted) it is not that much more difficult to arrange things to open up one high-speed window for a limited-length consist to traverse the line. SSW reportedly did this mostly with steam during WWII, admittedly not with high speed differential.
One thing that would have to be set up, and I confess I rub my hands a little and shiver with anticip... at the thought, is that if a given Amtrak train is delayed at the convenience of one railroad or section, any shuffling of movements to get it back on time should be billable to the delaying railroad. In full, payable essentially on demand once the delay is quantified. I don't see any particular problem with the legality of this, as Amtrak is already 'supposed to have' the priority it needs.
On the gripping hand here, though, is the 'other half' of PSR optimization: we are entering a new drag-freight era, where speeds go down to 'what the traffic will bear' and every nickel is squeezed out of more efficient operation to be able to achieve slow, but very sure, end-to-end timing. That is just as efficient for the stockholders as it was in William H. Vanderbilt's time... but it sucks for any particular high-speed passenger trains that don't have substantial 'negative cant deficiency' capability.
243129 Flintlock76 243129 This seems the appropriate place to resurrect this. Guest Editorial: High speed on the NEC, an engineer’s perspective - Railway Age Some good observations from a guy with his "boots on the ground" and not ensconced in a think tank. It falls on deaf ears.
Well you've got that right. To point out a recent (off-topic) example, all the troops on the ground in Afghanistan, from privates up to major generals, said the Afghan Army was worthless and wouldn't stand. Nobody listened to them either.
alphas The basic problem is the Private railroads have "no skin in the game" when it comes to passenger service. Amtrak to them is just a tenant that some have to put up with to keep the government & public off their backs (although there is the question just how much the public cares outside the NEC and several other corridors). That attitude could change if Amtrak's payments to them would increase enough to make a bigger difference in the private RR's income. But there's no evidence that's ever going to happen.
Given the fact that a great many of the private railroads' rights of way were given over to them by various (federal, state and local) governments, the lack of cooperation on passenger services and grade crossings is questionable. And then there is the origin of Amtrak, which bailed those financially shaky railroads out in perpetuity (even if the rails thought Amtrak would fail in a few years!). Plus, other bailouts over the years.
charlie hebdoGiven the fact that a great many of the private railroads' rights of way were given over to them by various (federal, state and local) governments, the lack of cooperation on passenger services and grade crossings is questionable. And then there is the origin of Amtrak, which bailed those financially shaky railroads out in perpetuity (even if the rails thought Amtrak would fail in a few years!). Plus, other bailouts over the years.
Of course you'd reduce this by the amount of Government tax and waste over the years, starting with the 10% "war tax" that didn't, conveniently, get abolished for Pullman or the railroads when the war actually ended, and all the convenient little fees the Government screwed the railroads out of with the 'alternative routes' using land-grant trackage as much as they could.
And of course the whole problem that Amtrak 'solved' was a Government issue right from the get-go: the railroads should have been allowed train-offs as soon as they demonstrated the cost exceeded any conceivable recovery. And the Government could go back to encouraging Cut Bank airports and regional bus subsidies to cover the "public demand" that wasn't there, with more appropriate funds.
I realize my fantasy went over your head and led to rage. But you should also keep in mind the rails' original charters were as common carriers requiring passenger services, not ordinary unregulated businesses. Historical context is essential.
Apples and oranges.
No rage at all, only truth.
We can take up the manifold disasters of railroad capitalism (including abuse of land grants) if you want. We might start with Morgan crashing the national economy in 1892 just to put the skids to M'Leod's Reading Combine. Does that suit your narrative a bit better?
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