Who can be first to spot the factual flaws (the writing is fine) by our resident retired engineer? My guess is Volker will be first.https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-High-speed-train-travel-is-not-feasible-on-11310852.php
Actually, he's far more 'right' than 'wrong', at least in my opinion. If even the above-the-line costs of the equipment had to be privately financed, the cost/benefit over good separable-car equipment, even to PRIIA spec, would not really be there for most Corridor operation as currently structured.
Now, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if the folks in authority want to spend beaucoodles of OPM (well, actually, it's partly mine, but I don't mind) on rocket trains for the NEC that might come in more handy after Gateway gets built, I won't complain. But that extra money might be better spent augmenting some of the LC service, or experimenting with better amenity provision...
There is one writing error; he says "demise" when he means "advent". But it's pretty clear from the context.
charlie hebdo Who can be first to spot the factual flaws (the writing is fine) by our resident retired engineer? My guess is Volker will be first.https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-High-speed-train-travel-is-not-feasible-on-11310852.php
How about you pointing out the "factual flaws" charlie, after all you posted this?
"America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results."
Who made you America's spokesman? Was there an election I missed?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
zugmann Joe McMahon"America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results." Who made you America's spokesman? Was there an election I missed?
Joe McMahon"America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results."
He was being rhetorical in the first sentence. The second sentence is the one with the important thought.
The key words there are "for minimal results", not that high speed isn't a useful thing or that HSR isn't valuable where it provides meaningful gains. As a case in point, we were discussing an "improvement" project in the Midwest that, when expensively completed, might provide something like a six-minute time reduction between endpoints. Joe is saying that the benefits of Acela 2 sets over the same capacity using a much lower-cost (and more flexible) solution are similarly small. While there are plenty of Americans who are in a hurry, and who would pay for HSR speed, I'd expect most of them to actually expect HSR-level shorter trip times, meaningfully shorter than a few minutes here and there, for the kind of extra cost their assessed rates would involve.
Something I'd recommend to Joe, and others, though, is that the actual time gains are not as important here as the perception of better service, and the ability to obtain a high take rate at a high premium over 'regular' trains -- Amtrak was very successful in being able to fill Acela trainsets at a higher, i.e. more profitable per train, rate than could be charged for equivalent regionals or even the kind of 'Metroliner' hauled by GG1s and then AEM-7s. (Some of which, as i recall, had a timing nearly 10 minutes faster than Acela between NYP and Washington...)
As such, I would argue that a more 'correct' way to look at this would be to determine the NPV of the net higher revenue derived from an Acela 2 set over its prospective lifetime, and see if that is higher than the NPV of the additional construction and operation costs properly spread out over the set's lifetime. It is quite possible that this would be positive and hence construction of at least some Acela 2 sets could be justified even if little meaningful use of true high-speed capacity were involved.
zugmann "America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results." Who made you America's spokesman? Was there an election I missed?
You cannot help yourself can you? Up to this point I have ignored your stalking and snarky asides but you continue to buzz like an annoying gnat.
So instead of your childish taunting dispute the subject matter. Tell us why High Speed Rail is or is not feasibile on existing trackage.
243129You cannot help yourself can you? Up to this point I have ignored your stalking and snarky asides but you continue to buzz like an annoying gnat.
I can easily help myself. But let's be honest - life would be boring if everyone agrees with you.
I just think it will be a sad day in America when we don't strive for something bigger and better. And that includes our rail system. We have the K car of train travel in the US.
You are wrong. I can't even read it. It is not available in my region. Looks like an aftermath of the new EU data protection regulation.
This seems to be a smaller newspaper. The larger ones have overcome this trouble already.Regards, Volker
zugmannI just think it will be a sad day in America when we don't strive for something bigger and better. And that includes our rail system. We have the K car of train travel in the US.
But that doesn't mean you start by buying multiple S-class Mercedes and Panameras when your road infrastructure is crumbling. You build to autobahn standards first, and when you have that lined out your fancy vehicles have a place to make meaningful time (and convenience) contributions.
If we were further along allocating first full financing and then construction commitments for necessary things like the whole of Gateway and the Baltimore business, then it might make sense to direct capital toward trains that will provide meaningful time gains once the expen$ive construction is complete. That is less so when the anticipated completion time of the practical high-speed line starts to nudge the expected lifetime of what are likely to be short-lifetime sets... even if they can be kept running in cheap service as the first-generation TGV trains now are in France.
So yes, I'd buy separable-car 125mph equipment now, and the faster trains when more of the railroad than a few miles around Providence, RI can support actual high speed...
OvermodAmtrak was very successful in being able to fill Acela trainsets at a higher, i.e. more profitable per train, rate than could be charged for equivalent regionals or even the kind of 'Metroliner' hauled by GG1s and then AEM-7s.
More profitable per train perhaps but not overall.
I still maintain that if the bulk of the $2.45 billion dollar loan were used to upgrade the present fleet with all the bells and whistles, e.g., USB ports, Wi-Fi, desktop seats, etc., the Acela Express would soon be forgotten. The public was 'schmoozed' in to using the Acela and I feel they can be 'schmoozed' in to abandoning it for the same amenities for less money and virtually the same performance.
Let us hear your observations on this instead of your usual sniping.
https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-High-speed-train-travel-is-not-feasible-on-11310852.php
243129I still maintain that if the bulk of the $2.45 billion dollar loan were used to upgrade the present fleet with all the bells and whistles, e.g., USB ports, Wi-Fi, desktop seats, etc., the Acela Express would soon be forgotten. The public was 'schmoozed' in to using the Acela and I feel they can be 'schmoozed' in to abandoning it for the same amenities for less money and virtually the same performance.
While I think there are still reasons to preserve some kind of Acela Express priority to get the low-hanging-fruit revenue from the perception of preferred service, I agree completely with extending some of the amenities to general regional service, especially retrofitting power and connectivity to regular trains (and not just in the NEC). It's interesting to consider just how inexpensively a modular/harnessed solution for providing USB-C, with its higher permitted power draw, to each seat in a coach could be made; Amtrak itself had a couple of research papers about providing enough bandwidth and security for whole trainloads of smartphone and notebook users. That's no longer 'schmoozing', it's a lifestyle necessity for many -- and it is now years since I rode a private long-distance bus that didn't have free WiFi and charging ports.
What that introduces, then, is what level of enhanced amenity a better high-speed trainset ought to provide to keep its revenue contribution as high as possible. Starting probably with true high-speed connectivity for at least the first-class users, with permissions perhaps tied directly to ticketing to avoid 'abuse' while not inconveniencing users.
Now, personally, I'd consider using throttling restrictions for certain types of Internet traffic while on board trains, or requiring some kind of incremental charge for higher speed, or bandwidth, or content crossloading. But only if fairly high baseline infrastructure were provided...
243129Let us hear your observations on this instead of your usual sniping.
My posts keep disappearing, so I'm about done for today. No fun when only one side is allowed to play.
VOLKER LANDWEHR charlie hebdo Who can be first to spot the factual flaws (the writing is fine) by our resident retired engineer? My guess is Volker will be first.https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-High-speed-train-travel-is-not-feasible-on-11310852.php You are wrong. I can't even read it. It is not available in my region. Looks like an aftermath of the new EU data protection regulation. This seems to be a smaller newspaper. The larger ones have overcome this trouble already.Regards, Volker
[From the New Haven Register]
High-speed train travel is not feasible on the Northeast Corridor.
Congress recently approved a $2.45 billion dollar loan package for Amtrak of which a good portion will be spent on 28 Generation 2 high-speed trains.
Why?
Generation 1 (Acela Express) high-speed trains only accomplished a fraction of what they were touted to do. There is no reason to expect Generation 2 to be any different.
The reasoning being that you can only travel so fast on the existing roadbed no matter the tilt technology. Generation 1 trains were equipped with the latest tilt system yet could only equal, not exceed, the running time of the 1969 Metroliners between New York and Washington, D.C.
The present roadbed, with minor deviations, dates back to the 1800s, taking a circuitous route to service large population centers and various industries. To attain a true high-speed system on the Northeast Corridor, there must be a dedicated and exclusive infrastructure built as straight as the geography will allow. The cost and environmental impact of such an undertaking would be astronomical given the real estate values in that portion of the country.
As far back as the 1950s, when the New Haven purchased the Talgo trains, and in the 1960s when United Aircraft unveiled its state of the art Turbo Liner, they eventually went the way of all of these “trains of the future” since World War II, to the scrap heap. Unitized trains such as the Acela Express (and the aforementioned “trains of the future”) have proven not to be practical.
Should a car in the consist of the Acela Express become defective the entire train must be removed from service, resulting in a massive delay to the travelers. A defective car in an Amfleet-style consist may be removed and result in a delay and continuation of the journey.
Amtrak force-fed the Acela Express to the traveling public, trumpeting its airplane-style decor, desktop seating replete with USB ports, Wi-Fi and receptacles for recharging sundry electronic devices, masking the fact that for the extra cost, they did not arrive at their destination much sooner than the Regional Service trains — and the time difference mainly was due to the Acela making fewer stops than the Regional Service trains. Amtrak’s 30-plus-year-old AEM7 locomotives with Amfleet coaches and an experienced engineer, were they allowed, could equal Acela Express running time as did the Metroliners of 1969.
The demise of the Supersonic Transport, touted as an engineering marvel to revolutionize airplane travel, turned out to be a business bust due to high maintenance costs, environmental impact and declining ridership, giving credence to the notion that the traveling public is not in that much of a hurry.
Comparison to the European and Japanese railway systems cannot be made. Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble as a result of World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP — with an eye on the future — rebuilt the railway systems as straight as practicable.
The pluses of conventional train travel far outweigh the expense, upheaval and environmental impact that construction of a dedicated roadbed would have on the crowded Northeast Corridor.
The hassle and expense of airline travel coupled with an outdated Interstate system should place the 500-mile-and-under mode of travel squarely in Amtrak’s lap.
If the bulk of the $2.45 billion dollar loan were used to upgrade the present fleet with all the bells and whistles, e.g., USB ports, Wi-Fi, desktop seats, etc., the Acela Express would soon be forgotten.
America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results.
Joseph McMahon of Bethany is a retired Amtrak locomotive engineer with 51 years of experience in engine service on the Northeast Corridor.
Thanks for posting the article. The following statement caught my eye:
charlie hebdoComparison to the European and Japanese railway systems cannot be made. Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble as a result of World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP — with an eye on the future — rebuilt the railway systems as straight as practicable.
I can only describe what happened in Germany. Of about 27,000 miles of track in 1945 only 5000 miles were destroyed completely. The remaining track was rebuilt as fast as possible to get finally one functioning transportation system. In 1967 the maximum speed was increased to 100 mph.
In the mid 1970s a few routes were upgraded to 125 mph. only in 1991 the first two new-built high-speed routes were commissioned. So far "nothing in the way"
There is another point:
charlie hebdoGeneration 1 (Acela Express) high-speed trains only accomplished a fraction of what they were touted to do. There is no reason to expect Generation 2 to be any different.
The design of the Acela Express (AE) needed to be changed massivly when FRA required the 800,000 lbs buffer load in 1999. The AE got 55% heavier than its TGV counterpart. Trap doors weren't possible any longer. The power to weight ratio plumeted from about 30 hp/ton to about 24 hp/ton. The consequences were felt in track and train maintenance, slower acceleration, station stops only at high platforms. That was an American own goal.
Why should that happen again? The FRA crashworthiness standard allow an alternative approach with extensive use of CEM elements so that the Avila Liberty is expected to be 30% lighter than the AE.
I don't see that the AEs are not practically. With 3.4 million passengers they had $596 million ticket revenue compared to 8.6 million passengers on the Regionals with $637 million.
I think there is a misunderstanding regarding high-speed rail. It doesn't need to be the complete route. All German ICE routes have slower segments included.
You want to offer the shortest travel time to the customer but on the other hand you need to compete with other modes of travel. And often it is only a few minutes that seperate you from air travel.
According to Amtrak facts Amtrak carried more than three times as many riders between Washington, D.C., and New York City as all of the airlines combined, and more riders between New York City and Boston than all of the airlines combined.
If you get slower like when replacing the AE with conventional equipment you loose to the airlines and that means you lose revenue. You need to replace with a service as fast as AE. The Avila Liberty is faster, 30% lighter per unit, has a 40% higher seat capacity, and has a tilt angle of 7° (3° higher than AE) allowing higher curve speeds.
I think passengers can be glad that the cars are permanently couples. I wouldn't like to experience knuckle couplers at 150 mph.
The not provable statements regarding speed comparisons I can't comment.
It is a political decision if the USA want high-speed rail or not.Regards, Volker
VOLKER LANDWEHRI can only describe what happened in Germany. Of about 27,000 miles of track in 1945 only 5000 miles were destroyed completely.
Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble as a result of World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP — with an eye on the future — rebuilt the railway systems as straight as practicable.
VOLKER LANDWEHRAccording to Amtrak facts Amtrak carried more than three times as many riders between Washington, D.C., and New York City as all of the airlines combined, and more riders between New York City and Boston than all of the airlines combined.
This is nothing new. Amtrak had no problem capturing the 500 mile and under market, most notably WAS-NYP, from the airlines. From midtown to midtown they beat the airlines hands down.
VOLKER LANDWEHRI think passengers can be glad that the cars are permanently couples. I wouldn't like to experience knuckle couplers at 150 mph.
They won't be so glad when there is a problem with one car and the whole train is removed from service and a massive delay ensues.
243129 charlie hebdo Who can be first to spot the factual flaws (the writing is fine) by our resident retired engineer? My guess is Volker will be first.https://www.nhregister.com/opinion/article/Forum-High-speed-train-travel-is-not-feasible-on-11310852.php How about you pointing out the "factual flaws" charlie, after all you posted this?
How about it charlie? You started this thread so point out the "factual flaws" you allude to or do you possess the same M.O.as Balt? Running when confronted.
Charlie said that Volker could point out the factual flaws and I knew immediately what he meant. Being from Germany, he would understand that your grasp of history was flawed.
Backshop Charlie said that Volker could point out the factual flaws and I knew immediately what he meant. Being from Germany, he would understand that your grasp of history was flawed.
Why, Germany was not bombed into rubble? The new roadbed was not built as straight as allowable?
Volker pointed out nothing.
Maybe you should read Volker's timeline. The stations and classification yards being bombed has nothing to do with the thousands of miles of track in the countryside.
VOLKER LANDWEHRI think there is a misunderstanding regarding high-speed rail. It doesn't need to be the complete route. All German ICE routes have slower segments included. You want to offer the shortest travel time to the customer but on the other hand you need to compete with other modes of travel. And often it is only a few minutes that seperate you from air travel.
But the argument he's making is that it isn't the minutes separating you from air that matter here; it's the minutes separating the high-speed timing from the practical and less expensive rail competition. (There are also a number of buses that run from a street location near Penn Station to a variety of Washington final locations in about three hours for $30; when you factor in Metro time and delay these can actually be competitive with the train for that destination pair.)
And very, very few people are going to pay a major difference for six minutes or so unless they have expense accounts supervised by people who don't care. Or haven't looked carefully enough at time management or money management.
If you get slower like when replacing the AE with conventional equipment you lose to the airlines and that means you lose revenue. You need to replace with a service as fast as AE.
The only thing that 'wins' for Amtrak between Boston or NYC and Washington is the congestion and security issues regarding practical destination-to-destination time net of security and road access; the airplane has always been dramatically faster in time. Back in the days of '2 hours and 59 civilized minutes' of fast Metroliner timing, there was a huge brilliantly-lit billboard prominently displayed over some industrial wasteland a couple of miles east of Philadelphia 30th Street Station, which cheekily pointed out "You'd be there by now on the AirShuttle". And you would! Complicated by the fact that a Carey or NJT bus would rapidly get you to a number of direct destinations a la the B&O last-mile service, or of course to any of hundreds of buses at one of the Port Authority terminals without fumbling your way up from 34th.
Now the train has become more popular, but still has to become a LOT faster to justify billions and billions of hard construction money. With the permissible speeds for more conventional equipment rising too, and in the absence of functional tilt ... you do know the Acela tilt is disabled for most of the run, right? ... keeping the time disparity limited until significant portions of the track are good for 150+mph undisturbed running. And that sure isn't true of a great deal of the corridor.
Yes, I think the Liberty will be a superior replacement for the Bombardier trains in service. What I don't think is that the 'bang' for all those bucks will be fully realized in the next decade or more. And if I recall correctly, many of the Amfleet coaches are going to be due for replacement (or very expensive rebuilding) before there is substantial true HSR track capacity.
I think passengers can be glad that the cars are permanently coupled. I wouldn't like to experience knuckle couplers at 150 mph.
Quite frankly, what happened back in February in this respect, at 124mph, was quite bad enough for me. Not much of an advertisement for Bombardier permanent coupling, was it?
Backshop Maybe you should read Volker's timeline. The stations and classification yards being bombed has nothing to do with the thousands of miles of track in the countryside.
We bombed the cities not the countryside. Get it? Go back and read the article charlie hebdo posted before he fled.
243129 Backshop Maybe you should read Volker's timeline. The stations and classification yards being bombed has nothing to do with the thousands of miles of track in the countryside. We bombed the cities not the countryside. Get it? Go back and read the article charlie hebdo posted before he fled.
243129We bombed the cities not the countryside.
Ask the French what we made such a great effort to bomb there. (Churchill has some comments on it, too.) Ask the Eighth Air Force what they said they concentrated on, strategically. (Then see the passage in Thoroughbreds where Al Staufer covers in a few succinct sentences why the idea didn't work as expected in Germany, and why 'defense highways' were by comparison a poor idea.) If we didn't reduce the rail system to 'rubble' it wasn't for want of trying.
To the extent it worked, it was because we used hundreds of planes a day, almost every day, in the presence of near-total air superiority toward the end of the War, concentrating on interrupting rail service when and where it made any difference. It's still relatively easy to bridge the resulting 'seas of mud' ... when you have the stocks of material and equipment, and you have the number of laborers ('slave' or otherwise) to do the work faster than the damage accrues. Germany didn't. Even so, note Volker's statistic that only the equivalent of 5000 miles (I presume this is route-miles, not track-miles, as bombs are likely to take out or at least damage multiple parallel tracks simultaneously) were out of service as of the end of the war.
I believe most of the 'new straight roadbeds' came considerably later, perhaps most of them after the original New Tokaido Line showed what was possible with better 'direttissimas' than Mussolini used to make the trains run on quicker time. But I'll leave that for Volker to describe as he knows much more about that part of German railroad history than I do.
The case for handing the Germans and Japanese a modern and updated industrial plant to replace what we 'bombed into rubble' (while leaving the United States equivalent both obsolescent and clapped-out from wartime production) is a much more demonstrable one, I think. It did seem to be a very long time for postwar Germany to get back to particularly good express timings ... there were several years when the Allied response to even children's hunger was decidedly retarded.
Backshop 243129 Backshop Maybe you should read Volker's timeline. The stations and classification yards being bombed has nothing to do with the thousands of miles of track in the countryside. We bombed the cities not the countryside. Get it? Go back and read the article charlie hebdo posted before he fled. That's exactly what I said. Bombed out class yards and central stations has nothing to do with the new track laid in the country. We know that article was written by you. I read it and your facts were wrong.
That's exactly what I said. Bombed out class yards and central stations has nothing to do with the new track laid in the country. We know that article was written by you. I read it and your facts were wrong.
The cities were bombed into rubble so there was nothing in the way of a straight roadbed.
Point out each fact you consider wrong.
McMahon carries on in the PC tradition of rude, know-it-all behavior, refusing to acknowledge that other folks sometimes know more than he does about many topics, as we have all seen on here. No wonder he was unpopular with even his peers, let alone management at Amtrak. I will no longer respond to McMahon's childish demands for that reason.
243129Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble as a result of World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP — with an eye on the future — rebuilt the railway systems as straight as practicable.
Sure, a large part was destroyed. You think of pictures like this: https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/kfcPuUSnHUiCeUIzHVHNaUPP0g4=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/dresden-bombing-large-57c4b8a93df78cc16ed6c6d5.jpg
On the other hand there were cities that weren't touched much by WWII. Google "Lueneburg" which was only hit once on the outskirts so that the old town is still original.
Something alike happened to the rail network. Only 5000 miles were destroyed beyond repair. Needing a transportation system desperately the existing, damaged track was repaired as fast as possible.
There were speeds of up to 100 mph allowed before WWII. Only in 1967 they got allowed again. The other dates I gave before.
243129They won't be so glad when there is a problem with one car and the whole train is removed from service and a massive delay ensues.
Some of these points may have been discussed already, but here goes:
The Metroliners did take people off roads and .and put them on trains. Acela and Acela 2 arent promising much faster trips, just more of them, less maintenance costs, and grezter reliability.
My imression was that Acela and Acela2 are not articulated, and that a single coach can be removed from a specific train -- or added.
The provision of the specific on-board services is normal these days. Even Jerusalem local transit buses now have ports for charging a cellphone!
Although much of the NEC RoW is curvey and restricted, there are places that could be upgraded to even 200moh running, Boston Switch (near Pautucket, norht of Providence - Route 128 and Readville, South end of Baltimore tunnel - New Carroltonl, South of Elizabeth through Princeton Jc. to Trenton. There are more. I'm not suggesting that 200mph equipment be purchased, just that some improvement over existing fast schedules is possible. Choke points should be mitigates, and some of that money should be spent at New Rochelle.
charlie hebdoNo wonder he was unpopular with even his peers, let alone management at Amtrak.
I challenge you to qualify that allegation.
charlie hebdoI will no longer respond to McMahon's childish demands for that reason.
You are looking for a graceful (not) exit because I have confronted you numerous times to prove allegations you have made and I have asked for you to give your opinion on matters being discussed and each time you have run from confrontation only to return to snipe and make more baseless allegations. Your attempt at damage control is feeble.
VOLKER LANDWEHRSomething alike happened to the rail network. Only 5000 miles were destroyed beyond repair. Needing a transportation system desperately the existing, damaged track was repaired as fast as possible.
Were not areas that formerly had curvature rebuilt straight because bomb damage had 'removed' obstructions i.e. buildings, factories etc. ?
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