https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/100297/high-speed-rail-chicago-new-york-city-proposal-popular/
Is this our Mike Lehman?
Routing it via Philadelphia is a mistake. It needs to follow either the Ramsay survey (which involves Pittsburgh) or the general Sam Rea alignment, then new line across northern New Jersey. It remains to be established if the degree of curvature cost-effectively possible via those routes is sufficient, but I think it may be.
The problem is, and always has been, that to make the route workable as true HSR involves a 'take rate' that is substantial over a long period of time, in competition with other modes with potentially low cost and interesting technological possibilities. The weather conditions at many points are likely difficult, particularly for an overhead-wire electrified line.
Of course I'd like to see it done; I'd have liked to see it done a century ago. But I've also argued that if it had been done then, much of it would likely have been abandoned faster than the PRR line west of Fort Wayne, or the A&S. You won't run shorter regional service on this electrified railroad, and likely no freight other than specialized M&E. And I don't think the level of amort and operating subsidy is going to be there; heaven knows it's too big for the current players that would fund it with strategic real-estate improvements. (Unless you build it in stages, and then you have C&NYAL 2.0)
Believe recreational pharmaceuticals are involved in the thought process.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OM: The article was rather light on details. I wonder if some of the intermediate cities could use spurs to connect to the main route? For example, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland?
charlie hebdoOM: The article was rather light on details. I wonder if some of the intermediate cities could use spurs to connect to the main route? For example, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland?
Are we overlooking Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne ? How about Louisville, Columbus and Evansville?
BaltACD charlie hebdo OM: The article was rather light on details. I wonder if some of the intermediate cities could use spurs to connect to the main route? For example, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland? Are we overlooking Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne ? How about Louisville, Columbus and Evansville?
charlie hebdo OM: The article was rather light on details. I wonder if some of the intermediate cities could use spurs to connect to the main route? For example, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland?
I said, "for example" which does not signify an all inclusive list. Some of those cities you named, such as Columbus, might be on the hypothetical mainline.
charlie hebdoI wonder if some of the intermediate cities could use spurs to connect to the main route? For example, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland?
Incidentally this project would benefit, perhaps dramatically, from the advent of regional autonomous air service (with the 10-to-12-passenger hybrid aircraft). These would give the necessary high-speed connections from a great variety of regional aggregation points to the limited number of physical stops to make the long-distance HSR work. Nothing else does.
I suppose the question is where to draw the line between maximizing potential ridership versus maintaining quick connections and overall time en route.
Perhaps a better question to ask is what tardeoff between number of intermediate stops vs terminal to terminal time provides the most utility for the people along the corridor? There might be an advantage to having limited and local tracks, where riders could catch a local to a limited stop.
OM has an interesting idea with the short range aircraft - an ideal application for an electric airliner.
charlie hebdo https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/100297/high-speed-rail-chicago-new-york-city-proposal-popular/
The article seems to use some 50 year old statistics. The talk about 50,000/year auto traffic deaths, but it's now down to 36,000. They mention 9 out of the top 10 US corporations are oil or auto companies, but now 9 of 10 are not those companies. Exxon-Mobil is the only one still in the top 10.
Faceplant page (hold your nose) has Philadelphia the terminus of the line (no one-seat rides either way in Corridor trackage!) and appears to have stops only in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and perhaps Harrisburg.
https://m.facebook.com/notes/new-york-chicago-bullet-train/our-story/1638185999586517/
The author seems to think you shoehorn a 186mph+ line into highway medians and legacy ROWs. This would be extremely limited even in the parts of the line traversing the destination cities themselves (and yes, he runs the high speed trains right into them, which in the Philadelphia area in particular would pose little fun; one wonders what the state will do with the existing 'capital corridor' via North Philadelphia much of which is not well-suited even to sustained 110mph service...)
There is, however, one interesting point (which he doesn't consider, but probably should). An artifact of planning concerning LGV design is that even substantial gravity grades, on the order of 8 to 10% in the literature, can be worked at 186+mph because the momentum of the train is so great and, at that speed, even substantial ascents are 'finished' in a comparatively short time. Since the major concern in LGV is horizontal curve avoidance, this indicates that a considerable amount of nominal HSR grading across the Alleghenies (take, for example, the historic PRR route which minimized grading except for the crossing at Horse Shoe, a very limited number of miles of steep working easily accommodated back in the day with dedicated helpers) on the order of Sam Rea with over 12,000' tunnels could be reduced on a passenger-only line by using extreme peak gradient.
The difficulty in practice is that very long spiraled vertical curves are necessary to make the trick work, and these in practice would probably require substantial, and very exactingly maintainable, fills and approach viaduct work. For a second spine across New England, the ridges are spaced so closely that only limited rise and fall 'between crests' can be achieved, so the construction expense saving over straight cut-and-bridge for "conventional" LGV is not that great. But for a following of the general PRR route between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia -- assuming you can get around all the curves and essential right-angle turns in that route, which I don't think economically possible vs. the northern Ramsay-survey route -- the same economics that governed the original PRR design may still apply in a modern sense and context.
(Incidentally, the southern alignment -- the old Carnegie/Vanderbilt South Pennsylvania thing, that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was built out of -- is hopeless. Full of curves, and not particularly sweeping ones, and with a variety of irritating ridges requiring tunnelling, and now replete with development too diffuse to feed HSR practically.
I saw a shark jumped at the section about evacuating a city in 1 to 2 days. There's more to that than a few back-o'-the-envelope numbers...
I am afraid by the time you work down to the last few paragraphs, probably anything after the part about serving 120 city pairs, it starts to devolve into poor editing.
Who is John Galt?
MidlandMike .......The talk about 50,000/year auto traffic deaths, but it's now down to 36,000......
The ex PRR isn't exactly abandoned West of Fort Wayne. Yes, it isn't more than two tracks with a 3-digit speed limit anymore, but you can still get to Chicago using it. (just jump off before you get to Tolleston (in Gary). If this was hyperbole, then I understand your point.
Overmod ...Of course I'd like to see it done; I'd have liked to see it done a century ago. But I've also argued that if it had been done then, much of it would likely have been abandoned faster than the PRR line west of Fort Wayne, or the A&S. You won't run shorter regional service on this electrified railroad, and likely no freight other than specialized M&E. And I don't think the level of amort and operating subsidy is going to be there; heaven knows it's too big for the current players that would fund it with strategic real-estate improvements. (Unless you build it in stages, and then you have C&NYAL 2.0)
...Of course I'd like to see it done; I'd have liked to see it done a century ago. But I've also argued that if it had been done then, much of it would likely have been abandoned faster than the PRR line west of Fort Wayne, or the A&S. You won't run shorter regional service on this electrified railroad, and likely no freight other than specialized M&E. And I don't think the level of amort and operating subsidy is going to be there; heaven knows it's too big for the current players that would fund it with strategic real-estate improvements. (Unless you build it in stages, and then you have C&NYAL 2.0)
It was once a fine ROW. It could be again.
John Galt was protagonist in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged.
I just don't see that this will ever happen. A Hudson River tunnel has to collapse before another gets built.
charlie hebdo It was once a fine ROW. It could be again.
Why? A possible section of an HSR route, NYC.to CHI. That's what the thread is about.
charlie hebdoWhy? A possible section of an HSR route, NYC.to CHI. That's what the thread is about.
Remember that a few things have not changed from the 1970s: this line would not be built anywhere near grade, it would involve substantial engineering even for LGV standards, and in that portion of the route would have to involve very low horizontal and vertical curves. And it would have to be fenced and otherwise access-controlled very carefully, and it will produce considerable noise in operation. All these things add up historically to great local opposition to having the line routed anywhere near voters' locations -- this is the HSR equivalent of flyover country, and very few of the voters concerned will get practical benefit from the high-speed operation, but have to put up with all the drawbacks of implementation. (See for example the local-politician reaction to some of the Gateway Project requirements on the Palisades side of the access tunnelling, a far less intrusive set of issues.)
If you follow the ROW west of Crestline you'll see it go through a great many little towns, each of which will likely be inclined to fight you over the idea, and then throw as many procedural wrenches in the works as possible. If they were to organize I suspect they could develop considerable electoral clout for state offices, as well. If you though TC had problems, this builds appreciably on them.
It's a common 'colorista' kind of idea to say that a HSR line will be co-located with existing railroad track "where possible" and then leave the impression that, say, no more than a little adaptive reuse and clever TLM operation will get you a line. This usually goes with a next shoe dropping about the applicability of eminent domain for the new line. I don't think anything remotely like either is possible for the ex-PRR route west of Columbus -- truthfully either major PRR route west of there.
So are any of the myriad of routes east of Chicago heading east under or unused and useful?
An incomplete list would include PRR (2), NKP, Erie, B&O and to the north, NYC. If you went via Indy, you have possibilities going near Columbus.
As to large cities, many trains pass through them now. HSRs would likely use existing lines and operate at lower speeds through them, as in Germany.
It was possible to build Interstates, as I recall, even with a lot of local opposition.
I am of the opinion, and have really always been of the opinion, that these should be treated as high-speed transit between population concentrations, not a means of connecting city 'downtowns' except in cases of substantial concentration or 'terminal' status -- New York and Chicago respectively in the indicated service. In part this is inspired as I earlier indicated by having the 'satellite' development, PUDs, etc. connected with the actual HSR stops being located at a point of closest 'affinity' to appropriate population concentrations, like an end-user version of why Lorton and Sanford were selected for Auto-Train traffic, or a customer- rather than business-based version of Metropark in Iselin.
In the original systems I was planning, most of the actual stops involve elevated track at higher elevation (as there is a gravity assist both for deceleration and braking) rather than tunnelling under -- the great exception being Manhattan midtown, rather than the Transmanhattan across the Manhattan Valley at about 125th Street. There is comparatively little 'competitive' benefit in European-style slow transition on conventional trackage in United States service, as the cumulative impact across North American longer-distance routes rapidly decrements overall trip timing when more than a very few stops enroute are provided that way. In my opinion there are problems in providing HSR stops too close; there is already one and arguably two too many stops even in NEC service between Philadelphia and Washington except in near-purely political terms.
charlie hebdoAs to large cities, many trains pass through them now. HSRs would likely use existing lines and operate at lower speeds through them, as in Germany.
The big question is why? As in why would anyone be in a rush to get to Chicago when they've got this back east?
https://www.nj.com/food/2020/12/4-nj-pizza-makers-named-among-americas-most-influential-pizza-people-new-list.html
I wasn't going to say anything on this topic until I thought I had something worth saying.
Ah yes. Razza's Jersey Margherita and the Pizza Den's sauceless pie.
Of course you could go to Chicago on business using the HSR and still be back in time for real pizza for dinner...
So in your speculation, how are intermediate populated areas to be served? Or not?
Clearly entry into a city like Chicago would need to be speeded up. The current run of HrSR from Joliet to CUS is pathetic.
Tikka Masala pizza? Pulease! I don't trust pizza not made by Italians. Chicago pizza? That's closer to lasagna that to real NY/NJ pizza. With sweet fennel sausages, onions, mushrooms, capers and a sprinkling of gorgonzola. A garbage pie, I know but what the hey.
Regarding HSR, was there no discussion of the old "Water Level Route?"
Flintlock76 The big question is why? As in why would anyone be in a rush to get to Chicago when they've got this back east? https://www.nj.com/food/2020/12/4-nj-pizza-makers-named-among-americas-most-influential-pizza-people-new-list.html I wasn't going to say anything on this topic until I thought I had something worth saying.
Same here, I have been reading this thread thinking the same thing, I need to just keep quiet, because why would anyone want to be either place let alone both?
Sheldon
ATLANTIC CENTRALSame here, I have been reading this thread thinking the same thing, I need to just keep quiet, because why would anyone want to be either place let alone both?
I think the same way when I hear someone voluntarily wants to live in Maryland.
(a little bit of mason-dixon line humor)
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
54light15Tikka Masala pizza? Pulease! I don't trust pizza not made by Italians.
Oh, I'm not so doctrinare myself, and I'm half-Italian. Hey, this is America, the land of equal opportunity, so I don't mind if someone non-Italian takes a crack at pizza, providing they respect the spirit of the piece. In that way I'm with you, spare me the trendoid, foo-foo, Bo-Ho, chi-chi garbage, make it a real pie or don't make it at all!
Flintlock76Oh, I'm not so doctrinare myself, and I'm half-Italian. Hey, this is America, the land of equal opportunity, so I don't mind if someone non-Italian takes a crack at pizza, providing they respect the spirit of the piece. In that way I'm with you, spare me the trendoid, foo-foo, Bo-Ho, chi-chi garbage, make it a real pie or don't make it at all!
If it doesn't turn the cardboard box clear in a matter of minutes - it isn't real pizza.
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