Dave H.
You're preaching to the choir. Last September I took Amtrak from Emeryville, CA to Boston, MA. Thanks to some "heads up" (relevant anatomical feature deleted) dispatching by UP & CSX dispatchers who thought 3 trains and one passing siding was a viable method of getting trains around each other, we lost 4 hours on each segment.
The CSX dispatcher was the more creative. He stuck us behind a slow moving freight on a segment of track with no passing siding for the better part of 40 miles. This was on a line that was once double tracked.
Andre
Dave: Passenger service "can" and "is" profitable on some Amtrak routes, like the DownEaster.....ridership is constantly increasing also. What hurts Amtrak is single track delays such as what Andre experienced. This can be rectified with double track wherever there are bottlenecks. Also, by running as much freight as possible at night.
It is very clear to me that if we ever have a national emergency, like Katrina, ( or God forbid worse ), we would need to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in one hellava hurry. The airlines would not succeed, they can't even handle baggage without losing 6.5% last year, (an increase over 2005 by the way). Everyone has to get to the location of the airport, but with trains, various pick-up points along the way would greatly enhance the ability to not jamb highways and have a more orderly and controlled evac.
Convenience is the key to people taking trains to work, and other locations. If I could drive to the CSX main line in my town, 2 miles away, and then take the train to a stop near enough to my former work location, that a van service could have regular drops at the companies along I-495, I would take the train in a heartbeat. Once people realize the savings on car insurance, the savings on fuel, the savings on mileage on the car, tires, engine wear, etc. not to mention the safety aspect of not getting into accidents in fowl weather, the stress, and rage drivers, cell phone driver idiots.....well, you get the picture.
MORE PASSENGER TRAINS.....
Passenger service really needs to be disconnected from the freight railroads and passengers hauled on dedicated rights of way, especially if high speed service is desired. LA's Metrolink is on dedicated right of way as is CalTrain in the Bay Area north of the junction in Santa Clara.
loathar wrote:Did you ever see the pics of that one bullet train that chucked a wheel at 200mph? Derailed into a concrete bridge. What a mess! Forget how many people died. I see they're dreaming of an under sea tube train between NY and Europe that's supposed to go 2500mph.
2500 MPH???
Hmmm, have they considered the external heating issues caused by air friction?Things that go over 100 mph start to heat up from the air friction.
Case in point, the X-15 rocketplane and the SR 71 blackbird which expands almost a foot in length from air friction heating and expansion.
TheK4Kid wrote: loathar wrote:Did you ever see the pics of that one bullet train that chucked a wheel at 200mph? Derailed into a concrete bridge. What a mess! Forget how many people died. I see they're dreaming of an under sea tube train between NY and Europe that's supposed to go 2500mph. 2500 MPH??? Hmmm, have they considered the external heating issues caused by air friction?Things that go over 100 mph start to heat up from the air friction.Case in point, the X-15 rocketplane and the SR 71 blackbird which expands almost a foot in length from air friction heating and expansion.
To reduce friction the plan was to make the train operate in a near vacuum environment.
Andre: regarding "LA's Metrolink is on dedicated right of way " ... they must have corrected a problem they had. I recall a fright train collided with a Metolink train a couple of years ago.
Back to soapbox and US government transport policies............. Rail transportation causes 1/3 of air polution than do trucks to haul frieght with equivalent ton-miles according to EPA. Also, railroads consume 1/3 of diesel fuel with equivalent ton-miles of freight.
The government knows trains are the better option. Yet, government policies still favor highways. Example is the proposed NAFTA highway connecting Mexico with Canada. All of that NAFTA bridge traffic should be on railcars.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Midnight Railroader wrote: loathar wrote:Did you ever see the pics of that one bullet train that chucked a wheel at 200mph? Derailed into a concrete bridge. What a mess! Forget how many people died. I see they're dreaming of an under sea tube train between NY and Europe that's supposed to go 2500mph.Better get rid of those deadly jet airplanes, too; why, one crash can kill hundreds.
Good point! And most of them falling from the sky these days are Airbus products.
I saw that under sea train on Extreme Engineering. They're talking about anchoring a tube system to the bottom of the ocean. They said they would have to vacuum the air out of it to achieve the speeds they want.(can you say HUGE waste of money) Sounds like somebody just wants the grant money for the feasibility study.(sound familiar?)
P.S.-I'm partially modelling CP Rail. (Is that "French" enough?)
I would love to see a fright train.
I misspoke. I was thinking of the Metrolink line from LAUPT to San Bernardino. Metrolink goes all over SoCal.
grayfox1119 wrote: Dave: Passenger service "can" and "is" profitable on some Amtrak routes, like the DownEaster.....ridership is constantly increasing also.
Dave: Passenger service "can" and "is" profitable on some Amtrak routes, like the DownEaster.....ridership is constantly increasing also.
Depends on who's doing the accounting and if they are acounting for the cost of maintaining the track, etc.
It is very clear to me that if we ever have a national emergency, like Katrina, ( or God forbid worse ), we would need to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in one hellava hurry.
Well duh, if we have a national emergency like Katrina the railroads will be able to move people away from the area. The limitations are the transportation system to get the people to the railhead, the transportation system to get the people from the destination railhead to shelter and the availability of passenger equipment. In the case of Katrina the freight railroads and Amtrak had passenger trains on point, ready to go, but the REST of the infrastructure couldn't support moving that many people at one time.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
andrechapelon wrote: Passenger service really needs to be disconnected from the freight railroads and passengers hauled on dedicated rights of way, especially if high speed service is desired. LA's Metrolink is on dedicated right of way as is CalTrain in the Bay Area north of the junction in Santa Clara.Andre
Sorry to disagree here, but passenger service doesn't need to be segregated from freight for good service. The example I would choose is the German DBAG rail network; there is still a good level of freight traffic (unlike the UK where it has virtually dissappeared except for some quarry traffic and a bit of intermodal) together with a first class fast, cheap and frequent passenger operation. I think the main difference is that most lines are double track and under the equivalent of CTC throughout the network. Like I said in an earlier post Germany has carried on investing in its public owned rail infrastructure since the end of WW2, even if some of the train operating companies are now privatised.
As an outsider looking in I would say that in the US since the death of railroad owned passenger service in the 1950 / 60s any rail infrastructure investment has been orientated solely at freight operation. In Europe its basically been the otherway round. To bring back a viable high speed passenger network in the US will mean spending many millions of $s to bring many sections of line back to an acceptable standard for fast frequent and safe passenger operation; this may be in new areas of CTC, putting back double track where it has been singled, etc. My guess is that those $s will be very hard to find until there is a pressing economic case for not using the private car.
dehusman wrote:But people who think that a modern freight railroad will be able to operate high speed passenger operation on the same right of way is living in a fantasy world.
But people who think that a modern freight railroad will be able to operate high speed passenger operation on the same right of way is living in a fantasy world.
marknewton wrote: Dave, don't assume that what is true for the US is true for the rest of the world. In Europe, Australia and Japan, freight and high-speed passenger trains happily co-exist on the same right of way.
And also don't assume that what is true for the rest of the world is true for the US. When the TGV line starts running 10 15,000 ton 135 car coal trains and 10 135 car empty sets plus another 20 7000 ft general manifest trains on the same line AND maintains the same high speed service, then come back and talk. My feeling is that if they ran the same size, weight and frequency of freight trains as the US, they would have the same service issues.
In many cases European freight trains wouldn't be considered to be big enough to be "trains" in the US.
So, I'm not against passenger rail, I commuted on SEPTA for 5 years when I lived in Phillie. I just think all these people who think you can mix 40 5-7000 ft, 5-15,000 ton freight trains a day and high speed passenger service on single or even double track routes don't understand the situation. If you want high speed rail, fine, fork over the bucks to create your own high speed right of way that goes to the palces it needs to go to serve passengers on a route that has the curvature and grades to permit high speed operation. Don't build an Indy race car and then complain its not going fast when you drive it through downton at rush hour.
dehusman wrote: My feeling is that if they ran the same size, weight and frequency of freight trains as the US, they would have the same service issues.
My feeling is that if they ran the same size, weight and frequency of freight trains as the US, they would have the same service issues.
dehusman wrote:And also don't assume that what is true for the rest of the world is true for the US.
And also don't assume that what is true for the rest of the world is true for the US.
When the TGV line starts running 10 15,000 ton 135 car coal trains and 10 135 car empty sets plus another 20 7000 ft general manifest trains on the same line AND maintains the same high speed service, then come back and talk. My feeling is that if they ran the same size, weight and frequency of freight trains as the US, they would have the same service issues.
I just think all these people who think you can mix 40 5-7000 ft, 5-15,000 ton freight trains a day and high speed passenger service on single or even double track routes don't understand the situation.