Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by BaltACD The railroads are the victims of their own success. Most route alignments were laid out in the middle of the 19th Century...when high speed was 30 MPH, a 'tonnage' train was 500 tons and earth moving equipment consisted of man, animal, pick, shovel and black powder. The engineers of the time laid out their routes in order to move the least amount of earth and built the least amount of bridges and tunnel and following all the water level grades available.. A consequence of this is the today, in metropolitan areas the railroads have no available room to expand to serve the needs of the metropolitan community they were instrumental in building and growing. The route alignments and terminal alignments contain grades and curvatures that make operating todays trains an operational nightmare, costly and inefficient; however, the cost of correcting these operating nighmares is well beyond the ability to todays railroads to finance. The railroads have been rightfully proud of having built their own operating plants with private capital; however the needs to improve the operating situations within Metropolitan area affect not only the railroads and their customers but the entire Metropolitan area. For this reason the railroads should not shy away from feeding at the government money trough for those infrastructure improvements that are needed to benefit the railroads and the localities which they inhabit. The Chicago Corrider plan and the Long Beach Corridor project in Southern California are two such infrastructure improvement projects. Each metropolitan area has it's own needs and those needs are severe. [/quote] Very true. Witness the efforts by the KCS to get Congresional help to bypass VIcksburg, MS or the current major project proposed for Chicago. The trench to Long Beach/L.A. Harbor is another attempt to address some of the shortcomings. LC
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag