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Superiority of the Transcon line
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<p>ed: These are all good questions (and many useful responses). The situation on the ground is a lot more complex than most people realize, and while solutions are relatively simple to desribe for any route's drawbacks or insufficiencies, the cost of executing these solutions is quite high and the competition for those dollars is substantial. The ROI threshold is very high and it can easily end up lost if traffic patterns shift or never pay off if the economy goes into a recession. Railroading is replete with examples of stranded investments.</p><p>Some of the things you look at as you compare routes are:</p><p>Total length. This has a very high impact on equipment costs by increasing cycle times, fuel costs, and labor costs.</p><p>Total rise/fall. This impacts fuel as well as cycle times and labor costs (because trains slow down).</p><p>Double-track vs. single, and if single, length of sidings and running times between sidings. Siding locations can impact you significantly and often they're in a not-quite-right place. </p><p>Turnout size on sidings. Impacts how long it takes a train to enter and leave a siding. </p><p>Method of Operation, e.g., CTC, TWC, DTC. This has some significant impacts on train speed.</p><p>Signal spacing and signal type (route vs. speed signaling). This has impacts on train spacing, train speeds, and whether overtakes are more or less feasible.</p><p>Terminal layouts. This is a real bugaboo. Many terminals were laid out 100 years ago for traffic patterns that ceased to exist , and while they'll work for today's traffic they don't work very well. </p><p>Curvature. This not only slows trains significantly it also means engineering will be out on the track a lot more transposing curve rail, replacing spike-killed ties, etc.</p><p>Subgrade. Some locations have some serious subgrade/drainage issues that not only reduce train speeds during large portions of the year, they also require more engineering time on the track.</p><p>Grade crossings. There's nothing like a grade-crossing collision to bring your railroad to a halt for the day.</p><p>On-line Industries. The more there are -- and especially if they're off the main track or a controlled siding between terminals -- they have large impacts on capacity because locals are out there using up track capacity switching them.</p><p>Location of crew changes. This can really be a problem. You can't just move them to wherever you like them, and lots of places where you'd like to build a terminal or change crews are logistically unsupportable. </p><p>Gradient, curvature, and terminal impacts on train length, tonnage, and makeup. A lot of times you find you can't block a train properly because then it won't meet operating requirements over a mountain district. The result is that the train has to get blocked at a less than ideal location on the other side of the mountain. Or, the originating terminal isn't arranged properly to build the train the main line can handle without killing the throughput of the yard, e.g., its class tracks are too short and tripling it over ties up the yard leads while other trains need to be arriving or departing, or the switch engine needs to work. </p><p>****************</p><p>Comparisons between lines, even superficial, will tell you that something's up; one of the lines seems to have traffic types and densities the other doesn't have. The solution to making an inferior line meet or improve on a superior line are, well, very expensive. Because more than 90% of the entire railroad fixed plant in the U.S. is a legacy investment where even relatively small rearrangements have costs in the billion-dollar range, railroads must use targeted investments with an iterative proof-of-value process to extract the maximum value from an investment dollar pool that's pathetically small in relation to the value of the entire fixed plant.</p><p>It's easy to see what the problems are. It's easy to see what the fixes are. The dollars aren't available to do it. Railroads are by no means unusual in that respect. </p><p>S. Hadid </p>
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