BaltACD The biggest project begins with the first dollar and first shovel of earth moved.
The biggest project begins with the first dollar and first shovel of earth moved.
I agree with the second half of that statement, but not the first. It seems like the first dollar gets spent on nothing but really expensive feasibility studies. NIMBYism seems to be so widespread that nothing seems feasible anymore.
One need only look to Denver's FASTracks project to realize that a lot of money can be spent doing virtually nothing.
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
BaltACD - and all the airlines are reporting financial losses which will severely limit their ability to aquire new large planes - planes that if not flown at capacity will lose money on each and every flight.
- and all the airlines are reporting financial losses which will severely limit their ability to aquire new large planes - planes that if not flown at capacity will lose money on each and every flight.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
DennisHeldBucyrus With all the stimulus focus on green jobs, I wonder if this high-speed rail is considered green, or is it just being proposed under the banner of infrastructure? Though the HSR is not technically green, there is an element of green in railroading. Rails, providing they're loaded, are an efficient use of energy. Energy independence can be greatly enhanced with a good railway system for both mass transit and freight.
Bucyrus With all the stimulus focus on green jobs, I wonder if this high-speed rail is considered green, or is it just being proposed under the banner of infrastructure?
With all the stimulus focus on green jobs, I wonder if this high-speed rail is considered green, or is it just being proposed under the banner of infrastructure?
Generally rail is considered green, but generally high speed is considered not green. So HSR presents somewhat of a built-in conflict.
BucyrusWith all the stimulus focus on green jobs, I wonder if this high-speed rail is considered green, or is it just being proposed under the banner of infrastructure?
I have to side with Poppa_Zit on this one. Chicago - St. Louis high speed rail might be nice, but shouldn't be a high priority at this time.
Regarding gov't stimulus spending, it can't work, because the money is either borrowed (read: more debt) or taken from the private sector (read: higher taxes), which can only be a zero sum gain at best (and perpetual recession at worst). The private sector will get the economy out of recession if given time and if government avoids scaring investors with uncertainty (future higher taxes, new costly environmental regulations, etc.).
What I fear most is that if these increased costs are imposed on the private sector, you we hear that "great sucking sound" as never before. Railroads, industry, everyone will suffer.
A caution, please....no political discussions.
Poppa_Zit Illinois better hope Dickie Durbin can deliver
I don't expect the LA to Las Vegas line to get any funding from the stimulus package. I suspect the Republican in charge will send it elsewhere. (that would be Sec of Transp. LaHood). I'd expect the bulk of funding to go to the existing high speed rail corridors.
The longest journey begins with the first step.
The Interstate system, which the modern US could not do without, did not exist in 1956, while I can't remember the political climate about the expenditures for it - you know there were the 'Poppa_Zit's of the era that moaned about the cost and the fact that it would no serve every community in the country the way that community wanted.
I have cause to do extensive driving around the Eastern half of the US. Once upon a time, one could get on the Interstate - set the cruise control for you desired speed and rarely diengage it until your next rest/fuel stop. With today's Interstate traffic, what is becoming rare is the opportunity to engage the cruise control at all.
Flying has become a 40 et 8 experience analogus to being loaded in a cattle car with bonus of having the nearly undress in public to be allowed entrance to the gate area. Even with all that indignity the ATC corridors serving the major cities/airports are overloaded with plane traffic with no means to expand capacity except to increase the size of the aircraft - and all the airlines are reporting financial losses which will severely limit their ability to aquire new large planes - planes that if not flown at capacity will lose money on each and every flight.
The Eastern US needs more passenger capacity between numerous city pairs, capacity that HSR becomes the most economical option to develop.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
DennisHeld Poppa_Zit All you have done is parrot the talking points of the current administration. And there are no guarantees any of the massive spending will do anything. Of course, if it doesn't. we can always blame the previous administration, as you have already done. At least I'm not parroting Rush. That's a cheap shot coming from someone who contributes no more than regurgitating Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- Harry, by the way, has his eye on a huge chunk of that $8 million for his pet LA to Las Vegas high speed rail line. Illinois better hope Dickie Durbin can deliver -- it's possible Reid had the $8 million set aside mainly so he could deliver a big load of pork to his home state of Nevada. And you're correct, I should have said the only President in the last 40 years to reduce the deficit spend every single year of his presidency was Pres. Clinton. Of course, the Current White House Resident is spending so much money we don't have, the USA will be over its head in deficits for the next two generations. Which negates anything that Clinton did, eh?
Poppa_Zit All you have done is parrot the talking points of the current administration. And there are no guarantees any of the massive spending will do anything. Of course, if it doesn't. we can always blame the previous administration, as you have already done.
All you have done is parrot the talking points of the current administration. And there are no guarantees any of the massive spending will do anything. Of course, if it doesn't. we can always blame the previous administration, as you have already done.
And you're correct, I should have said the only President in the last 40 years to reduce the deficit spend every single year of his presidency was Pres. Clinton. Of course, the Current White House Resident is spending so much money we don't have, the USA will be over its head in deficits for the next two generations. Which negates anything that Clinton did, eh?
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
This just in from the Sandhouse Gang:Annual Meeting of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association will be held Saturday March 21st at Hotel Allegro in downtown Chicago 9am 3pm
ed
I'd love a huge tax break. But I wouldn't use it to buy anything. Well, perhaps stocks.
And you're correct, I should have said the only President in the last 40 years to reduce the deficit spend every single year of his presidency was Pres. Clinton.
DennisHeldThe spending is going to happen whether you like it or not.
I don’t believe that is a forgone conclusion. It is doubtful that they will be able to spend it fast enough to keep ahead of the rapidly growing perception that it is not helping the economy. This whole thing could hit a brick wall. Just to spend the stimulus, The government will need another 800-billion just to hire enough bureaucrats to do the spending.
DennisHeld Poppa_Zit Actually, I'd much rather see the $8 million stay in taxpayer pockets. Along with the many unnecessary pork projects buried in the package. Hence the very reason for a stimulus package. During bad times, people save money instead of spending it. To get people back to work, people saving their money ain't going to do it. So, the government must spend the money for their saving citizens. Ideally, the government has been acting wisely with the tax money prior to that point. That way, it would resort to deficit spending in times of emergency. Unfortunately, the government has been running deficits for the last 8 years. So, it must add more deficits to current deficits to stimulate. As an Amtrak route, the Chicago to St. Louis route has been doing pretty well. It loads it's trains and has had increasing ridership. If one hour less takes cars off the roads and planes out of the air, then it seems to be a good trade. You have to realize that usually a transportation bill goes to airports or roads. Never to railroads. The spending is going to happen whether you like it or not. Why not towards a viable rail route?
Poppa_Zit Actually, I'd much rather see the $8 million stay in taxpayer pockets. Along with the many unnecessary pork projects buried in the package.
Actually, I'd much rather see the $8 million stay in taxpayer pockets. Along with the many unnecessary pork projects buried in the package.
PS Thanks to the emailer who pointed out the new high speed route would eliminate enough cars and planes to stop the glaciers from melting.
I've been pondering this ever since the bill was proposed. Why high-speed rail? Why not good-speed rail?
The conclusion that I come to is that these high-speed rail projects are only the first steps in a national trend toward passenger rail viability. With high-speed rail spreading around the country, higher-density corridors will be upgraded, and the public will travel more by train.
The relatively few high-speed rail projects starting up now will catalyze a viable national passenger rail network and lead not only to upgraded regular-speed lines and new regular-speed lines, but the creation of more high-speed rail lines into the future.
No doubt some improvement could be made to the Chicago-Joliet segment. The Amtrak time card shows 50-57 minutes for the 37 mile segment-about 44 MPH average or less. Perhaps that average could be brought up 5 MPH or so, but I'm not about to suggest that any part of the segment could be brought up to a top speed of 100MPH without spending really big bucks. Arguably, the Burlington has the best route to get out of town from Union Station and at that the carded average speed for the California Zephyr is is only 49MPH.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
Thanks, Jim--something I'd never know from experience
Jay, I suspect that some upgrading will be done on Chicago-Joliet (at least) as well, in connection with CREATE. That's supposed to include a grade separation at Argo, which will increase dependability, if not schedule speed. Argo has been cited as the primary reason for Metra's Heritage Corridor not being built up as the other lines have been, so if this gets done, there's a fringe benefit to upgrading the entire route.
Carl wondered above about city to city air travel times from Chicago to St. Louis, which I personally do quite often:
Aurora to Midway airport...one hour
Midway "wait" time for outbound flight....one hour (according to airline suggestions)
Flight time...about one hour gate to gate (actually about 35 minues in the air)
Travel time St. Louis airport to downtown...about thirty minutes give or take
Total would be about three and one half hours.
A few facts. The 7:00am train from Chicago to St Louis with somewhat limited stops enroute is scheduled for 5 hrs 20 mins and for 248 miles averages about 53 miles per hour. If, and I grant a big if, the service were to be set up to average 70 MPH-what you might with 110MPH top speed-then the trip time drops to about 4 hours 10 minutes.
If the only way I could get to St Louis was to fly from O'Hare, I would rather stay home. So with no recent experience, I could only guess that that the time from the O'Hare parking facility to the St Louis Airport car rental facility, security stop and all runs about 3 hours.
That all means that the 70MPH rail service has a one hour disadvantage to flying and probably equals the best driving time. Advantage to the business traveler is the possibility of being able to make productive use of the time on the rails.
As mentioned above, track on the 148 mile Joliet to Springfield segment has already been set up for 110MPH speeds. Assuming no effort to upgrade Chicago to Joliet or E. St Louis to St Louis, that leaves less than 100 miles of track work. The plan to install a signal system on the Joliet-Springfield segment with every imaginable feature was abandoned, so the entire route needs signaling upgrade. I don't know what the price tag will be to finish the job for the 110 MPH service.
On the other hand, at Railway Man's suggested $60 million per mile the price tag for real high speed for the entire route would be about $17 billion.
I don't know, maybe it would be worth it just to get PZ's reaction.
If Illinois is paying its politicians and bureaucrats a mileage allowance equal to the IRS number for business travel, they get about $185 to use their car for a round trip from Chicago to Springfield. Or, they can fly next month for as little as $406 round trip. Then there is Amtrak, collecting a measily $36 for leaving tomorrow and coming back Thursday.
Poppa_ZitActually, I'd much rather see the $8 million stay in taxpayer pockets. Along with the many unnecessary pork projects buried in the package.
dehusman They've been working on that project, upgrading things for years in anticipation of 110 mph service, mybe they'll have enough money to finish it.
They've been working on that project, upgrading things for years in anticipation of 110 mph service, mybe they'll have enough money to finish it.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
PZ, Give 'em a break--you know the money's going to be spent somewhere, and I'd be in favor of seeing it spent, at least in part, on this route.
This 8-billion-buck package can only be used on high-speed rail, so the other routes you mention--to Dubuque, Davenport, or Peoria--wouldn't be eligible. That money would have to come from elsewhere, and there's a possibility that some of that might be obtainable as well. Durbin was pushing for the Quad Cities and Dubuque routes before any stimulus package was thought of.
And finally, one lousy hour off the time to St. Louis might not seem significant, but now the trip would be 25 percent faster (or take 20 percent less time). With a savings like that, you might even be able to match the Joliet-St. Louis time in your car. I don't know how times downtown-to-downtown compare with air travel (especially with good transit options at both ends), but it would have to be getting close. And sanctimonious little ol' me, who is known to bike to work when possible, applauds a more green option.
I would like to think that a 20-percent reduction in travel times would be able to permit the same equipment pairs to make another trip in a given day, increasing travel options. Even with an extra trip or two, It's arguable that train travel is not going to be for everybody. Acknowledged--know, too, that plane travel, with government-subsidized airports and control systems, will never be an option for me.
Well it looks like we are going to have some high speed rail wether we want it or not.
Build it and they will come? I don't know; however it seems that some passenger business has been rebuild by Amtrak without massive rail line rebuilding. The Down east corridor (which started from scratch -- passenger service Boston to Portland was axed several years before Amtrak) and the Cascades come to mind. I suppose now would be a good time as any to see what market potential there really is for improved rail passenger service.
oltmanndYou'd rather give the money to Amtrak? So they can do things right? Oh, boy.
BaltACD There was a similar rant about the waste of taxpayers money in the Maryland legislature in 1828 concerning the building of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Those without vision are still banking on the Erie Canal.
There was a similar rant about the waste of taxpayers money in the Maryland legislature in 1828 concerning the building of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Those without vision are still banking on the Erie Canal.
The comparison is not apt. The fury in 1828 was about building brand-new technology -- a railroad -- to compete with a canal. In my scenario, the railroad and service already exists. The high speed aspect is hardly visionary, and a jump from 79 mph to only 110 mph hardly seems worth the money or effort.
Why would it have to be below grade level? Most of the high-speed mileage in Europe and Japan isn't.. It uses a fence to keep critters off the track. Admittedly in Germany they've built a lot of sound wall which is ugly and deletes the view. On the other hand, what can you see from an airplane? Most of time for me nothing -- either I'm in an aisle seat, or pull the shade down to sleep.
RWM
Nice rant.
You'd rather give the money to Amtrak? So they can do things right? Oh, boy.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.