Build &Maintain 4,000 miles of railroad

[samfp1943]

Modelcar

.....I believe the President was in some way saying some of this money for the 4,000 mi. of RR, etc....in fact, would be towards HSR.

We do need to be thinking of our countries infrastructure....all of it, and personally, I sure hope we soon begin to.

Item:  I'm trying to keep politics out of any comments on this thread as well.

Quentin, and others;

                               I had no idea of the reductions made in the National Railnet when I made that statement, I was pretty sure the Rationalizations were well in excess of the 4,000 miles mentioned MILW and C&NW would come close by themselves to that, I believe.

          In this political sason ( of the looming Miderm elections) I would sure like to have some more details on specifics, Hopefully, Secy Lahood will supply some, and soon!   My fervent hope is that it is much more than political rhetoric. We'll just have to wait and see how the details shake out in days to come.

[Modelcar]

.....I believe the President was in some way saying some of this money for the 4,000 mi. of RR, etc....in fact, would be towards HSR.

We do need to be thinking of our countries infrastructure....all of it, and personally, I sure hope we soon begin to.

Item:  I'm trying to keep politics out of any comments on this thread as well.

[CShaveRR]

Sam says, "That said: 4,000  miles of railroad is a lot of infrastructure. ( my guess it is somewhere near the figure of lines rationalized in the last 40 years (give or take)"

I think that in 40 years, that's about how many route miles the C&NW shed by itself, and I wouldn't be surprised if Conrail dropped that many miles in one day, when it was created.

There have been maps floating around (I'm sure I've seen them in both Railway Age and Trains) that show which railroads will not be able to handle the capacity needed by them in the next few decades. I wouldn't be surprised if the 4000 miles would address some of these anticipated deficiencies.  I can't see new routes being surveyed, permitted, and built in the six-year timeframe.

The "and maintain" portion of the statement bothers me, if this is what's happening.  How would it be maintained independently of existing trackage?  If this is not what's happening, and the railroad is to be made on 4000 miles of new right-of-way, who will operate it?

[CShaveRR]

Sam says, "That said: 4,000  miles of railroad is a lot of infrastructure. ( my guess it is somewhere near the figure of lines rationalized in the last 40 years (give or take)"

I think that in 40 years, that's about how many route miles the C&NW shed by itself, and I wouldn't be surprised if Conrail dropped that many miles in one day, when it was created.

There have been maps floating around (I'm sure I've seen them in both Railway Age and Trains) that show which railroads will not be able to handle the capacity needed by them in the next few decades. I wouldn't be surprised if the 4000 miles would address some of these anticipated deficiencies.  I can't see new routes being surveyed, permitted, and built in the six-year timeframe.

The "and maintain" portion of the statement bothers me, if this is what's happening.  How would it be maintained independently of existing trackage?  If this is not what's happening, and the railroad is to be made on 4000 miles of new right-of-way, who will operate it?

[Anonymous]

The Minneapolis bridge collapsed because of a design flaw in the gusset plates.  It was not due to "our crumbling infrastructure."

I wonder if we can get the details of this 4000 miles of new railroad.

[zardoz]

I sure hope the government is up to the task.  The infrastructure of the US is already in such bad shape that something must be done, either now before it crumbles completely, or later after a few more disasters have happened (think Minneapolis bridge, etc).

I frequently wonder (as I bounce out of yet another pothole in the road) how the US got the interstate system built., how we got to the moon a few times, or built the Hoover dam, etc.  And then I think of Japan, Germany, and France and their networks of snazzy high-speed railroads.

[samfp1943]

I watched Prez. Obama speaking in Milwaukee this Labor Day, and there were a couple of eye opening remarks.

A.) The government over the next  years is going to repair and maintain 150,000 miles of Highways.

B.) The Government was going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of new railroads.

C.) Various Airport enhancement projects.

This is part of the move to pump an additional $50 billion dollars into the Nations infrastructure.

First of all, I am trying to keep my own personal politics out of this discussion and hopefully others will belay the various methods of character assisination, and look at this in a positive light.

I have not seen the printed version of this speech so I am going on what I heard spoken. If I am in error I welcome corrections and amplifications.

That said: 4,000  miles of railroad is a lot of infrastructure. ( my guess it is somewhere near the figure of lines rationalized in the last 40 years (give or take)

A.)Is the unsoken inferrance, HSR lines? 

 B.) Relaying part of the National railnet that has been 'rationalized'  since the 1960's? 

C.)  Enhancements to the current National railnet ;(double tracking? projects like CREATE in Chicago?) (Colton overpass in California).

       Beefing up maintenance activities on the National Railnet?

Anyone have any specific info on any of the Rail Aspects, I am hopefull it is not political rhetoric.

Just found this link and will post part of the quote from the NYT linked article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/politics/07obama.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=us

FTL:"...Over the next six years,” Mr. Obama promised “we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads — that’s enough to circle the world six times; that’s a lot of road. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways — enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers — I think everybody can agree on that...”