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Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Long Term Trends

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[quote user="blue streak 1"] This trend is good but when (  not if  )  a bridge on the NEC fails and stops all traffic then it is going to be a whole different ball game.   MNRR had a swing bridge failure this morning that plugged the route for hours. <a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/654b29733d254c68b5dbbd7c5f8424c3/CT--Metro-North-Bridge-Delay">http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/654b29733d254c68b5dbbd7c5f8424c3/CT--Metro-North-Bridge-Delay</a>  [/quote] What is the rate of bridge failure on the NEC?  How many loss minutes reported by Amtrak in FY13 were due to bridge failures and/or other infrastructure failures? I understand the need to maintain and repair the infrastructure.  But the problem should be presented in a robust format. Periodically we hear that the nation's bridges are falling apart and/or they are obsolete. The American Society of Civil Engineers, hardly a disinterested group, claims that we need a massive bridge rebuild program.  Here are some numbers from the DOT re: highway bridges. Admittedly, they are not railroad bridges, but they show, if nothing else, that the condition of the nations bridges are not getting worse but are getting better. As per National Transportation Statistics, Table 1-28: Condition of U.S. Highway Bridges, 1990 to 2012, in 1990 the U.S. had 572,205 highway brides, of which 137,865 were classified as structurally deficient, and 100,355 were classified as functionally obsolete.  Obsolete, in many instances, means that they are serviceable, but if the engineers were to rebuild them, they would use a different design and perhaps materials.  Translated into percentages, in 1990 24.1 per cent of the bridges were structurally deficient and 17.5 per cent were functionally obsolete. In 2012 the number of bridges had increased to 607,378. The number of bridges classified as structurally deficient had shrunk to 66,749 (11 per cent of the total) and the number of functionally obsolete bridges was 84,748 (14 per cent). Clearly, America needs to maintain and enhance its infrastructure.  But as the aforementioned numbers, when put in context, show, the situation is getting better.  Not worse!
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