High Speed Passenger Rail: How fast is fast enough?

[blue streak 1]

it is not the top high speed that is important but getting rid of the slow orders. That is the curve speed, bridges, switch restrictions, opposing trafic and etc. 9 miles of 160 MPH trrack Class 7?) can be wiped out by 1 mile of a 40 MPH slow order on a  80 MPH rail line (class 4). Do the Math. Remember the speed reduction before the restrictions and the speed up afterwards.  An additional track (double or triple) probably costs a lot less than trying to build a high speed track.  Example Auto train takes 17:30 Sanford to Lorton (855 miles). If it could average 70MPH including the crew change the time would be reduced to say 13:00 or or less. This kind of track  would certainly help CSX to run intermodal along this corridor at the same speed and really bring in the traffic. Time for the upgrade tax credits to be passed.   

[daveklepper]

I seem to recall that the normal running time of New York Central (Michigan Central) expresses between Chicago and Detroit, such as the Twilight Limited, were about 4:30.   The Mowhawk on the Grand Trunk, did it in 5:00  ----via Durand.  Correct me if my memory is in error.   So an even four hours with the best of today's conventional technology should be possible.

[SHKarlson]

"The pros talk about signals."

Perhaps so, although when I really want to mess with youngsters' minds, I tell them of the Morning Hiawatha that made it from Sparta to Portage in just under an hour, including the climb up to Tunnel City on single track, at a start-to-stop average speed of 81.1 mph, pulled by a coal-fired steam locomotive running on jointed rail and protected by upper-quadrant semaphores.  (Or perhaps I break out the images I have of speedrolls on the C&M.)

There's a lot of potential in the existing signalling, infrastructure, and stock.  All it takes is the discipline to do it right (he says, as the scanner relays the latest jam-ups on the Overland through DeKalb.)

[Anonymous]

"I think all this has to be factored in -- delays, weather, security, the "real life" concerns.  IMHO if Amtrak could field passenger trains that would be from downtown Chicago to downtown Detroit, RELIABLY, in four to four-and-a-half hours, they would do good business. 

Now, is it possible to do this without electrification?  The evidence from VIA's corridor suggests that the answer is yes."

So what do you do when you get to "downtown" Detroit? Not much a real destination. I suspect most travellers final destination would be somewhere in the suburbs. How do they get there?

[Anonymous]

500 is too fast. I dont know of anything on land capable of safely decel within G limits people from those speeds in a reasonable time or distance.

Consider the 737. You probably will be set up dirty with flaps, spoilers armed and about 140 Kias on touch down. Then you have about a mile and change to slow and stop that 150,000 pound mass with payload. You can oppose it with the two engines and pit 20K+ poounds thrust against the mass in addition to braking power.

Now a train at 150 or a tad higher is confined to a set of two rails, has a finite number of wheels and air, vacumn or electricity for braking. Possibly a maglev or monorail track might provide some kind of assist. You can only brake a object with people inside only so fast per unit of time staying within G limits.

Washington DC to Baltimore would be... 5 minutes? 10? Washington to Boston? 3 hours maybe? Less? I say 200-250 is fast enough. We may not have the room to hit the max before having to stop.

Keep in mind that the prospect of security lines, scanning, restrictions on carry ons, waits and usual over-booking and other issues that create irate and angry travelers all go away with a good fast train going where people are going. Poof. No problem.

Take a look at Disney. They have run a Mono for years and even through a hotel lobby without disturbing the folks. Yes the first timer will be floored, but the staff and regulars are used to that sight. Monos are pretty silent. I have ridden a few small ones in my time.

If we provide a train that features a social area, internet and wireless services along with various classes with different perks and turn that train into something that people will want to spend time in as part of thier business life or other pursuit instead of merely a metal tube that needs to be endured.

What matters is being able to get from DC to any of the points to Boston faster than a car or plane and with a deconstructed and rebuilt corridor, I only see positive things that will be a model for other corridors around the USA.

In trucking I recall a town that had several Amtrack Crossings in a short stretch of track affecting a large portion. The newspaper reported that no one was happy having to sit and worry about that train and Amtrack wasnt happy having to deal with 4-7 grade crossings in a short space.

I dont recall the details but short, no one was happy. Not the Town, not the railroad. I presented a solution that will remove grade crossings and any conflicts with either town or railroad. It will cost money, concrete and hopefully built high enough to clear all semi trucks and such for years to go.

I said to the coffee shop, raise the railroad 20 feet and remove all of that old stuff or bury it and build new tax revenue producting buildings over it. The laugher I heard that morning rings clear even today.

Perhaps nothing will get done until the mirth wears off and the reality sets in. They had no use for Amtrack and would rather the entire railroad hassle go away and not interrupt thier morning rush.

[Prairietype]

From a purely practical standpoint and primarily based on the reality of our railroad landscape today and how it is integrated into our communities, it would probably be more economical to build an elevated system with piers over hundreds of miles.  There is a point where retrofitting will involve double the work and time, and this would translate into costs that would approximate the higher cost of an elevated system, monorail or something else.  But there is one true possibility with this approach and that is you could probably order up about any speed currently available with an elevated type of rail system. 

And maybe it's all a matter of points. Assign one point to following and if it totals 4 it can be done:

1. Is there as vital transportation need for high speed rail?

2. Is there a total political commitment for this to happen?

3. Will the public fill the system to capacity?

4. Will it make enough money to not drain the national treasury? 

On this last point there is a far cry difference between a system that has a $20 million dollar shortfall as opposed to one that has a $2 billion dollar deficit.  I think that an intelligent approach making strategic improvements with existing roadbeds across the country is a much more realistic approach to having reliable, dependable and swift service.

But there is alwyas the question of "what is it fast enough?"  Many people want a 200 mile an hour train, others would like to see 250 mph or even 300mph. I'll bet there are some who hae sci-fi dreams of 500 mph so as to compete directly with a jet airplane. But wouldn't 125 MPH scoot you along a corridor in a timely enough fashion? For me that latter is just fine. And it is far more affordable and possibly sellable to a Congress for funding than some of these other dream scenarios.  What should we do, dream and never see it happen, or get real and see real, but modest improvement?

[Anonymous]

True high speed will never be achieved safely here on the ground in the USA. You need to copy and follow the European and Japanese models of construction that has been done for years safely.

If for a moment one should think of a instant strip of bare dirt wider than the entire railroad needs to be with all the old bridges blown down and replaced between Wash DC and Boston Ma there is no problem with land buying.

If you should build a new NEC that has no conflicts with anything, man or beast unless at necessary station stops and properly signal it, there would not be any problem.

I say that the old Rail on ballast on the ground model of the current NEC is obselete. We need to erase it and build a elevated and isolated/protected HST corridor where practical (Tunneling where must) on land that is already set aside.

Those old bridges can be replaced. We are already replacing Interstate Bridges that seem to drop every year and taking lives as they fall.

It will be expensive. It will take time. It will eat revenue. It will change life all along the rails both sides for several hundred miles. But imagine for a moment a true HST corridor second to none in the USA and is a model for future expansion across the Nation.

Then again a tank of gas or a airline ticket will do us just fine, wont it.

Without a dream to achieve, HST might as well be a academic discussion. And long after all of us discussion participants have passed on, the rails continue to rust and the NEC continues to beg Congress every year for just enough to get by until the next bill or choo choo needs buying.

[JT22CW]

The Hiawathas had a sign that stated in no uncertain terms "Slow to 90." This was back in the steam days.

If such trains driven by men who dont allow fear to replace duty to get the passengers to point B as fast as thier infrastructure and engines will allow were common back then, why arent we running dedicated isolated tracks 200-250 mph today?

Something was lost along the way, possibly a unwillingness to spend dollars to upgrade and constantly seek high speed.

Amtrack (sic) 110-140 is not too shabby. But it isnt possible the entire corridor. New Carrollton and near Aberdeen you can get up and run. But there is just too much slow stuff messing up the place.

I am not going to make a speech but the powers that be need to feel a determination from the bottom of the bridge abutments all the way to congress to upgrade, repair and make 150+ possible the entire length of the corridor.

I would close that corridor. Dynimate all the old stuff. Pave the thing down to packed dirt and rebuild it all. We can participate in reconstruction over seas but cannot replace a old bridge casterating (sic) a HST down to 30 mph. hmph. Typical.

Then make more of these corridors across the USA. That would be a start.

Um, what?

Deutsche Bahn didn't need to "dynamite all the old stuff" to make 120-mph average speeds possible on traditional rail corridors. Nor would "all the old stuff" need to go to achieve such average speeds on the NEC. It won't cost $7 billion, in spite of what Kummant claims.

The Northeast Corridor is vital not only as a high-speed traditional rail corridor but also as a commuter rail corridor for several cities. Replacing it with a 200-mph corridor is out of the question, as is ever taking it out of service. The chief barriers right now are signals (something that cannot be helped on the parts of the NEC that Amtrak doesn't own), catenary wire age, and FRA "track classes" whose definitions appear unclear and stringent.

(What bridge are you talking about, anyway? Dock bridge over the Passaic River in Newark NJ will never be upgraded to faster than 30 mph; the notion of high-speed running through Newark Penn is not only unreasonable, but dangerous, unless you're going to somehow fence off Tracks 2 and 3.)

[Paul Milenkovic]

The Hiawathas  had a sign that stated in no uncertain terms "Slow to 90." This was back in the steam days.

If such trains driven by men who dont allow fear to replace duty to get the passengers to point B as fast as thier infrastructure and engines will allow were common back then, why arent we running dedicated isolated tracks 200-250 mph today?

Something was lost along the way, possibly a unwillingness to spend dollars to upgrade and constantly seek high speed.

Amtrack 110-140 is not too shabby. But it isnt possible the entire corridor. New Carrollton and near Aberdeen you can get up and run. But there is just too much slow stuff messing up the place.

I am not going to make a speech but the powers that be need to feel a determination from the bottom of the bridge abutments all the way to congress to upgrade, repair and make 150+ possible the entire length of the corridor.

I would close that corridor. Dynimate all the old stuff. Pave the thing down to packed dirt and rebuild it all. We can participate in reconstruction over seas but cannot replace a old bridge casterating a HST down to 30 mph. hmph. Typical.

Then make more of these corridors across the USA. That would be a start.

Make that the amateurs talk about infrastructure spending . . . the pros think signals.

[Anonymous]

Let's cap salaries at 120,000.

Everything else put back into the company bank.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Here's a start...reduce all of the top end government salaries to the average salary of the US.  Not only will that free up a little money (70 million+ by my quick and unscientific calculations) but it would give the government a little more incentive to do a good job and think of the grand scheme.

To be fair, one should compare top end (whatever that means) government salaries to top end private sector salaries.

[Krazykat112079]

Here's a start...reduce all of the top end government salaries to the average salary of the US.  Not only will that free up a little money (70 million+ by my quick and unscientific calculations) but it would give the government a little more incentive to do a good job and think of the grand scheme.

$70M wouldn't even get you a short, M-F peak only commuter line.....

Oh, no doubt that it is only a drop in the ocean, but find enough drops and you get rain.  $70 million can replace or maintain some aging cars, which is a start.  I'm certainly happy with baby steps, as long as they are forward. 

[oltmannd]

Here's a start...reduce all of the top end government salaries to the average salary of the US.  Not only will that free up a little money (70 million+ by my quick and unscientific calculations) but it would give the government a little more incentive to do a good job and think of the grand scheme.

$70M wouldn't even get you a short, M-F peak only commuter line.....

[Krazykat112079]

Here's a start...reduce all of the top end government salaries to the average salary of the US.  Not only will that free up a little money (70 million+ by my quick and unscientific calculations) but it would give the government a little more incentive to do a good job and think of the grand scheme.

[Anonymous]

The Hiawathas  had a sign that stated in no uncertain terms "Slow to 90." This was back in the steam days.

If such trains driven by men who dont allow fear to replace duty to get the passengers to point B as fast as thier infrastructure and engines will allow were common back then, why arent we running dedicated isolated tracks 200-250 mph today?

Something was lost along the way, possibly a unwillingness to spend dollars to upgrade and constantly seek high speed.

Amtrack 110-140 is not too shabby. But it isnt possible the entire corridor. New Carrollton and near Aberdeen you can get up and run. But there is just too much slow stuff messing up the place.

I am not going to make a speech but the powers that be need to feel a determination from the bottom of the bridge abutments all the way to congress to upgrade, repair and make 150+ possible the entire length of the corridor.

I would close that corridor. Dynimate all the old stuff. Pave the thing down to packed dirt and rebuild it all. We can participate in reconstruction over seas but cannot replace a old bridge casterating a HST down to 30 mph. hmph. Typical.

Then make more of these corridors across the USA. That would be a start.

And where would you find the money for that???

The same place they have been finding money for the last few decades. Congress.

No matter what happens to the Nation, they always find a way to spend more money each year.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The Hiawathas  had a sign that stated in no uncertain terms "Slow to 90." This was back in the steam days.

If such trains driven by men who dont allow fear to replace duty to get the passengers to point B as fast as thier infrastructure and engines will allow were common back then, why arent we running dedicated isolated tracks 200-250 mph today?

Something was lost along the way, possibly a unwillingness to spend dollars to upgrade and constantly seek high speed.

Amtrack 110-140 is not too shabby. But it isnt possible the entire corridor. New Carrollton and near Aberdeen you can get up and run. But there is just too much slow stuff messing up the place.

I am not going to make a speech but the powers that be need to feel a determination from the bottom of the bridge abutments all the way to congress to upgrade, repair and make 150+ possible the entire length of the corridor.

I would close that corridor. Dynimate all the old stuff. Pave the thing down to packed dirt and rebuild it all. We can participate in reconstruction over seas but cannot replace a old bridge casterating a HST down to 30 mph. hmph. Typical.

Then make more of these corridors across the USA. That would be a start.

And where would you find the money for that???

[Anonymous]

The Hiawathas  had a sign that stated in no uncertain terms "Slow to 90." This was back in the steam days.

If such trains driven by men who dont allow fear to replace duty to get the passengers to point B as fast as thier infrastructure and engines will allow were common back then, why arent we running dedicated isolated tracks 200-250 mph today?

Something was lost along the way, possibly a unwillingness to spend dollars to upgrade and constantly seek high speed.

Amtrack 110-140 is not too shabby. But it isnt possible the entire corridor. New Carrollton and near Aberdeen you can get up and run. But there is just too much slow stuff messing up the place.

I am not going to make a speech but the powers that be need to feel a determination from the bottom of the bridge abutments all the way to congress to upgrade, repair and make 150+ possible the entire length of the corridor.

I would close that corridor. Dynimate all the old stuff. Pave the thing down to packed dirt and rebuild it all. We can participate in reconstruction over seas but cannot replace a old bridge casterating a HST down to 30 mph. hmph. Typical.

Then make more of these corridors across the USA. That would be a start.

[Paul Milenkovic]

Is there some saying that in war, the amateurs talk tactics while the pros work on logistics?

Maybe with passenger trains, the amateurs talk Talgos vs Superliners while the pros work on signals.  Adoption of some kind of universal GPS-based positive train control should be a goal of the advocacy community.

[daveklepper]

During WWII I did once ride an Advance Congressional (coach seat, non-reserved, regular low fair) Washington - NY 3:05, stopping only at Newark.   Full train too, about 12 coaches and Parlor.

The NE corridor can be improved.   Money can be spent on the Hell Gate Bridge line between New Rochelle and Harold/Sunnyside in Queens to make much of it above 100 mph, and flyovers east of New Rochelle Station (west of the station requires much residential land taking with existing houses) with more use of track 5 at the station can smooth out schedule problems at this junction, helping both Metro North and Amtrak.  The 150 mph stretch in Connecticut can be replicated Boston Switch to Route 128, since it is mostly straight track.   Together these can cut about 20 minutes off Acela time.   South of NY new catenary can make Baltimore - Washington 150 mph territory.   Wilmington - Towsend also.

Rode one of the first Metroliners at 138 mph on the digital, a Turboliner at 110 mph. 

All corridors don't need frequent all-day service to be successful.   Some less dense could use one of two trains each way in the morning, 6AM earliest departure and 10Am latest arrival, evening 4 - 8pm.    And people would ride if fast, comfortable, and convenient.

[SHKarlson]

The replies to the post correctly note that dependability and frequency will do more for ridership than sheer speed (although nobody will seriously spend money on a high-speed line without the expectation of a frequent headway.)

That noted, there is a lot that railroads and transportation policy makers could do to achieve greater speeds without massive investments in electrification and new generation trains, let alone magnetic levitation.  The 110 mph figure of merit is a good place to start ... that's what C. H. Bilty and K. F. Nystrom had in mind for the Hiawathas, with an intended 60 minute nonstopper Chicago to or from Milwaukee.  It's doable on existing infrastructure, particularly if the Federal Railroad Administration would do away with Interstate Commerce Commission era orders that were put into place to ensure that carriers that made an investment in automatic train control of various kinds were able to earn a reasonable return on that investment ... which they did by making it "contrary to the public interest" to run trains faster than 79 mph if they hadn't made that investment.  A review of Official Guides from the end of World War II to the early 1950s is instructive ... the Acela Express gets a rider from Baltimore to Boston not much faster than the Afternoon Zephyr got a rider from St. Paul to Chicago.  See <http://coldspringshops.blogspot.com/search?q=afternoon+zephyr>.

[Anonymous]

Take a Boeing 737 make point a to b and mark the travel time. Add two hours for boarding and two to get off the thing.

Now, build a pax train system that will match or best this 737's time.

That is the pax I would like to see all over the USA.

[cordon]

The last time I rode all the way to Boston (not Acela) I saw on my GPS 113 MPH between New Carrollton and BWI and 124 somewhere either before or after Philadelphia (not sure which).  But from New York to Providence there are mostly a lot of curves and quite a few rather old and rickety bridges where the train slows to about 20 MPH.  So, I agree that it will be difficult to improve the trip time through Connecticut.

Another irritant was that the car rental agencies near South Station in Boston were all closed by the time the train arrived (not late, either), so we had to schlep everything by MTA over to the airport to get a car.  We would have done that even if they had been open because the rates at South Station were almost double those at the airport.  

 

[JT22CW]

That's the major difference between fast running with tilt trains on traditional rail corridors and fast operation on dedicated high-speed rail corridors. The Northeast Corridor is the former and will never become the latter.

Mind you, even with being restricted to a 125-mph top speed, Sweden's X2000 hits an average speed of 109 mph on its fastest segment (between Katrineholm and Skövde). Between Berlin and Hamburg, the ICE-T (tilting train, on traditional rail corridors instead of the NBS "dedicated high-speed" corridors) gets an average speed of 120 mph, and its top speed is 143 mph. So the NEC, or the Acela Express in particular, has a lot of catching up to do.

[Krazykat112079]

To clarify, the current average speed of the Acela Express between New York and Washington is 81 mph; on the "super-express", which skips all stops save Philly, the average speed is 87 mph. 

That is still a far cry from the 162mph average speed of the Nozomi super-express from Tokyo to Osaka.  If they upgrade the NEC to Shinkansen spec, then you'd see door-to-door travel times that rival (and often beat) air travel and leave car in the dust.  Once that happens, we might see a huge shift in national opinion on high speed rail in dedicated high population corridors (east coast, west coast, Mississppi River & Texas, waterlevel route)

[blue streak 1]

your statement is correct. High speed can come about just by changing track geometry ie shawoller curves.but most important getting rid of those pesky slow orders; slow trackage at interlockings and switches: ie NY PHL WILIMINGTON, washington.; both temporary and permanent. Figure out a 30 MPH slow order of 1 mile on a 80 mph track requires slowing down 2 miles prior 1-1/2 minutes a mile at 30 MPH 2.25 minutes and 2 minutes acceleration a total of approximayely 5.75 minutes to go approx 4 miles. aded in 10 such points in a 100 mile sub division and you have lost 20 minutes. wash to new york should be less than 1:59 hours giving an average speed of only 113 MPH with out the heavy expense of HST track. quicker accelerating locos definitely a plus

[blue streak 1]

The speed the customer cares about is the door to door time.  The max speed is only really useful if you're going for the thrill factor.

For example:  I recently made a 750 mile trip by train in one direction and air on the return.  For the train trip, my door to door time was 17 hours.  Flying back, it was 7 hours.  Driving the same trip is 13 hours.  Flying was only about twice as fast as ground transportation, door to door, even though the top speed was more than 5X faster.

There are many trip time factors.  Some are:

-station spacing/access/location

-curve speeds

-track speed/geometry

-train accelration/deceleration rates

-station boarding/wait times/train freq.

Which of these gives you the most bang for the buck depends a lot on the route and service. 

For relatively straight, high density routes along exisiting ROW, 110 mph service is probably a good goal.  Elsewhere - which includes a lot of Amtrak routes, 110 just won't get you much.

[Bulbous]

I do appreciate and agree with the points in your first paragraph, but personally I wouldn't or I guess can't imagine much benefit derived from running over 180 mph.  Its cost and energy consumption would probably make it the darling of criticism and endless debate.

Punctual schedules and a modest increase in current track speed are what I want to argue for in today's political and economic climate. It might also promote a modest level of expansion which would be a good thing and a step in a direction that many want to see.

If there was no benefit in this type of running, then the Europeans and Japanese would have stopped it many years ago. It is the above type of mentality that is stifling the leaps and bounds that should be being taken these days in terms of transportation development in your country (and funnily enough, in mine too - Australia). The bottom line is that the Europeans put their money down at some point in the past, built a system that cost a lot of cash, put up with internal bickering about the costs versus perceived benefits, then sat back as many short haul city pairs traded a lot of their market share from airlines to trains. In many of these city pairs, the trains now haul around 65-75% market share, while the airlines have dropped back to 15-25% (with personal vehicles making up a standard 10%).

Yes, it does cost a lot of money to implement such a system, but that cost will only increase. The time to bite the bullet and build something has been now for many years, and the incremental cost of slowly improving existing rail lines until they are able to sustain 110mph running is huge as well. In the end, to sustain even higher speeds, a new alignment needs to be built anyway, so why not build it now, and accept the large cost of civil construction in this day and age.

When you live day to day with such a system, it really does change the way people move. Regular, swift, smooth, and the integration between city pairs to facilitate easy and fast train changes to continue your journey onwards really does make it easy to travel. There is nothing quite like seeing 28 platforms in Munich, with about 20 of them already full with intercity expresses, and knowing that most of those expresses run again in under two hours, all day, every day.......

Also, travelling at 200mph is smooth as glass, barely even any ripples in your drink on the table, and being able to travel for months on end without ever needing more than public transport to cover many countries is something amazing.

[al-in-chgo]

It should also be noted that the maximum speed is not the same as the average speed. For the NEC, despite all of its higher speed, the average speed is 78 mph. If you want to explore how the public might respond to higher speed, get the average speeds of the train network up to make them competitive with driving. It will do no good to have a train capable of 150 mph if that same route's average speed is considerably less (78 mph)

To clarify, the current average speed of the Acela Express between New York and Washington is 81 mph; on the "super-express", which skips all stops save Philly, the average speed is 87 mph.  And that's without any 150-mph running on the former PRR; the fastest the train currently goes, albeit briefly, is 135 mph, so we are left wondering what long stretches of 150-mph running would improve that journey to.  The Regionals operate at the 78-mph average speed.  (I'm aware of anecdotes claiming a 90-mph average speed for some of the super-express Metroliner MUs when they first came out, too.)  Incidentally, this is not only time-competitive with driving (by far), but also with the air shuttles, which have taken quite a pounding from the AE of late.

Now one thing that may be regarded as a problem is that the overall average speed for Acela Express from Boston to Washington is 72 mph (per current timetable) while it was initially advertised to be as high as 78 mph; now this was indeed a problem that the tilt suspension was supposed to mitigate, and even contribute towards improving Boston-New York trip times.  Metro-North's New Haven Line, however, still has a slow average speed, and it would cost quite a bundle to upgrade that railroad to Amtrak-level signaling plus track conditions (not to mention Metro-North requires Amtrak to operate the Acela Express on their railroad with active-tilt switched off), so that road will leave the Acela Express stuck at an approximate average speed of 55 mph between New York and New Haven for quite a long time.

I would also like the train network to address the intermediate point to intermediate destination market, and not just the suburbs-to-city center market. If you look at the numbers, of where people embark and disembark across the National Network, over 95 percent of the passenger traffic is between intermediate points, either on one route or between connecting routes.

You mean as it did in the past?  The expresses would be the foundation to build such a network on.  Back during the so-called "heyday" of passenger rail, trains like the Broadway Limited had a mere six intermediate stops, for example.

  Thank you for summing things up and for such fresh info and insight.  I'll just mention here that by combining two cited facts from much earlier posts, the "best and brightest" of streamlined cars built by Budd (introduced 1952, I think), and pulled by the legendary GG-1, had only about the same scheduling (just under four hours) as today's Regionals.

[JT22CW]

It should also be noted that the maximum speed is not the same as the average speed. For the NEC, despite all of its higher speed, the average speed is 78 mph. If you want to explore how the public might respond to higher speed, get the average speeds of the train network up to make them competitive with driving. It will do no good to have a train capable of 150 mph if that same route's average speed is considerably less (78 mph)

To clarify, the current average speed of the Acela Express between New York and Washington is 81 mph; on the "super-express", which skips all stops save Philly, the average speed is 87 mph.  And that's without any 150-mph running on the former PRR; the fastest the train currently goes, albeit briefly, is 135 mph, so we are left wondering what long stretches of 150-mph running would improve that journey to.  The Regionals operate at the 78-mph average speed.  (I'm aware of anecdotes claiming a 90-mph average speed for some of the super-express Metroliner MUs when they first came out, too.)  Incidentally, this is not only time-competitive with driving (by far), but also with the air shuttles, which have taken quite a pounding from the AE of late.

Now one thing that may be regarded as a problem is that the overall average speed for Acela Express from Boston to Washington is 72 mph (per current timetable) while it was initially advertised to be as high as 78 mph; now this was indeed a problem that the tilt suspension was supposed to mitigate, and even contribute towards improving Boston-New York trip times.  Metro-North's New Haven Line, however, still has a slow average speed, and it would cost quite a bundle to upgrade that railroad to Amtrak-level signaling plus track conditions (not to mention Metro-North requires Amtrak to operate the Acela Express on their railroad with active-tilt switched off), so that road will leave the Acela Express stuck at an approximate average speed of 55 mph between New York and New Haven for quite a long time.

I would also like the train network to address the intermediate point to intermediate destination market, and not just the suburbs-to-city center market. If you look at the numbers, of where people embark and disembark across the National Network, over 95 percent of the passenger traffic is between intermediate points, either on one route or between connecting routes.

You mean as it did in the past?  The expresses would be the foundation to build such a network on.  Back during the so-called "heyday" of passenger rail, trains like the Broadway Limited had a mere six intermediate stops, for example.