AMTK1007 wrote:Mr. Electricron, The reason for the savings in the "Curvy" pacific northwest, Is the ability of the Talgos to take the curves at a higher speed then conventional ( Superliner, Amfleer, Horizon fleet) equipment. Unfortunately that advantage is washed out by the fact, as has been mentioned, that the line from Chicago to Milwaukee ( then on to La Crosse) is for the most part Tangent, and where there are curves their are few that are speed restricted, and even with a Talgo, you are NOT going to take canal Street any faster. Talgos do not operate at a high speed in tangent territory. The Talgos might benefit a corridor train running to the twin cities, but only by a magnitude of 5-6 minutes tops. Not a significant amount in the scheme of a 8 hour trip.
I actually posted some commentary that directly relates to this point over in the discussion regarding the Pioneer route study, and after doing a little railfanning yesterday in the aptly named town of Tangent, Oregon.
On UP rails south of Portland, the Talgo is not permitted any higher speed than conventional passenger stock (The Coast Starlight). The time savings comes from faster station stops and less schedule padding.
Further, much of the UP line south of Portland is pretty straight. You aren't going to see much improvement Portland-Canby because you're in an urbanized area with close development, so there is little if any high speed track there anyways. Oregon City-Canby is by far the "curviest" stretch because you're running along the Willamette River near Willamette Falls. Hito Hill comes up after Canby but is more a gradient problem than a curvature problem. South of Hito, you have an 11.5 mile tangent through Hubbard, Woodburn and Gervais, then an ever-so-slight curve to the south, another 4.6 miles, another slight curve, 3.25 miles, a barely-noticable curve (in North Salem) and then you're well within Salem - and restricted speeds (because people in Salem like to jump out in front of trains for some unknown reason). From Turner to Marion you have more almost perfect tangent. A few curves from Marion to Albany spaced out over several miles. And then 20 - yes, twenty - miles of great tangent track (and thus the reason for the name of Tangent, Oregon, located on this stretch of track) before you make the curve into Harrisburg.
Frankly, the Talgos would make more sense in a state-supported Portland-Boise train (with an extension north to Seattle as a super-early-morning Seattle-Portland or a very late night Portland-Seattle train) where the Talgos would really shine through the Columbia Gorge and over the Blue Mountains, where there are curves. Portland-Eugene, I maintain, would be better provided by an hourly bus service, and when the time comes for rail - something more along the lines of the California Cars, which can also be used in commuter service from Salem to Portland.
What the ODOT press release
doesn't tell you is that:
1. The trains are not built in Oregon. This was a prime excuse TriMet gave in not buying more vehicles - they weren't made in Oregon, so why spend the "stimulus" money in other states? (Ironically, many of the contractors TriMet has hired are out of state companies, using vehicles with out-of-state plates...) The train will be built by a Spanish company some 2,000 miles out of the state of Oregon.
2. The trains will be maintained by Washington residents in the State of Washington by a company based in Seattle (and is headquartered in Spain) (in Seattle, some 160 miles north of the Columbia River). Oops.
3. "Sustain 73 jobs". In other words, no new jobs will be created in Oregon, but 73 existing jobs (basically ticket agents and the on-board crew that is specific to Oregon) won't be laid off. Using the $36 million to buy new motorcoaches to blanket much of Oregon with regional bus service would be able to provide 72 buses; plus the construction of bus stations, a garage to maintain the buses at...plus Oregon's existing Amtrak Thruway bus network receives no state subsidy, provides jobs and transit where there are no other options, and pays taxes; Amtrak requires $5 million a year from a very strapped state budget (and only received funding through a maneuver to allocate income from the sales of personalized license plates to Amtrak, where they formerly funded roadside litter pickup programs, which has largely been cut - and you can tell!) A bus network would have doubled the jobs needed, while reducing the impact on the state budget, and provided increased frequency of service and increased service to communities with no or little intercity transit service. Portland-Eugene would get hourly bus service (instead of two schedules, which many folks find very inconvenient), connecting with trains in Portland to continue north to Seattle - and would be faster (while I-5 and the UP are identical in distance south of Salem, the bus makes a 43 mile run from the I-5/UP overpass in north Salem at a near-constant 55 MPH while the rail route takes 48.3 miles, much of it at reduced (40 MPH or lower) speeds, including crawling through Portland as the train makes its way from OMSI, through the East Portland interlocking and over the Steel Bridge.)
The few jobs that would be directly impacted would be easily replaced. Engineers/Conductors could elect to drive a bus, or find work in the railroad industry elsewhere (they could still work out of Portland, and thus pay Oregon income tax, while working on the runs to Seattle). The onboard service folks would probably be the most impacted. The ticket agents would still be needed for the bus service. We would need mechanics, marketing and management staff, something that Amtrak does not have in Oregon.
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