Fantastical Thread

A Portland to Portland corridor service called the Downcader, alternating runs with Talgo and Amfleet equipment.

andegold wrote:How about a completely underground high speed route Boston - Montauk - NY? Follow that with a direct routing through PA to Pittsburgh skipping most of NJ and all of SE Pennsylvania. Then to top it off run a tunnel from NY to Atlantic City. Rather than running it deep do it just shallow enough to create a bump just off shore to provide some sort of sand reclamation buffer for the beaches along the way.

Boston - Fall River - Newport; then via tunnel to Block Island; another tunnel to Montauk; then LIRR to NYC.

The Block Island Line: a Mighty Good Road.

Rail ferry between Port Kent NY and Burlington VT.

NRGeep wrote:Rail ferry between Port Kent NY and Burlington VT.

You know, I can't see any way ever of making a car float work for Amtrak, but this would be a DAMN fine ride if there were one!

Mr. Moore, Orresund (Denmark-Sweeden) is gone replaced with a bridge, so is the Night Ferry (UK-France) replaced with the Chunnel.

Only one left in Europe to my knowledge is Strait of Messina (Italy-Sicily).

Rode the first two in this life, maybe the last in a later one. But "they've been talkin" bridge. Somebody also "talkin €".

Retractable Superliner balconies deploy through the Willamette River valley.

Amazon equips baggage cars with a mimeograph, prepares your order en route, and casts it off on a drone at the point where the tracks come closest to your house.

Trains cross into Manhattan via a glass underwater tube-tunnel with a calming view of giant clownfish dressed like the governor of New Jersey.

"Traveler" class tickets include a fresh change of light luggage each evening or stop-over. Embark on a cross-country trip with nothing but a paperback book.*

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* I actually ran into a guy who did this. His wife bought the Amtrak ticket for him. He did not know it would take longer than an airplane. Unfortunately, somewhere in Massachusetts, three long days after finishing that paperback book, he lost consciousness and missed his stop.

YouTube videos of the Strait of Messina transfer:

Two minutes

Thirteen minutes

How anyone could sleep through that racket escapes me. All I know, riding the Night Ferry during 1979, I didn't sleep a wink.

A thru car(s) that travel a route but lays over at night and picked up by a mirror train ( 12 HR difference ) so all scenery can be viewed. Only needed for scenic day locations.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:YouTube videos of the Strait of Messina transfer:

Two minutes

Thirteen minutes

How anyone could sleep through that racket escapes me. All I know, riding the Night Ferry during 1979, I didn't sleep a wink.

Someone I knew took the Night Ferry and had a similar experience. The sleepers were shoved aboard and chained down to prevent the springing effect of the trucks from being augmented by the motion of the ship, which cannot be done silently. It was midsummer, and humid, and since the ventilation in the cars depended on rotating ventilators in the roof actuated by the motion of the train, there was no ventilation at all, and he had to throw some clothes on and go up on deck to get some air, which rather defeated the purpose of a through sleeper.

Is it too late to fantasize about the past, or does fantasy know no bounds?
After the North Shore shut down I used to wonder whether it would be feasible to retrofit the Electroliners to digest 11kV 25Hz and operate an express service between Suburban Station and Harrisburg. They could have replicated the Electroliner pattern of simultaneous departures from each end at 8 and 11 am, and 2, 5, and 8 pm, stopping only at 30th St., Paoli, and Lancaster. Along with Electroburgers (Pennsyburgers? probably not) and possibly Ortlieb's and Schmidt's instead of Drewry's and Heileman's, if that's what they served on the Electroliners. (I never found out what was served on the Electroliners because I knew if I ever left the railfan seat I'd never get it back.) Imagine sitting in the railfan seat on a line used by anything from the Broadway Limited to ore trains with motors on each end. There might even have been a brief toot of the horn passing Bryn Mawr in memory of the old days on the North Side L.
Ah, well ...

How about something really out there, I'd love to see a Viewliner 2 diner in service.
Nick

Sorry, I think we have to draw SOME limit on fantasies.

There was talk of a Bering Strait rail tunnel a number of years ago. I haven't heard any news about it recently. The hope was that it could compete with container ships in moving cargo from China.

Proposals for new-design steam locomotives appear occasionally. There was one called ACE3000 about thirty-five years ago when oil-prices were high. More recently there was a team at the University of Minnesota looking at a concept - they actually expected it may be suitable for passenger service. I don't know what kind of progress, if any, they are making.

Station Aficionado wrote:Great topic. I propose that Amtrak build the Trans-Atlantic Rail Bridge/Tunnel. Norfolk to London, with a service stop in Bermuda (where there were trains once upon a time). Would put the Oresund to shame.

I remember reading an interesting artical about this years ago in popular Science.

Here is a link to this artical.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2 ... tic-maglev" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GBN: Long, long ago there was a night express (D) train from Frankfurt to Copenhagen. It had a 2-3 hour float, but the concept was you were sleeping (especially those of us in the TEN sleepers), so you didn't wake to putter around the auto hold or go up deck...

I cannot remember what the on/offloading ports were...