NotYou wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 7:49 pm
Wouldn't DC -> HBG be quicker via the port road? My understanding is most freight on the port road runs at night. Whenever I have been hiking or around the lower Susquehanna during the day I rarely see trains on the port road.
RRspatch has a few good points.
1. From the heart of Reading to 30th street is about 60-65 miles, depending on how tight you draw the measurement line in Google Maps (I assumed a crossover from the Norrstown line to the Chestnut Hill West line at North Philly to access the lower part of 30th Street). That's... 1h to 1h30m train travel time assuming highway speeds. That definitely makes it not likely for Amtrak to reopen the commissary.
2. I asked about the Port Road already... and it turns out the Port Road is more twistier and slower than possible. It would be quicker to go up to 30th street and then over.
Also, a P42DC has a 2200 US gallon diesel tank, and takes 2.2 gallons to haul a mile. So they have a 1000 mile range. Between PGH and PHL is... according to the 2018 time table, 353 miles. Huh, guess there's more economic benefit to go electric while on the NEC, so you might as well stop at PHL and swap engines.
3. As for the schedule... well, the Pennsy is 7:30a PGH end at 4:50p NYP. The reverse is 10:52a NYP to 8:04p PGH.
If we create the WAS-PGH train, we can leave PGH at 12:15p and make WAS by 10:00p. If I do a 8a WAS run, it'll get to PGH around 5:40pm.
... Which... I doubt that would work nicely. One of the ideas that was pushed through the press years back was to be able to have a train that you didn't need to overnight in Pittsburgh for. You would overnight on the train into Pittsburgh, have most of the day to do what you needed to do, then overnight back. When I first did this, I set up a spreadsheet of times, and found an 8:30pm or so train from both WAS and PGH would work out (giving about 9 hours to sleep end-to-end).