Rebuilding Northeast corridor infrastructure

What about it?

There has been much discussion here in the past regarding the NEC profile at Elizabeth NJ, here is some from this Forum. There also is more at related forums such as NJT Rail and NJ Railfan:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 46&t=35193

From a RRNET Member who chooses to use a screenname:

http://www.signalbox.org/overseas/usa/elmora.htm

And still more:

http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/rail/prr/M ... _main.html

timz wrote:Let's try to save eight minutes thru Philadelphia--

A NY-Washington train on the new line splits away from the present line at the west bank of the Schuylkill River and curves left on a 0-deg 46.3-minute curve to end up running along Preston St http://tinyurl.com/dmx6ul ; it continues straight across Market St and a few hundred feet farther, then curves right on a 0-deg 51.3-minute curve to rejoin the present line at 49th St http://tinyurl.com/dajkp5 . (I didn't bother spiralling the curves, so the actual curves would be slightly sharper, but they're still good for 100 mph or more.)

Present line is 4.0 miles from the bank of the river to 49th St; running time for a nonstop is about 7 1/2 minutes. The new line is 1.2 miles shorter, so at 100 mph time is 1.68 minutes. Total saving will of course be slightly more than 6 minutes when we include the saving beyond the ends of the line change, but it won't add up to 8 minutes, so looks like we'll have to iron out Frankford curve too-- that might just do it.

Well, is THAT all?

Seriously, I can't see any serious re-alignment into 30th Street, on account of that pesky Schuykill River, and that darned area known as "West Philly," including that "Philadelphia Zoo" (named after the Pennsy interlocking, I'm sure). I'm not sure that's the end of the world, anyway . . . it's really not that far from the Schuykill Bridge to the station.

The Frankford curve seems a bit more . . . conceivable. Maybe a bit could be done at the curve near 2nd Street as well. However unlikely, these would be good improvements. Couple them with some interlocking upgrades and you might see some time savings without blowing up half the City of Brotherly Love.

JPS

Re: reducing the curve at Frankford Junction. Years ago while perusing decades-old real estate atlases in the map room of the main Philadelphia library, I saw that at one time, PRR owned the property west of Kensington Avenue between the current alignment and Erie Avenue. It appears even that the bend in Erie Avenue was contrived to allow the property to be used to eliminate the reverse curve. The property long ago was sold and developed.

timz wrote:Let's try to save eight minutes thru Philadelphia--

A NY-Washington train on the new line splits away from the present line at the west bank of the Schuylkill River ...

It looks like you are proposing tunneling under West Philly? I guess that could work, but I'd think that bypasses that could be executed without any tunneling would be a higher cost/benefit.

Didn't NellieBly allude to specific changes in Philly on the existing ROW? I'm curious to read more about that.

I'm just saying if you want to save time in Philadelphia you'll have a hard time finding an alignment that saves more time than that one, whether it's in a tunnel or on the surface. Is it cost-effective? Likely not-- especially since it skips 30th St and would only be useful for NY-Washington nonstops.

I know the conventional wisdom is that we'll never see a dedicated HSR corridor in the northeast due to population density, etc. But has anyone ever taken a serious look at rehabilitating some of the abandoned and underused lines for high speed?

There was a State level initiative in Wisconsin during the Tommy Thompson administration to establish high speed service using lines such as the MILW Milwaukee-Madison via Horicon. The NIMBY's killed that one, and somehow I think just as well.

One of the NIMBY's was quite active at the forum some ten years ago "dissing' the initiative.

To answer nycr's question, I think there are two issues with that idea. The first is that those lines aren't likely to much better in terms of curvature (horizontal and vertical) than the existing NEC. The other issue is that many of these lines are important for freight service, largely as an alternative to the NEC. Sometimes I've wondered about shifting some regional/LD trains to the parallel route between Washington and New York, in order to free up more capacity for high speed trains. Right now that isn't possible because of Baltimore bottlenecks, but maybe someday. How much slower would that route be?

I've also thought about using upgrading the Springfield line and then splitting off a new high speed line between Hartford and Worcester, which might mostly follow I-84. This line would provide a faster route with more capacity to Boston.

Also, I think WI's rail plans were put on hold only for lack of funds, I think you see activity pretty soon. But that plan will be 110 mph. It isn't much different that other parts of the MWRRI, which mostly follows low density freight lines.

jsmyers, Interesting you suggest the Springfield line. One I had in mind is the former New Haven "air" line between New Haven and Boston. While this has been abandoned for years, the right of way is basically intact, and I believe provides a shorter New York-Boston route than the NEC, with the only disadvantage (and not a huge one I would think) being eliminating Providence from the route. While it may be that in terms of grade and curvature the air line is no better than the NEC, the difference is this: On the predominantly urban NEC, improving track geometry quickly leads to thorny cost, constructability and eminent domain problems -- it is easy to see that any one of the tight curves on the NEC -- Baltimore, Elizabeth, Bridgeport, New London to name the most obvious -- would cost hundreds of millions to fix. The air line, on the other hand, is a primarily rural route that could probably be upgraded to 125mph or better far more easily. And by limiting the line to high speed only it could be kept to a more manageable 2 tracks, rather than the giant row needed for mixed ops on the nec.

I think that amtrak decided to forget NHV-SPG-BOS through trains when they electrified NHV-PVD-BOS I don't see CSX allowing amtrak to run electrified trains at high speeds between SPG-BOS. However, upgrading NHV-SPG for the shuttle trains and through trains is another story, that is more practical to get those trains running @ 110.

Can anybody point me to a map of the New Haven Air Line?

I had forgotten that I made a map of this:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8& ... 2.8125&z=9

There would be types of trains North/East of New Haven.

1) Existing Acela and Regional Route
2) Improved Springfield trains (shuttle or through)
3) Express to Boston trains that would use a completely new High Speed Line from Worcester to Hartford.

This express line would be 19 miles shorter than the existing line.

Springfield to Boston Trains would make sense in my opinion, but would follow a development path similar to what North Carolina or Washington state are doing with their corridors.

Mr. Myers, I believe something has been overlooked in the discussion to date; the Air Line as that term relates to the New Haven is that line extending Northward from NH through Plainville and Simsbury:

http://www.nhrhta.org/htdocs/map2.htm

Mr Norman, Thanks for the helpful map. From Wikipedia:

Air Line
The New Haven, Middletown and Willimantic Railroad opened in 1873 as part of the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad system, running from New Haven northeast via Middletown to the BH&E at Willimantic. The BH&E went bankrupt that same year, becoming the New York and New England Railroad, but the NHM&W stayed separate, failing in 1875. It was reorganized as the Boston and New York Air-Line Railroad, and operated by the New Haven from 1879, being leased on October 1, 1882.

The air line pulled off the impressive feat of running from New Haven to Boston while avoiding essentially every population center along the way, which is why it was not viable as a business (abandoned many decades ago if I am not mistaken). However I could see that being an asset as a high speed line. Cutting 20+ miles from the route as well as eliminating New London would already give it a huge headstart as an improvement over the NEC.

I stand corrected, Mr. NYCR

The line I was incorrectly addressing is the New Haven & Northampton - The Canal Line.

http://www.trainweb.org/crocon/CanalLine/index.html