Amtrak Empire Service (New York State)

Adirondacker wrote:No need for a diesel north of Sputyen Duyvil or an electric south of Sputyen Duyvil. Use an ALP 45. Well an ALP45DMsomethingorother that can go 125 in diesel mode so the train can go 125 north of Sputyen Duyvil. And west of Albany.

Hawaiitiki wrote:"High Speed New York Penn to Montreal Gare Centrale" had steam in the past but it has all but faded out of peopleI's minds. Its a shame it would take wayyy to much money to make the ROW north of Albany not look like a tourist railroad. A high-speed connection between the NEC and Windsor-Quebec Corridor would be a great thing for North American railroading. At least this is a step in Amtrak at least controlling its own faith. Lets pray for track straightings and an increase of service.

It's always going to look like a tourist railroad.

The corridor between Albany and Montreal is becoming congested. NYSDOT commissioned a study. 4 hours New York City to Montreal would cost 5 billion dollars. The 5 billion assumes that Albany-NYC gets down to 1:45 outside of the budget for Albany-Montreal. The line between Whitehall and Plattsburgh is hopelessly curvy, the cheapest way to do it is to carve a new ROW capable of 150+ MPH. The existing ROW is good enough for freight and is busily being improved. Gets trucks off of Interstate 87 and Autoroute 15.

HSR part of NYSDOT's study

https://www.nysdot.gov/portal/page/port ... -18-04.pdf

... collecting dust on the shelf with all the other HSR studies the state has done.

We run on Metro North territorry between CP75(POU) and CP12 DV. I really dont beleive they are going to jump there speeds to over a buck and a quarter (90 max on the upper hudson 75max on the lower) to accomidate Amtrak New York State HSR or whomever. Over the past 10 years Metro North has dropped the MAS on certain sections of the Hudson sub.

Buck and a half through the Adrirondak state park never gonna happen not in our life time. Give me 90mph and cab signals and Ill be happy.

Ken W2KB wrote: The enviros would oppose the construction, dredging, etc. in the river.

I believe (could be wrong!) that the EPA regulates anything disturbing the dioxin & PCB laced hudson river bottom sediment.

Railjunkie wrote: We run on Metro North territorry between CP75(POU) and CP12 DV. I really dont beleive they are going to jump there speeds to over a buck and a quarter (90 max on the upper hudson 75max on the lower) to accomidate Amtrak New York State HSR or whomever. Over the past 10 years Metro North has dropped the MAS on certain sections of the Hudson sub.

Buck and a half through the Adrirondak state park never gonna happen not in our life time. Give me 90mph and cab signals and Ill be happy.

All of the following is "If I remember correctly" or "If I did the arithmetic correctly"

You aren't going to get 90 along the shores of Lake Champlain.

1:45 between Albany and New York is an average speed of 82, you don't need 125 all the way to achieve that. Best time Amtrak ever did between Albany and Grand Central was 2:10 which is an average speed of 65. The study didn't examine Albany to New York closely, they assumed 1:45 was possible with relatively cheap upgrades - signals, grade separations, tilt trains - and that it would happen by the time Albany-Montreal is running at 2:15.

Amtrak now controls things north of Poughkeepsie. Assuming the track maps I've seen, the ones no longer available that we all referred to, were correct, there already is 125 MPH track between Albany and Poughkeepsie. Not all of it but it exists. Lots of it is good for 110, 90, 80 here and there. You can't go 125 MPH or even 110, with a train that can only do 100.

Metro North is busily spending recovery money improving signals on the Hudson Line. What that means for speed is good question. I'm sure Metro North would love to run the expresses at 90 instead of 70. A few minutes here a few minutes there, they attract more riders and over the whole day they squeeze another run of of the train.

The ROW between Whitehall and Plattsburgh hugs the shores of Lake Champlain. The conclusion of the study, which is very preliminary, is that improving the existing ROW doesn't give you much, it's too curvy. The existing ROW of I-87 suffers from the same problem. If you want Albany to Montreal to be 2:15 you need a new ROW for 150 MPH DMUs. The politics of carving a new ROW through Adirondack State Park was outside of the scope of the study. It's going to be very difficult to get approval to carve a new ROW. Once it's a approved it should be relatively cheap, the state already owns lots of the land.

I lived in Colonie (first village west of Albany) in 1978 when the massive upgrade took place to increase speed on the single track (CP 146-CP 169) from the 50 that it had deteriorated to up to 110 turbo/100 conventional. They did not have TLM's back in those days. There was literally an army of track workers tearing up the old track and discarding ties, fresh ballast dumped on the r-o-w and new CWR and wooden ties installed. Amtrak detoured from June 20th thru 28th via Selkirk - this operation was covered in the Dec. 1978 issue of RAILS NORTHEAST.
I hope todays M/W forces can work as effectively and efficiently as the folks did in '78.

Andy

P32ACDM MAS is 110mph, rolling stock MAS is 125mph. the old now gone turbo sets could touch 125 but MAS on the Hudson is 110mph could it be upgraded to 125mph, sure but that would mean the removal of six grade crossings and the building of atleast 2 bridges. Years ago caught an extra job were we got to do some high speed testing of the turbo sets. Before we could depart ALB we had to be notified that all the crossing were protected and our RFE had the paper work allowing us to exceed the 110mph MAS. 2h10m was an express out of ALB normal running time 2h20m, done it in 2h15m but that is with Lstops at RHI and HUD.

Metro North isnt going to boost there speeds anytime soon like I said before they have dropped ther MAS over certain sections in the past 10 years.

Metro north will not increase speed, speed means longer signal blocks, and therefor less capacity, as commuter trains still would not go faster than 90 and even that at very few places.

Once the improvements are done, how much time would be shaved off of the schedule between Schenectady and Poughkeepsie?

DutchRailnut wrote:Metro north will not increase speed, speed means longer signal blocks, and therefor less capacity, as commuter trains still would not go faster than 90 and even that at very few places.

I can understand their resistance to increasing MAXIMUM SPEED; however there are a number of restrictive curves below Cold Spring that keep Amtraks and Metro-North potential express trains from making the time they could. It would be nice to see NYSDOT work with both Amtrak and Metro-North on this so that there would be a means of compensating Metro-North for the additional maintenance expense they would incur as a result of maintaining the superelevated or realigned curves needed to increase speed. If Amtrak could increase MAS between Overbrook and Paoli to 80 and increase speed on some of their curves, I'm sure that Metro-North could. It's the 45-60 MPH running between Crugers and Cold Spring that keeps an Amtrak from being able to average 70 MPH between Croton-Harmon and Poughkeepsie on this 40.3-mi run. There's probably lots of room for improvement between CP 12 and C-H also.

Andy

on Metro North Nothing(speedwise) will change, as for the Hudson Highlands the restriction will stay as entire part there is on a rock shelf.
which already has to be monitored for movement.

DutchRailnut wrote:Metro north will not increase speed, speed means longer signal blocks, and therefor less capacity, as commuter trains still would not go faster than 90 and even that at very few places.

About 10 years ago, Amtrak let Metro-North reduce some speeds from 95 to 90 m.p.h. on the Hudson Line so the track could be maintained to a cheaper class. Did M-N also spend money to shorten the signal blocks when they reduced the speeds?

No, the 5mph won't make all that much of a difference, but you did hit on the real cause of the reluctance to increase speeds, the Class 6 tracks costs much more to maintain than Class 5. If speeds were significantly raised on the lower Hudson line then there would probably need to be signal modifications as those blocks are pretty short as it is set up for high density operation unlike the upper Hudson line where the blocks are 2 miles long, need it or not.

To repeat myself yet again...
I've done a 2:10 trip on on the late night Friday train, and that was with a 10 minute wait at POU as we were ahead of a schedule. Granted, that was with no real stops in Rhinecliff or Hudson.

As for the Turbos testing at 125. I rode one of them NB. I recall seeing the manual protection of the cross at the paper company and noting it was unusual.

But, 125 MAS in that area would be rather nice. BUT... who's going to pay for it? No one right now.

I think shooting for 2:00 is a good first goal. 1:45 can come later.

JimBoylan wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:Metro north will not increase speed, speed means longer signal blocks, and therefor less capacity, as commuter trains still would not go faster than 90 and even that at very few places.

About 10 years ago, Amtrak let Metro-North reduce some speeds from 95 to 90 m.p.h. on the Hudson Line so the track could be maintained to a cheaper class. Did M-N also spend money to shorten the signal blocks when they reduced the speeds?

Mr Boylan the block lenght is not the same as 10 years ago due to moving of CP40(now CP39), and cp 48 now cp46) and creation of cp53 , ellimination of bridge in New Hamburg as interlocking.
so in answer to your question speeds can not be returned to old speeds.

Railjunkie wrote:To the best of my knowledge CSX has given total control to Amtrak. Including rules(NORAC) scheduling ect.

This sounds typical for a railroad "lease". Next question is what CSX retains:
(1) overhead development rights? This is what Penn Central and its successors retained when they leased to Metro-North
(2) reversionary rights when the lease ends, or it would be an outright purchase -- I'm curious to see how many years the lease is for. The Metro-North lease is for some ludicrous number of years in the hundreds and contains options to purchase.
(3) some sort of yearly payment to CSX, one presumes. We probably won't find out the size of this, though it might be in the STB filings.

Greg Moore wrote:

Alcochaser wrote:All of the CTC on the section is archaic and old, all of it has constant malfunctions and issues. Conrail never had a vested interest to do anything with it........

Ain't that the truth. Anytime there's been a hard rain or the like, I can expect delays since the wiring doesn't like to be damp.
Hopefully Amtrak can improve the reliability.

Well, we know there is federal funding for resignalling from Poughkeepsie to Schenectady, and it's obligated. So I expect it will all be resignalled.