CSX opposes NYS high speed plans

Adirondacker wrote:

Noel Weaver wrote:a high level bridge at both DV and at LAB would help, DV might not be too much of a problem but LAB might be because it is so close to the station at Rensselaer,

It's 12 kinds of squiggly west of the bridge and goes right on the edge of much beloved Tivoli Park. If we want two hour service between Albany and Buffalo one place they can squeeze 90 seconds off the trip would be to connect the nice straight parts to a tunnel that avoids all the curves. Not cheap but if we are going to spend a lot of money to replace a bridge that connects to curves on either side of it, it's time to go get estimates on how much it would cost to save the 90 seconds.

... 90 seconds here, 90 seconds there, three minutes over yonder and suddenly it's not much better than what we already have. And car owners in Rochester who want to Utica or Albany or vice versa drive because it's easy to park at the destinations and door to door trip times aren't that much different.

The curves aren't that sharp, MAS is like 40 MPH from LAB to the cut around MP 145, about 2 miles. The 40 doesn't really hurt here, as the trains have to brake or accelerate for the station anyway.

West Albany may have been a problem 100 years ago, but, as I've said before, it's certainly not now.

Sat at the bridge one night on a deadhead move for a couple of hours they forgot about us and swung the bridge open. Funny thing was they wanted to know if we had a key??? to swing it back.

Trailers in Albany are for the company doing the co-ax cable work for the signals and may also be involved with the second track program. Michael's I think is the name Ive seen on the sides of the Cats.

40 mph from CP145 to the top of hill. 25mph around the curves by the freezer warehouse 20 on the bridge to CP144 then 15 till CP142. Sounds long but its not all that bad. Don't see how a tunnel is going to improve anything

I totally agree with the last post, there are some places where you just can't go very fast no matter what and this is a prime example.
Noel Weaver

Ironman wrote: West Albany may have been a problem 100 years ago, but, as I've said before, it's certainly not now.

If all we are aspiring to is as good as the New York Central could do in 1950 it's good enough. If there's going to a train from Chicago to Boston once an hour and train from Chicago to New York once an hour and train from Toronto to New York once an hour and train from Toronto to Boston once and hour and train from Montreal to New York once an hour and train from Montreal to Boston once an hour is it worth to get an extra 90 seconds or even more?

90 seconds here, 90 seconds there and it's a 8 hour trip to Washington DC and people fly or drive.

A trip on the Adirondack a few years ago (admittedly, not the route we're talking about here, but the point applies) really impressed upon me the uselessness of running at 110 mph for a few short miles when you have long stretches of 10 or 20 mph on other parts of the route. Of course, I realize that NYC - Albany is its own corridor that the Adirondack just happens to share as part of its route, but the contrast in speed is stark between the south of Schenectady portion and the north of Schenectady portion of the run.

Basically, I'd be thrilled if we could just get some steady 90 mph running, which I suspect is achievable. I'd hate to let perfect be the enemy of good enough, and not invest in realistic upgrades because we're holding out hope for a 220 mph bullet train.

Adirondacker wrote:

Ironman wrote: West Albany may have been a problem 100 years ago, but, as I've said before, it's certainly not now.

If all we are aspiring to is as good as the New York Central could do in 1950 it's good enough. If there's going to a train from Chicago to Boston once an hour and train from Chicago to New York once an hour and train from Toronto to New York once an hour and train from Toronto to Boston once and hour and train from Montreal to New York once an hour and train from Montreal to Boston once an hour is it worth to get an extra 90 seconds or even more?

90 seconds here, 90 seconds there and it's a 8 hour trip to Washington DC and people fly or drive.

Where the f is this 90 seconds you keep talking about coming into or out of Albany. A tunnel???? With what money??? A straight shot down the hill at 160mph and still being able to stop on a five car platform in less than 2 miles??? High speed along the Mohawk again with what money??? Please go back to train sim and daddy"s Lionel trains. Ive told you Noel and a few other professional RRs on this board it isn't going to happen. We have given the reasons and yet you and a few others cant get it through you thick skulls there is no shot, chance, or even a glimmer of hope.

Ive heard about high speed rail since the early 80s on this corridor and GUESS WHAT!! IT STILL HASNT HAPPENED. Im excited there FINALLY going to put in the second track only heard about that for the past 25 years. Im old enough to remember the original second track, Colonie Station even have very faint memories of them tearing down the original SDY station.

A lot has gone back in and there have been improvements but your dealing with a state that is broke and a RR that would just as soon see us disappear forever let alone put in a high speed mainline next to there's.

Mod note - please remember to be civil.

I have to agree with Mr. Johnson. A train that can run at 80-90 MPH steady across NY State would beat driving! Its the slow order places that kill the time as noted before. I'm sure 80-90 will beat the 65-70 mph highway speed hands down if given the chance. NYS should stop trying to force the idea of high speed on CSX and maybe help improve tracks to get to 90 MPH. Some tax incentives may help?? I don't consider 90 MPH high speed rail.

Railjunkie wrote: With what money???

We can spend it expanding airports and highways or we can spend it expanding rail and avoid the need to build more airports and highways. The people in Buffalo that now fly or drive to places within 500 miles can take the train.

It's money we don't spend expanding the airport in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany so that people can fly to Stewart Airport and get on the train that has platforms between the terminal and humongous parking garage. That has dedicated access to the Thruway and the extra lane of Thruway built all the way out to Pennsylvania for the people who don't want to fly. And the people who fly or drive to Detroit or Cleveland or Toronto or Montreal or Boston or Providence or Hartford or Philadelphia or Baltimore or Washington DC or Richmond. Or Harrisburg or Newark or Wilmington or Trenton or Dayton or Indianapolis. A full fledged high speed rail system across the Midwest and Northeast means that for someone in Syracuse the fastest option for almost of those cities is to take the train. Probably the cheapest option too. Other than the bus operated by a bunch of guys who bought a used bus.

It's the money Pennsylvania doesn't have to spend so that people in upstate New York who fly to PHL and change planes for Washington or Richmond won't have to spend expanding PHL in 2040. It's the money Pennsylvania doesn't spend on roads so that people in Buffalo and Rochester who look at the airfares, how long it takes and decide to drive through Pennsylvania to get to Baltimore.

Railjunkie wrote:and a RR that would just as soon see us disappear forever let alone put in a high speed mainline next to there's.

CSX can cooperate and get their grade crossings separated at the same time they are separated for the fast trains or they can be uncooperative. When a Darwin Award competitor decides to become a Darwin Award winner by going around the gates they can have their very busy freight line come to a halt for hours while the debris is being cleaned up and listen to the passenger trains whiz by 50 feet away.

WHERE is the money going to come from? Some of the ideas are fine here BUT you need to have money and a huge amount of it in order to pay for anything big and a new set of tracks is a huge project. The upstate cities of Albany, Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo are not exactly growing. In fact all of them are shrinking and some of them face real big time problems not too far in the future. To do a totally high speed separate ROW from Hoffmans to Buffalo and/or beyond would cost enough to force a 15 or 20 cents a gallon increase in the gasoline tax everywhere in New York. I wonder how the folks in the Southern Tier would feel about this or the farmers in Herkimer, Otsego, Delaware and other counties in upstate would feel when they will not get much benefit from this. New York State faces a huge problem as it is with crumbling infrastructure all over the state, highway bridges, highways in general, state owned railroad bridges, state or locally owned airports that need upgrading and a lot of other stuff all of which cost a lot of money. New York is a beautiful state especially when you get away from New York City but the price you pay all over the state is the cost of building and maintaining a large number of major bridges some of which are in bad shape as it is. The Tapan Zee Bridge is ripe for replacement, do you want to wait until they have to close it down because it has deteriorated to a point where it is no longer safe to support the traffic that uses it. New York has a lot of waterways and a lot of bridges over these waterways, one collapse will cost a huge amount in damages, lives and money, waste money on something you don't need and you will not have the money for things that must be taken care of. I don't care if they raise the gasoline tax 20 cents a gallon because I probably will not drive up to New York State again and definately I will NOT live there again. OH!, I would love to see four tracks up along the Mohawk again, two for passenger and two for freight but that certainly today would cost a fortune, something New York State can not afford.
Noel Weaver

Not sure you're aware Noel, but they are in fact replacing the Tappen Zee, and they can't even agree on how to pay for it. Right now they're borrowing money from a fund dedicated to environmental improvement of water supplies.

Honestly, if the state can't muster the money to replace one of the most important bridges we have, there's no way we'll see a HSR ROW from Buffalo to Albany any time soon.

That said, I'd also argue that in part, one of the things that would help the upstate cities is improved transportation. New York (like many states) doesn't seem to want to invest in infrastructure, really sad.

Heck Congress can't even agree on funding the Highway Trust fund through the next election cycle. This is one screwed up country.

Sorry, been climbing up on soap boxes a bit lately.

Noel Weaver wrote:WHERE is the money going to come from?...

In other words lets spend just enough money to keep things in good repair and hope that 2040 looks just like 1975?

If 2040 looks anything like what they predict 2040 is going to look like we can either figure out a way to get more highways and airport into Cleveland, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC or build railroad that will be breathtakingly expensive but cheaper than building more highway and airport.

Except for short stretches to get through narrow targets like Downtown Rochester, why should NYS even be dealing with CSX and its ROW? At the point that you have to build separate tracks to go 110 MPH, just go ahead and build greenfield ROWs between the major cities, or follow the Thruway, and save yourself the argument with CSX over how far apart the track centers need to be. NYS probably even saves money by not trying to do too many things at once. None of the Upstate cities are big enough or have dense enough exurbs to pose a problem on the urban sections, because they're all short. The countryside is big and largely empty, and the entire point of Upstate NYS is that it's a nice wide corridor of flat in between the mountains, so there really shouldn't be an impediment to building a new road with an arbitrarily high MAS. The NYC built its ROW for 110, maybe 125 in stretches, but that's it. Greenfield or greenfield+Thruway can get you 186, 200, or 220, depending on how aggressive you want to be. At French construction costs for LGV, that puts you right around $7.5B for ALB-BUF, which is right around how much money Andrew Cuomo is lighting on fire in the name of a new Tappan Zee Bridge.

I pop in on this site now and again and only post once in a while because sometimes you guys get really personal. To Rail Junkie. You railed at posters about their comments on raising speeds and claimed what they proposed would never happen, listen to the experienced railroaders on this site. I am reminded of numerous post by Dutch Rail Nut, who I really enjoy reading, because he is very knowledgeable. But he posted over and over on threads that Metro North would NEVER allow the Acelas to activate their tilt mechanisms on their railroad, right up to the day before Metro North authorized it.
Moral of the story: when it comes to passenger trains,where politics is as important as anything else in their operation, anything can happen.

pbj123 wrote:I pop in on this site now and again and only post once in a while because sometimes you guys get really personal. To Rail Junkie. You railed at posters about their comments on raising speeds and claimed what they proposed would never happen, listen to the experienced railroaders on this site. I am reminded of numerous post by Dutch Rail Nut, who I really enjoy reading, because he is very knowledgeable. But he posted over and over on threads that Metro North would NEVER allow the Acelas to activate their tilt mechanisms on their railroad, right up to the day before Metro North authorized it.
Moral of the story: when it comes to passenger trains,where politics is as important as anything else in their operation, anything can happen.

Sir I have over 15 years as a professional RR, as both a conductor and engineer. I deal with CSX twice a week on my current assignment. What experience do YOU have in dealing with CSX? Ill tell you their mentality. We manage you labor, don't like how we run our plantation then go away. Stub your toe and your fired or in the case of guest RR employees your banned. That's were the fun begins OOS insurance will cover you while your OOS but it wont cover you while your banned. Until just recently if you got in trouble with CSX in Albany you couldn't work. Period. They don't want us out there they don't care how late we become follow a 30mph train for 150 miles so be it. See that good southern mentality.

This is why I state the possibility of HSR on the Mohawk is a true pipe dream. The state dosent have the monies let alone the Fed. CSX isn't going to give up there control of THEIR unused portion of THEIR right of way CHEAPLY. With the amount of tonnage and trains CSX currently moves they themselves may want to invest in some new mainline trackage to help make the RR more fluid.

Ive heard about this garbage since the mid 80s and it hasn't happened yet, 125mph trains on the Hudson happened once and it was a test train. Lets just say for instance we get this magical RR built the premium service is going to price Amtrak way over what most central New Yorkers can afford for travel. How are we going to handle the right hand turn to Buffalo Exchange St NFL and on into Canada. How about the Lake Shore Limited. Are we talking cross platform in Albany and Buffalo or are we going to build yet ANOTHER dual mode locomotive. What happens when 150+ year old LAB bridge finally gives up? All the wire in the world cant help you get into or out of Albany with out that bridge.

Lets take care of other problems in this state before we worry about HSR.

Wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up first

If you don't like what like what I have to say don't read it. If you take this a personal attack ohh well. Freedom of speech was given to us by our forefathers and many have died to protect it.