High Speed Amtrak

Patrick A. wrote:If you could make WAS-CHI in 4-5 hours, then hell yes that could put a damper on E. Coast-CHI flights

All we need is a train that can average 140 mph (with stops!?!?) and we're there!!!!!!

Patrick A. wrote:I think the best HSR routes worthy of investment are:

Boston-Miami
New York-Montreal/Toronto
Washington-Chicago
Chicago-STL-KC
Seattle-San Diego

Haveing a HSR network on the coasts where the population density is higher will make money for medium haul travel. If you could make WAS-CHI in 4-5 hours, then hell yes that could put a damper on E. Coast-CHI flights because not only do the trains get to the city center, but are much more productivity frendily. If our government gets out of bed with the oil companies, then we can see some changes which willk greatly help our country.

I definitely agree. I don't understand why they love cars so much. Overall, cars are extrememly expensive investments. Rail isn't too expensive for the user. Also, if they can do this right, a train every 30-60 minutes at each station would really boost passangers, because if you miss one train, you can always catch another not too long after. Image what they could do if they had Acela trains on other lines like the Keystone, Capitol Limited, and Adirondack, Amtrak would be pretty cool.

-Phil

Irish Chieftain wrote:
PS. Enable BBCode for those quote tags to work.

Thanks. And in going to reply to your message, I discovered that someone else had let me know in a PM relating to a post I had made yesterday. I'm partly responding in order to make sure I understand what to do. If the quotes look right in this post, I've figured it out.

All we need is a train that can average 140 mph (with stops!?!?) and we're there!!!!!!

You're talkin' a minimum 220 mph Super High Speed train on a virtually arrow straight r-o-w.

$$$,$$$,$$$,$$$.00!!!!!

Money aside....It'd be very cool.

Just watched a YouTube video of the Chinese MagLev.....pretty neat. 260+mph is a way to get somewhere fast.

Actually, if your stops are miles apart, i.e. city to city, and your dwell times are fast and your train can accelerate, you can likely get well over a 100mph average with 186mph running. Heck, if you're going 100 miles and no stops, and it's 125mph all the way, you cvould likely do it in under an hour.

The trick is get to a high speed and STAY THERE. And don't spend forever at stations. The eternity amtrak spends even at tiny stops like newark and New Haven, with the Acela, is'nt gonna cut it.

Nasadowsk wrote:Actually, if your stops are miles apart, i.e. city to city, and your dwell times are fast and your train can accelerate, you can likely get well over a 100mph average with 186mph running. Heck, if you're going 100 miles and no stops, and it's 125mph all the way, you cvould likely do it in under an hour.

The trick is get to a high speed and STAY THERE. And don't spend forever at stations. The eternity amtrak spends even at tiny stops like newark and New Haven, with the Acela, is'nt gonna cut it.

I think that the Acela should cut out the Newark stop and the 128 Waltham stop, as they are both in the middle of almost nowhere and dcrease the speeds. New Haven is a stop that needs a longer time as it is a crew change stop sometimes. Also, the vital thing is that they need to find a way to increase the speeds on the Hell's Gate/New Haven Lines because with top speeds of 75, half of what they do in RI and almost MD/NJ. Bumping the speeds up to 100/125 would allow for times o be reduced between BOS-NYC dramatically. Also updating tracks where speeds are less than 60 need to be bumped up like near station areas.

Cheers,
Patrick

Actually, that brings to mind a question I've often had: could Amtrak run non-Acela trains at near-Acela speeds into all the "small" stations and leaave the real Acela trains for just major stops? Basically, then, they could use Acela as a skip-stop express stopping only at DC, Baltimore, Wilmington (maybe), Phila, Trenton, NYC, etc... and let other runs (maybe pulled by ALPs or HHPs, don't care -- don't know enough!) pick up the "commuters"?

Assuming the Acela stopped only at major/important cities, anyone know what kind of times the Acela could put up between DC & Boston?

Acela Express trains do not stop at Newark, DE. They stop at Wilmington (which is probably a political "bone" thrown at the state).

As for Newark, NJ, speed through that station was 30-35 mph back when trains used to skip that stop (I recall several E60-hauled trains, and Capitoliner/Metroliner MUs running through); having through trains there again would not increase average speed, especially with the top speed of the High Line permanently slowed down thanks to NJ Transit's incursions.

And what would an Acela Express do if it skipped Route 128, get caught behind one of the MBTA Attleborough Line locals? because on that 100-mph-max line, no improvement will come of it. The NEC is two-track at that location.

Acela Express does need to cut Trenton NJ as a stop; not that too many of those trains use it.

Oops, I meant to say Metropark. When I was on the Acela about 5PM passing Metropark, there was nobody there. the parking lost was empty, and there were almost no cars in the parking lot.

Thinking about it, California would probably benefit very well with high speed rail. Amtrak [California] is very successful there. I'm thinking:

1) Capitol Corridor (San Jose - Oakland - Sacramento)
2) Pacific Sufliner (San Diego - Los Angeles - Santa Barbara)
3) San Joaquin (Bakersfield - Sacramento - Oakland)
4) Southern Line (Los Angeles - Palm Springs - Las Vegas)

Seeing if those are successful, a small connection from Los Angeles to Bakersfield could work and have a high speed connection from San Diego to San Francisco. Now that would get customers.

-Phil

Patrick A. wrote:I think the best HSR routes worthy of investment are:

Boston-Miami
New York-Montreal/Toronto
Washington-Chicago
Chicago-STL-KC
Seattle-San Diego
.

Seattle-San Diego is a stetch, but both California and Washington have been trying to build up the demand for HSR with conventional services. Vancouver B.C-Eugene, Oregon, and San Diego-Redding may be populated enough to sustain HSR on multiple daily frequencies, but the points North of Redding and south of Eugene are not. If an Amtrak Cascades train(wether it is TALGO or conventional) were extended to Klamath Falls, and a San Juouin extended to Redding, then maybe a run-through was possible, but the problem is, UNION PACIFIC owns the best ways through the Siskayou mountains, although I have not been down in that part of Oregon in years, so I do not remember if Interastate 5 is a tough grade or not. If it is possible, perhaps run a HSR line along Interstate 5.

railfanofewu wrote:Seattle-San Diego is a stetch, but both California and Washington have been trying to build up the demand for HSR with conventional services. Vancouver B.C-Eugene, Oregon, and San Diego-Redding may be populated enough to sustain HSR on multiple daily frequencies, but the points North of Redding and south of Eugene are not.

Even that is a stretch; Seattle-Portland is a good HSR route (perfect length, great population density, already existing demand). Don't really know much abouth north of Seattle. South of Portland, there is plenty of demand Portland-Salem (just under 50 miles). South of Salem, demand drops off significantly, but is supported by Albany-Salem commuter traffic. South of Albany, I-5 could be reduced to a two-lane road; Highways 99W and 99E could be eliminated, and you would be barely approaching the design capacity of a two-lane road. Even Amtrak's (ODOT/WSDOT) passenger counts are pathetic south of Portland, after how many years? And the only reason SkyWest and Horizon fly Portland-Eugene flights is to attract people to the long-haul flights out of Portland that Eugene can't attract on its own - are those people going to use HSR?

Even if one wanted to propose south of Portland - with all the environmentalists, NIMBYs, and Metro's land-use planning - where would one site a high speed rail line? My guess would have it start in Hillsboro (nearly 20 miles due west of downtown Portland), run it through the hills separating Washington and Yamhill Counties, through Newberg towards Salem. While it would avoid dealing with a heavily built-up south metro area and the Willamette Falls area, it would be virtually ineffective to anyone headed downtown or to the south or east suburbs (including PDX). Or, from Canby, build the line nearly due east, then north towards Clackamas, then down the center of I-205 - oops, that ROW is tied up for MAX. Don't need a 130 MPH train smacking into a LRV!

wigwagfan wrote:

railfanofewu wrote:Seattle-San Diego is a stetch, but both California and Washington have been trying to build up the demand for HSR with conventional services. Vancouver B.C-Eugene, Oregon, and San Diego-Redding may be populated enough to sustain HSR on multiple daily frequencies, but the points North of Redding and south of Eugene are not.

Even that is a stretch; Seattle-Portland is a good HSR route (perfect length, great population density, already existing demand). Don't really know much abouth north of Seattle. South of Portland, there is plenty of demand Portland-Salem (just under 50 miles). South of Salem, demand drops off significantly, but is supported by Albany-Salem commuter traffic. South of Albany, I-5 could be reduced to a two-lane road; Highways 99W and 99E could be eliminated, and you would be barely approaching the design capacity of a two-lane road. Even Amtrak's (ODOT/WSDOT) passenger counts are pathetic south of Portland, after how many years? And the only reason SkyWest and Horizon fly Portland-Eugene flights is to attract people to the long-haul flights out of Portland that Eugene can't attract on its own - are those people going to use HSR?

Even if one wanted to propose south of Portland - with all the environmentalists, NIMBYs, and Metro's land-use planning - where would one site a high speed rail line? My guess would have it start in Hillsboro (nearly 20 miles due west of downtown Portland), run it through the hills separating Washington and Yamhill Counties, through Newberg towards Salem. While it would avoid dealing with a heavily built-up south metro area and the Willamette Falls area, it would be virtually ineffective to anyone headed downtown or to the south or east suburbs (including PDX). Or, from Canby, build the line nearly due east, then north towards Clackamas, then down the center of I-205 - oops, that ROW is tied up for MAX. Don't need a 130 MPH train smacking into a LRV!

Your take on I-5, 99E and 99W surprises me; when I lived in Eugene in the early ninties, traffic on all three was "healthy", and on holiday weekends, one could even say "crowded".

How about the current UP line to Oregon City, then to I-205 to I-5; either in the median or on pylons if there isn't enough median available?

Gosh, dreaming is great, isn't it?!

On pylons might be a problem. At least in Washington, we are obsessed with things surviving earthquakes now, ever since we were awakened by the Nisqually Quake of 2001, which was worse than the 1965 quake, and on par(rRichter Scale wise) with the 1949 quake. Interstate 5 survived, and we got lucky on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. I am not sure if the fault lines follow the freeways in Oregon, but being surounded by two volcanoes(Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood), maybe they do.

I would like to see the infrastructure for more high speed rail built, but natural hazards increase the already expensive cost even more.