New hope for High Speed Rail in Florida

http://www.therailtruth.com

The Rail Truth, a political committee, launched its efforts September 17, to educate voters on the benefits of high speed rail in Florida and to defeat Amendment 6.

Hope this works, Florida's going to need this sooner or later and 10-20 years down the road it'll be a steal at twice the price.

Orlando to Tampa in under an hour for $10. Not bad at all.

Thought you guys might be interested.

http://sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/story/busin ... 41103.html

It's been voted down.

With Florida's HSR system dead, JetTrain is basically a dead product. Bombardier has a list of 'potential' lines it was to be used on, the Florida HSR system is the only one that was remotely close to being implemented. You think rail funding is bad in the US, try Canada, where Via has made great leaps and still can't get anything from the government.

With the price of oil going up, it's hard to justify an inherently inefficient train (that still has no service record) anyway.

As for Florida HSR - it's the right project at the wrong time. There's no local transit to support it, no regional transit to support it.

Irrationality wins in Florida. What is the deal with the stereotype of rail as olde-fashioned or quaint or "just like in Grandpa's day"? The article linked above quotes Bush as saying "It's too high a price to pay for something that's, well, romantic, I guess." Someone, please, tell me how a high-speed rail network is any more romantic than a 3:25 flight to Cincinnati?! It's not about misty-eyed nostalgia, stupid! It's about mobility, jobs, competetive economy, work while you travel, etc, etc. But we all knew that already. BTW, the state's portion would have totaled 1.5 percent of their transportation budget.

<i>Irrationality wins in Florida. What is the deal with the stereotype of rail as olde-fashioned or quaint or "just like in Grandpa's day"?</i>

Look at any recently rebuilt train station. Or read any railfan board. Seriously, rail buffs go on and on and on about buying more sleepers, running LD services, how the NEC is a 'glorifed subway', etc etc etc. We're constantly being sermoned about 'the glory days', how 'great' old equipment is, lamenting the death of steam...

It's really not doing passenger rail any real service. Most people don't want what railfans want. I don't get WHY Amtrak bothers catering to the railfan market (look at their existing route structure - useless for intercity travel, but scenic?) Railfans bashed (and still bash) radical designs like the LIRR M-1s, low floor equipment, the River LINE in NJ, Talgos. The public doesn't care that they don't look like the Pullman that grandpa rode on in WWII, they ride them because they're more comfortable, convient, and better.

On the NEC, Amtrak is way too infrequent, has dwell times that are a joke, and is way overpriced*. Off the NEC, Amtrak's way too slow to compete even with driving on most routes. Even "fast" routes like NY to Albany are barely faster than driving.

Rail can't compete over long distances, but railfans go on and on and on about the potential loss of LD service.

The public? No wonder they're skeptical about any rail proposal. Look at what railfan keep screaming the US "needs": more of the same trains the public rejected 30 years ago.

<i> Someone, please, tell me how a high-speed rail network is any more romantic than a 3:25 flight to Cincinnati?!</i>

But rail travel, to many railfans, HAS to fit some model of being 'romantic', or it's no good. Sure a 2 car low floor DMU running from town to town on hourly headways may look silly. But that's what people want. Ditto for the all electric, 186mph articulated lightweight HST.

<i>It's not about misty-eyed nostalgia, stupid!</i>

Oh sure it is. Seriously, deep down a lot of railfans have this silly dream that somehow intercity and long distance rail service is actually important to the US. Off the NEC, it's not - it could go away tomorrow and nobody would care. They seriously think a major increase in gas prices, or more funding, or whatever is going to cause a big shift towards intercity passenger rail. It's not.

<i> It's about mobility, jobs, competetive economy, work while you travel, etc, etc. But we all knew that already</i>

Well - then build decent regional and city transit. This is even what the european consultants Florida brought in said. They were at a loss as to why Florida wanted HSR.

HSR wasn't developed to be competitive with airlines, or to get drivers off the road. It was developed because existing rail lines were at capacity and the only way to move more people was to move them FASTER. It was only later that HSR was realized to be air competitive at short distances.

*More practical for the NEC would be 4 - 6 car 125mph EMUs, 2+2 seating, one end of a car having a vending section, 2 person crews, 1 minutes dwells, 2 minutes at 'major' stops (NY, Phil, Bal, New haven). 15 minute departures from Bos and DC from 6am to 10pm, $20 - 30 NY to Bos. No 150mph, no fancy tilt, no waiting all day at stations, no staffed cafe car. Turn trains in the station in less than 15 minutes - i.e. come in, empty out, clean, flip seats, fill up, leave in 15 minutes. OTP to +- 2 minutes, max. basically, make the train 'always there' and reliable. Match or beat Acela's schedule with this model (easy - Acela's schedule can be met with conventional trains), and you'd probbably kill the airline shuttles, period.

As for HSR elsewhere? Let's get realistic about it. The US simply never will be crisscrossed by a network of 125 or faster rail lines. There's not going to be 125mph or faster running on existing ROWs. 110mph conventional trains simply won't be faster by enough to draw significant numbers of riders.

In the Northeast, here's what a more realistic system would be:

* What I said about the NEC above, implemented.

* Portland, Maine, via a 2/3 car low floor, 90mph DMU, on 1/2 hour headways.

* New Haven to Springfield shuttle - 2 car DMUs to meet with NEC trains on hourly headways. Possibly a 2 car tilt set to get the New Haven to Springfield time down to a realistic number - it's way too slow now.

* Philly to Pittsburgh in 3 hours or less. Yes, this means some new ROW, bridging past Horseshoe Curve, etc. Easily achiveable with electrification and a 125mph tilt EMU set. Figure hourly headways.

* Extend NEC electrification to Richmond. Extend some NEC trains down there (say, every 4th, for a once an hour train).

* Extend the Auto-Train up to Baltamore or even Newark. Auto Train fills a useful niche and could be a really popular if it was somewhat faster, and went to where the bulk of it's customers are. Since it needs new equipment anyway, low height autoracks are not an issue.

* NY to Albany as either a 125mph tilting DMU on 1/2 headways, or even maybe a 25kv/600VDC dual system electric. DMU parking in Penn could be handled by shutting down the engines and maybe using the third rail for HEP or whatever (or just one engine alone for HEP for all cars). And by quick turning the trains. Goal should be sub 2 hour trip - 1:45 or less would be ideal Get rid of the stupid intermediate stops in MN territory. make it just one and a through ticket on MN.

Nasadowsk wrote:<i>Irrationality wins in Florida. What is the deal with the stereotype of rail as olde-fashioned or quaint or "just like in Grandpa's day"?</i>

On the NEC, Amtrak is way too infrequent, has dwell times that are a joke, and is way overpriced*. Off the NEC, Amtrak's way too slow to compete even with driving on most routes. Even "fast" routes like NY to Albany are barely faster than driving.

Rail can't compete over long distances, but railfans go on and on and on about the potential loss of LD service.

The public? No wonder they're skeptical about any rail proposal. Look at what railfan keep screaming the US "needs": more of the same trains the public rejected 30 years ago.

<i> Someone, please, tell me how a high-speed rail network is any more romantic than a 3:25 flight to Cincinnati?!</i>

But rail travel, to many railfans, HAS to fit some model of being 'romantic', or it's no good. Sure a 2 car low floor DMU running from town to town on hourly headways may look silly. But that's what people want. Ditto for the all electric, 186mph articulated lightweight HST.

<i>It's not about misty-eyed nostalgia, stupid!</i>

Oh sure it is. Seriously, deep down a lot of railfans have this silly dream that somehow intercity and long distance rail service is actually important to the US. Off the NEC, it's not - it could go away tomorrow and nobody would care. They seriously think a major increase in gas prices, or more funding, or whatever is going to cause a big shift towards intercity passenger rail. It's not.

<i> It's about mobility, jobs, competetive economy, work while you travel, etc, etc. But we all knew that already</i>

Well - then build decent regional and city transit. This is even what the european consultants Florida brought in said. They were at a loss as to why Florida wanted HSR.

HSR wasn't developed to be competitive with airlines, or to get drivers off the road. It was developed because existing rail lines were at capacity and the only way to move more people was to move them FASTER. It was only later that HSR was realized to be air competitive at short distances.

*More practical for the NEC would be 4 - 6 car 125mph EMUs, 2+2 seating, one end of a car having a vending section, 2 person crews, 1 minutes dwells, 2 minutes at 'major' stops (NY, Phil, Bal, New haven). 15 minute departures from Bos and DC from 6am to 10pm, $20 - 30 NY to Bos. No 150mph, no fancy tilt, no waiting all day at stations, no staffed cafe car. Turn trains in the station in less than 15 minutes - i.e. come in, empty out, clean, flip seats, fill up, leave in 15 minutes. OTP to +- 2 minutes, max. basically, make the train 'always there' and reliable. Match or beat Acela's schedule with this model (easy - Acela's schedule can be met with conventional trains), and you'd probbably kill the airline shuttles, period.

As for HSR elsewhere? Let's get realistic about it. The US simply never will be crisscrossed by a network of 125 or faster rail lines. There's not going to be 125mph or faster running on existing ROWs. 110mph conventional trains simply won't be faster by enough to draw significant numbers of riders.

In the Northeast, here's what a more realistic system would be:

* What I said about the NEC above, implemented.

* Portland, Maine, via a 2/3 car low floor, 90mph DMU, on 1/2 hour headways.

* New Haven to Springfield shuttle - 2 car DMUs to meet with NEC trains on hourly headways. Possibly a 2 car tilt set to get the New Haven to Springfield time down to a realistic number - it's way too slow now.

* Philly to Pittsburgh in 3 hours or less. Yes, this means some new ROW, bridging past Horseshoe Curve, etc. Easily achiveable with electrification and a 125mph tilt EMU set. Figure hourly headways.

* Extend NEC electrification to Richmond. Extend some NEC trains down there (say, every 4th, for a once an hour train).

* Extend the Auto-Train up to Baltamore or even Newark. Auto Train fills a useful niche and could be a really popular if it was somewhat faster, and went to where the bulk of it's customers are. Since it needs new equipment anyway, low height autoracks are not an issue.

* NY to Albany as either a 125mph tilting DMU on 1/2 headways, or even maybe a 25kv/600VDC dual system electric. DMU parking in Penn could be handled by shutting down the engines and maybe using the third rail for HEP or whatever (or just one engine alone for HEP for all cars). And by quick turning the trains. Goal should be sub 2 hour trip - 1:45 or less would be ideal Get rid of the stupid intermediate stops in MN territory. make it just one and a through ticket on MN.

When visiting the US what impresses me is the immense *weight* of trains. I wonder if lighter European trains would be cheaper to run? They would wear the track less, use less energy, have better acceleration.

All the rest of what you recommend seems a goal worth pursuing. In the current issue of Modern Railways (a British publication aimed at the industry professionals) there is an interesting article on the possibility of hydrogen powered railways. It will eliminate the expense of overhead electrification and the smell of diesels. The author, a respected professional from the British army logistics and now a railway industry man, thinks hydrogen is about 20 years off and that rail will use it more efficiently than road transport.

<i>When visiting the US what impresses me is the immense *weight* of trains. I wonder if lighter European trains would be cheaper to run? They would wear the track less, use less energy, have better acceleration. </i>

US Spec rail equipment costs about 2X as much as UIC equipment to buy, and costs a lot more to operate, too. It also has a very short lifespan - a diesel in passenger service in the US lasts about 10 - 15 years before a rebuild.

<i>All the rest of what you recommend seems a goal worth pursuing.</i>

What's sad is the bulk of it could be implemented quickly and cheaply, as most of the US passenger fleet needs a turnover by now. But Amtrak, railfans,, etc have no vision whatsoever. They just want more of the same, which isn't what the American public wants.

I don't get Amtrak's positioning Acela as a super premium rail service. That makes no sense on any level. I really don't get why Amtrak has multple classes of service anyway - it's a concept which is all but extinct in air travel in the US (save or long distance and overseas flights).

<i> In the current issue of Modern Railways (a British publication aimed at the industry professionals) there is an interesting article on the possibility of hydrogen powered railways.</i>

Great. Right now, the hydrogen economy is stuck where it was 30 years ago - nobody can figure a way to make it work on a large scale, letalone be more environmentally sound than existing stuff.

<i> It will eliminate the expense of overhead electrification and the smell of diesels. The author, a respected professional from the British army logistics and now a railway industry man, thinks hydrogen is about 20 years off and that rail will use it more efficiently than road transport.</i>

Why do I recall reading the same lines about turbines? I seriously don't think the hydrogen/fuel cell fad will last another 2 years, letalone 20. The last 1/2 decade has resulted in billions dumped into FC research with no major change in the basic metrics of FCs - they're still too big, too expensive, too short lived, and too finicky.

Right now, it seems that mainline electrification, for all it's flaws and rube goldbergness, is still the ultimate power form....

>>Great. Right now, the hydrogen economy is stuck where it was 30 years ago - nobody can figure a way to make it work on a large scale, letalone be more environmentally sound than existing stuff.<<

Study Iceland's government plan to eliminate oil products. That's where the technology is already being tested. There are hydrogen powered buses in London, as well as Iceland, Berlin and sveral other European cities. The Major General's remarks were that rail actually should provide a better operating evironment for hydrogen.

The previous posts are interesting reading.

BUT, the public education/information just wasn't there in Florida prior to the vote! A lot of concerns about the high speed rail proposal were in the media, but very, very little about the high speed rail program and its benefits! Too bad!

And, it didn't help that the way the Amendment to abolish the high speed rail program was presented on the ballot probably contributed to the defeat more than anyone knows. As it was worded on the ballot, a voter would vote NO if they wanted to keep the high speed rail program alive, and YES if they wanted to abolish it. Post-voting exit interviews with voters confirmed their confusion about the ballot wording. Too bad!

ACLfan

I think it's best now for Florida to step back and start thinking regional i.e. so called 'commuter rail' that runs at a usable pace. And get the in city transit pumped up.

Look at the NEC - it works because the DC, Philly, NYC, and Boston areas all have great supporting local transit, which provides the trip on 'the last mile'. With no (T), MTA, SEPTA, or WMATA, there'd be practically no ridership up here, because it'd simply be faster to drive or fly. But, when you can take a subway to Penn, then take a 1 hour train to Philly, the car keys stay on the desk, and the Metrocard comes out.

Building light rail in Florida is a natural step towards HSR because it'll solve the 'last mile' issue. And, while you wait for the HSR system, you've still got very useful local transit. Ditto for regional rail systems. If done right, it'll also allow you to gain the all important 'city access' ROW you need for HSR anyway, though the FRA will need a good hit over the head to have a 40mph LRT running 20 feet from a 100mph HST

And, quality LRT systems get the public riding rail systems, and when they find LRT convient, they'll be more receptive to HSR.

Ideally, Florida needs something more like LRT/Streetcars in city centers, and DMU or EMU based regional trains around cities, and then high speed trains (undoubtedly electric) linking city centers.

>>Ideally, Florida needs something more like LRT/Streetcars in city centers, and DMU or EMU based regional trains around cities, and then high speed trains (undoubtedly electric) linking city centers.<<

A couple of years ago I used Amtrak twice in Florida. Once from West Palm Beach to Winter Haven (at the expense of Greyhound after their illiterate driver mistook where we were supposed to be going); second a day trip from WH to Orlando. On both occasions the trip would have been better at 100 mph as on any outer suburban train from London to the South Coast. This modest speed could be achieved at less expense than a new TGV line.

Hey, I hope no one took my comments as anti-railfan. I agree with Nasadowsk that there is an archaifying (?) tendency among the railfan community, for stick rail and rivets and such. That stuff really is cool, but having lived in Europe and visited Japan and seen what rail can do when policy really gets serious, I get upset when the media portray trains as quaint, nostalgic, coal-fired, slow, or any combination of the above. (The tradeoff is that it is challenging to railfan and photograph European railroads as we do here, because after a short while you discover there is very little variation in consists, and the fun of listening to a scanner and waiting in some remote spot is gone. It's more like shooting fish in a barrel.)

Nasadowsk's points are well taken about the sorry state of the Corridor, but I disagree about the Acela comments. Creating a distinct brand and pricing according to a higher perceived value seems to have worked at least moderately well. Of course, ANYTHING would have been an improvement over Amfleet cars - as well as the Metroliner brand was known, I think the Amfleet "Look, it's a regional jet without wings" carbody was/is too claustrophobic.

On the whole I think the future in Florida might not be as dim as it seems - Tri-Rail is expanding, Tampa just built a streetcar, and if both of those plus other light- and commuter-rail projects catch on, the intercity part will follow, as Nasadowsk pointed out so well. But the key will be publicity (economic driver plus technology, plus eco-cool, not "romantic") and an emphasis on utility and convenience for older Floridians, younger Floridians, anyone who wants an alternative to driving or flying.

Sorry to dredge up an ancient topic, but...

The REAL reason why the amendment got killed in 2004 was because the parties involved with making FOX a reality cooked up a plan that was SO outrageously expensive relative to real-world benefit and shamelessly pandered to Disney at taxpayer expense, that even railfans and HSR Supporters couldn't fight back that sick, queasy feeling any longer and keep supporting it. Under FOX, the taxpayers of Florida were metaphorically lined up to become the favorite bitches of Fluor-Bombadier and Disney, and collectively rose up at the last moment and told them, "Go to hell."

FDOT seems to have eagerly come back to its senses, and appears to be moving forward with its original passenger rail plan that got derailed by FOX. Phase 2, in particular, can basically be summed up as, "Improve and mostly double-track the CSX line between West Palm Beach & Winter Haven, do the same for the line between Tampa and Orlando, and run frequent trains with reliable service at average speeds of 80mph from Miami to Tampa & Orlando, and vice-versa (using straight 100+mph runs between WPB and Sebring to boost average speeds)".

It gets even more encouraging when you look at the capital costs involved: probably somewhere between $3-5 million per mile for the track upgrades. For comparison, the double-tracking of the CSX line from Miami to West Palm Beach cost about $7 million/mile... but that figure is inflated by a major bridge, rolling stock acquisitions, massive station reconstruction, and some expensive ROW acquisition through urban areas.

At $5 million/mile and with a paltry 1,000 total passengers per day traveling from Orlando to Miami, Miami to Orlando, Tampa to Miami, and Miami to Tampa combined, it would cost about $85 per passenger per trip to fully-amortize the construction cost within 25 years. I'm not claiming a thousand riders a day would mean financial solvency, but rather trying to point out that even with minimal ridership, the track costs are shockingly reasonable. Boost ridership to 5,000 passengers per day traveling between central Florida and South Florida, and the per-trip track amortization drops to less than $20/trip... less than a quarter of what a reasonable first-class ticket would cost (~$89/each way), and less than half of what a reasonable coach ticket would cost (~$39-49/each way). At that rate, it actually has the potential to earn a profit for the State. At least, until the state decides to start expanding it beyond the obvious low-hanging fruit and starts extending into areas with substantial demand, but absolutely zero pre-existing infrastructure to leverage (ie, southwest Florida). Of course, the feds would likely end up subsidizing part of that (bringing the per-passenger costs even lower).

The truth is, the billion dollars (more or less) it would cost to double-track CSX from WPB to Winter Haven, & Tampa to Orlando, is almost pocket change to FDOT. With even the tiniest bit of support from the state legislature, it's cheap enough to do even if the feds don't give us a cent

Ask anyone from Miami... there is a real market for convenient cross-state travel that's at least as fast as driving. NOBODY in Miami likes driving to Orlando. We do it because there's really no other viable choice (Amtrak is a joke, and flying takes almost as long as driving due to security grief... at MIA, most airlines will cancel your reservation if you don't check in 45 minutes before departure). Tampa is a tougher call between driving and flying due to gridlock on I-75 south of Fort Myers, but even people who fly grit their teeth over spending $200+ for a stressful, deadline-ridden 3 hour trip vs a hellishly boring 5-6 hour drive that, during the winter, occasionally includes urban gridlock that starts literally in the middle of the Everglades and just gets worse and worse as you head further west (it took me about 7 hours to drive from Miami to Tampa last Thanksgiving due to bumper-to-bumper traffic literally every inch of the way).

Give us ~3-hour trains to Orlando & Tampa, with onboard internet access and convenient departure times, and the railroad's biggest problem will be NIMBYs adjacent to the tracks screaming about 89-110mph passenger trains roaring by every 20-30 minutes along tracks that were practically abandoned and torn up back when they bought their houses (but of course, by then it'll be too late for them to do anything about it)

For anyone who's interested, here's their latest plan. The title says '2004', but it's actually fairly recent and appears to have been mostly written in late 2005. -- http://www.dot.state.fl.us/rail/Publica ... ntFull.pdf