New York-Chicago

While I have nothing personal against the original poster, he has advocated a 79mph Donner Pass route as well as other HSR programs. I have explained that investors expect a return on their investment, and if we are talking government funds, the funds must be spent in a way that best benefits the public good. The original poster evidently still doesn't understand that $20m/mile over 800 miles for a HSR route is not feasible. That any executive or government official trying to do this would be removed from office, laughed at, and never hold a position of any importance again. 79mph over Donner? HSR Chicago-New York? If it made financial sense, the railroads or the government, with their army of accountants, would have done it long ago.

alot of people are viewing this HSR idea from NYP-Chicago as crazy talk esp when there was so much oppostion to the Acela not just by NIMBYS and anti Amtrak politicians but from even Amtrak Employees, commuters and railfans. Why get a HSR train when you barely had enough to upgrade the current system and prevent catenary poles from falling apart from the foundations all along the NEC not to mention a bridge on the NEC that had a bad habit of being stuck in an open postion that should've been repalced years ago. This was a huge concern with people like David Gunn and others while George Warrington was at the running the show.

Amtrak will not blow money it doesn't have on such a waste or even if they had the funding it can be used elsewhere. CSX will not let that happen along their route due to excessive wear and tear on the ROW and it's too expensive to build a brand new route or revive an old one plus the NIMBYs will tie you up in court for years and waste money.

Crazy talk in the current environment, however the population density is good for HSR, the rust belt can justify the investment in transportation for economic revitalization reasons, and the NY-CHI trip time can with modern rail get to a point that they would take major market share away from the airlines with limited stop express trains.

I agree with ICGSteve....and add to that the ever increasing cost of fuel, higher and higher airport tax and fuel surcharges, more and more delayed flights....and the market for regional HSR will evolve.

Population density map is here: http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/512popdn.pdf

Looks like you'd want to get Pittsburgh, Toledo, Cleveland and South Bend

While the prospect of a thru New York-Chicago service is probably unrealistic, re-establishment of a serious New York-Albany-Buffalo service doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility to this writer.

For openers, it would be located entirely within one state, and that state is not politically indisposed to passenger rail service.

The largest obstace would likely be CSX' opposition to interference with operations on one of its busiest routes. But this is a theater where any number of alternatives are available. The four-track mains west of Albany could likely be restored at much less expense than if the entire operation had to be built from scratch.

In addition, there are a number of abandoned rights-of-way in paralell for much of the route and, if increasing disparity in speed mandates separation of freight and passengers, NS' line across the southern tier of the state is available as a fallback.

As a caveat, it must be noted that a project such as this would touch upon almost all the issues regularly discussed at this forum. It's imperative that all the parties involved have a clear understanding of both the physical constraints and high cost involved. If successful, however, the plan would likely be readily adaptable to other corridors.

Buffalo does not seem like a good choice for population density reasons. If we are going to put that much money into rail there needs to be a big payoff in delivered passenger miles. You need to have enough population and enough willingness of that population to use rail that you can run and fill at least ten trains a day each way.

icgsteve wrote:Buffalo does not seem like a good choice for population density reasons. If we are going to put that much money into rail there needs to be a big payoff in delivered passenger miles. You need to have enough population and enough willingness of that population to use rail that you can run and fill at least ten trains a day each way.

I think you're probably right, Steve. In fact, I don't think there are many slam dunk opportunities for new passenger rail in the USA. In addition to the NEC, the oft-mentioned Florida and California scenarios, here's another one that may have some viability: DFW - Waco - Temple - Austin - San Antonio. It's a growing part of the country, contained with one state, is a "linear" line, and probably has multiple markets since DFW, Austin, and San Antonio are each real destinations. Further, you can split that line at Waco and have another go through Bryan/College Station on to Houston and perhaps Galveston.

It is not that I believe that HSR from Amtrak will win market share from Chicago-New York, or that it will be completed all at once, I believe it should be phased into service. I think the faster time will take more people off the roads and busses. It will also offer a more reasonable time to those on the fence about flying.

Where Amtrak will do well is, well Via Buffalo, New York City-Buffalo, Chicago-Cleveland, Cleveland-Buffalo, Chicago-Buffalo, as well as intermediate cities.

Vie Pittsburgh, New York City-Pittsburgh, Chicago-Pittsburgh, as well as intermdiate cities served by the route. While there will be endpoint traffic, the intermediate traffic is where rail it, not just NYP-Chicago.

Rockingham Racer wrote:The suggested route is roughly the distance in air miles between London and Rome. Even Europeans don't do high speed trains for that distance

Doesn't mean they are not trying. HSR is being built to a single gauge in Europe with the express purpose of facilitating lots more cross-border journeys.

Cheap flights are much more convenient

That's an opinion versus fact. For whom are they convenient? and what's the true cost of the cheap flight?

Studies have shown that high speed rail is competitive with other for a distance of about 500 miles

If you wrote that statement in Wikipedia, you'd probably get a (citation needed) or (attribution needed) bracket next to it. What studies would these be? Competitive ability is based on average speed. A lot of HSR in Europe is reduced to an average speed of between 125 and 135 mph due to station stops; this can be greatly increased, as certain Shinkansen super-expresses often demonstrate.

The New York-Chicago journey via the CSX "Chicago Line" is about 961 miles long; the classic 20th Century Limited at its fastest speed of 15½ hours achieved an average speed of 62 mph. If you increase the average speed to 175 mph by keeping stops at a minimum, the journey suddenly falls to about 5.5 hours. Consider the possibilities of a high-speed rail line built more directly between New York and Chicago (which would be about 800 miles).

icgsteve wrote:Buffalo does not seem like a good choice for population density reasons. If we are going to put that much money into rail there needs to be a big payoff in delivered passenger miles. You need to have enough population and enough willingness of that population to use rail that you can run and fill at least ten trains a day each way

Population density? HSR endpoint densities are often lower than that of Buffalo (about 276,000 residents). Looking at the TGV network, Rennes has 209,000 inhabitants; Le Mans, 149,000; Nimes, 144,600; and Mulhouse, 114,000.

RVRR 15 wrote:

Rockingham Racer wrote:The suggested route is roughly the distance in air miles between London and Rome. Even Europeans don't do high speed trains for that distance

Doesn't mean they are not trying. HSR is being built to a single gauge in Europe with the express purpose of facilitating lots more cross-border journeys.

Cheap flights are much more convenient

That's an opinion versus fact. For whom are they convenient? and what's the true cost of the cheap flight?

Studies have shown that high speed rail is competitive with other for a distance of about 500 miles

If you wrote that statement in Wikipedia, you'd probably get a (citation needed) or (attribution needed) bracket next to it. What studies would these be? Competitive ability is based on average speed. A lot of HSR in Europe is reduced to an average speed of between 125 and 135 mph due to station stops; this can be greatly increased, as certain Shinkansen super-expresses often demonstrate.

The New York-Chicago journey via the CSX "Chicago Line" is about 961 miles long; the classic 20th Century Limited at its fastest speed of 15½ hours achieved an average speed of 62 mph. If you increase the average speed to 175 mph by keeping stops at a minimum, the journey suddenly falls to about 5.5 hours. Consider the possibilities of a high-speed rail line built more directly between New York and Chicago (which would be about 800 miles).

icgsteve wrote:Buffalo does not seem like a good choice for population density reasons. If we are going to put that much money into rail there needs to be a big payoff in delivered passenger miles. You need to have enough population and enough willingness of that population to use rail that you can run and fill at least ten trains a day each way

Population density? HSR endpoint densities are often lower than that of Buffalo (about 276,000 residents). Looking at the TGV network, Rennes has 209,000 inhabitants; Le Mans, 149,000; Nimes, 144,600; and Mulhouse, 114,000.

Please, it's not additive to the discussion to pull numbers from out of a hat. We've already documented that the Paris - Bordeaux TGV "only" averages 105 mph with four intermediate stops. That line is state of the art so why are you throwing figures like 175 mph average speed out there? If you think Japan's latest and greatest does significantly better then please provide the real details.

I was totally confused by the single-gauge in Europe comment. Other than Spain, when has Europe not had a single gauge?

Please, it's not additive to the discussion to pull numbers from out of a hat. We've already documented that the Paris - Bordeaux TGV "only" averages 105 mph with four intermediate stops. That line is state of the art so why are you throwing figures like 175 mph average speed out there? If you think Japan's latest and greatest does significantly better then please provide the real details.

Quite a lot of the Bordeaux route is not LGV but traditional track fettled up - the sort of route that any American high speed route would probably be.
There are plans for a new build on this route which of course will raise speeds considerably.

The suggested route is roughly the distance in air miles between London and Rome. Even Europeans don't do high speed trains for that distance

I think we all can agree that for such a distance, the success of a high speed line is not going to be the end-to-end traffic, but those taking trips to/from intermediate destinations on the corridor.

All of the objections to this scheme are correct. It is economically, politically, geographically, and engineering-ly impossible.

Most importantly, there is no need for it, and thus there's no will to do it.

However, as the world energy and transportation markets change, twenty years from now there may well be a need, and then there will be a will. Until you can get a 747 to run on rechargeable batteries or make very long extension cords, it won't be all that long before the price of fuel will make that holiday visit to Grandma in Chicago cost as much as a monthly mortgage payment. And then it will get worse.

Twenty-five years down the road, we'll be saying "Why didn't we plan for this twenty years ago"? And we'll be right. But we're right now, too.

Twenty-five years down the road, we'll be saying "Why didn't we plan for this twenty years ago"? And we'll be right. But we're right now, too.

If we were smart now and 'then', we'd 'rail bank' some of the rights of way now to ensure that, at least, the sections of ROW widths where rail has been torn up could/would be available for future use.