No-good plan

Over the past few days, I’ve been perusing a collection of columns by Pulitzer-winning commentator George F. Will. While Mr. Will is known primarily for his strong conservative stance on foreign policy and economic issues, he is given to a somewhat more authoritarian view on social issues such as legalization or liberalization of drugs, alcohol included, or the control of some of the more exotic forms of personal firearms.

The collection also included two insightful pieces on the subject of “internal improvements”, with specific reference to president Madison’s veto of the John C. Calhoun sponsored bill of 1816. While that action cleared the way for New York State to develop the phenomenally-successful Erie Canal, and everything which followed, it would also further isolate and alienate the slavery-based economy of the agrarian South, and indirectly fuel both the Secessionist and Abolitionist movements.

Attention is also devoted to the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure, and to the “resolution” of a budgetary crunch by a increasing the payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. But perhaps most remarkable (and unsettling) is the fact that all of the material involved was written between 1986 and 1990, nearly a quarter-century ago.

The point I’m working up to is this: The bill for nearly fifty years of a petroleum-fueled, auto-centric culture defined by the values of the “baby boom” generation, supported by both major parties and aggravated by several budgetary forays into uncharted territory, is about to come due – with a vengeance. But no single element of our economic system is in a better-position to get us through the squeeze than ol’ Iron Horse.

But it seems highly unlikely that a revival of interest in a centrally-planned and -managed HSR system is in order. Just as the linkage of gun control, in the mindset of many, to an animosity to sport hunting and other aspects of rural life made it a “third rail”, and just as the dependence upon Social Security and Medicare by the most stable, disciplined and frugal segment of our population renders them “untouchable”, so the overly-enthusiastic embrace of the HSR concept by an urbanite intelligentsia which failed to understand the indispensability of the private (but not necessarily internal-combustion-driven) vehicle by the suburban, exurban and rural population doomed the grand scheme.

What is possible was amply demonstrated not only by the reconstruction of the rail transit system in Greater New York, and perhaps more so by its emergence in the California which gave birth to the auto-centric lifestyle. The redevelopment of a rail freight network still possessed of huge amounts of excess capacity, albeit mostly in the form of vacant roadbed, holds even greater potential. And the development of a realistic plan for large-scale electrification, or the emergence of new forms of rail freight technology and entrepreneurship would be the icing on the cake.

The American experiment is currently at an ebb, just as the rail industry was in the years 1972-1985. But just as the combination of steel-on-steel and low grades provides or rail system with an advantage that can’t be dismissed, there is nothing in our current malaise that can’t be addressed with nothing more than a fine-tuning of both democracy and its indispensible accompanist, the open market. The essentials remain -- it's the frlls which the grown-up children are arguing over.

HSR became a polarizing issue; the redevelopment of our infrastructure should not. Both major parties foolishly embraced the culture of hedonism/narcissism and the “soft life” after 1980, and the emergence of independent movements, while welcome, requires the separation of the pragmatists from the polarizers. The apocryphal observation that democracy is the worst possible system -- except for all the others, never seemed more appropriate.

The only reason I would have that is to allow access to the Union Pacific ROW. It would be a benefit in California's Central Valley to access the town of Visalia with 200,000 along with Tulare. Union Pacific will not negotiate usage of its ROW. If there was a way to force freight rail to give up some ROW for passenger service, that would help. Otherwise, freights should not be forced to run passenger service.

MCHammer wrote: Union Pacific will not negotiate usage of its ROW. If there was a way to force freight rail to give up some ROW for passenger service, that would help. Otherwise, freights should not be forced to run passenger service.

Why should Union Pacific or any other freight railroad be forced to give up some of their own ROW in order to accommodate high speed rail services? Seriously I have not seen one argument, that explains to me the reasoning behind such an idea. The freight railroads you're talking about are expecting increases in the amount of goods shipped via rail, most notably in regards to valuable intermodal cargoes. How is that increase going to be offset? By truck, it's simply not feasible. Current freight rail infrastructure is also currently at or near capacity, leaving railroads such as Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern,... etc scrambling to increase capacities. These railroads need substantial investments of their own.

The best option is to build any high speed rail line from the ground up, as it's own corridor. It's economically feasible, when taking into account current infrastructure. Existing rail infrastructure, barring the Northeast Corridor, simply cannot sustain or handle high speed rail. Such a network would have to be as straight and level as possible ( not necessarily level ), be between 300-1500 miles, and capable of supporting speeds of approximately 200 mph. Such a network doesn't exist, except perhaps on paper, or through ideas here on RR.net.

jgallaway81 wrote:The reason for a lack of a REAL plan for high-speed rail in the US, is because no one wants to take the time and see what it really entails.

The truth is, except for a few key corridor routes, HSR must move at a minimum of 500mph. Its simple physics & logistics. An aircraft moves at roughly 750mph. To compete, you must plan a train trip that takes the same amount of time. At approximately 500mph, the train can compete due to the BS associated with air travel.

At 500mph, the only known technology capable of working is a maglev with a wrap-around that locks the train to the rail. This means that true HSR must be separate from the US freight system, and will require enormous sums of capital, probably on the order of 10-20x that needed to build the railroad system in the first place (accounting for inflation).

A solid loop around CONUS, at 10million/mile (assuming ALL costs aside from stations and rolling stock are averaged per mile) it would cost 64billion, 500million to construct. And that leaves out a direct maglev connection to many major US cities. I chose a route that created a loop that got within shooting distance of most major cities, without creating any major turns in the track, assuming a minimum turning radius of 50 miles. This leaves out a direct link to NYC as well as southern Florida, both available by HrSR connections via the NEC @ DC. This route also leaves a vast stretch of the interior of the US unconnected as well. The loop's route could be made smaller, decreasing the distance from the loop to interior cities, at the cost of most of the major cities I got close to. Its all a trade off.

My Loop: Washington DC -> Chicago: 700mi --- Chicago -> Minneapolis: 400mi --- Minneapolis-> Portland: 1,700mi --- Portland -> Victorville: 950mi --- Victorville -> Dallas: 1,350mi --- Dallas -> Atlanta: 750mi --- Atlanta -> Washington DC: 600mi

First of all, airliners don't fly at 750 mph. 500-550 mph is more like it. I suspect with increasing fuel prices that will probably be reduced to 450 mph, and perhaps followed by 300 mph turboprops, assuming the airlines don't go out of business. The days of air travel becoming ever faster are over. We just can't afford the fuel or noise problems it entails. Anyway, counting approach and takeout, at best you're talking average flight speeds of 450 mph, with 350 to 400 mph being more typical on many flights. That's over longer distances, once you're finally in the air. Add in typically one hour at each end getting to/from the airport. On top of that at least an hour for security delays. That's 3 hours on top of the flight time. HSR generally goes city center to city center, so you're often only minutes from your final destination. And you can pretty much show up 10 minutes before the train leaves. Let's say overall you need to add an hour to HSR travel time to account for all this, and that's being conservative. Further, let's say HSR averages 150 mph (although HSR with few stops running at 220 mph can probably average 180+ mph). OK, in 3 hours total then HSR can take you 300 miles. 3 hours with air only gets you to/from the airports, and through security. HSR wins hands down at the 300 mile distance. Doing a little more math, out at around 500 miles is where air MAY give you a slight advantage, although probably not enough to put up with all the other BS associated wth it, assuming you have a choice between HSR and air. At 1000 miles, air might take 5 hours total. A decent HSR system can offer something within that ballpark if you have good connections on either end. Even if HSR takes and hour or two more, many will still opt for it because 1) It's far more comfortable 2) It's far safer 3) The idea of reducing your carbon footprint is catching on 4) It may well be a one seat ride if you can walk to/from your destination at either end.

Fine, HSR can reasonably compete with air certainly out to 500 miles, and 1000 miles isn't a huge stretch. What about past that? This might be where your idea of maglevs starts to make sense, but not 500 mph maglevs. Rather, we want to run them in evacuated tubes, at a few thousand mph. And we don't need a major network to be useful. You could just have a grid with ~750 mile spacing. That would ential building <15,000 miles of such lines (probably under 10,000 miles because parts of an ideal grid would be in areas with little population, and hence really wouldn't need to be built). You might even get by with one line running the length of each coast, and one or two transcontinental lines (one north, one south). You take HSR to the nearest city with maglev, take the maglev to the city closest to your final destination, then take HSR from there. Chances are good the maglev line will serve most larger cities, so in many cases a few minutes on local transit is all that is needed at each end. Now HSR and maglev can more or less replace domestic air travel altogether. It's possible to also span oceans with this system, but for now let's leave that out. Since most US air travel is domestic, you're probably taking 95% of the planes out of the air. A lot of the cost can be recouped by selling the land former airports were built on. The NY Metro area for example can get rid of 2 of its 3 airports, and downsize the 3rd one. You're talking billions in waterfront real estate up for grabs. And suddenly areas abutting the former airports become more desireable as the noise pollution/air pollution factor is gone.

So yes, maglev can potentially play a role here, but many city pairs can be effectively connected by plain old HSR. You just don't need to run at the same speed as airliners when you bring your passengers direct to city centers.

num1hendrickfan wrote:

MCHammer wrote: Union Pacific will not negotiate usage of its ROW. If there was a way to force freight rail to give up some ROW for passenger service, that would help. Otherwise, freights should not be forced to run passenger service.

Why should Union Pacific or any other freight railroad be forced to give up some of their own ROW in order to accommodate high speed rail services?

Because they're not using it and they're not gonna be using it -- and because in the Central Valley of California, it's by far the straightest route between the population centers. Nobody is asking them to give up actual tracks, and in practice nobody is asking them to give up room for three freight tracks -- the request is for a portion of the 100-foot-wide right-of-way, which was originally obtained by preferential treatment from the government. Yes, they should be forced to give up (for money, obviously) some of their spare ROW -- they are simply not using and not going to use all 100 feet.

In some places they have been relatively cooperative, though still less so than BNSF (Denver comes to mind). In others, such as California, they have been truly obstructive so far. Some suspect that they are just bargaining for money, though this is a rather obnoxious way of doing it. For a contrast, see BNSF, which has always said "For the right price we'll be happy to sell you ROW", but also has a reputation for driving a hard bargain (apart from money, they have also asked for and received improvements which benefit freight service). It has not been nearly the obstruction which UP has. Similarly, NS has requested freight improvements and/or money in exchange for making room for passengers, and CSX has done the same south of DC -- while in NY, CSX has behaved absolutely ridiculously.

lpetrich wrote:A new plan for high-speed rail - Baltimore Sun
Subtitled "Require freight rail carriers to offer passenger service again"

When the creation of Amtrak relieved the freights from their collective capital drain, the carriers proudly asserted their status as private sector enterprises able to raise capital for infrastructure development on their own. For a while this was true, and they acted in accord with this assertion. But now that has changed. The freight lines acknowledge they need federal assistance and various public/private partnerships to meet the basic infrastructure needs imposed by clearly foreseeable freight traffic growth. The freights are competing with the would-be high speeders for federal rail infrastructure assistance.

Thus, the government is now faced with two parallel rail infrastructure demands. But in reality, they are only different versions of the same need. Except for certain metropolitan-to-metropolitan corridors (like the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington) America is far too large and widely dispersed to even consider building a hugely expensive duplicative passenger-only rail infrastructure. Prudence calls for a shared approach to rail infrastructure and technology development between the freights and would-be high speeders. Let's include America's real rail experts, the freight operators, in both the planning and operation of that improved, shared rail infrastructure.

That strikes me as a very harebrained idea. There's no way that fast passenger service can easily mix with typical freight service. Those two are also two distinct kinds of business, and I think that passenger service ought to be provided by specialists in that, like Amtrak.

A more appropriate policy would be to use the freights' rights of way when building a separate line would be too awkward and expensive, but with adding additional tracks for fast passenger service.

How familiar are you with the Berlin-Hamburg Railway? 143-mph tilt trains share the same tracks as 137-mph traditional express trains, freight and commuter rail. The fastest average speed of passenger trains on that line is 118 mph. Much of the main line is two tracks wide; the Northeast Corridor is wider over a great swath of its length. True, Deutsche Bahn is the sole operator, but how different would that be to a private operator running the whole show, i.e. apart from the regulation looking over its shoulder and the availability of funding?

US railroads were looking to increase the speeds of passenger trains before then-new regulations took the wind out their efforts. Add to that government spending on competing infrastructure, and the viability of continuing to put private money into the effort fizzled. Before the creation of Amtrak, what are now freight-only railroads were indeed required (mandated) to provide passenger service no matter the quality, or had its operations subsidized with little hope of real quality improvement save in a few areas. Nowadays, for parallel "high speed" operations on privately-owned rights of way, some freight railroads have been induced to make absurd demands, e.g. CSX in New York State requiring a 30-foot separation between passenger tracks and freight tracks, in spite of the safety record of operations such as the aforementioned Berlin-Hamburg Railway. There can be, and has to be, a better balance other than calling for the restoration of mandated service that would be grudgingly operated.

jtr1962 wrote:Fine, HSR can reasonably compete with air certainly out to 500 miles, and 1000 miles isn't a huge stretch. What about past that?

Depends on what you mean by "reasonable", and whether one thinks that matching a competitor's performance precisely is what's needed. Theoretically, a "true" high-speed train could travel "transcon" within the USA in about 15-16 hours if stops are minimized, which makes it the second-fastest mode if implemented; and it could be a remarkable success if properly marketed (e.g. overnight service with sleepers and diners).

"Theoretically, a "true" high-speed train could travel "transcon" within the USA in about 15-16 hours if stops are minimized, which makes it the second-fastest mode if implemented; and it could be a remarkable success if properly marketed (e.g. overnight service with sleepers and diners)."

Key point is "theoretically", not practically. And disregarding the monumental costs of tunneling through mountain ranges and other such obstacles. The point of HSR (and conventional rail) which gives it an advantage over shorter haul aircraft service is that it allows intermediate points to be served- a minimal stops service, while allowing high average speeds, necessarily restricts your customer base to the final end points, which in this case (transcon) would predominantly elect to fly anyway. Case in point, trains on the Tokaido/Sanyo shinkansen serve Tokyo and Hakata (a distance of 686 miles) with direct "Nozomi" services, but few passengers ride the whole distance. The airlines dominate this market. Instead, the train serves the needs of customers on shorter journey segments, such as Tokyo-Shin Osaka, or Shin-Osaka-Hiroshima or Okayama-Hakata.

Agree with the remainder of your points.

Key point is "theoretically", not practically

No, "theoretically" is not always synonymous with "not practically", especially when the theory is based on current practice.

And disregarding the monumental costs of tunneling through mountain ranges and other such obstacles

How monumental? There seems to be lots of mountain tunneling going on with costs that are not "monumental".

The point of HSR (and conventional rail) which gives it an advantage over shorter haul aircraft service is that it allows intermediate points to be served- a minimal stops service, while allowing high average speeds, necessarily restricts your customer base to the final end points, which in this case (transcon) would predominantly elect to fly anyway. Case in point, trains on the Tokaido/Sanyo shinkansen serve Tokyo and Hakata (a distance of 686 miles) with direct "Nozomi" services, but few passengers ride the whole distance. The airlines dominate this market. Instead, the train serves the needs of customers on shorter journey segments, such as Tokyo-Shin Osaka, or Shin-Osaka-Hiroshima or Okayama-Hakata

The fewest intermediate stops a Tokyo-Hakata Nozomi train makes is nine. That's not exactly competing with the airlines, especially at average speeds of 132 mph (Tokyo-Osaka) and 145 mph overall (Tokyo-Hakata). If a New York-Chicago train made nine intermediate stops along the shortest possible route, it'd be slow as well and the airlines wouldn't be looking over their shoulders.

Well, I see the "usual suspects" have weighed in. Mr. Neroden wants to confiscate railroad property, apparently on the ground that it was obtained through "preferential government treatment". Others seem to think HSR competes with air.

Well, I work for the Federal government and, Mr. Neroden, even if you were correct about "preferential treatment" (and you're not), nobody is going to be confiscating anything from the freight railroads. We're more likely to see privatized highways.

And HSR doesn't compete with air travel, for one simple reason. In most U.S. travel corridors, 85% of the trips are by road (mostly private auto, some buses). HSR has high fixed costs, which means it needs high patronage. Air in this country carries about two million people a day, which sounds like a lot, but those are spread over 559 "certificated" airports (data from BTS). The volumes of passengers are not large on specific routes, which is why transit and commuter rail serving airports mainly carries airport workers. So if you want to fill your HSR, you're going to have to take people from cars, not planes.

The busiest airport in the U.S. is Hartsfield in Atlanta. According to BTS, it handled 41 million passengers in 2009. Amtrak handled about 25 million over its entire system in the same year. New York City Transit handled more than a billion (JFK handled about 20 million passengers). So airline volumes are small beer.

What this means is that you don't have to go 500 mph, or even 200 mph, to attract passengers. Do it like the Europeans, incrementally. Build small segments of HSR, tie them into the existing network, and make incremental running time improvements. It worked for France, Germany, Italy, and Britain. It can work here.

NellieBly wrote:What this means is that you don't have to go 500 mph, or even 200 mph, to attract passengers. Do it like the Europeans, incrementally. Build small segments of HSR, tie them into the existing network, and make incremental running time improvements. It worked for France, Germany, Italy, and Britain. It can work here.

Which is why the approach of building the central valley sections for California HSR first should work. Trains traveling between SF and LA or Sacramento and LA can use the same stretch of tracks at very high speeds. Of course, they need to connect the central valley sections of tracks using existing tracks to at least SF, Sacramento, and LA. At least the HSR trains will be able to reach their final destinations, if slowly. Alas, that apparently isn't even being negotiated with the freight railroad companies..

The last couple of posts have again served to illustrate the virtual impossiblity of intelligent discourse between those familiar with actual rail operations and dispatching, and the ideologues who concocted the HSR "fantasy" that was sold to the public during the last Presidential election. The most painful result of this blunder is that it has provided the Administration's oppositon (which, due to the general lapse in understanding of how rail systems actually operate on the part of the general public, is nearly as ill-informed as the dream merchants) with plenty of ammuinition.

Most of us here, including a small, but growing group within the younger/more recent membership know this. and we can read between the lines when the transporation/infrastuctural issue shows up in brodacasts on CNN, CSPAN, and the like. But it doesn't happen often enough, and for that reason, I believe the issue will remain unresolved until either some technological breakthrough reduces the cst of personalized transportation (in which case the market for passenger rail will remain similar to what it is at present) or the continued rise in fuel costs will intensify until the option of expanding suburban/exurban conventional rail is discovered in sheer desperation.