An Interesting Development

N.Y. rail plan hikes speed
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno will announce today (March 17) an ambitious plan that he hopes will put New York's high-speed rail aspirations, stalled amid bickering between state and Amtrak officials, back on track, according to this report by Cathy Woodruff published by the Albany Times-Union.
The Rensselaer County Republican will propose a reinvigorated rail corridor starting in New York City and extending for the first time beyond the Capital Region to Buffalo featuring trains traveling 200 mph or faster, according to people familiar with the details of Bruno's proposal.

Bruno's proposal aims to cut travel time from Buffalo to New York City from more than eight hours to just over three hours. The trip from the Albany-Rensselaer station in Rensselaer would take just 1 hours.

Bruno is scheduled to unveil his plan during an address today to some of the area's top business leaders at Albany International Airport.

The plan would need the support of Gov. George Pataki and the Democrat-led Assembly.

Bruno declined comment Wednesday. His spokeswoman, Lisa Black, said the senator has been intrigued by the prospect of high-speed rail throughout the state.

"The idea has been out there and he has been very interested in pursuing it," Black said.

Bruno's proposal is more far-reaching than a $185 million high-speed rail program launched in 1998 by Pataki. That plan was to employ a fleet of reconditioned 1970s-vintage Turboliners traveling at speeds of up to 125 mph between New York City and the Capital Region.

The trains were supposed to shave 20 minutes from the current 2-hour, 20-minute trip between Rensselaer and New York City, and most of the fleet was to be in operation by 2001. But the track work necessary to enable the trains to travel at those speeds was never completed, and Amtrak, which was supposed to pay for much of the work, says it no longer has the money to do it.

Amtrak has mothballed the three trains that were completed by Super Steel Schenectady at its Delaware yards, citing concerns about heating and air conditioning problems, and the state is suing Amtrak for its decision to drop out of the program.

Difficulties in marrying modern European train technology with the old American-made trains, unexpected mechanical issues and asbestos removal delayed completion of the trains and contributed to soaring costs. The estimated cost rebuilding the trains swelled from $53 million to more than $74 million.

Bruno's plan would allocate $5 million in the 2005-06 state budget to study the feasibility of the trans-state high-speed rail system, estimate a total cost and lay the groundwork for inclusion of program funds in next year's state budget.

Those familiar with the proposal declined comment Wednesday on what rail and train technologies the feasibility study would examine and whether the reconditioned Rohr Turboliners might play any part in the service.

They said the plan would be designed to move forward whether or not Amtrak remains in the picture.

The future of the financially ailing railroad is in doubt after the Bush administration proposed to eliminate all federal funding. The money is expected to run out by Oct. 1 unless Amtrak supporters in Congress can muster enough votes to restore funding.

(The preceding report by Cathy Woodruff was published by the Albany Times-Union on Thursday, March 17, 2005.)

It's certainly encouraging that they're open to the idea of not just a single line, but an entire state-wide network, and in my home state no less. And interestingly, not long ago I suggested that NYC-Albany would make an excellent HSR demo. Let's hope this really gets funded and built. I tend to think ever rising oil prices will begin to make these sorts of things more and more attractive. Once one is built and the other states see it everyone will want one.

Also I want to add that "200 mph or better" service precludes using the Turboliners, or for that matter anything except straight electrics.

200mph service would mean all new ROW, fully electric operation, and a lot of other things.

It'd be big bucks at a time the state doesn't have any.

Forget modifying existing tracks, this would simply have to be all new construction, either on new ROW or parralleing existing ROW. It'd have to be system sepparated because FRA compliant equipment couldn't be used, and NYC access would be a BIG disaster - effectively either one heck of a waiver from the FRA, or all new tunnel/terminal. Forget Tier II or even Tier I - even at the weight of current Euro HSTs, 200mph operation is a question mark. At FRA weights, it's simply not possible, period.

I say the plan goes nowhere. It's too ambitious and it's pretty obvious nobody making decisions has any clue what the technical challanges involved are. The simple reality is a line of this nature will be very difficult to build, will require a lot of legal wrangling with the FRA to allow non compliant equipment on existing tracks, new ROW construction from lower NY to Albany will be VERY expensive.

An initial NYC to Albany segment could easily run a few billion dollars. assuming the FRA will even let mixed operation happen (which will be needed to go the last 10 miles or so to Penn Station - there's simply no room to build a whole new line, above or below ground).

If the state can't even build a Tappan Zee rail link, don't expect this to come about...

"Once one is built and the other states see it everyone will want one. "

Since we have had 125mph operation on the NE corridor for some 60+ years, I don't see other states lining up very quickly to get on board. So many projects have been proposed in almost every area of the country but there is never follow through with the funding.

BTW mixed operation would be from Poughkeepsie, where Metro North starts their run to the city - about 80 miles, unless all new ROW is built, in which case the only variance needed would be a very short section for access to Penn Station platforms.

It's a great idea though. Perhaps the key here is that to get more funding for the ALB-NYC section they have brought the whole state on board?? Even just upgrading the section from BUF-ALB to under 3 hours would be very interesting.

drewh wrote:"Once one is built and the other states see it everyone will want one. "

Since we have had 125mph operation on the NE corridor for some 60+ years, I don't see other states lining up very quickly to get on board. So many projects have been proposed in almost every area of the country but there is never follow through with the funding.

You're overlooking a few things though. First, it hasn't been 60 years, but rather for around 40. Until the Metroliners in the late 1960s PRR didn't run trains at much more than around 100 mph. Second, true that we've had 125 mph operation but there are enough slower segments to kill the average speed significantly. The NEC has never been a 125 mph from beginning to end operation or you would have expresses making the NYC-WASH run in about 2 hours, 15 minutes. Third, the airlines are one of the chief lobbyists against proposed high speed lines, and for the most part they've been very effective. I think though with rising oil prices air travel is going to get less and less attractive. Also, a plane trip can never be a one-seat ride like a high-speed train. People will trade a little time for convenience, although true high-rail rail can be time-competitive with air travel out to as far as 1000 miles.

And this will only be successful if it's a brand new ROW for the entire trip, including all the way into Penn Station via a new tunnel. If you're forced to use existing trackage for the last few miles you'll easily add 15 minutes to the trip due to the low speed limits and other traffic. Ideally, the train should have its own platform, perhaps under existing tracks. When it gets the signal to go, it's full throttle right through the tunnel, and out past NYC limits within 5 minutes. The new tunnel will have enough capacity to be used for high speed services throughout the state originating at Penn Station, so it won't be built solely for one line.