NEC Future: HSR "High Line", FRA, Amtrak Infrastructure Plan

Ridgefielder wrote:

Jeff Smith wrote:To continue that thought, you'd be starting to slow there anyway for the New Rochelle/Shell/East Shell approaches anyway. And there is a good amount of the ROW, true. But you'd need to replace several road overpasses, close off Harmon Drive in the Town of Mamaroneck, move the Marval switch, replace the track level parking lots in Mamaroneck, Harrison, and Rye. It could be done with enough $$$, and might actually help in towns like Mamaroneck and Rye with replacing low-clearance road underpasses (such as Mamaroneck Avenue) which could be done in stages.

No, it wouldn't be cheap or easy by any means. However, it would be an order of magnitude cheaper and easier than the alternatives. You wouldn't have to dig a tunnel under the Sound, resurrect the NY&NE and turn it into the LGV-Est, or set off NIMBY thermonuclear war by building through the Greenwich and Stamford backcountry.

Besides, it's not really the speed at which a train passes a particular point but the time it takes to cover the whole line from the Hell Gate to New Haven that counts, right?

Well, with your last sentence, that's precisely the point. It's going to be hard to have both large increases of HSR traffic and New Haven Line local (Metro-North) traffic with the line almost regardless of what you do to it. At the end of the day, when adding tracks, there's a diminishing return on how much more traffic can be added and efficiently handled; I just don't see how you are going to be able to have more trains running at every service level (stop-and-go MNR locals, MNR expresses, NE Regionals, Acelas), let alone try to get max speeds for HSR up to the 160MPH range. There's only so much you can squeeze out of the New Haven Line, and squeezing out as much as you reasonably can out of it should still happen (as to not put all of the eggs in one basket, and because so many people locally use it). But being cheaper and easier shouldn't be held above it's ability to be efficacious: both in terms of being an efficacious use of capital resources, and efficacious in accomplishing the set goal of increased capacity and ridership region-wide while decreasing travel times (significantly).

I mean, you still have good points, but the New Haven Line in the long term is going to be incapable of being the sole route to put traffic over, and keeping it as such increases the vulnerability of the entire rail corridor. As to what option is the best routing to bypass the line, it just remains to be seen... especially remains to be seen what could be built feasibly in the real world.

I really want to believe that in the year 2040 we will have HSR through interior CT but it is all just pie in the sky. I watch AMTRAK work on the Hartford Yard everyday and I watch the four dump trucks in cycle carrying away the used ballast between the main line and CSO's first track in the yard. It has been three weeks now and they are about 2/3 done I would say. Meanwhile they are trucking in cement ties and building panels for the upcoming new track through the yard as well as a second main line track. no track has been laid at this point. At this rate I can see why it will take over a year to get this done. Why they are not using trains to haul these ties and also use CSO to haul away the used ballast beats me. There is more trucking going on here then trains. Also, the Htfd yard has been active for over 125 years and longer and never needed drainage but you guess it, they now need to put it in. Why? Well the Feds say so. Right where they are working is where the line goes to Manchester. The track is in terrible shape but is doable for a slow freight. The East Hartford through to Manchester is just about done. Very little traffic on it today and all CSO is doing is hauling from Spring to New Haven as I saw a 62 car train today and a 48 car one the other day go south.

I would love to see trains run the midland as my brother -in-laws family was a big part of that line, their father as well as two sons, Billy and Jay worked that line for years and I watched them all the time hoping someday we would be able to go to Boston again this routing. Not even CSO and their sister NECR are trying to get this line reopened. The state of CT needed to put the Busway money into opening that line years ago. The State of CT is not helping in this situation and lets not forget NIMBY's. As for grade crossings in EHTFD as well as Manchester are never, ever going away. I was just out in Manchester and had to literally sit next to the crossing for the light to change and it was all backed up.

Lastly, by the year 2040, I would think we would have more advanced transportation with cars that go by themselves and better air shuttles. Don't get me wrong, I love trains but AMTRAK will never build a HSR anywhere as in those 25 years, we are bound to have a Republican President or two and they hate rail. That's not including all the state and local towns that will put up a fight.

I am with you F Line but it just not going to fly. I am just happy I can take a train to Cape Cod and I may have my Montrealer back someday but I know that is still a few years away.

New "outside" tracks for MNRR locals--which needn't be everywhere, only where they were "easy" and allowed locals to be as slow as they want--would not only add gobs of center-track capacity, might it not also allow the construction of a central track (or two) on which there could be the tilting/envelope needed to run at higher speeds?

For HSR along the New Haven line you need complete grade separation. That includes avoiding any of the draw spans. With all spans to be rebuilt as lifts requires high tracks over the span or going to one side not quite as high. ..
Why put all eggs into the New Haven line and coast line ?. It has been affected by hurricanes in the past. How many times have we heard on this and other sites the problem of elimination of alternate routes for freight and passenger service ?

I think the idea of a second spine is nice and important, but unlikely to happen.

Regardless of the costs of upgrading the line to New Haven, buy having a geographically distinct 2nd line you can avoid a lot of various issues that might impact service (like how train 188 basically "broke the back of the NEC" for a few days).

That said, in a country that supported infrastructure I could see this happening.

In this country, I can't even see us doing major upgrades in the next 25 years to the existing infrastructure.

If this was a private, for profit railroad, it would be built within 5 years. Where the NEC runs an operating profit, capital should be provided for this project asap.

BandA wrote:If this was a private, for profit railroad, it would be built within 5 years.

Perhaps if the GOP wins the White House (and both houses) in 2017, an Amtrak IPO would be in order, and the GOP could boast they could get "private" HSR done.

R36 Combine Coach wrote:Perhaps if the GOP wins the White House (and both houses) in 2017, an Amtrak IPO would be in order, and the GOP could boast they could get "private" HSR done.

Somehow I think that could only happen if Donald Trump were to win the election. Being the businessman as he is from a part of the country that depends greatly on railAnd seeing as he has as of this week signed the "RNC pledge" he's still vying for the GOP ticket come next year.

And he's already given some hints that he really does wants to fix our country's infrastructure (even though they were at least once in poor taste):

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/05/13/d ... /21183111/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/20 ... structure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OTOH the state of our infrastructure as a whole could force even an anti-rail politician to change his or her tone if it means getting more votes, could it not? And afterall it's more than just having a pro-rail prez. You would actually need a pro-rail Congress more than anything.

YamaOfParadise wrote:Well, with your last sentence, that's precisely the point. It's going to be hard to have both large increases of HSR traffic and New Haven Line local (Metro-North) traffic with the line almost regardless of what you do to it. At the end of the day, when adding tracks, there's a diminishing return on how much more traffic can be added and efficiently handled; I just don't see how you are going to be able to have more trains running at every service level (stop-and-go MNR locals, MNR expresses, NE Regionals, Acelas), let alone try to get max speeds for HSR up to the 160MPH range. There's only so much you can squeeze out of the New Haven Line, and squeezing out as much as you reasonably can out of it should still happen (as to not put all of the eggs in one basket, and because so many people locally use it). But being cheaper and easier shouldn't be held above it's ability to be efficacious: both in terms of being an efficacious use of capital resources, and efficacious in accomplishing the set goal of increased capacity and ridership region-wide while decreasing travel times (significantly).

I mean, you still have good points, but the New Haven Line in the long term is going to be incapable of being the sole route to put traffic over, and keeping it as such increases the vulnerability of the entire rail corridor. As to what option is the best routing to bypass the line, it just remains to be seen... especially remains to be seen what could be built feasibly in the real world.

An efficacious use of capital resources, yes. There's an important point in that.

Sound-hopping routes to one side, the only way you can get out of New York heading northeast is through Westchester County, NY and Fairfield County, CT. Not only are these some of the most densely-populated suburban areas in the United States: they also contain some of the wealthiest towns in the world. The assessed value of the all the property in Greenwich, for instance, is close to $57 BILLION; the annual income at the time of the last census was $5.6 billion- more than that of the population of Cleveland. Never mind the fact that this makes ROW acquisition eye-wateringly expensive-- when I referenced NIMBY thermonuclear war earlier I wasn't joking. These are people who have the wherewithal to hire the finest legal talent in the country to stop a project they object to-- in fact, they may themselves be some of the finest legal talent in the country. If you try to build anywhere other than on an existing ROW, you run the risk of spending billions of dollars on years-long litigation before the first work train turns a wheel. I'm not saying this is the way things should, in an ideal world, be; I'm just saying this is the way the world we live in works.

I'm with F-line here. Tweak the New Haven Line so that you can get from NYP to New Haven in say 1:00 - 1:15, then concentrate on upping speeds with a bypass through Hartford and the Quiet Corner.

And don't compare the situation here to that in Europe. Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna all sit well inland, in flat or gently-rolling countryside. The largest geographic obstacles are river crossings; road and railway construction were easy. New York, by contrast, sprawls out across an archipelago of three large and probably a dozen small islands, in and around one of the deepest saltwater harbors in the world. It's more comparable to Hong Kong than anything.

New Rochelle: could a grade-separated junction be a duck-under rather than a flyover? Could the Amtrak tracks drop below grade and under the line to Grand Central rather than climb up and over it?

Ridgefielder wrote:...or set off NIMBY thermonuclear war by building through the Greenwich and Stamford backcountry

I honestly can't imagine a time within the next century when anyone would be able to push an infrastructure project of this size through Fairfield or Westchester counties. There are folks in Greenwich already drumming up opposition to a bike path that would run along the Merritt Parkway (on the existing ROW that extends well beyond the roadway). A bike path. On an existing ROW. Imagine what they'd have to say about a 160mph HSR line!

The easiest way to get more capacity on the New Haven Line is by having timed meets at local overtake stations, where a local train takes a passing siding to platform while the faster service behind it goes through on the main track. Observe this example at Shin-Fuji station on the Tokaido Shinkansen, where the two-track line broadens to four tracks and the platforms are on the outside. That's how they run three separate levels of stopping service on a double track line. In this way, you don't need five or six tracks all the way from NRO to NHV to support Amtrak and Metro North, you just need extra space at some of the local Metro North stations, which you should be able to finagle by invading the parking lots.

^ Americans may prefer something more loosely timed, and the good news is there are plenty of stretches where you could call the 5th track "three stations in a row" and not even have it on both sides at the same time.

Weekend traffic BOS - NYP must be good. Amtrak adding a Saturday only Acela round trip BOS - NYP. It starts this weekend not much notice.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/159/699/Amt ... 15-044.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CComMack wrote:The easiest way to get more capacity on the New Haven Line is by having timed meets at local overtake stations, where a local train takes a passing siding to platform while the faster service behind it goes through on the main track. Observe this example at Shin-Fuji station on the Tokaido Shinkansen, where the two-track line broadens to four tracks and the platforms are on the outside. That's how they run three separate levels of stopping service on a double track line. In this way, you don't need five or six tracks all the way from NRO to NHV to support Amtrak and Metro North, you just need extra space at some of the local Metro North stations, which you should be able to finagle by invading the parking lots.

I believe the Caltrans improvements are based on the same concept.