by Alex M
Unless you build tracks 35 ft. from the centerline of the existing RF&P sub, CSX will balk at electrification for anything over 90 MPH.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman
MattW wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 8:44 am Who said Acela to Richmond has to be at high speed? Just having a one-seat ride on a modern, clean, trainset would undoubtedly boost ridership. Heck, if it were possible (and please don't jump in and tell me all the reasons it isn't, I know them), putting a diesel on the front of an Acela set and running to Richmond would provide a major boost even with the engine addition/subtraction time in DC just due to the one-seat ride.I'd drop the one-seat ride and just have a modern-looking train. In many countries there are frequent connections - try reserving between some bigger city pairs in Germany, you can get 2-3 connections. One cross-platform in DC would save quite a bit of time on the motor change. Especially if they do something cool like opening all the doors, which Amtrak is sometimes loath to do on corridor trains.
mtuandrew wrote: ↑Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:59 pmMusic to my adjunct instructor for military entrepreneurship transition program ears! Revenue Drivers is what it's all about.Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:17 am Here's an idea that wouldn't take even 10% - build out good wifi on all corridor trains. Invest in top notch stuff with high speed and large bandwidth. Perhaps use the same stuff the airlines use. Then charge for it. Get at least part of the money back.Add a decent coffee bar/bar car to each train while you’re at it. If it means spending $50m to rebuild your Horizons, Amfleets, and Superliner cafes (also to spec such a setup on the Viaggios) and giving up some business class seating in order to sell $6 lattes, $10 draft beers, and $15 mixed drinks, even staffing an extra cafe attendant you’ll still come out way ahead in total profits.
The notion that everybody should have free wifi that can do anything is a fool's errand, because now the first ten guys on the train stream netflix, the rest of us get squat, and it's no more attractive than it was before wifi.
Also, Amtrak currently treats wifi as an expense like everything else. That means wifi gets in line behind all the other non-safety expenses for repair and upgrade.
If it were a profit center, even a minimal one, they'd assign a few dedicated guys to the system and it would work well. And it would be a genuine feature to attract riders.
Alex M wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:46 am Unless you build tracks 35 ft. from the centerline of the existing RF&P sub, CSX will balk at electrification for anything over 90 MPH.Unless they wrote that into the contract selling half the RoW to Virginia, I don't see why that balking matters more than any other abutting neighbour
Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 10:00 am I think you're right, something of that nature.Coming back to the $2b question, wouldn’t it be nice if Amtrak had both ACSES and I-ETMS installed on all its power, and had standardized I-ETMS installed on the Michigan, Illinois, Downeaster, and Raton Pass NM lines (with whatever mods were needed for 110 mph service)? I don’t know what’s on the Springfield or Hudson lines but apparently it’s sufficient for Amtrak.
And that would've been valuable in this PTC morass. A "train in distress" function. Press a button (or automatically actuated by air dump) and the PTC system limits all nearby trains to 25mph. Could've been the most valuable thing on PTC