Amtrak Envisions World Class High-Speed Rail

Paul, I think it all depends on water tunnels and the 7 extension. I know the launch box and tail tracks for the 7 was around 28th? Assuming that's rather shallow, it might preclude coming in on that side of Penn. Not sure what the issues are for the north side of Penn; maybe the same.

I'm thinking the value of this proposal is not that it will actually get built, but that it gives a cost comparison vs. improving the existing corridor.

Not that the money is there, but you don't, for example, want to plan to spend $200b on the existing corridor, if a whole new ROW is going to cost quite a bit less.

That's I think where the real value in this proposal lies. It makes it possible to consider whether particular smaller projects, such as a New London-bypass, bridge projects, or other ROW-straightening projects are worthwhile, or whether it's better just simply to start from scratch.

Found this: Lohud.com 10.3.10 Amtrak's HSR will have trouble finding a way through Westchester

In case you didn't catch it last week, the railroad unveiled a bold vision of high-speed trains reaching 220 mph as they zip from Washington to Boston in about three hours. That would be for the fastest service, hitting only Philadelphia and Manhattan in between. But other stops for somewhat slower service could include New Rochelle and the Westchester County Airport.

So where would they run rail between those two Westchester stops? It would have to cut through communities like New Rochelle, Mamaroneck and Harrison. Not just country clubs, of course, but plenty of homes, parks and downtown areas.

"I can't envision a route where they could do this, certainly not in Mamaroneck," said Mamaroneck Town Administrator Stephen Altieri, whose community is on the way.

I've already said! The NYW&B!

jck wrote:

hat's I think where the real value in this proposal lies. It makes it possible to consider whether particular smaller projects, such as a New London-bypass, bridge projects, or other ROW-straightening projects are worthwhile, or whether it's better just simply to start from scratch.

I concur. The general public has little idea of the lead times, ancillary costs, and the technical limitations of a project such as this one, and the re-orientation of the media toward an increasingly sheltered, non-technically-oriented audience has vastly reinforced the obstacles.

It's either going to take a long and slow campaign of re-education, or a crisis simply too big to ignore, and everything I see or read convicnces me it will be the latter. When that stage finally arrives, the more options in place, the less painful will be the choices, and the quicker the recovery.

I'm curious how straight the NY,W&B was. Straight enough to run some kind of higher speeds service?

I know it's impossible to use the ROW at this point but what other options are there to get it through Westchester? It does connect to the NEC in the Bronx.

Ahhh, I can't wait to see what passenger service will look like in NY and New England in 30 years! I'll be old enough to ride the train more for fun.

I'm also wondering what towns the proposed Long Island routes would pass through besides Ronkonkoma. Space is the big issue and by 2040, the population in of the north east is only going to be higher!

Otto's more qualified to answer the question on the NYW&B. I don't believe it was all that straight, but it had the benefit of zero grade crossings on cut or viaduct ROW. Curvature wasn't an issue with the high number of stations on the line, which negated any speed advantages or alignment.

Imagine Amtrak running alongside the 5/Dyre Av line in the Bronx!

Anything's possible, but not likely, but to dream........and this is speculation on a proposed Amtrak route.

Here's Otto's site: http://nywbry.com/

There are system maps here; I suppose you could google it, and trace the line along Old Mamaroneck Rd in WP, Bloomingdale Rd, Heathcote Rd, down through Quaker Ridge to North Av in New Rochelle and ultimately on to the Dyre Av line. This might give you an idea of the curvature.

Beyond White Plains was the planned Westchester Northern: http://nywbry.com/history.php#wn

I'm pretty sure Danbury is contemplated as an inland stop on the way to HPN. I wonder if this is the same approximate route contemplated by Amtrak.

Jeff Smith wrote:Paul, I think it all depends on water tunnels and the 7 extension. I know the launch box and tail tracks for the 7 was around 28th? Assuming that's rather shallow, it might preclude coming in on that side of Penn. Not sure what the issues are for the north side of Penn; maybe the same.

It's hard to say; there's been no coordination between NJ Transit and Amtrak about new Hudson River tunnels. NJT's last plan (before Christie put everything on hold) was to go under the 7 train extension but - maybe - over the water tunnel.

Amtrak started speculating about its own Penn Station access about a year ago. They suggested a third pair of tunnels north of the existing ones but, as far as I know, they didn't have any details beyond that.

That would be interesting to compare since the WN was supposed to go to Danbury. I'll have to do some reading of my Westchester books this week. I wonder how far the proposed Westchester Northern route is/was from Westchester Airport, which would be a possible stop on the proposed Amtrak route.

jck wrote:I'm thinking the value of this proposal is not that it will actually get built, but that it gives a cost comparison vs. improving the existing corridor.

Not that the money is there, but you don't, for example, want to plan to spend $200b on the existing corridor, if a whole new ROW is going to cost quite a bit less.

There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in that figure. It's very clear that NEC improvements would cost far less than this whimsical proposal.

jck wrote:That's I think where the real value in this proposal lies. It makes it possible to consider whether particular smaller projects, such as a New London-bypass, bridge projects, or other ROW-straightening projects are worthwhile, or whether it's better just simply to start from scratch.

To the contrary, this sort of proposal might just undermine public support for common sense upgrades in the existing NEC.

Hi all,

As it relates to the above post, I rarely post in the Amtrak forum. But I recently learned that Amtrak, not railroad.net, had stolen one of my photos. To be honest, I was shocked since the image had a copyright watermark and it was photoshopped out.

I just wanted to clarify since I have been on/off rr.net since the late 90s and this is a decent site, NO one at railroad.net was accountable or involved.

I don't understand why they aren't pushing harder to speed things up on the straight-but-empty stretch between Baltimore (Martin Airport) and Wilmington, or again from Philly to Metropark. The vast majority of trips pass through these areas, and it seems to me that if the stretches will be incorporated into every realistic future scenario, they should get to work on them now.

It'd cost $10b to tunnel through Baltimore to save 15 minutes on train that stops on most trips anyway, but the same amount of time (or more) could be trimmed from WAS-NYP for maybe half that spent on grade separation (I'm picturing new-but-parallel bridges in Maryland) and high speed catenary (at 60Hz) in these other places.

Arlington wrote:I don't understand why they aren't pushing harder to speed things up on the straight-but-empty stretch between Baltimore (Martin Airport) and Wilmington, or again from Philly to Metropark. The vast majority of trips pass through these areas, and it seems to me that if the stretches will be incorporated into every realistic future scenario, they should get to work on them now

Perhaps there is no money allocated? I don't know how much it would cost to upgrade the bridge over the Gunpowder River to 150-mph operation, but that's a two-track bottleneck that hurts the average speed.

It'd cost $10b to tunnel through Baltimore to save 15 minutes on train that stops on most trips anyway, but the same amount of time (or more) could be trimmed from WAS-NYP for maybe half that spent on grade separation (I'm picturing new-but-parallel bridges in Maryland) and high speed catenary (at 60Hz) in these other places.

Where did you get that tunnel cost estimate?

You don't need a frequency of 60 Hertz for "high-speed catenary" wire; you need a modern design with constant-tension wires. Germany runs high-speed trains on wires that use 15 kV voltage and 16⅔ Hz frequency. Where is there grade separation needed that wasn't included in the original NECIP?

For a previous discussion on Cat, see http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 46&t=74729

I believe clearances has a lot to do with what voltage or freq are selected.

Clearance required is all to do with voltage . the hgher the voltage the more clearance you need . i believe electricity can jump around 1/8 of an inch for every 5 00 volts or so .
clearance has nothing to do with frequency . The only impact frequency would have on high speed would be weight of the transformer in the locomotive . the lower the frequency the heavier the transformer would need to be .