SEHSR Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor

gprimr1 wrote:Where does the money come from to build it?

It comes from the government and the governors of the states of Virginia,North Carolina,South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida to built this future railroad track for Amtrak high speed trains on this future rail corridor.

Sylvain727 wrote:

gprimr1 wrote:Where does the money come from to build it?

It comes from the government and the governors of the states of Virginia,North Carolina,South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida to built this future railroad track for Amtrak high speed trains on this future rail corridor.

Government doesn't magically acquire money. It has to come from somewhere. As much as we wish, we can't (well shouldn't) just print money.

Not if you don't want hyperinflation to occur.

And who wants that to happen in this country???

The ones into raising the debt ceiling and "quantitative easing", apparently.

its not really about the amount of debt , its what you spend it on . Most of us probalbly have a mortgage , yet we probably dont see it as a debt problem as we would if we were borrowing money to support a gambling habit .
And so for governments , borrowing money to use in capital projects such as hsr , is different from borrowing money to fund day to day deficits .

I will see high speed trains running at 200 mph (320 km/h), from Washington DC to Jacksonville FL on their own tracks reserved for high speed trains like in Europe especially like in France and the freight trains example CSX and Norfolk Southern have their own existing railroad track reserved to them as they not really like to see Amtrak trains on their lines.

And the former SCL track which is removed from Petersburg VA to Henderson NC before the city of Raleigh will
be completely reserved for high speed trains travelling at 200 miles and hour either 320 kilometers and hour in metric system.

And you sincerly think there are still level grade crossings along this future railroad track ? There have none. There will be replaced
by overpasses which roads will pass over or below the SEHSR. And also it will be like that throughout the future HSR corridor.

Same thing on the former CSX Everett sub in the Georgia State which the both sides of the line is now unused by trains and also abandonned except
from Richmond Hill until Riceboro when the Riceboro Southern Railway and the First Coast Railroad from Seals to Yulee FL used them
both the former CSX track. But a brand new HSR tracks can be build alongside the existing FC and Riceboro Southern track from
one end to the other of this Everett sub.

And finally the whole line will be completely electrified as the Northeast Corridor and Amtrak will become the sole and exclusive owner of the future HSR link from Washington DC to Jacksonville FL since it is already owner of the Northeast Corridor.

You have big plans; which is really good. We certainly need more people who can form a vision, articulate the details and follow through.

Now you just have to work out the means to pay for it. Virginia and North Carolina have shown they are interested in investing in rail, but they don't have unlimited money supplies any more than the federal government does, so you may have to look for some creative funding options.

Alternatives are out for the stretch from Richmond VA to Raleigh NC

http://capefearbusiness.com/?p=6909

RALEIGH – The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) have released a report recommending to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) the preferred rail alternative for each of the 26 sections of the Southeast High Speed Rail (SEHSR) corridor between Richmond, Va. and Raleigh, N.C. (R2R).

There's a link to the site: http://www.sehsr.org/ and the report: http://www.sehsr.org/pdf/Report_020712.pdf

One such improvement program is DRPT’s effort to develop the Hampton Roads extension of the SEHSR corridor east from Richmond to Hampton Roads. It is expected that the Hampton Roads extension will follow the same alignment and use the same improvements as the SEHSR R2R between Richmond and Petersburg and continue eastward on a separate alignment to the CSX connection at North Collier Yard in Petersburg, VA, and on to Norfolk, VA. A Tier I DEIS for the Richmond to Hampton Roads Passenger Rail Project was completed in December 2009 and a FEIS has been submitted to FRA for review and approval.

...

For engineering purposes and evaluation of impacts, the SEHSR R2R project corridor is divided into 26 sections (Exhibit 1). There are three alternatives in each section, and each rail alternative includes an associated set of road work improvements/redesign. In many areas, the alternatives are concurrent. The endpoints of each of the 26 sections are in locations where the alternative alignments are in a common location. This allows the alternatives to be evaluated section by section, permitting the selection of “best‐fit” preferred alternatives for the entire study corridor.

...

ALTERNATIVE DESCRIPTIONS AND RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVES

The SEHSR R2R Tier II EIS project applies an “incremental approach” to the development of alternative alignments that were adopted in the SEHSR Tier I EIS. This incremental approach uses existing rail lines or inactive rail corridors (as is the case between Petersburg, VA, and Norlina, NC) where possible, in conjunction with areas of new track, taking advantage of existing rail right of way (ROW) and infrastructure through improvements such as track upgrades, double tracking, additional sidings, curve straightening, train signal improvements, crossing consolidations, and grade separated crossings (i.e., bridge or underpass). This approach upgrades existing railroad ROW to accommodate higher speeds, while avoiding or minimizing impacts to the human and natural environment.

To be considered a viable alternative, a potential alignment was required to meet a variety of design parameters. The maximum design speed for the proposed SEHSR R2R train was established as 110 miles per hour (mph), resulting in an approximate average running speed of 85 to 87 mph. The SEHSR Tier I EIS determined 110 mph to be the optimum high speed based upon benefit/cost, ridership, and current assumption of non‐electrified train propulsion. To achieve these objectives, design modifications to existing active and inactive rail alignments were required to straighten curves, adjust the vertical and horizontal alignments, and add passing sidings and new sections of
additional track. For these reasons, the proposed alternatives include some new location areas, although the proposed alignments remain predominantly within existing rail corridors for the majority of their length.

Feel free to quote at length since this is a public document.

lpetrich wrote:I checked on the Constitution of Virginia, and I can't find where it states that VA may not have a railroad.

As to the CSX route that Amtrak and VRE now use, how feasible would it be to add additional tracks? That would be good for coexisting with CSX.

I highly doubt there would be anything in Virginia's constitution barring a railroad, and if there were Norfolk Southern might not exist as the roads roots can be traced through early railroading in Virginia ( well early if you considering the mid-late 1800's early in terms of railroading ). Yes those roots can be traced back to roads such as Norfolk & Petersburg, Virginia & Tennessee, South Side Railroad, and of course the three combined into the Atlantic Mississippi & Ohio ( AM&O ), all early Virginia railroads.
Maybe there's something in the constitution that bars the state from owning a railroad outright. Of course I doubt the validity of such a passage in VA state law, it would be completely unenforceable.

There's ample land available for a route, so that shouldn't be problem. Although the obvious choice would be for any high speed rail route to connect the most important cities along the route. Those cities being Washington D.C., Richmond, Charlotte, Savanna ( Atlanta depending on routing ), and of course Jacksonville.

A revised recommendation report is out dated April 2012.
http://www.sehsr.org/pdf/Report.pdf

Section "U" running through Wake Forest is revised from the February report.

The alternatives are on common alignment through downtown Wake Forest, primarily on existing rail ROW. South of downtown the existing rail follows a series of reverse (i.e., “S”) curves. All three alternatives improve train performance by straightening these curves; however, they differ in the way they impact dual constraints posed by the Thales Academy, a one‐building private K‐12 school, to the east, and baseball fields associated with The Factory, an extensive private multi‐sports complex, to the west.

The section‐specific design objectives for Alternative NC1 are to minimize impacts to the private baseball fields to the greatest extent possible (i.e., provide the needed reduction in rail curvature and without fully avoiding impacts to the private school). The operability and constructability rating is neutral and the limiting speed is 85 mph.

Anybody go to the meeting on May 15th about the North Raleigh and Wake Forest alignment tweaks?

Downtown Wake Forest Brick Street to Friendship Chapel Road Map #53
South Wake Forest Forestville Road to Capital Boulevard Map #54
Neuse River Area Capital Boulevard to Durant Road Map #55
North Raleigh Area South of Durant Road to Atlantic Avenue Map #56
Raleigh Beltline (I-440) Millbrook Road to Whittaker Mill Road:
Map #57 A (includes alternative designs for a bridge over the railroad at Wolfpack Lane
Map #57 B (includes alternative designs for closure of Wolfpack Lane with additional improvements to New Hope Church Road area)

Very skimpy on details, but I do think this is part of SEHSR:

http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/20 ... study-says

ATLANTA - Running high-speed, passenger rail lines between Atlanta and Jacksonville, Louisville and Birmingham is economically feasible, according to a consultant's study presented Wednesday to the State Transportation Board.

The Jacksonville line should be built in two phases, first to Savannah, and then to the Northeast Florida city, consultant HNTB recommended in its study. Possible stations along the route would include Griffin, Macon, Savannah and Brunswick. The feasibility study was the first of many long steps in setting the final course of the train routes and securing funding.

The three routes were studied after an earlier study showed the feasibility of a route from Atlanta to Charlotte. That project is now in the stage of estimating the environmental impact of possible paths.

...

Fares between Atlanta and Jacksonville would range between $119.41 and $152.24. Construction would cost from $5 billion to $16 billion, or $11.5 million to $41 million for each mile. That compared to $54 million per mile as the top range of the estimate on the Atlanta-to-Birmingham route.

The final cost depends on the type of tracks chosen. Sharing existing tracks with freight lines would be the least expensive but could result in train delays. A dedicated, high-speed track would be the costliest option but might draw more riders.

The corridor for high-speed rail the federal government sketched between Atlanta and Jacksonville bypasses Savannah, but the consultants included it to tap more potential riders and to connect to a federal corridor planned along I-95.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/20 ... z1yRJVtEVG

So we now have feasibility on high-speed rail corridors from Miami to Jacksonville, Jacksonville to Atlanta, Atlanta to Louisville, Louisville to Chicago, Chicago to Minneapolis-St. Paul and Minneapolis-St. Paul to Duluth.

We also have feasibility on the corridors from Birmingham to Atlanta, Atlanta to Charlotte, Charlotte to New York and New York to Boston.

Pretty soon we could be talking about a national high-speed network.

I don't mean this the way it sounds, but I wonder if any of these studies ever come back as not feasible? Just playing a little devil's advocate. Makes me wonder if the results of studies are ever not influenced by the customers of said studies.

That said, I think it's a viable corridor on its face (i.e. w/o study). And I'd add that HVCEO studies done for expanded rail service in the Danbury, CT hub (current end of line of Danbury branch of MNRR) did not recommend two options out of three. So maybe there is some unbiased opinion?