Electrification around NYC

[RandallW]

I understand the advantage of converting from 25Hz to 60Hz is the substation equipment is both less complex and more standard when the 60/25 Hz transition does not need to be made. Given that the only equipment in the NEC that requires 25Hz are the SEPTA Silverliner IVs and maybe some MOW equipment, once those are retired, there is no advantage to retaining 25Hz electrification anywhere on the NEC.

[ElectricTraction]

First of all, I forgot about one little detail (that I realized anyway, I'm sure there are others) in my previous posts. At West Trenton, in order to do run-through, you would likely have to convert about 12 miles of it from Reading 25hz to PRR 25hz in order to run electrified freight. The Trenton Cutoff would be electrified using PRR 25hz power as well, so this would be relatively easy. CSX would use 25kV/60 north of West Trenton up to the Raritan Valley Line. Seeing as CSX electrification would end just south of Philly, it would likely make sense to use PRR 25hz power from there all the way to West Trenton, and re-linking up the West Philadelphia Elevated with both the NEC and the Harrisburg for NS connections, also on the PRR 25hz system.

EDIT: An alternative would be to electrify the whole thing with 25kV/60, converting SEPTA from Neshaminy to West Trenton to 25kV/60, which might make more sense, even though in the very short term it would limit the equipment used there.

[ElectricTraction]

What is needed is multi ways to access Manhattan, LIRR has it from the east. NJT, PATH, & Amtrak provides from across the Hudson.

LIRR should expand LIC and add a new ferry terminal for more connectivity and load balancing, along with service improvements to Atlantic Terminal. Likewise, NJT should improve connectivity from Hoboken.

However, from the north and NE it is very limited to only one path from origination points. Hell Gate for MNRR will be somewhat an exception in the future however needs special 3rd rail shoes and is acceleration limited.

There's not that long of a 3rd rail run, and if there are acceleration limits, substations in HAROLD and through the East River should be upgraded.

Now what is needed is the West side tracks be all 2 main tracks with 12.5kV/60hZ to past Spuyten, Spuyten swing bridge replaced with a fixed flyover. Restore the SE WYE leg at Spuyten with 12.5/60 over head to the present end of the CAT from New Haven. Add CAT from that line from Spuyten to connect to the Hell Gate line. So, in the case of a failure of either Park Avenue, Hell Gate line, or West side lines some service can still be maintained into Manhattan NYP or NYG that otherwise would terminate service on the affected line.

So making the 25kV/60 from Albany/Poughkeepsie meet the 3rd rail on the Empire Connection, that makes total sense, and would be part of AC electrification of the Hudson. With that connection and electrification of the east leg of the wye at SD, Metro-North would have the ability to route any of its three lines either to NYP to GCT, albeit the Harlem Line would require using trainsets from the New Haven or Hudson that can jump to AC power and would be a very slow and circuitous set of wye connections to make a Z shape. All that's left is Amtrak.

First, I think you're going to run into clearance issues with that concept that would be VERY expensive to mitigate for what amounts to a redundant route for Amtrak instead of making passengers get off and switch to MN at STM or NRO in that case of the Hell Gate Line getting shut down. And what would east of SHELL? You're back to a single point of failure.

Secondly, in order to make this redundant route for Amtrak, MN would have to get all M-10 style cars for the Harlem, which would be significantly more expensive than M-9 style cars. The Harlem Line has significantly more electric equipment than the Hudson, and would soak up the Hudson's M-9 style cars when the Hudson converts over to AC electrification and removes the third rail. You'd also be creating a third rail- AC- third rail conversion on the main line in a fairly short distance.

If you could convert GCT over to AC power, it would make sense, but you can't.

This proposal to be completely effective calls for SSY, NYP, and tunnels to NJ to convert to 12.5/60. For regular service that way MNRR could run M-8 type equipment as thru service from Hell Gate / New Haven to POU.

If you electrify the Hudson, you'd want the capability to run to NYP anyway, making the PRR third rail meet the 60hz power, so you'd have the ability to through run from Hell Hate/New Haven to POU whether with 3rd rail capable equipment, or 25hz capable AC EMU equipment.

Part of the argument for using M-10 style equipment for PSA is that in the case of one route getting shut down, the RTC can dynamically reroute traffic at SHELL on the fly. This can't be done with AC EMUs, although I think that an AC EMU fleet to through run with NJT and on to SEPTA makes a lot of sense and is more valuable than the ability to dynamically re-route. Worst case, just dump some passengers at NRO and they can catch an M-10 style train to GCT.

A thought, if Amtrak could find enough riders a New Haven - NYP - Albany train would be possible even now with Airo train sets.

That's not a bad idea anyway. Relatively few would ride all the way through, but it opens up some interesting city/town pairs, with most of the passengers getting on or off in NYC. Amtrak needs a station in Queens at Northern Blvd and Broadway, and they should build one on the West Side as well, making some interesting connectivity from the opposite direction possible through NYP.

[ElectricTraction]

I understand the advantage of converting from 25Hz to 60Hz is the substation equipment is both less complex and more standard when the 60/25 Hz transition does not need to be made.

You can use standard 60hz equipment, so once converted the system would be simpler and not require the static converters and could be fed from anywhere.

Given that the only equipment in the NEC that requires 25Hz are the SEPTA Silverliner IVs and maybe some MOW equipment, once those are retired, there is no advantage to retaining 25Hz electrification anywhere on the NEC.

BUT, and it's always a big BUT, there are a lot of reasons why this would be a very complicated and expensive project:

1. While the Reading system is a traction power system only fed from one point, the PRR system is an entire power grid that essentially pre-dates any kind of widespread AC power grid in the area that originally generated all of it's own power. Thus, it has transformers, substations, and single-phase transmission lines all built specifically for the PRR system, and not for 60hz power.

2. There is other stuff, like signals and equipment at stations built to run on 25hz. Not a huge hurdle, but $$$.

3. There are two 25hz turbines at the Safe Harbor Dam that produce power for Amtrak natively at 25hz.

4. Amtrak upgraded the rotary converts to static converters, partly due to the cost of the 25hz system.

5. For electrification of passenger and freight operations, NEC locomotives are essentially bespoke anyway. Even with widespread electrification of freight railroads and long-distance passenger trains that use them, the national rail system is mostly standardized on I-ETMS, 16'2" overhead clearance, and would be using 25kV/60 for electrification. The NEC isn't just different because it uses 25hz, it also uses ACSES II, and has a clearance limit for 15'6" for freight and 14'6" with round corners at the North River Tunnels for passenger traffic, so both freight and passenger locomotives have to be somewhat bespoke for NEC use anyway.

6. There would be efficiency savings by not having to convert 60hz power to 25hz power, but due to clearances, it's likely that the NEC, like the New Haven Line to the north, would be converted to 12.5kV/60 not the now-standard 25kV/60, limiting the efficiency gains by utilizing a higher voltage in a 50kV split-phase system like Amtrak uses on the Shore Line.

7. The capital cost for a project that gains essentially nothing would be absolutely massive, and there are many, many other electrification projects waiting for funding that would be far more impactful than converting the 25hz system to 60hz. In addition, the NEC instead is in need of something like $30B in repairs and upgrades just to get to a state of good repair and maximize the track speed that's possible within the current physical alignment including bridge replacements and other speed restrictions.

So yes, there would be some weight savings by not having 25hz transformers but any weight differences and wear and tear is going to be far more driven by getting modern equipment that takes advantage of the new FRA crash standards and doesn't require them to be quite as extremely overbuilt as previous designs (including the now outdated M-9 design). It is even likely that an M-10 car under the new crash standards could work on 25hz power, although such a design would still be limited in use and different than an AC EMU used in through service, as third rail equipment doesn't work with low-level platforms, requiring a separate AC EMU design that can handle low-level platforms while the M-10 design would handle AC and third rail power instead.

[jamoldover]

A question for ElectricTraction - just why should the freight railroads like CSX want to pay billions of dollars on projects that will significantly reduce their capacity (you said no more double-stacking or high-clearance equipment like autotracks) and cost them more in operations?

Let's get our heads out of the sky and back to practicality.

[ElectricTraction]

A question for ElectricTraction - just why should the freight railroads like CSX want to pay billions of dollars on projects that will significantly reduce their capacity (you said no more double-stacking or high-clearance equipment like autotracks) and cost them more in operations?

Let's get our heads out of the sky and back to practicality.

First of all, I was focusing on the technical aspects of the electrification type and location, and how the system would fit together.

If you actually read my posts, you will see that I'm talking about the NEC in particular due to a lack of a route that you can reasonably electrify at Plate H. You would also see that I'm suggesting that CSX not electrify their line from DC to Philly due to the clearance issues and instead run intermodal over the NEC at Plate C clearance while maintaining Plate H on their own B&O route. This is a weird, oddball, one-off sort of situation. The rest of the routes I'm proposing would be electrified at Plate H.

Further, if you had actually read my posts, you would see that the only clearance reduction I was proposing is on the Hudson Line, and that reducing to Plate F clearance has zero impact on today's operations. I would only permanently abandon Plate F clearances and drop to Plate C if the Cross Harbor Freight Rail Tunnel was already in place for higher clearance freight to get in and out of NYC.

Given that the rest of the country would be electrified at full Plate H clearance with 25kV/60, let's talk about the economics. The issue is short term vs. long term thinking, and some of the incentives are really twisted right now for two main reasons.

1. Trucks don't pay the entire cost to maintain highways, while railroads essentially do.
2. Carbon emissions are not priced into diesel fuel.

The biggest issue is that many publicly held companies just think short term quarter to quarter. If they were thinking longer term, you'd be seeing them electrify, since it is cheaper to operate in the long term, but requires up front capital to construct.

In order to overcome this, I would electrify as part of a public-private partnership where government funding pays for electrification of private railroads, and they have to share a chunk of the operational cost savings for some period of time, such that the government would get more than repaid for the initial capital cost. If the railroads want to suddenly start thinking more than a quarter ahead and think in 30-year timeframes like they should be in the first place, then they could fund their own electrification project. There also needs to be policy changes in making trucks pay their own way for highways and building the price of carbon emissions into diesel fuel for both road and rail, which would tilt the economics more towards rail.

So when you actually read my posts, you will see that my proposal significantly increases the capacity that CSX has for North-South intermodal operations, and creates some new routes that's don't exist today for I-95 corridor intermodal to get trucks off of the roads.

[ElectricTraction]

I thought through the CSX electrification north of Philadelphia, and it makes the most sense to convert the end of the SEPTA West Trenton Line to a CSX 25kV/60 system and then switch back to the Reading 25hz system south of Neshaminy instead of putting part of it on the PRR 25hz system. That's a prime candidate for through-running anyway, which would require equipment capable of switching on the fly. It makes sense to switch the Norristown Line from the Reading 25hz system to the PRR 25hz system if the Reading system couldn't deliver the power for freight traffic.

[SRich]

Amtrak should when they are rebuilding from fixed catenary to constant tension catenary rebuild the NEC where possible to plate H standards, give the freights also an incentive to ride double stack on the NEC. (The new baltimore tunnel is technicaly a plate H tunnel with electrification(written in the technical docs), but it will be equiped for plate C, the rest of the NEC where NS is driving isn't capable for plate H so a plate H doesn't make any sense.) When the NEC (NY will be an execption) is plate H for freights under wire, Amtrak can make a deal to electrify some freights owned corridors.

[ElectricTraction]

Amtrak should when they are rebuilding from fixed catenary to constant tension catenary rebuild the NEC where possible to plate H standards, give the freights also an incentive to ride double stack on the NEC. (The new baltimore tunnel is technicaly a plate H tunnel with electrification(written in the technical docs), but it will be equiped for plate C, the rest of the NEC where NS is driving isn't capable for plate H so a plate H doesn't make any sense.) When the NEC (NY will be an execption) is plate H for freights under wire, Amtrak can make a deal to electrify some freights owned corridors.

Everything I've seen says that the new tunnel will not clear Plate H. There are likely a lot of other clearance restrictions to deal with. I'm not convinced that Plate H does anything for the NEC.

With the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel, freight could run through Oak Island to Oak Point and points onwards, but north of Fresh Pond, you're back down to Plate C on the New Haven Line. I just don't see a large intermodal facility in Queens or Brooklyn being practical given the lack of available land, and the costs involved.

Out on Long Island might make sense, but they are Plate F with third rail, so they'd be limited to COFC. On the NEC proper, with the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel, you could run intermodal up and down nearly the entire length if you ran it at plate C with a combination of COFC combined with TOWC (Trailer On Well Car). TOWC won't clear third rail, but that's not an issue if you go from Oak Island to the Bay Ridge via the tunnel.

I get the obsession with every ounce of efficiency on the really long routes, like BNSF's Z-LACWSP, but on the East Coast, I don't really see the need for double stacks. It should be feasible to run COFC and TOWC at Plate C clearances. COFC doesn't have that much less capacity than domestic double-stack, as the stacks have a lot of space between the containers in each well car, whereas COFC can get them pretty close together. DPU and allowing longer trains should make it more economical.

Part of it might just be Amtrak charging too much for use of their rails, if they're charging high per axle-mile rates, than the extra axles for COFC and TOWC compared to double stacks really adds up.

[west point]

It may have changed but originally when bores 3 & 4 at Baltimore are built that one bore will be plate "H" under wire.

[ElectricTraction]

It may have changed but originally when bores 3 & 4 at Baltimore are built that one bore will be plate "H" under wire.

So the 2nd tunnel that's not funded will be Plate H under the wire?

[west point]

It may have changed but originally when bores 3 & 4 at Baltimore are built that one bore will be plate "H" under wire.

So the 2nd tunnel that's not funded will be Plate H under the wire?

Slight confusion here. The first 2 bores are separate with the required cross escape / evacuation / fire passageways about every 800 feet. Now bores 3 & 4 when built not quite sure how escape will be built and to what bores. Each bore is single track not 2 tracks.

[ElectricTraction]

Slight confusion here. The first 2 bores are separate with the required cross escape / evacuation / fire passageways about every 800 feet. Now bores 3 & 4 when built not quite sure how escape will be built and to what bores. Each bore is single track not 2 tracks.

Ah, I see, so one of the four tracks will be Plate H under the wire. Interesting. I'm still not sure where you could get with that but it's interesting.

It seems that Amtrak is charging too high a cost per-axle or per-car. If they had a more reasonable way of charging tracking tracks, then single-stack should be fine for NEC intermodal.

[jamoldover]

Amtrak has made it clear, through what they charge for freight use per axle as well as though other policies, that they don't want heavy, dirty, slow, freight trains operating over their nice clean shiny tracks, and will do whatever they can to actively discourage such use. (editorial phrasing is entirely mine - I'm not claiming anyone from Amtrak has actually said those words)

I don't see that changing, no matter how much clearance is available under their wires.

[ElectricTraction]

Amtrak has made it clear, through what they charge for freight use per axle as well as though other policies, that they don't want heavy, dirty, slow, freight trains operating over their nice clean shiny tracks, and will do whatever they can to actively discourage such use. (editorial phrasing is entirely mine - I'm not claiming anyone from Amtrak has actually said those words)

You're entirely right about the way Amtrak treats freight service on the NEC. Unfortunately, outside of Chicago, the very short stretch of NJT from CP ALDENE to HUNTER Interlocking, and a few other choke points, there are essentially no places where freight and passenger traffic effectively interoperates at high volume. Essentially all other lines in the US are either passenger lines with occasional freight, or freight lines with occasional passenger.

I don't see that changing, no matter how much clearance is available under their wires.

So I was thinking that Plate H clearance really isn't needed except for Amtrak charging an arm and a leg to freight operators on a per-axle basis. Just make the train longer and run it as COFC, TOWC, or single stack.

Amtrak needs a LOT of funding. Maybe that funding needs to come with some strings attached about learning how to share the infrastructure that should be a public good for both passenger and freight.

As part of electrifying freight rail routes, it would be great to see the NEC used for more freight, and to bring electrified freight back. In particular, it could serve as a N-S route for CSX, and when combined with the Cross Harbor Freight Tunnel, it would provide the ability to run intermodal essentially on the entire NEC, going to Worcester or Davisville on the north end.

With reasonable per-axle fees, that should be operationally reasonable at Plate C clearances.