Any chance we can make Baltimore's (and New York's) tunnels high enough for Superliners?
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:Any chance we can make Baltimore's (and New York's) tunnels high enough for Superliners?B&P replacement is supposed to have full-on freight under wire clearances so Norfolk Southern can enhance its Port of Baltimore loading capacity. That should be fine. Gateway they may pour at 16'2" Superliner height for 100-year-plus future-proofing purposes, but you still have no means of getting anything taller than a 14'6" MLV through Penn and the East River Tunnels so it's a moot point for train ops.
There's no routes you could platform with an 8-inch boarding Superliner north of WSH anyway, so the equipment flat-out wouldn't travel there for revenue or non-revenue moves. The Cap Ltd. is the only route out of WSH that utilizes those cars today, and there's a case to be made for swapping that lone route over to single-levels for sake of equipment region hegemony once scarce Amfleet 2's get replaced by a bigger fleet of next-gen LD coaches. WSH-BAL wouldn't even be able to take an Auto Train extension from Lorton to a #2 terminal north of the Beltway without fixing a bunch of sub- 19'6" overpass clearances for the autoracks, so that nearby Superliner-bearing route is no practical consideration either.