Comments on: Stopping the Wrong Project Before it Happens

By: Ted S

Ted S — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:18:58 +0000

This is all very interesting and I hope some of it will happen in my lifetime; I’m 70. I used to work for the NYCS and have ridden Amtrak every year but two, since May 1971. One subject that has not been brought up is the freight railroads. If the first phase is the upgrade of existing Amtrak lines, the freight railroads want no part of it; they got rid of their passenger business to Amtrak. Therefore,most lines discussed here would have to be from scratch–not much of a chance in this day and age. The NIMBY group would also tie up expansion in court, ala as happened with the ACELA electrification from New Haven to Boston. Good Luck!

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:43:52 +0000

If NH would be willing to put in *any* state/local government effort towards rail, I’d certainly support the long-proposed Concord-Manchester-Nashua-Boston commuter rail line.

At that pont the case for the Montreal-Boston direct line becomes very weak. It’s clear that we need a rerouted Adironadack/Ethan Allen Express running east of Lake Champlaign via Burlington, which provides the best Montreal-Albany HSR corridor. The Vermonter would remain, imrpoved, running from Burlington along the east side of Vermont — this provides Boston-Springfield-Montreal travel without going all the way to Albany.

At that point a connector from Concord to White River Junction would likely make sense as conventional rail, but not as HSR.

Major overhaul of Boston-Albany is totally worth it. I can’t imagine how to get the new ROW past the NIMBYs though, and the current route is quite absudly twisty. This might be a case for trying to get some of the I-90 ROW.

By: Mark Barker

Mark Barker — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:31:59 +0000

I think they should model the high speed network after the airplane hub and spoke system, with Chicago, Philly or New York, and Atlanta being the 3 primary hubs. They are all close enough to each other so that you could run an overnight high speed train so that you could hop on a sleeper train in say Chicago at say 10 pm and be in NYC by 7 am with connectors to cities like Boston and Albany. It seems this approach will give you the most connects at times that would be attractive to travelers while having to run the least amount of high speed rail. They also need to think of an integraged approach to development with only one Transportaion Fund instead of separte funds for Rail and Highways and Airports. Rail also needs to be thought of in terms of passenger and freight needs. Some of these lines if done for just passenger probably don’t make economical sense. Both if you have both freight and passenger traffic, they vary will might. In other words, how could you build a network that is profitable and makes economical since if Amtrak was in the overnight express freight business as well as the passenger rail business.

By: Andrew Dawson

Andrew Dawson — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:25:08 +0000

There needs to be a return of train service between Salt Lake City & Portland.

By: gsdali

gsdali — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:23:03 +0000

To belatedly add to this, the big omission seems to be DC-Pittsburgh-Cleveland. DC Pittsburgh is perfect highspeed rail territory. It takes about 5 hours and a modestly fast railway would be able to beet this and be able to compete, city centre to city centre with air. Frederick and Cumberland would make suitable intermediate stops both having good catchment areas for a “parkway” park and ride station.

By: Bill Moore

Bill Moore — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:45:00 +0000

We’re coming up on the 60 day reporting period. Any word on allocations?

Also, read last week that French rail system operator has expressed interest in running future HSR system here in America. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Finally, if you were looking for a good investment opportunity in future of rail, where might it be? I was thinking railroad ties?

:-)

By: Michael Witzel

Michael Witzel — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:54:37 +0000

It is good to see that the rails haven’t been forgotten.

By: David Galvan

David Galvan — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:07:28 +0000

Bill,

Well the head of the California HSR system is applying for about $2B of the $8B, to be used for grade separation in some of the more heavily populated areas, grading for a train maintanence center in the central valley, and electrification of some of the existing rail lines (along which the HSR will travel) in San Jose.

As for the rest of the federal money, other programs will have to apply for it. As I understand it, Ray La Hood will come up with a plan for the transportation funding distribution within 60 days of the President’s signing of the bill last week. So we’ll have to wait and see. I expect that some money will go to the Acela system for various improvements, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the supporters of the Midwest system applied for some of that money to be used for planning purposes.

By: Bill Moore

Bill Moore — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:20:41 +0000

Having ridden the Acela and Japan’s bullet trains — both systems of which are electric — I am delighted by the injection of some significant funding into HSR.

I am admittedly new to all this discussion, but am curious about how you envision the HSR portion of the stimulus bill be spent. Clearly it isn’t enough to build California’s HSR, nor not enough to even extend the Acela line south to Charlotte. I imagine that much of it will be used for system improvements and modest extensions.

If that is the case, where might this happen and how? Will track system be upgraded to allow higher speeds? Will more lines be electrified? Who will be the key players in this?

By: BruceMcF

BruceMcF — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:00:51 +0000

Why would the Designated Corridor map be conceived of as a National System map? Its a map of corridors that have been put forward by states and groups of states and have succeeded in winning designation.

Given that the normal procedure for the majority of the corridors … which are 110mph Rapid Rail corridors, not bullet train systems like in California … will be to complete a corridor, launch a service, and use the success of that service to generate political and, ideally, financial support for extension of the system.

So, for the Great Lakes portion of the corridor network, completing Pittsburgh to Chicago via Youngstown, Cleveland, Toledo, and Fort Wayne, together with Toledo to Detroit, would provide a foundation upon which Ohio could pursue the Triple-C, Michigan could pursue its share of the Midwest Hub, and Indiana could pursue the Cincinnati to Chicago via Indianapolis corridor.

That would cost somewhere around $2b to 2.5b all up, trains and maintenance base included.