Applicants for High-Speed Rail Funds

If Ohio got their application in (the ‘if’ is because of the current budget fight between the Governor and the Republican State Senate), the amount is $250m … that’s the 79mph version of the Triple-C corridor, with a possible later incremental upgrade to 110mph.

I haven’t heard much talk about the train system here. The only transit or rail type system is the proposed Intermodal rail station in McCalla making residents angry.

I personally believe this is what we should be focusing our attention on.

Alon – no evidence thus far that Connecticut cares about investing in the Northeast Corridor

Political_incorrectness: The official press release doesn’t mention electrification. It should, though.

Yonah, I can somewhat understand Connecticut’s stake in keeping Amtrak at commuter rail speeds – it increases commuter rail capacity. But speeding up the NEC would also involve a lot of bypasses, which would only help commuter rail. For instance, east of New Haven it’s straightforward to build new tracks along the I-95 ROW; such a move would both speed up the trains and permit more Shore Line East trains to serve New London.

Who is the lead agency for the Atlanta to NOLA line?

@ Adam:

The press release on VA’s Dept. of Rail and Public Transportation is pretty explicit in saying Washington to Petersburg. The likely route of HSR to Hampton Roads will be from Petersburg to Downtown Norfolk, south of the James River.

It will be interesting to see how this and a number of other HSR funding/scheduling priorities play out nationwide. I’m sure from a national perspective, it is more pressing to connect DC to Charlotte and on to Atlanta. On a state level, Virginia is most interested in connecting its three largest metro areas with HSR, even before a connection to North Carolina.

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/news/details.aspx?id=411

RVAExile –

“On a state level, Virginia is most interested in connecting its three largest metro areas with HSR, even before a connection to North Carolina.”

Maybe, but remember to that there is a joint NC/VA high speed rail authority. And North Carolina is the state that’s in charge of planning the HSR line for the two states (including the line that goes to Hampton Roads). The Hampton Roads line is further behind than the Petersburg to Raleigh line which is almost finished with the Tier II EIS.

What I really wish is that the $8 Bn was $50 bn.

jim-

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“The Hampton Roads line is further behind than the Petersburg to Raleigh line which is almost finished with the Tier II EIS.”

No. The current (accelerated!) schedule anticipates a Record of Decision on Petersburg-Raleigh in 2011. Richmond-Hampton Roads anticipates a ROD later this year.
——————————————-
No. At least according to the sehsr site, the Richmond-Hampton Roads section is still working on the Tier I EIS.

I agree on the competitiveness of the Washington-Richmond line. Raleigh-Charlotte, I hope so, but the problem is the amount of grade-crossings that will need to be closed. There’s a lot of double tracking that needs to be done as well. It seems that NC is more concerned right now about getting the segment to Richmond completed. Maybe because it will be easier to get to 110 mph once the ROD comes through? Or maybe because through the incremental improvements they’ve already gotten the Raleigh to Charlotte line fairly competitive with drive times? I don’t know…I just know from listening to these folks is that all the action right now is on the Raleigh to Richmond line, not the Raleigh to Charlotte line.

Sorry, more context may be helpful for the NE plan. Focuses on all aspects of passenger rail and some commuter rail. Goal is to double number of rail passengers by 2030. Wants to expand rail service in VT and speed up down-easter service to Portland from Boston.

Another story link,

LINK

Alon-
Has Amtrak submitted anything under this RFP? I know through their $1.5 bn of recovery funds some of that is going to NEC speed improvements (e.g. the Niantic River bridge, and the frequency converters in PA), but don’t think it’s $1 bn worth of stuff. That bridge replacement is supposed to take 10-12 minutes off the Acela time though.

Thank you Georgia leaders for failing to step up again.

Patrick M –

Yes, I had heard that about the Raleigh-Petersburg line. I also think I know what you’re talking about for the Raleigh-Charlotte projects. Originally, right after ARRA passed, the state listed all their potential rail projects. And the big one was double tracking the line from Greensboro to greenville for 600 million.

Plus, there’s a whole lot of projects already in the pipeline that could be funded between Raleigh and Charlotte. Don’t know if these improvements will allow for 110 mph service or not. I know they’ve already straightened out a lot of curves and added passenger sidings. But there’s a lot of grade crossings to close…and I wonder how much it will cost to fix those.

LINK

Further summary on NC, from the urbanplanet.org website:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=14417&view=findpost&p=1078889

“NC has applied for $4.026 billion (out of the $93b applied for nationwide for grants from the $8b fund) and the 168 mile Raleigh-Richmond corridor is carried entirely on the NC application for a total of $2.548 billion. Final design is $403m, construction $2.016b, also ROW and some other project costs. (not online yet so nothing to link to, but I have a copy of the preapplication)”

for examples, the bottleneck tunnel in West Baltimore

..of course I can’t find the links now. Amtrak has been studying replacing the tunnels through Baltimore and is at the point of analyzing alternatives. If I remember correctly they are aiming for 125 MPH service through Baltimore. New tunnels gently curving in and out of Penn Station. . . Build new tunnels, rehab old tunnels, MARC in old tunnels, Amtrak in new tunnels….

Harry-

Yep. Interestingly, it also contains money to help start service (79 mph service I assume) to Asheville (western NC) and Wilmington (southeast NC).

“Adirondacker, if Amtrak is committed to fixing the West Baltimore bottleneck, then this is great news”
I believe there is a congressionally funded study underway on replacing the tunnels in Baltimore. Not so much a Amtrak project, because the previous initial study looked at replacing both the passenger and freight tunnels through Baltimore. The current Baltimore tunnels represent a major bottleneck for faster passenger train travel and for double stack freight traffic on the east coast. Those tunnels are overdue for replacement.

Alon, Alan F., here’s the initial study, completed in 2005, not Amtrak but the FRA. .

http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/1605

Some chioce quotes from it:

“the first through route across Baltimore came into being only in 1873, four years after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which was evidently the easier of the two tasks. ”

“Intercorporate rivalries between the Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio systems assisted in the dissipation of resources. In the end, each of the competing carriers built its
own, inferior right-of-way, compromising even the then-prevailing standards for gradient, curvature, and operating efficiency.”

“In brief, Baltimore is a severe constraint to national
freight traffic lanes up and down the East Coast”

I can’t find anything other than a Wikipedia entry that $60 million dollars has been allocated for Baltimore studies. And the press release from the Congressman sponsoring it

http://www.house.gov/list/press/md07_cummings/20080925trains.shtml

Nathanael –

Don’t be too hard on the midwest. Not sure why the number next to Illinois says (study). But it most certainly is not just a study. If it were, that would be the largest and most crazy study of all time since they’re requesting 3.8 BILLION dollars!

Thanks Alon & Nathaneal,

The Eau Claire routing, which according to Hennepin (Minneapolis) County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin is supported by Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar, though to my knowledge there are no official studies on using that route. Much of it, from west of Madison to St. Paul, was the route of the CNW 400. From a point parallel with Madison, it got to St. Paul in 4 hours.

Having driven that stretch of freeway many times, I can say that it has plenty of room in the median but a hell of a lot of bridges to replace. The MIlwaukee-Madison route helps as a commuter line, too, and I think that’s why they took it, even though it could never be upgraded to 220mph.

I can say with relative certainty that the Mississippi River route from La Crosse to Red Wing to St. Paul will be used. It was also a high-speed route on the MIlwaukee Road.

Just as a definition note, if we are restoring about rail system to slightly-better-than 1930’s standards, we should call it Thirties-Speed-Rail (TSR), and call TGV trains HSR.

Although the vast majority of New York State rail riders live in New York City and its suburbs, the state only applied for money to be spent Upstate. Why am I not surprised?

The Washington state requests can be found here: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Funding/stimulus/passengerrail.htm

They’re asking for $152.2M in track one funds and $1.797B in track two funds.

Although the vast majority of New York State rail riders live in New York City and its suburbs, the state only applied for money to be spent Upstate. Why am I not surprised?

Last time I checked Manhattan is in New York City. From the Times Union article: “…and to help pay for the new Moynihan rail station in Manhattan”

The state’s rail plan is at

https://www.nysdot.gov/divisions/policy-and-strategy/planning-bureau/state-rail-plan

Moynihan Station, Hell’s Gate Bridge, Hudson line improvements, Arthur Kill Bridge, Oak Point Yard, all sorts of stuff for NYAR freight operations. Lots of stuff in New York City and it’s suburbs. . . in the plan at least.

I agree with the Maglve projects being a waste of money. China built a small maglv train http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train that runs eight miles and they orginally wanted to extend it another 20 miles another airport and then a 128 miles one of the cities suburbs but dropped the idea do to building the right of way though crowed areas and now is thinking about buiding a 20 mile subway tunnnel but these ideas they menitoned would run at least over 20 billon dollars.

The nature of the maglv tracks is if we build a meglv from Pitsburg to Philli what would happen if we build the line from Washingtion DC to Baltmore and wanted to link the two of them but the maglv gauges were different by a few inches and the two maglv lines trains couldn’t run on one another with out changing the gauges of one another?

Not to mention good high speed metal rails go only with in 10 miles on hour of maglv trains.

Washingtion needs to spend the money on breaking open bottle necks on the rail system such as Richmond to Washingtion and the Washingtion and Baltmore Tunnels. The classic catenary masts have been doing well they could instead of tearing them all down replace the brackets themselves over the tracks that hold the wires on to the mast and not destory the masts themselves. They could also extend the catenary wires south to Richmond VA and West to Pittsburg with the classic Pennsyvinia catenary masts but give the classic mast a up grade with the same masts but up graded brackets to tenstion the catenary wires better. The masts have been working well for 80 years plus and they help make US railroads look different from railroads in Europe.
The French TGV set it’s world speed record based off of good catenary brackets and wire and the good catenary brackets could fit onto the sold steel H beams of the classic Pennsyivinia Railroad masts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record#Catenary_modifications
Let’s break some bottle necks.