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Amtrak is about to get a 10+ billion $$$ overhaul , New more Euro Style Fleet and a Northeast Corridor upgrade. For the Northeast Corridor , Amtrak will have a different fleet all Electric and a few Dual Locos. So the ones headed to Pittsburgh or South of DC in VA don't have to switch Locos. The Northeast corridor in some places will get widened form 3-4 tracks to 6 tracks, with the center 2 tracks being dedicated High Speed Rail tracks. The top speed on the NEC south of Newark,NJ will be increased to 180mph and North of NYC to 165mph. The average speeds would be around 165mph South of Newark and 150mph North of NYC. There are plans to redo the Catenary so that trains can go faster and smoother. Overall the Northeast will see 3 more High Speed lines , it may not seem like it now. But in 5 years there will be enough demand and pressure for political leaders to embrace it more. Many in the Rail community do see the Keystone line extending Pittsburgh and Cleveland by 2020 with speeds of 130-50mph. The Keystone line is becoming a very popular and cheap way to travel in Southeastern PA. The Empire line connecting all of Upstate NY's cities should be up by 2025 but who truly knows NY state is a bit broken. The New Haven-Springfield corridor will be kinda like the NEC , for now its likely to be Electric then Diesel with 3-4 Tracks. The max on that line would be 125mph do to some crossings. The Northeast Corridor has been rumored to be extended down to Richmond and Hampton Roads or Richmond - The Research Triangle and Charlotte. Overall , no matter who gets elected into office , the people have spoken at least in the Northeast , Northwest and Cali they want more Rail and less highways.
Amtrak is about to get a 10+ billion $$$ overhaul , New more Euro Style Fleet and a Northeast Corridor upgrade. For the Northeast Corridor , Amtrak will have a different fleet all Electric and a few Dual Locos. So the ones headed to Pittsburgh or South of DC in VA don't have to switch Locos. The Northeast corridor in some places will get widened form 3-4 tracks to 6 tracks, with the center 2 tracks being dedicated High Speed Rail tracks. The top speed on the NEC south of Newark,NJ will be increased to 180mph and North of NYC to 165mph. The average speeds would be around 165mph South of Newark and 150mph North of NYC. There are plans to redo the Catenary so that trains can go faster and smoother. Overall the Northeast will see 3 more High Speed lines , it may not seem like it now. But in 5 years there will be enough demand and pressure for political leaders to embrace it more. Many in the Rail community do see the Keystone line extending Pittsburgh and Cleveland by 2020 with speeds of 130-50mph. The Keystone line is becoming a very popular and cheap way to travel in Southeastern PA. The Empire line connecting all of Upstate NY's cities should be up by 2025 but who truly knows NY state is a bit broken. The New Haven-Springfield corridor will be kinda like the NEC , for now its likely to be Electric then Diesel with 3-4 Tracks. The max on that line would be 125mph do to some crossings. The Northeast Corridor has been rumored to be extended down to Richmond and Hampton Roads or Richmond - The Research Triangle and Charlotte. Overall , no matter who gets elected into office , the people have spoken at least in the Northeast , Northwest and Cali they want more Rail and less highways.
Why the opposition to High Speed Rail?
1) Anything operated by a government bureaucracy wastes money, promotes and overpays and over-benefits brown-nosers instead of competents, spends outrageous sums for product because they can, and basically couldn't care less about their bottom line because they are funded by taxes and don't have to rely on their own work output.
2) Taxes that go to support these ventures are taken from every and anyone - whether or not they will ever use the rail in their lifetime. High-speed rail and Amtrak are not self supporting and never have been - because they don't have to worry about poor service, poor quality, or inefficiency. Any tax-, grant-, or otherwise government-supported program wastes taxpayer dollars... and usually those dollars are from people who cannot utilize it. Why should the entire midwest support a rail for CA, the Northeast, or the East Coast? If you can's afford it, why insist your neighbors pay your bills?
3) You can talk all you want to about the benefits and the cheapness of high speed rail and Amtrak; to real railroad companies they are a joke. Why? Because real profit-oriented rail companies KNOW how expensive it is to maintain rail, buy property for new rail, fight the governments thru every town for new rail, just for transportation of goods, not people - and that the income generated for that 'public' use of rail will never - that's NEVER - equal the output. The railroad companies pulled up thousands of miles of track all across the US when their profits started failing. Because of the expenses, rail must - MUST! - be 99% occupied all of the time. There is actually an algorithm they use for calculating the cost/benefit ratio, and high speed rail nor Amtrak - even with government subsidies - do not fall anywhere within those calculations for profit. The only people-dedicated rail system that makes money are the ones in New York and that go into Washington, DC - all full to capacity every day, even over capacity most days, and those monies barely maintain the rail systems at a profit.
If the math doesn't work, and the taxpayers are told that they must pay to support something that can be proven mathematically to not work, there's your answer. The over-eager promoters of high-speed rail and expanded Amtrak service think that the emotion is there - and they are right; people are tired of paying for others' free ride and fantasy of "everyone will use it!". We've all already seen the failure of Amtrak to become self-supporting.
Opponents to rail fight like the devil to keep it from going into service because they fear it will attract too many passengers and become hard to kill. The fear is justified. TriRail in Florida was supposed to be temporary during road construction but has been going for decades now.
Simply put, HS rail wont work.....the only places where the population is dense enough to support it are NY, Chicago, Boston and few other metropolis's and you still see cars everywhere. We are car culture like it or not, and most places west of the Mississippi are developed too spread out for it to work. In Europe everything is lot closer together so it makes sense, the downtown there in most places is where everything happens.
I am all for using tolling instead. Let the users have a choice in the matter....you want to save some time or travel on a better road than you get the option of taking the tolled route. Private money is ready and able to fund these projects if they are allowed to.
Simply put, HS rail wont work.....the only places where the population is dense enough to support it are NY, Chicago, Boston and few other metropolis's and you still see cars everywhere. We are car culture like it or not, and most places west of the Mississippi are developed too spread out for it to work. In Europe everything is lot closer together so it makes sense, the downtown there in most places is where everything happens.
I am all for using tolling instead. Let the users have a choice in the matter....you want to save some time or travel on a better road than you get the option of taking the tolled route. Private money is ready and able to fund these projects if they are allowed to.
You see Cars in every Country regradless on how many ppl use Mass Transit....the Car culture is slowly dying in the US. And Transit is being expanded and taken full advantage of......HSR and Rail will and does work in Suburban and Dense areas....
Opponents to rail fight like the devil to keep it from going into service because they fear it will attract too many passengers and become hard to kill. The fear is justified. TriRail in Florida was supposed to be temporary during road construction but has been going for decades now.
Tri-Rail was not supposed to be temp , and it has become very successful used by 40,000 ppl daily and growing.....
Why the opposition to High Speed Rail?
1) Anything operated by a government bureaucracy wastes money, promotes and overpays and over-benefits brown-nosers instead of competents, spends outrageous sums for product because they can, and basically couldn't care less about their bottom line because they are funded by taxes and don't have to rely on their own work output.
2) Taxes that go to support these ventures are taken from every and anyone - whether or not they will ever use the rail in their lifetime. High-speed rail and Amtrak are not self supporting and never have been - because they don't have to worry about poor service, poor quality, or inefficiency. Any tax-, grant-, or otherwise government-supported program wastes taxpayer dollars... and usually those dollars are from people who cannot utilize it. Why should the entire midwest support a rail for CA, the Northeast, or the East Coast? If you can's afford it, why insist your neighbors pay your bills?
3) You can talk all you want to about the benefits and the cheapness of high speed rail and Amtrak; to real railroad companies they are a joke. Why? Because real profit-oriented rail companies KNOW how expensive it is to maintain rail, buy property for new rail, fight the governments thru every town for new rail, just for transportation of goods, not people - and that the income generated for that 'public' use of rail will never - that's NEVER - equal the output. The railroad companies pulled up thousands of miles of track all across the US when their profits started failing. Because of the expenses, rail must - MUST! - be 99% occupied all of the time. There is actually an algorithm they use for calculating the cost/benefit ratio, and high speed rail nor Amtrak - even with government subsidies - do not fall anywhere within those calculations for profit. The only people-dedicated rail system that makes money are the ones in New York and that go into Washington, DC - all full to capacity every day, even over capacity most days, and those monies barely maintain the rail systems at a profit.
If the math doesn't work, and the taxpayers are told that they must pay to support something that can be proven mathematically to not work, there's your answer. The over-eager promoters of high-speed rail and expanded Amtrak service think that the emotion is there - and they are right; people are tired of paying for others' free ride and fantasy of "everyone will use it!". We've all already seen the failure of Amtrak to become self-supporting.
The US Govt killed the Railroad companies , by forcing them to abid by ridiculous rules and regulations which forced most of them to switch to Freight but some are switching back. They did really pull up any trackage , just the lines they didn't need.... Amtrak hasn't gotten fair funding to upgrade itself into profit....thus it has failed....
1. It is TOTALLY private funding with zero from the government. This in itself will prevent it from happening. It would create zero profit without subsidies.
2. The land was not forcefully taken from private landowners to build the railway.
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