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It's time to start investing in HSR. Any improvements to existing lines should be upgrading tracks and eliminating at grade crossings. The Northeast Corridor needs legitimate HSR, and Amtrack already has the lines in place. Other projects like California HSR, Texas HSR, and LA to Vegas are being planned by other entities. Amtrack should be upgrading their busiest line to HSR.
Being a New York area resident I'd love HSR. There are others more expert on rail than I am but I don't know if it would be practical in this densely populated an area.
Being a New York area resident I'd love HSR. There are others more expert on rail than I am but I don't know if it would be practical in this densely populated an area.
Oh yea, so impractical in sparsely populated China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, etc.
It's time to start investing in HSR. Any improvements to existing lines should be upgrading tracks and eliminating at grade crossings. The Northeast Corridor needs legitimate HSR, and Amtrack already has the lines in place. Other projects like California HSR, Texas HSR, and LA to Vegas are being planned by other entities. Amtrack should be upgrading their busiest line to HSR.
PNW too. That's the only way we can really add capacity in the corridor. While HSR might cost $50b, adding one lane to I-5 would cost $100b per the last analysis. With HSR we could build around that system in all three P-S-V cities, all of which already have decent transit.
In the mean time, incremental improvements to the existing infrastructure have proven to aid demand despite the comical lack of track space. We could fill a lot more trains that way if BNSF would loosen up and we kept up with the limited infrastructure upgrades.
PNW too. That's the only way we can really add capacity in the corridor. While HSR might cost $50b, adding one lane to I-5 would cost $100b per the last analysis. With HSR we could build around that system in all three P-S-V cities, all of which already have decent transit.
In the mean time, incremental improvements to the existing infrastructure have proven to aid demand despite the comical lack of track space. We could fill a lot more trains that way if BNSF would loosen up and we kept up with the limited infrastructure upgrades.
What route would it follow going north from Seattle?
Not along the Sound given the habitat destruction it would entail. The current BNSF line would never be built today.
Concepts are being studied but it's all far too early. Since we lack rail corridors, I'd assume it would follow I-5 in locations where the ROW already exists.
It's time to start investing in HSR. Any improvements to existing lines should be upgrading tracks and eliminating at grade crossings. The Northeast Corridor needs legitimate HSR, and Amtrack already has the lines in place. Other projects like California HSR, Texas HSR, and LA to Vegas are being planned by other entities. Amtrack should be upgrading their busiest line to HSR.
True HSR as exists in Europe, Asia and some other countries will simply never happen in USA. End of story, period..... This is especially true of interstate rail, within state boundaries are perhaps another matter.
California's HSR project is limping along, but even there in a very wealthy state project involves huge amounts of federal funding. And for what they're getting versus dollars spent it's very dear.
Costs involved are just too high for any but a state owned RR and or one *VERY* deeply financed and subsidized by ratepayer money to make it work otherwise.
To have true HSR you need several factors to come together.
Grades with straight or at least gentle curves. Minimum to total grade separation from vehicular traffic. Dedicated ROW for most or major part so HSR trains aren't stuck behind slower moving passenger or freight.
Most important for speeds > 130 mph you need electrification. Diesel locomotives top out at best around 125 mph in actual service. Some can hit speeds near 150 mph when pushed and tested but that isn't normal revenue service.
Electrifying RR ROW is expensive to do and involves significant ongoing costs. Outside of commuter rail service only Amtrak's NEC, parts of New Jersey Transit and some others have wires either overhead or third rail interstate power. They all came as inherited from Pennsylvania RR, New York Central and New York, New Haven and Hartford RR.
Electrification of ROW only makes sense where you have frequency of trains to make it work. In Europe for a host of reasons (most to do with lack of native supplies of petrol) decisions were made either pre-WWII or afterwards that movement from coal or oil steam powered locomotives was largely to electric.
Other issues? By federal mandate locomotives and passenger rail cars for American rail are vastly heavier than those found in Europe or elsewhere. Despite being a cousin of European HSR Amtrak's Acela's both current and new are much heavier than what is found say in France. So much so that Acela can barely get out of its own way.
Federal mandates for rail safety in USA push impact survivability by having locomotives and rail cars heavily built and reinforced. OTOH European and other RRs around world go more with simply keeping crashes from happening via advanced signaling systems that keep trains far apart from each other. Limit grade crossings, and so forth.
To make Amtrak's NEC true HSR between NYC and Boston you'd have to find or create more straight ROW in Connecticut and parts of Boston. Good luck with that.
New York, New Haven and Boston RR had their mainline ROW from NYC to Boston hugging the coast for many reasons. One of which was wealthy and other residents of Conn and parts of MA were not going to allow RR ROW to be built further inland through their properties. What was true in 1800's is more so today, so Amtrak is stuck with the ROW it currently has for foreseeable future.
How much of it's the substantial width and straightness needed for HSR? Very little I suspect. That would mean land acquistion at every step. This is one reason the I-5 corridor is so important.
Railroads in general transport virtually everything that highways do, and far more efficiently in terms of energy and land use.
And those Amtrak trains are more full than you might think. They often run at capacity even out here in the middle.
Just because Amtrak isn’t great doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be more demand for passenger rail if it were better.
For whatever reason we seem to have no problem with increasingly wide, clogged, and crumbling roads over better options.
Fine. Shut down Amtrak and keep the railroads. Amtrak itself transports nothing but people at an exorbitant cost. It's a unitasker and a one trick pony. A failed one-trick pony.
And if Amtrak's trains were remotely full, it wouldn't have its hand out for a bailout every other year and be insolvent for the 50 years that it's been around. Before Amtrak took over all passenger rail, Pennsylvania Railroad was the most valuable company on earth. Amtrak took over and it's been the longest lasting insolvent company on earth. Sounds like Amtrak's the thing that's getting in the way of us having better rail transport.
Airplanes are far more efficient than either highways or railroads for transport from a land use perspective. They use ZERO land except at the origin and destination. I don't see you calling for spending hundreds of billions on airports.
Last edited by albert648; 08-12-2023 at 03:51 PM..
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