High Speed commuter rail line planned between Scranton and Nyc by 2030 (York: insurance, construction)

[ConfusingRotary]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

LOL you should read the thread title and try a little harder to stay on topic!

It was a response to someone else's post. Again, read the context.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Sugashane

Phase one of the Lackawanna rail line project to Andover,Nj is almost complete with passenger service starting in 2016.With phase 2 starting right after, and passenger line becoming a reality in the poconos,I wanted to hear peoples thoughts?

So you are talking about phase I (7.3 miles of track) and you are asking about a further extension of 80 miles to Scranton?

I think "becoming a reality" is a little strong in this case.

[jtab4994]

Originally Posted by ConfusingRotary

It was a response to someone else's post. Again, read the context.

OK, I get it. You're anti-war like everybody else, and you have no opinion on the Scranton-NYC train.

[johnp292]

Little Red Riding Hood
Humpty Dumpty
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Train to NYC from Scranton

What do all of these have in common?

[Sarge621]

Little Red Riding Hood
Humpty Dumpty
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Train to NYC from Scranton

What do all of these have in common? Hmmmmm

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by jtab4994

OK, I get it. You're anti-war like everybody else, and you have no opinion on the Scranton-NYC train.

The entire thread is a disturbing example of what can happen when the issue of politics -- that is, use of the influence of government to have one's way regarding a controversial issue -- is invoked.

New Jersey has one of the most -- possibly the most efficient commuter rail systems in the nation but it is now approaching a neighboring state, one which is predominately urban but still has a large rural population. The fear of ex-urban immigration is a relatively minor issue, far more overshadowed by the benefits, cost and funding of an improvement which stands to benefit only a relative few, or at least in the short term.

As outlined in the post linked below,

//www.city-data.com/forum/great...l#post38634761

There is a very wide gap between the service proposed by Mr Nexis. which would be very costly and require longer-term planning, and extending a proven (and improving, but slowly) technology into Stroudsburg, and on to Scranton, Allentown and other interior Pennsylvania communities.

Both of the states involved want things their way; a parallel can be drawn between the times in the late sixties and early Seventies when Interstate 80 was completed everywhere west of the Delaware Water Gap, but about 40 miles of cowpath remained between Columbia and Dover, NJ.

Sooner or later, I can anticipate our current realizations both that the Age of Petroleum must come to an end and that a gap in the prospects of (and trade-offs between) small-auto and air travel is emerging. At that point, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should admit to itself that co-operation with its eastern neighbor that transit improvements for the eastern 1/3 of the state make sense, and that a rail link to Stroudsburg and the Eastern Poconos, using the existing, and well-engineered former Lackawanna line, can help to keep the cost within reason.

The rest will fall into place, but very slowly, as has always been the case in politicized disputes like this one.

[Gettingouttahere]

I have no objections to a commuter rail line. I would LOVE it if this country more resembled Europe in terms of rail. I take a bus to NYC every day. Mass transit is not anathema to me. Nor do I have a problem with "undesirable" elements moving along a mass transit corridor.

My lone objection is really the only one that is on point: A commuter rail line is of no use if it stops at every station along a 60-mile path. I've taken the train from Hackettstown to NYC and it is not feasible for commuting.

Because every municipality along this proposed corridor will demand a stop, the value of the train on a daily basis will be nil. Tourists cannot support this line; everyday commuters would have to be on board -- literally -- for it to even come close to making financial sense.

A two-hour-plus trip to get to the city -- making every stop along the way -- makes that unfeasible.

Express options? Sure. But unless they're four times an hour, they won't compete with the bus schedule. And there's no way there'll be four trains an hour; certainly not more.

So the commuters will not use it.

And that's the reason it'll never work.

[fisheye]

Our politicians are lairs! They promiss the moon to stay in office. When was the last time you ever heard one say that we will start any new project while they are in office? Almost every grand scheme is ten/twenty or thirty in the future - never today. Unless our scientist figure out how to clone President Eisenhower; I don't think any of us will ever see another train service to the area.

I don't even think that the existing freight service will continue forever. Everything just cost too much today and many of the bridges and tracks are in desperate need of repair or upgrade.

[CarbonCountyLiving]

Originally Posted by fisheye

Our politicians are lairs! They promiss the moon to stay in office. When was the last time you ever heard one say that we will start any new project while they are in office? Almost every grand scheme is ten/twenty or thirty in the future - never today. Unless our scientist figure out how to clone President Eisenhower; I don't think any of us will ever see another train service to the area.

I don't even think that the existing freight service will continue forever. Everything just cost too much today and many of the bridges and tracks are in desperate need of repair or upgrade.

And the worst part about this is that if they had actually followed through on the promise of a commuter rail line when they first made it, which if I recall started back in at least the early 1990s, it would be close to being completed already.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by fisheye

I don't even think that the existing freight service will continue forever. Everything just cost too much today and many of the bridges and tracks are in desperate need of repair or upgrade.

The basic nature of rail freight service changed, slowly but drastically, after 1945 because a fully-mature trucking industry could now handle most manufactured, perishable, or high-value freight. Livestock, for example, was virtually gone by 1970. At the same time, the dismantling of much of the heavily-structured "loose car" system, capable of hauling everything from anywhere to anywhere, provided cost savings via "unit trains" hauling a large volume of damage-free freight, in bulk, from one producer to one customer.

The standardization of containerized freight represents an application of the principle of the unit train to higher-value merchandise traffic moving long distances, usually from a port city to the interior. When container handlers finally agreed upon standard sizes, it permitted the standardization of the rail rolling stock handling them to be redesigned, along with the track, for much less loss and damage.

Finally, it might be noted that the railroads are turning some traffic away at present because they simply don't have the capacity. Everyone in the industry is waiting on the outcome upon completion of the PANAMAX project -- widening and deepening of the panama Canal. I wouldn't be suprised to see the Western transcontinental lines lower their rates on such traffic, should capacity become available without large additional investment.

It's unlikely we'll ever again see a situation similar to the early 1980's, when about 1/3 of our rail system, including much of the Upper Midwest as well as the East, was in receivership, or threatened by it.