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Nice! The train has better food options and you can get a bed type room as well.
I think if you’re complaining about how long it takes to get somewhere. Then trains are not meant for you (at least American trains). It’s because of how many stops and the type of route, not necessarily speed. At least in America anyways, we don’t have many high speed rails. I spent 50 bucks for a business class seat form HBG to NYC and while it was a few hours, it was a much better experience than driving. Cost of gas, parking, potential of getting in wrecks, stress of driving, etc. Then it makes more sense economically to take a train. Plus, with the routes trains go, you see things you don’t normally see on highways.
That 200 million is also helping commercial business, it isn’t just for passenger trains. As wpipkins2 stated, we’re also getting Amtrak’s new train as well (Airo) which will be a better experience for sure.
Absolutely agree with this. The Harrisburg-Philly "Keystone" line is one of just 2 electrified high/higher speed Amtrak lines in the entire United States (the other being, of course, the connecting Northeast Corridor from DC to Boston). The fast, peaceful ride through Lancaster/Amish country is beautiful and relaxing and also serves as a defacto commuter-rail line to/from Harrisburg state jobs. This is one of the few Euro-rail type experiences in this country.
Doubling the Pennsylvanian service to Pittsburgh is a major step. I just wish/hope someday the Pennsylvanian service is extended to Cleveland. Frequent Pittsburgh-Cleveland could be quite valuable, esp for Browns-Steelers games.
Absolutely agree with this. The Harrisburg-Philly "Keystone" line is one of just 2 electrified high/higher speed Amtrak lines in the entire United States (the other being, of course, the connecting Northeast Corridor from DC to Boston). The fast, peaceful ride through Lancaster/Amish country is beautiful and relaxing and also serves as a defacto commuter-rail line to/from Harrisburg state jobs. This is one of the few Euro-rail type experiences in this country.
Doubling the Pennsylvanian service to Pittsburgh is a major step. I just wish/hope someday the Pennsylvanian service is extended to Cleveland. Frequent Pittsburgh-Cleveland could be quite valuable, esp for Browns-Steelers games.
Again Amtrak only inherited what the great PRR built.
Only a handful of American railroads went in for electrification. The Pennsylvania, The Milwaukee Road and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
Pretty much all electrified ROW from Washington to Boston was due to PRR and New Haven RR.
Electrification came with considerable costs to any RR, but it brought enough benefits to PRR, NH and some others that they stuck with it to end which allowed Conrail and or Amtrak to benefit. That and various northeast commuter railroads who also inherited such as Metro-North, New Jersey Transit and so forth.
Main goal then was to get away from coal or oil powered steam locomotives. If diesel locomotives had been perfected it's highly likely many RRs then would have bothered with expense of building out and or maintaining electrified ROW. In one of many some would consider boneheaded decisions board of Milwaukee Road pulled up their electrification system going strictly with diesel
One great thing about PRR and electrification is it gave USA rail some of the earliest and great home grown electric powered locomotives and trainsets.
First out of that gate were Pennsy's wonderful GG1 locomotives. Followed later (by then Amtrak) Metroliner trainsets built by Budd. NJT also got GG1 locomotives as well when Penn-Central went belly up.
Problem Amtrak and everyone else in USA going on about HSR or at least faster trains in USA is cost of building either from scratch or just maintaining electrified ROW.
Problem Amtrak and everyone else in USA going on about HSR or at least faster trains in USA is cost of building either from scratch or just maintaining electrified ROW.
Indonesia just announced they're building a high-speed rail network across their rather complex land and water. They're a 3rd world country. I've ridden Amtrak out of Pittsburgh. It's ridiculous and antiquated.
conrail had no interests, it was not a corporation to make money...it was a GSE to stop bleeding and be sold off. It was in its charter.
given the <500mile drayage standard for intermodal, double stack yards in central, eastern pa and NJ, feed the northeast of the US with no lines needed - the population will NOT tolerate trains.
and that cutoff...there are exactly no reasons to run intermodal up there and coal is dead and all steel making and foundries are dead and passenger will not come back. its a boon doggle.
I retired from a steel mill in 2006 and the mill is still alive and doing well. Technology slimmed down the workforce considerably, but the jobs were lost through attrition. 535 million tons of coal are still mined every year with a substantial portion of that being shipped overseas. Most of our local power plants are now fueled by natural gas but neither coal nor steel is dead.
Most of our local power plants are now fueled by natural gas but neither coal nor steel is dead.
huh?
show us, graphically if you please....the annual US coal production, oh I dunno, 1870 to NOW (2023 or 2022 if you prefer)
Has it been a rosy picture AT ALL since 2008? in 2009 to present, were there any statments made or policies changed that affected coal production?
Show us, the mix of coal mined in the US vs coal USED in the US, vs exported.
Now show up rail car coal loadings by year. *something* caused NS to limits bluefield coal traffic to a tiny fraction of previous.
How is the P&LE/B&LE lines from the lake to pitt doing?
All of our coal plants in the area (since this IS the pittsburgh forum) are doing what?
wasnt this said earlier this year:
Quote:
Coal died in Pennsylvania quite a few years ago at this point,” said Rob Altenburg, senior director for energy and climate at environmental advocacy group PennFuture.
ET is running HOW many shifts with HOW many people, on HOW many furnaces? compare to um, 1980. What is Clairton taking in? Didnt it shutter 30% of its batteries this year alone? Have we not been told that all 3 skeleton crewed buildings are shutting down in 2025? EVEN IF a buyer is found? Are there ANY steel mills in pittsburgh, the steel town city?
I was at the waterfront today, it seems to ring a distant memory bell of being something else....I wonder what it was? hey, where was homestead plant?
Currently, how many steel workers in the area are employed by US Steel? How many by the grocery store Giant Eagle?
<----The point of this being, this is about pittsburgh, but PA in a larger sense for the 'cutoff' mentioned previously. There is not enough steel or coal traffic to run a class 1 in the area. How many trains of EITHER are on the Mon line? How many hot ladings cross hot metal every day? 50 years ago? are there hot metal creators or users on EITHER side of the river? What are the car loadings? is it true that intermodal loadings are MORE than EVERY OTHER shipped item COMBINED? (hint: it is)
so, in light of alllllll these moving parts, does it make any sense whatsoever to build a RR line to
a) ship steel from pa?
b) ship anymore coal WITHIN PA?
c) haul passengers? Isnt this thread about the fact that we have *1*, about to add a second section, on a line that ran overall HOW MANY in the past?
can you name the PRR, PC, and Amtrak trains that ran over this route in MY time?
So if I am wrong and coal and steel are not dead, and therefore alive, I want you to show us how. Here is one, the clearfield strip fed the shawville plant which was once the #"x" dirtiest in the nation. Who is mining what today and where is it going and that is the frequency of movements? Is that a lot? In the last 10 years has the number of miners doubled? or halved? Since we almost exclusively use longwall mining in this state, there are no men with pick-axes mumbling my bloody valentine...so these are machinery workers, meaning, as efficient as we can be. did the number of steel workers in pitt, double, or halve, from 1980-1984. where does it stand today? is the NATIONAL total *today*, the same, less than or more than the Pittsburgh ONLY total in 1980 - the peak?
IF it is LESS than the peak, does that mean it is thriving? IF it is WAY less than the peak, does that mean it is dead?
Only a handful of American railroads went in for electrification. The Pennsylvania, The Milwaukee Road and New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.
Pretty much all electrified ROW from Washington to Boston was due to PRR and New Haven RR.
Electrification came with considerable costs to any RR, but it brought enough benefits to PRR, NH and some others that they stuck with it to end which allowed Conrail and or Amtrak to benefit. That and various northeast commuter railroads who also inherited such as Metro-North, New Jersey Transit and so forth.
Main goal then was to get away from coal or oil powered steam locomotives. If diesel locomotives had been perfected it's highly likely many RRs then would have bothered with expense of building out and or maintaining electrified ROW. In one of many some would consider boneheaded decisions board of Milwaukee Road pulled up their electrification system going strictly with diesel
One great thing about PRR and electrification is it gave USA rail some of the earliest and great home grown electric-powered locomotives and trainsets.
First out of that gate were Pennsy's wonderful GG1 locomotives. Followed later (by then Amtrak) Metroliner trainsets built by Budd. NJT also got GG1 locomotives as well when Penn-Central went belly up.
Problem Amtrak and everyone else in USA going on about HSR or at least faster trains in USA is cost of building either from scratch or just maintaining electrified ROW.
Yes, and the Pennsylvania RR East Coast dominance came about, initially, but New York City and Philadelphia railroads, including PRR, and other electrifying local commuter services. It just so happened that PRR, headquartered in Philly, linked NYC and Philly's commuter systems -- the 2 downtowns only 95 miles apart -- along the main NE route, which came to be known as the Northeast Corridor. Northeast of NYC, the system is linked with the 75-mile New Haven RR commuter line -- one of the oldest, along with the LIRR, to electrify. In 1935, PRR expanded electrification south from its Wilmington, DE commuter terminal, to DC, completing what is today's high-higher speed passenger route - the only extensive such route in the nation. The 2nd longest is the 104-mile Keystone route -- PRR's extension from the Paoli commuter terminal east of Philly to Harrisburg; a route whose electrification was only saved by a major funding/refurbish/rebuild effort under Ed Rendell's governorship.
Of course, the NEC's electrification was finally extended all the way NE to Boston in the late 1990s under Bill Clinton's presidency, which resurrected the 20-year-old Jimmy Carter-era funding for this project (but was killed off by the Republican Reagan Administration.
Without looking it up, but recalling from memory (have lots of books and other media on RR's of old) the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad's "Rio Grand Zephyr" was last private passenger RR to join Amtrak. Interest in the California Zephyr (of which Rio Grand Zephyr route was part of) is how came by this bit of information.
D&RGW was a proud and innovative RR which over it's history was rather profitable, or at least held their own. But as with everyone else post WWII losses from passenger rail service just became too much as decades went on. Western Pacific ended passenger service on 22 March 1970, Amtrak took over not long afterwards IIRC.
While we're on subject Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (or just "Santa Fe") wanted to keep their Chief named trains and San Diegan handing rest over to Amtrak. Response from Washington, D.C. was "it is all or nothing". So with deep reluctance and sadness the Santa Fe handed all passenger service over to Amtrak.
Early on Amtrak made such a mess of Super Chief service that Santa Fe took back rights to that name and forbade Amtrak from using it for their Illinois to CA service.
Im 99% sure you are right, and I would have added one of the seaboard coast makeup lines (now CSX) that ran into the 80s iirc
show us, graphically if you please....the annual US coal production, oh I dunno, 1870 to NOW (2023 or 2022 if you prefer)
Has it been a rosy picture AT ALL since 2008? in 2009 to present, were there any statments made or policies changed that affected coal production?
Show us, the mix of coal mined in the US vs coal USED in the US, vs exported.
Now show up rail car coal loadings by year. *something* caused NS to limits bluefield coal traffic to a tiny fraction of previous.
How is the P&LE/B&LE lines from the lake to pitt doing?
All of our coal plants in the area (since this IS the pittsburgh forum) are doing what?
wasnt this said earlier this year:
ET is running HOW many shifts with HOW many people, on HOW many furnaces? compare to um, 1980. What is Clairton taking in? Didnt it shutter 30% of its batteries this year alone? Have we not been told that all 3 skeleton crewed buildings are shutting down in 2025? EVEN IF a buyer is found? Are there ANY steel mills in pittsburgh, the steel town city?
I was at the waterfront today, it seems to ring a distant memory bell of being something else....I wonder what it was? hey, where was homestead plant?
Currently, how many steel workers in the area are employed by US Steel? How many by the grocery store Giant Eagle?
<----The point of this being, this is about pittsburgh, but PA in a larger sense for the 'cutoff' mentioned previously. There is not enough steel or coal traffic to run a class 1 in the area. How many trains of EITHER are on the Mon line? How many hot ladings cross hot metal every day? 50 years ago? are there hot metal creators or users on EITHER side of the river? What are the car loadings? is it true that intermodal loadings are MORE than EVERY OTHER shipped item COMBINED? (hint: it is)
so, in light of alllllll these moving parts, does it make any sense whatsoever to build a RR line to
a) ship steel from pa?
b) ship anymore coal WITHIN PA?
c) haul passengers? Isnt this thread about the fact that we have *1*, about to add a second section, on a line that ran overall HOW MANY in the past?
can you name the PRR, PC, and Amtrak trains that ran over this route in MY time?
So if I am wrong and coal and steel are not dead, and therefore alive, I want you to show us how. Here is one, the clearfield strip fed the shawville plant which was once the #"x" dirtiest in the nation. Who is mining what today and where is it going and that is the frequency of movements? Is that a lot? In the last 10 years has the number of miners doubled? or halved? Since we almost exclusively use longwall mining in this state, there are no men with pick-axes mumbling my bloody valentine...so these are machinery workers, meaning, as efficient as we can be. did the number of steel workers in pitt, double, or halve, from 1980-1984. where does it stand today? is the NATIONAL total *today*, the same, less than or more than the Pittsburgh ONLY total in 1980 - the peak?
IF it is LESS than the peak, does that mean it is thriving? IF it is WAY less than the peak, does that mean it is dead?
Did someone say that it is thriving?
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