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The Acela Express is Amtrak's flagship service along the Northeast Corridor, however any upgrade to high speed rail would cost a significant amount, possible over $100 Billion.
The real issue being where do you spend the money, at a time when Amtrak is under severe financial pressure, whilst at the samt time the NYC Subway was declared in a state of emergency earlier this year. The US needs to spend on it's basic rail and subway infrastructure first.
In terms of high speed rail, the Los Angeles to San Francisco and Dallas to Houston routes both look viable, abd other routes will no doubt follow, but it's going to be a slow process in relation to high speed rail in the US, especially at a time when Amtrak is under severe financial pressure.
New York City's subway system was *NOT* the Pennsylvania, nor the New York Central nor any of the other private railroads that operated in the city, so why would it come into play now?
New York City Transit is the sad and sorry state it is because neither New York State nor City have the balls to commit the funding to what must be done. It was that way when the private companies who largely built and ran much of the subway and other transit (forbidden by NYC to raise fares to boost revenue in order for investment into maintenance and so forth), and things didn't get any better when NYC took over mass transit (creating the NYCTA).
Meanwhile every year since NYC palmed NYCTA off onto the MTA it has decreased its share of funds paid upstate. It is always some various and sundry reasons: "we're having a budget crisis" and so forth. Even now when the City is flush with so much cash it doesn't know what to do with it all, current mayor de Blasio wanted to cheap out on the city's contribution to MTA. To his credit governor Cuomo called him out on it and made the City cough up more dough.
Long story short while yes, the MTA has worked wonders with the NYC subway system it *IS* a creature of that city and or state. Oh and the federal government has been rather generous with funds to NYC for mass transit (largely thanks to pull in the House and Senate). The Second Avenue Subway, that boondoggle called East Side Access (LIRR into Grand Central Terminal), the Farley Post Office conversion into the "new" Penn Station...
Large parts of the NYC subway system are using systems, signals and so forth from early in the last century when the lines were built. In many instances parts have long been NLA so the MTA must cobble together what it can.
Biggest thing are the signaling system. Current estimates are it would take about 30 *BILLION* dollars to totally upgrade. Why should the rate payers from other areas have to pony up that kind of money for a subway that doesn't leave NYC? Yes, something should trickle down, but federal government has many other things on its plate. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/n...s.html?mcubz=0
I live in NYC and this state and city think nothing of imposing a bewildering and vast array of taxes, surcharges and fees on almost anything that moves or breathes, But somehow when it comes to mass transit NYC elected officials and others look upstate and or to Washington, DC.
Andrew Cuomo proposed a sensible solution to funding MTA capital improvement problems including the hot mess that is the NYC subway system; congestion pricing for Manhattan. However the mayor says "no dice" so it remains to be seen where all the money needed by MTA for NYC subway system is going to come from.
Oh and don't forget Amtrak, New Jersey and New York are counting on Uncle Sam to write a big check to pay for two new Hudson River rail tunnels, repair of the current tubes and the rest of what is called the "Gateway Project". Meanwhile neither NJ or NY have come up with concrete plans of where they will get their respective shares.
New York City's subway system was *NOT* the Pennsylvania, nor the New York Central nor any of the other private railroads that operated in the city, so why would it come into play now?
New York City Transit is the sad and sorry state it is because neither New York State nor City have the balls to commit the funding to what must be done. It was that way when the private companies who largely built and ran much of the subway and other transit (forbidden by NYC to raise fares to boost revenue in order for investment into maintenance and so forth), and things didn't get any better when NYC took over mass transit (creating the NYCTA).
Meanwhile every year since NYC palmed NYCTA off onto the MTA it has decreased its share of funds paid upstate. It is always some various and sundry reasons: "we're having a budget crisis" and so forth. Even now when the City is flush with so much cash it doesn't know what to do with it all, current mayor de Blasio wanted to cheap out on the city's contribution to MTA. To his credit governor Cuomo called him out on it and made the City cough up more dough.
Long story short while yes, the MTA has worked wonders with the NYC subway system it *IS* a creature of that city and or state. Oh and the federal government has been rather generous with funds to NYC for mass transit (largely thanks to pull in the House and Senate). The Second Avenue Subway, that boondoggle called East Side Access (LIRR into Grand Central Terminal), the Farley Post Office conversion into the "new" Penn Station...
Large parts of the NYC subway system are using systems, signals and so forth from early in the last century when the lines were built. In many instances parts have long been NLA so the MTA must cobble together what it can.
Biggest thing are the signaling system. Current estimates are it would take about 30 *BILLION* dollars to totally upgrade. Why should the rate payers from other areas have to pony up that kind of money for a subway that doesn't leave NYC? Yes, something should trickle down, but federal government has many other things on its plate. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/n...s.html?mcubz=0
I live in NYC and this state and city think nothing of imposing a bewildering and vast array of taxes, surcharges and fees on almost anything that moves or breathes, But somehow when it comes to mass transit NYC elected officials and others look upstate and or to Washington, DC.
Andrew Cuomo proposed a sensible solution to funding MTA capital improvement problems including the hot mess that is the NYC subway system; congestion pricing for Manhattan. However the mayor says "no dice" so it remains to be seen where all the money needed by MTA for NYC subway system is going to come from.
Oh and don't forget Amtrak, New Jersey and New York are counting on Uncle Sam to write a big check to pay for two new Hudson River rail tunnels, repair of the current tubes and the rest of what is called the "Gateway Project". Meanwhile neither NJ or NY have come up with concrete plans of where they will get their respective shares.
The problem being that Amtrak is already facing cuts under Trumps budgets, whilst at the same time a lot of public transport infrastructure needs replacing such as the Hudson Tunnels and parts of the NYC Subway.
Surely any available money should be used to make good existing infrastructure rather than used to embark on expensive high speed rail schemes. Indeed services such as the Acela Express are already fairly good services, they just need upgrading. Indeed Amtrak even did a study in to a new high speed Northeast Corridor in the US, and the estimated cost was over $150 Billion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CNN
All this points to how high-speed rail will likely progress in the United States: piecemeal. It is doubtful that we will have a nationwide system of fast trains soon. And this is not necessarily a bad thing; through a combination of private and public action, we should target markets where high-speed rail makes sense. That means looking for shorter corridors connecting dense places with existing mass transit infrastructure.
High-speed rail won't be cheap, so we'll have to choose wisely. Some of the most promising corridors are also the most expensive; Amtrak estimates upgrading the Northeast Corridor to true high-speed rail would cost upward of $150 billion. Such an undertaking requires careful consideration of the economic, environmental and other costs and benefits of individual projects. But more importantly, it requires the kind of long-term planning that seems to have become vanishingly rare.
Thankfully, high-speed rail doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach. And while given the choice I would rather be riding Japan's speeding bullet trains, even the incremental improvements we've seen in services like Amtrak's Acela can make rail travel a lot more appealing for the hundreds of thousands of passengers who rely on it every year.
As for New York, it may have to look at ways of bringing in extra funding, increased subway prices, congestion charges, business rates etc, as the Subway clearly needs upgrading, and is one of the worlds most iconic transport systems.
Last edited by Brave New World; 09-22-2017 at 11:49 AM..
Again, if it's such a great idea, private industry can fund and run it.
work on this scale is better when the gov runs it. We have a very thrifty gov, despite the lies and hype our gov tends to deliver a lot for the money. YES YES of course there is massive waste at times. but generally the gov will do a great job getting the work done very well for a good price.
yeah i know that enrages fools who listen to crazy people but the data backs me up. for civil projects we do very well, the bad rep comes from decades of cost plus military spending and such like.
Here is the thing; passenger rail service alone has *NEVER* been profitable. I'll say that again; on its own you cannot make money on passenger service. Once you accept this concept it goes a long way in understanding issues facing railroads of old and why pretty much outside of commuter (run by local governments) the only major passenger service in USA belongs to Amtrak.
Even when the train itself is not carrying freight long as the ROW in whole or part is used it brings in revenue. Even the Chunnel HSR between England and France carries freight on its ROW.
Yes, you can separate out fast passenger trains onto their own ROW for some of the distance, but again somewhere in that system there is freight which brings in revenue.
Without freight you need subsidies, vast and deep subsidies because farebox recovery rates alone cannot nor will not ever pay for passenger rail transport. You'd have fares near or in excess of airfares which defeats the purpose, people will simply take planes instead.
Other major issue for USA is that unlike European and Asian countries that were rebuilding and expanding their railroads post WWII (along with pouring money into R&D), here we were busy shutting down lines and abandoning/tearing up track. Well it is far more expensive to replace ROW than to rehabilitate old track. There are a slew of environmental and other federal and local laws that went into place post WWII that make doing any infrastructure project expensive.
Will go back to freight again because don't think many realize just how much American railroads depended upon that business to keep themselves afloat.
In the Northeast and Mid-west as one by one various industries such as manufacturing or coal mining closed and or packed up and moved it left RR lines with no customers.
Many Northeast railroads going down into Appalachia made their money dragging coal. Starting in the 1950's and well into the 1960's oil and gas began to seriously replace coal for heating in the Northeast and elsewhere. Railroads and shipping moved from coal to oil and finally from steam to diesel.
The Knox Mine Disaster (1959) pretty much put an end to the coal mining industry of Pennsylvania, or at least the thing was vastly diminished. Flodding caused by Hurricane Agnes (1979) damaged large amounts of ROW and infrastructure. Railroads already financially strapped simply abandoned huge swaths of ROW rather than rebuild.
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