The cost of highspeed rail is expensive, but can we really afford not to consider it?

[dave1905]

Having operated the Acela in the Northeast Corridor, sustained cruising speed was 125 mph, (now 135 MPH) along the portion of heaviest use.

Top speed vs. average speed.

Its roughly 230 miles Washington to New York. Acela runs it in about 2.75 hrs. That is an average speed of 83 mph. Not much different than the Japanese Bullet trains.

 

[bnsf971]

The last time I rode Amtrak was in 2002, when I traveled between Poplar Bluff, MO, and Tampa, FL. I would have gone to St. Petersburg, but the last 30 miles would have been on a bus, and taken an additional 6 hours. Travel by car would have been 12 hours.
It took three days. Starting at 3:30 AM in Poplar Bluff, arriving 12 hours later in Chicago, laying over 10 hours before going to DC because we missed our connection because we were late, laying over another 7 hours in DC, then being packed in like sardines for another 16 hours between DC and Tampa. Other than the Chicago-DC section, where I had my own room, it was more like riding a crowded bus in a third world country than a modern passenger train in the country that purports to be the leader of the free world.
If I, who really like trains, essentially hated 2/3 of the trip, what chance does any kind of rail passenger transportation, even high-speed rail, have here?

 

[Boris]

The NEC and Chicago-Milwaukee examples are more in the distances where the competition is with autos rather than planes.

You're ignoring the air shuttles between LGA and National that once dominated government and business travel in the corridor, but not any longer. The trip East of NYP to Boston is still dominated by air and auto, because the MTA operates the line between Shell and New Haven, while the Shore Line between New haven and Boston is not a high speed route, the 150 MPH segment not withstanding. Amtrak has gained market share, because of better running times, downtown to downtown convenience and increased reliability.

New York to LAX or even NY to Chicago will always be dominated by air. There is just no way ground transport can compete with air timing, but faster, more frequent train service can compete with and replace, subsidized connecting air from intermediate communities, much as Amtrak dominates the intermediate market in the NEC. Continental Airlines actually ticketed connecting passengers and assigned flight numbers to Amtrak trains connecting at EWR via the EWR Station stop. It was cheaper than scheduling a connecting plane, and just as convenient.

Southwest Airlines, which flies a lot of short hops with their fleet of 737s, is one of the biggest opponents of competitive HR service. HSR in Texas, for example would draw travel away from Southwest as well as highways. Not everyone wants to be crammed into sardine can air coach accommodations, and subject themselves to TSA harassment unless they can't avoid it.

Amtrak's long haul network is hadicapped by lack of frequent departures, and delays caused by host road issues. There is no way a single round trip train between NY and Chicago can ever hope to compete with frequent two hour flights. But that's not what HSR advocates are proposing.

Boris

 

[Boris]

Its roughly 230 miles Washington to New York. Acela runs it in about 2.75 hrs. That is an average speed of 83 mph. Not much different than the Japanese Bullet trains.

Forty years ago, 80 MPH was the maximum authorized speed. Acela is very competitive with air or road on that segment.

If I, who really like trains, essentially hated 2/3 of the trip, what chance does any kind of rail passenger transportation, even high-speed rail, have here?

Someone is riding it. You cannot compare a trip involving three different long haul trains, unreliable connections, and overcrowding with frequent, clan, modern state of the art trainsets like the Acela. I hated the Autotrain from Lorton to Sanford including accommodations in a Deluxe Bedroom.
That was in 2002, and I haven't been on a long haul train since, but I have ridden on Corridor trains in the NEC, and enjoyed the experience.
The difference is in the concept. The NEC is operated for business travel, the long hauls are marketed as leisure travel.

Boris

 

[Bruette]

I have never ridden on the Acela, but I want too! The trains I have ridden on in the northeast corridor are spacious and comfortable, even for me at 6'8".

 

[bnsf971]

I have never ridden on the Acela, but I want too! The trains I have ridden on in the northeast corridor are spacious and comfortable, even for me at 6'8".

Louis, maybe you can take one on a weekend soon, maybe up and back round-trip, and report back.

 

[Iron Horseman]

I would like to hear a factual discussion on increasing rail traffic to reduce domestic flights.

And there is geography. The workers we hire from India that come to work in our office are flabbergasted at the huge distances between everything. Apparently everywhere in India one can "live" within 10 square miles of their home. They were all trying to get apartments and houses close to the office (which is in an expensive part of town) so they didn't have to have a vehicle like in India. We tell them to look further out where they could afford it and get, "But that is so far away!". They are even more mind boggled when they go by auto or train from our Denver office to the Omaha headquarters and see that in the USA we have huge open spaces without massive amounts of people in them.

There is a population and population center density requirement to make any mass transportation system at any reasonable subsidy level work. In the USA we are much closer to that critical mass on the east coast. Not even several orders of magnitude close to it out here in the west.

 

[dave1905]

There is a population and population center density requirement to make any mass transportation system at any reasonable subsidy level work. In the USA we are much closer to that critical mass on the east coast. Not even several orders of magnitude close to it out here in the west.

That's why I said you have to define what "mass transit" problem you are trying to solve.

There is a very local mass transit problem, intracity, mostly short distances (less than 10 miles).
There is a commuter transit problem, getting workers to and from their homes and work, mostly shorter distances (less than 50 miles)
There is a regional transportation problem, moving people between related/adjacent population centers, medium distances (less than 500 miles).
There is a long distance transportation problem, moving people intercity and inter region, distances over 500 miles.

The initial premise of this conversation was rail replacing air. That falls into the regional and long distance buckets.

 

[dave1905]

They are even more mind boggled when they go by auto or train from our Denver office to the Omaha headquarters and see that in the USA we have huge open spaces without massive amounts of people in them.

Same with the people from Britain or Europe that want to come to the US and going on a driving vacation and see things from the NEC to the Tehachapi in a week. Maybe not.

 

[Iron Horseman]

Environmental impact of aviation

I would like to hear a factual discussion on increasing rail traffic to reduce domestic flights.

Then of course there is the whole discussion of "flying trains" which in my opinion aren't trains at all. They would be better called "airplanes on rails", or more accurately airplanes tethered to a rail. Basically the airplane is electrically powered but since batteries are so heavy it doesn't have any. It draws power from a umbilical to the ground which skids along a charged rail path. The mock up pictures I've seen remind me of a vertical take off, non-aquatic, Spruce Goose. At least that concept wouldn't have the environmental impact of all the lithium batteries they are using in electric road vehicles.

 

[autocoach]

On September 30, 2018 I traveled from Milan to Naples, Italy. 481 miles in less than 5 hours on a train that traversed the central spine of earthquake prone unstable mountains and included a reverse in and out in Rome with at least 4 additional stops. The trains were crowded and reserved seats required. The cost was about 80 Euro ($95). It ran on time. The electrified Italian train uses the level technology that existed 20 years ago in Europe in with only the rolling stock upgraded in the last 10 years.

We don't have the collective will to change. I have already made 75 orbits around the sun and do not see in global collective humanity the capability of seeing the threat to our existence. The US in particular is very short sighted.

The problem in California where I live is that the California high speed train proposal (which looked like bad English 1960's high speed technology from the start) was immediately seized upon by California regional and automobile and air travel vested interests and reactionary politicians and turned into a political and legal minefield of opposition that stymied any form of efficient route planning and cost effective construction. The CA High Speed Rail advocates were little better than the opponents. They lacked both competence, real vision and a singular sense of purpose.

California actually has fairly good state owned regional medium speed rail passenger transit in the San Jose to Sacramento and LA south to San Diego and north to San Luis Obispo. There is an existing regional train from Oakland to Bakersfield. All is of course over the tracks of either Union Pacific or Burlington Northern-Santa Fe. A better approach would be for the next 20-30 years for the state for California to acquire the rights of way needed and upgrade them to the equivalent of the current European railways (double track, electrified from solar or wind sources, automated, exclusive ROW with no grade crossings.) Form not-for profit operating entities not subject to minute political local manipulation or interference. This would kick the can down the road enough that we will have hopefully eliminated the effects my reactionary short sighted generation. Elon Musk may be long settled on Mars by then, but some of his boring company ideas on high speed ground transportation technology may have born fruit.

 

[Bruette]

.

Louis, maybe you can take one on a weekend soon, maybe up and back round-trip, and report back.

I would love to and it's on the list. Now all I need to do is to convince my wife to use some of her vacation time. She is one of those dog gone immigrants, all they want to do is work, what's wrong with them?

 

[Bruette]

"my reactionary short sighted generation"

It's almost as if they are playing Dean Smith's old four corners defense.

 

[Boris]

Seems that when ever someone proposes a HSR or MSR, (as Ken described it), a whole host of opposition develops. Doesn't matter if it's a pie in the sky project, like Monorail or MLV, or something like the Brightline project in Florida, a rather densely populated state, with a great deal of Snowbird and tourist traffic. Brightline is privately financed, initially by the FEC Railroad, but still managed to attract numerous opposition, mostly incited by non rail competitors. They have persevered in spite of litigation and other legislative attempts to kill the project. Again, this s a private venture, separate and apart from Amtrak and Government authority.

The preponderance of non-competitive opposition comes from sparsely populated states, for some reason. Doesn't even affect them.

Few years back, a new commuter rail route was proposed to take some of the traffic off of US9, here in Jersey. There are several underutilized branches, already owned by the state, with minimal freight traffic, only in need of upgraded track and signal systems. Organized opposition from other interests, and NIMBYs caused the routing to be changed to a route that would take significantly longer than needed, which ultimately killed the project. Meanwhile Hwy 9 becomes more unbearable each day.

Medium speed rail, the 90mph to 125 mph routes serving populated routes with reasonable frequencies and reliable service Everywhere that rail passenger has been expanded has had positive results. Boston to points in Maine, and the rail expansion in Virginia and North Carolina have demonstrated this.

Time to rethink this option.

Badenov

 

[Iron Horseman]

Medium speed rail, the 90mph to 125 mph routes serving populated routes with reasonable frequencies and reliable service Everywhere that rail passenger has been expanded has had positive results. Boston to points in Maine, and the rail expansion in Virginia and North Carolina have demonstrated this.

I have always wanted rail along the Colorado Rockies Front range from Cheyenne Wyoming to Trinidad Colorado. Live in Pueblo and take the train every morning to office in downtown Denver would have been wonderful. It would need to be in the 100 to 150mph range to make it really attractive.

 

[cv_acr]

Then of course there is the whole discussion of "flying trains" which in my opinion aren't trains at all. They would be better called "airplanes on rails", or more accurately airplanes tethered to a rail. Basically the airplane is electrically powered but since batteries are so heavy it doesn't have any. It draws power from a umbilical to the ground which skids along a charged rail path. The mock up pictures I've seen remind me of a vertical take off, non-aquatic, Spruce Goose. At least that concept wouldn't have the environmental impact of all the lithium batteries they are using in electric road vehicles.

I've seen one or two of those concepts and they make absolutely no sense to me. If it's tethered to a ground-based rail system, why not just build an actual train?

 

[Boris]

Horseman: You would be surprised at the number of people who would rather take a SEPTA local from Philadelphia to Trenton, NJ and then transfer to a NJT local from Trenton to NY Penn, about a three hour ride, rather than the much faster Amtrak regional service, simply because the fare is significantly cheaper. The same folks will ride the discount bus services for the same reason. I suppose time doesn't matter to younger people.

I recall the ordeal of traveling on 80 MPH conventional trains during the late Penn Central / early Amtrak era. Increasing the speed to 100 then 110 then 125, ( 135 for the Acela), each brought more business travel back to the rails. Today, business people will board the train, and immediately plug in their laptops or pads and they are conducting business, all during the time they are traveling is productive. Something not even on the horizon when the freight roads ran the passenger trains.

The key to all of this is tailoring the equipment to the needs of the traveler, and providing a reliable service. Extreme speed, while nice, is not essential.
The primary need is catering to the business traveler.

It amuses me when someone proposes a High Speed route from NYP to Chicago, using some exotic futuristic means, but over looks Chicago - Toledo - Cleveland, for instance. Empire Service across New York State, is popular, but could do better if frequency and speed were increased. It wouldn't be that expensive, but in addition to the usual opposition, Amtrak and NYDOT have a habit of butting heads, instead of co-operating.

Another key point is that we need to remember that Intercity rail is intermodal, meaning they have to provide a place for passengers to safely park their cars. Without this feature, folks will not use rail. it's something that planners and visionaries often overlook.

Boris

 

[Iron Horseman]

Horseman: You would be surprised at the number of people who would rather take a SEPTA local from Philadelphia to Trenton, NJ and then transfer to a NJT local from Trenton to NY Penn, about a three hour ride, rather than the much faster Amtrak regional service, simply because the fare is significantly cheaper. The same folks will ride the discount bus services for the same reason. I suppose time doesn't matter to younger people.

Yes, I would be there right with them. I road the RTD bus here in Denver to work for 20 years. 45 minutes riding vs driving for 15, but considering parking it was much cheaper to ride the stupid bus. Right in the end they added a bus lane which decreased the ride by 5 minutes and missed any accident related traffic jams, but too little too late to matter to me.

Another key point is that we need to remember that Intercity rail is intermodal, meaning they have to provide a place for passengers to safely park their cars. Without this feature, folks will not use rail. it's something that planners and visionaries often overlook.

That is one place where RTD's light rail shines. There is massive free parking at the rail remote terminals. The light rail has finally reached my neighbor hood. I think it will begin service this year. But once again 7 years too late for me. I don't go downtown Denver anymore. And the light rail isn't fast. Can get up to 60 mph, but seldom does because it stops so frequently. The only thing we have for intercity transport along the front range is 1 Amtrak bus that connects Denver to the Southwest Chief, one set of Front Range Flyer over the highway buses, and an organized "van pool" called Share the Ride. With a few exceptions for the most part, the buses sit in traffic like all the millions of single occupancy cars going to/from work.

 

[Bruette]

I've heard the argument that other countries are not doing anything to reduce emissions. Maybe we are not doing enough to look past what the Koch brothers and others like them want us to know? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_family

Last week on 60 Minutes I learned china offers up to $24,000 in incentives for buyers of electric cars.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-cars-chinas-drive-to-dominate-the-industry-60-minutes/

 

[MikeInHubCity]

"my reactionary short sighted generation"

It's almost as if they are playing Dean Smith's old four corners defense.

Or even worse, Pete Carill’s Princeton 4 corners & backdoor cut offense.