WoodyinNYC
Conductor
Who said anything about needing Billions for a 110 mph Cincy-Indy corridor?I'd like a pony and a million dollars, but I think that has a better chance of happening than the money for 110 mph trackage in OH and IN dropping out of the sky...what's the point in making up pie in the sky scenarios? If you have to resort to that to justify doing something then your case isn't very good to start with IMO.
The bulk of my time savings comes from CHI-Indy, costing only some $250 million for the part within Indiana, but enuff to make viable a daily Hoosier State corridor train or two. For the Cardinal, upgrading that segment alone would save 29 min X 2 for almost an hour out of each round trip.I'm not gonna include either a 110-mph corridor Cincy-Indy or any saved time from the NEC in my running total, tho, because they are both a few years and some Billions in the future. Still, without counting them, we're up to potentially more than 2 hours faster run times.
Otherwise, some time will be saved from projects with a near time horizon, like a new Potomac Long Bridge, as well as passing sidings and such on the Buckingham Branch, and other segments which will be upgraded for their own reasons, but will coincidentally result in minutes saved for the Cardinal.
That got me to 2 hours saved without big money falling from the sky.
But I don't scoff at the idea that ponies, unicorns, and Billions can fall from the sky. After all, I was alive when passenger rail got $8 Billion from the Stimulus. I hope to see more Billions from an Infrastructure Stimulus once more, or a steady $4 Billion or so such as Obama included in his budget every year.
And as I recall, several states and potential projects simply were not ready to use the Stimulus money, and accordingly they didn't get the funds. I hope everybody is ready the next time big money does seem to fall from the sky.