Virginia Rail Info/Update

Well, I attended the VHSR luncheon today.

If there's steam coming from my ears, that's why. More or less, I've gotten the distinct feeling that nobody has a clue as to what they are doing there:

1) The 5 AM weekday train now has an evil weekend cousin: A 4:30 AM departure from Norfolk for Saturday and Sunday. This is one of those trains that should just not be run; it is going to get ridership worthy of the Lake Country Limited on those days. Basically, this is an equipment move with OBS along for the ride. Also, apparently per the terms of the operating agreement, this can't be moved to a later train.

2) I'm going to shoot an email to the DRPT (I was told who to actually contact on this), since apparently there's a rather spectacular disagreement on how much the state is going to need to subsidize the trains in Virginia. On the one hand, I've seen documents suggesting a subsidy need in the $7.5 million range statewide post-PRIIA (for example, here, on the CTB's website: http://www.ctb.virgi...Section_209.pdf ), and the numbers in this presentation line up with the numbers on the Lynchburg service that Drake offered. On the other hand, today Thelma Drake quoted a necessary subsidy of $25-35 million (in other words, roughly an order of magnitude more than was indicated before). As near as I can tell, Thelma said she was quoting net subsidy when she was actually quoting total operating cost, but I'm contacting them to sort this out.

3) Nobody is quite sure which other trains might be extended to Norfolk.

In other news:

1) The Norfolk Amtrak stop is going to be retained, but moved to the Harbor Park station, and I believe that they're going to run buses "the other way" as well (I'm not 100% sure on this). This is good; not doing this was one of my biggest concerns.

2) The Richmond-to-Washington HSR plan is ballparked at $1.8bn.

3) As far as The Tide goes, there are plans to extend the route into Virginia Beach pending the referendum this year. There's also a strong push to extend the line up to Norfolk Naval Station coming from the military, which is complaining that worsening I-64/564 traffic presents a "readiness problem".

4) From what I can tell, there's nothing in the mix transit-wise dealing with the cross-Hampton Roads traffic issues.

Any mention of other stops on the Norfolk route?

A stop in Suffolk would make my day.

Anderson said:

1) The 5 AM weekday train now has an evil weekend cousin: A 4:30 AM departure from Norfolk for Saturday and Sunday. This is one of those trains that should just not be run; it is going to get ridership worthy of the Lake Country Limited on those days. Basically, this is an equipment move with OBS along for the ride. Also, apparently per the terms of the operating agreement, this can't be moved to a later train.

Click to expand...

If that will be the only train departing from Norfolk for any length of time after the service starts, that will go over like a rock with the Norfolk politicians and public. Looking at the schedule, I guess that would be the extension southward of the #164 Regional which departs RVR at 6:35 AM Sat/Sun. The good news is that #164 gets to NYP at 12:47 PM, BOS at 5:18 PM, in time for a NYC lunch or dinner in Boston.

If a second daily train with a mid-morning departure is added quickly, the 4:30 AM departure train won't be as much of a problem. OTOH, if the 4:30 Sat/Sun and 5 AM AM weekday departures are is the only train departing Norfolk for 6 months or a year, that will just about kill any weekend visits to Norfolk from WAS or the NEC. "Hey, look we can now take Amtrak to Norfolk for a quick weekend trip to VA Beach. (checks the schedule) Oh, wait we would have to head back at 4:30 AM on Sunday!?? 4:30 AM? ***? Well, screw that weekend getaway plan." Not everyone will think about taking the train back from Newport News.

Anderson said:

3) As far as The Tide goes, there are plans to extend the route into Virginia Beach pending the referendum this year. There's also a strong push to extend the line up to Norfolk Naval Station coming from the military, which is complaining that worsening I-64/564 traffic presents a "readiness problem".

Click to expand...

I would figure 6-10 years before any The Tide service extension opens. Got to have studies, more studies, public debate, and a lot of political maneuvering before any decisions are made.

Was there any news about the status of the 3rd track project from Arkendale to Powell's Creek?

Anderson said:

Well, I attended the VHSR luncheon today.

If there's steam coming from my ears, that's why. More or less, I've gotten the distinct feeling that nobody has a clue as to what they are doing there:

1) The 5 AM weekday train now has an evil weekend cousin: A 4:30 AM departure from Norfolk for Saturday and Sunday. This is one of those trains that should just not be run; it is going to get ridership worthy of the Lake Country Limited on those days. Basically, this is an equipment move with OBS along for the ride. Also, apparently per the terms of the operating agreement, this can't be moved to a later train.

2) I'm going to shoot an email to the DRPT (I was told who to actually contact on this), since apparently there's a rather spectacular disagreement on how much the state is going to need to subsidize the trains in Virginia. On the one hand, I've seen documents suggesting a subsidy need in the $7.5 million range statewide post-PRIIA (for example, here, on the CTB's website: http://www.ctb.virgi...Section_209.pdf ), and the numbers in this presentation line up with the numbers on the Lynchburg service that Drake offered. On the other hand, today Thelma Drake quoted a necessary subsidy of $25-35 million (in other words, roughly an order of magnitude more than was indicated before). As near as I can tell, Thelma said she was quoting net subsidy when she was actually quoting total operating cost, but I'm contacting them to sort this out.

3) Nobody is quite sure which other trains might be extended to Norfolk.

In other news:

1) The Norfolk Amtrak stop is going to be retained, but moved to the Harbor Park station, and I believe that they're going to run buses "the other way" as well (I'm not 100% sure on this). This is good; not doing this was one of my biggest concerns.

2) The Richmond-to-Washington HSR plan is ballparked at $1.8bn.

3) As far as The Tide goes, there are plans to extend the route into Virginia Beach pending the referendum this year. There's also a strong push to extend the line up to Norfolk Naval Station coming from the military, which is complaining that worsening I-64/564 traffic presents a "readiness problem".

4) From what I can tell, there's nothing in the mix transit-wise dealing with the cross-Hampton Roads traffic issues.

Click to expand...

Thank you for attending and sharing your notes.

Blue skies .. except right now when we've been having on & off thunderstorms here in Newport News for the last 4 hours.

Plenty of storms here in Williamsburg (where I'm grabbing dinner) as well.

1) On any Tide extensions: I agree. An ideal situation would be that the Tide extension is enough within existing RoWs that the EIS would get downgraded to simply being an evaluation, which would probably save on some of the paperwork. Assuming 18 months for a locally preferred alternative, two years of studying, and two years of construction...2018 would be optimistic. Which is a real shame.

2) Building on the above: Adding the Feds to anything is always a bad idea if you can help it. Apparently, before the latest project, the plan was for Norfolk to get service...sometime around 2030 or so.

3) Third track is still stalled, amidst frustration all around.

4) There's talk of a "west Hampton Roads" stop...but that's probably going to be coming once some speed upgrades start going in. From what I understand, there are two hitches:

-Bowers Hill isn't on the current alignment, which is instead going to go a bit further north.

-There's no time in the schedule. No, really, that's the reason given at the moment: They're already too slow because of the tracks that are actually being used; I think the

5) Also of note: Norfolk Southern has put a hard cap of 79 MPH on passenger operations. CSX is apparently willing to let trains run up to 90 MPH if someone else springs for the upgrades.

6) As to the 4:30 AM Train from Hell: I think what is likely to happen is that an Ambus link to NPN will list alongside the 4:30 AM train. That might save at least some ridership, but I don't think that will bail things out.

-Any supplemental train is subject to negotiations with CSX.

-Also, the train probably can't be moved out of the 4:30 slot until 2013, when the funding situation "detaches" from the one train and applies to the VA trains as a whole. The problem is that 164 is state-funded while the others are Amtrak-funded right now...and Amtrak probably doesn't want to make a bigger hash of the funding situation than they've already got in VA.

Demand on rise ahead of Amtrak's launch in Norfolk

That's an article in Saturday's Pilot about the new Norfolk-Richmond route, and the possibilities for more runs daily. One line in the article caught my eye:

In addition to more Norfolk trains, the state also has plans to extend the Lynchburg service to Roanoke.

Click to expand...

That would be nice. It's been way too long since Roanoke, a real rail city, has had passenger train service.

That's a fine looking station, that's he first I've seen any renderings of it.

Anderson, have you been past the station recently? Curious how progress is coming...

I've been past the Harbor Park lot twice and I haven't noticed the station...but I may have been looking in the wrong place, too. There was a sort of wry joke that someone had about it, though: "It's a nice station...too bad nobody will ever see it during the day".

On Lynchburg service: I asked about the possibility of the current train being extended (i.e. cars being added), and was told that there's a desire to put a second train out to Lynchburg. Of course, the net cost of that might be very low if the $1.5 million net subsidy holds...or a lot more if it doesn't.

Another thing: Gov. McDonnell did some budget wizardry, and I think VA train services are funded through either FY14 or FY15 through two stopgap measures (I think it was basically reallocating some money from a freight program that wasn't being used). The stopgaps covered two years and one year, respectively, but I don't know whether it was FY12-13-14 or FY13-14-15.

JeffConn said:

That's an article in Saturday's Pilot about the new Norfolk-Richmond route, and the possibilities for more runs daily. One line in the article caught my eye:

In addition to more Norfolk trains, the state also has plans to extend the Lynchburg service to Roanoke.

Click to expand...

That would be nice. It's been way too long since Roanoke, a real rail city, has had passenger train service.

Click to expand...

The article says $75 million in additional upgrades will be needed before a 2nd and 3rd frequency can added to Norfolk? First I've heard about that. I thought the agreement was in place with NS for three daily trains to Norfolk, but it must be CSX is demanding upgrades between Petersburg and RVR. With the price tag of service extension to Roanoke having been stated at around $140 million, VA has only so much rail capital project funds available in any budget year, so one project or the other will get stretched out. On the other hand, if VA could land significant federal funding for the big bucks work to be able to re-route all the Amtrak trains through Main Street station, they could put the $75 million towards that route segment.

Meanwhile the clock is tickling on the obligation of the $75 million stimulus grant for the 3rd track from Powells Creek to Arkendale. If they can't reach an agreement soon, the FRA will have to re-allocate those funds elsewhere. I expect Amtrak would be happy to take the funds for the Portal Bridge replacement or PA/Amtrak for the Keystone East or CT/Amtrak for the NHV-SPG corridor.

If Amtrak gets that $75 million, why can't they lay the track themselves under the sanction of the recent court victory upholding the provisions of the 2008 Passenger Train Act/Law? This sounds easy because Amtrak would be bringing some money to the table.

afigg said:

JeffConn said:

That's an article in Saturday's Pilot about the new Norfolk-Richmond route, and the possibilities for more runs daily. One line in the article caught my eye:

In addition to more Norfolk trains, the state also has plans to extend the Lynchburg service to Roanoke.

Click to expand...

That would be nice. It's been way too long since Roanoke, a real rail city, has had passenger train service.

Click to expand...

The article says $75 million in additional upgrades will be needed before a 2nd and 3rd frequency can added to Norfolk? First I've heard about that. I thought the agreement was in place with NS for three daily trains to Norfolk, but it must be CSX is demanding upgrades between Petersburg and RVR. With the price tag of service extension to Roanoke having been stated at around $140 million, VA has only so much rail capital project funds available in any budget year, so one project or the other will get stretched out. On the other hand, if VA could land significant federal funding for the big bucks work to be able to re-route all the Amtrak trains through Main Street station, they could put the $75 million towards that route segment.

Meanwhile the clock is tickling on the obligation of the $75 million stimulus grant for the 3rd track from Powells Creek to Arkendale. If they can't reach an agreement soon, the FRA will have to re-allocate those funds elsewhere. I expect Amtrak would be happy to take the funds for the Portal Bridge replacement or PA/Amtrak for the Keystone East or CT/Amtrak for the NHV-SPG corridor.

Click to expand...

Actually, my understanding is that Amtrak needs a lot more money to get trains rerouted into Main Street Station. Drake noted that the time lost over the S-line (I think it's the S-line that's a mess south of RVM) was something like 40 minutes, and I heard far larger numbers thrown around as far as what was needed to fix that line (i.e. on the order of something like $300 million..I think they may basically have to rebuild the whole section to get it up to a decent speed).

The other things screwing up the second/third trains into Norfolk are:

1) NS has an agreement in place with Virginia for three trains. CSX's agreement only applies to one train.

2) I believe that the "three trains" plan is predicated on Virginia getting a sixth Regional extended to Richmond. Right now, the "available" trains to run to Norfolk are 6 AM, 7 AM, and 8 AM...which isn't a lot of variety. It also translates into a rather annoying set of options out of Norfolk: 4 AM, 5 AM, and 6 AM. I doubt that anyone wants that sort of a setup.

3) Also, w.r.t. Main Street Station...there's a bit of a tangle here since there's no clear answer from the Feds about what they;re actually planning to do with the HSR-to-Hampton Roads plan. Apparently, there's still a possibility that either they'll just go with the 9-a-day-to-NPN option or that they're undecided on what to do with the section between RVM and PTB...and nobody wants to be stuck with two redundant projects (particularly as, even with federal funding, Richmond-to-Washington is expected to cost the state about $350 million out of $1.8 billion).

The Roanoke situation is, I believe, tied up with the need for a station at Roanoke and other issues. Right now, their main concern is getting the bus bridge onto the Amtrak website...something that is a bit of a failure at present.

Edit: I figure an explanation is in order for my particularly sour attitude on the prospect of such an early train into Norfolk. Yes, part of it is that I don't think it will sell well on weekends, while it won't be great on weekdays, either. But there's a second part, which is that usually when I am boarding such a train, there are two things awaiting me:

-Several hours of horizontal sleep (i.e. usually I'll spring for one of the relatively inexpensive roomettes on 98 out of Richmond); and

-A good, hot breakfast.

This train shows every sign of offering neither (it will likely not even have the 2-1 BC of 66/67), and in fact it leaves too early to even swap in McDonald's for one of the not-great-looking breakfast sandwiches. The idea of staggering off to the station at 3:30 AM to have a rather vertical seat and the cafe breakfast food awaiting me doesn't exactly thrill me.

NE933 said:

If Amtrak gets that $75 million, why can't they lay the track themselves under the sanction of the recent court victory upholding the provisions of the 2008 Passenger Train Act/Law? This sounds easy because Amtrak would be bringing some money to the table.

Click to expand...

That ruling is irrelevant in this situation. This would be a case of essentially taking of CSX's property, which ain't gonna happen.

I suspect that the $1.8 billion Richmond to Washington DC is not going to be that much HS and will just be a better R.

jis said:

NE933 said:

If Amtrak gets that $75 million, why can't they lay the track themselves under the sanction of the recent court victory upholding the provisions of the 2008 Passenger Train Act/Law? This sounds easy because Amtrak would be bringing some money to the table.

Click to expand...

That ruling is irrelevant in this situation. This would be a case of essentially taking of CSX's property, which ain't gonna happen.

I suspect that the $1.8 billion Richmond to Washington DC is not going to be that much HS and will just be a better R.

Click to expand...

Looking at what's being aimed for Richmond-to-Raleigh, I think they're going to aim for 110 MPH. Not the Acela, no, but most of the studies going back to the 90s suggest that such an operation would be very successful.

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/WashingtonDCStudyDetails.pdf

Note: I believe that "existing rail service" means the six trains per day that were running at the time (which it notes), which would mean that we already have three more per day (the Carolinian and, I believe, two Regionals).

Also worth noting: The third track bridge at Quantico (the $75m grant thing) is expected to do zero for travel time (though it will help capacity), but per this report it seems like there's about 20-25 minutes that can be shaved off of travel times without things getting too expensive.

Finally, I had a sort of "lightbulb moment" this afternoon: There is ZERO transit available from RVR to downtown Richmond. Even if it strictly involves moving a single dedicated express bus to run down to Broad Street, the city and state should /really/ look into something seeing as the Norfolk service is going to be RVR-only for a while.

Anderson said:

Finally, I had a sort of "lightbulb moment" this afternoon: There is ZERO transit available from RVR to downtown Richmond. Even if it strictly involves moving a single dedicated express bus to run down to Broad Street, the city and state should /really/ look into something seeing as the Norfolk service is going to be RVR-only for a while.

Click to expand...

Once upon a time Amtrak had a contract with James River buses to provide such a service. I used it years ago, prior to Main Street ever opening. Not sure just when they stopped that thruway bus, or why.

AlanB said:

Anderson said:

Finally, I had a sort of "lightbulb moment" this afternoon: There is ZERO transit available from RVR to downtown Richmond. Even if it strictly involves moving a single dedicated express bus to run down to Broad Street, the city and state should /really/ look into something seeing as the Norfolk service is going to be RVR-only for a while.

Click to expand...

Once upon a time Amtrak had a contract with James River buses to provide such a service. I used it years ago, prior to Main Street ever opening. Not sure just when they stopped that thruway bus, or why.

Click to expand...

Probably, ironically, because of Main Street Station picking up some Regionals. Of course, the question is why they wouldn't just work out something with the Greater Richmond Transit folks for some of that operation (i.e. just move one of the city buses to make the run)...it's only about a 15-minute ride, and Main Street Station is actually "somewhere".

Anderson said:

AlanB said:

Anderson said:

Finally, I had a sort of "lightbulb moment" this afternoon: There is ZERO transit available from RVR to downtown Richmond. Even if it strictly involves moving a single dedicated express bus to run down to Broad Street, the city and state should /really/ look into something seeing as the Norfolk service is going to be RVR-only for a while.

Click to expand...

Once upon a time Amtrak had a contract with James River buses to provide such a service. I used it years ago, prior to Main Street ever opening. Not sure just when they stopped that thruway bus, or why.

Click to expand...

Probably, ironically, because of Main Street Station picking up some Regionals. Of course, the question is why they wouldn't just work out something with the Greater Richmond Transit folks for some of that operation (i.e. just move one of the city buses to make the run)...it's only about a 15-minute ride, and Main Street Station is actually "somewhere".

Click to expand...

I'd go for that. I dislike renting cars so decided against taking Carolinian to RVR because I'd have to rent a car or take one of the poorly regulated taxis to downtown where we'd likely stay at a B&B.

Would be part of a nice trip

1. Carolinian to RVR then bus to downtown. Stay 2 nights and see the city.
2. Regional to some other city (Alexandria or DC or Amtrak/VRE/MARC to one of the other towns.
3. Return to Charlotte on Carolinian.

The SEHSR project for Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond presumes a rebuild of the ex-SAL between Centralia and Hermitage. All NY-Carolinas and NY-Florida passenger trains (except the Auto Train) would run through RVM. The improved speed between RVM and Hermitage would also benefit the NPN trains.

Anderson said:

Probably, ironically, because of Main Street Station picking up some Regionals. Of course, the question is why they wouldn't just work out something with the Greater Richmond Transit folks for some of that operation (i.e. just move one of the city buses to make the run)...it's only about a 15-minute ride, and Main Street Station is actually "somewhere".

Click to expand...

With the caveat that I have no knowledge of the area or the transit agency in question, I will say that most transit agencies are going to be less than enthusiastic about taking on such a service. By their nature, a thruway style service needs to wait for the train, even if the train is late. This creates a nightmare for transit scheduling - you're not going to pay an employee to come in and just do a 15 min run, but you can't rely on the bus always being able to leave at it's scheduled departure time, so it's very difficult to schedule work after that run. So you end up needing to pad the end of the run by some absurd amount to ensure reliability, even if a delay is fairly infrequent.

I'm also not sure if having the bus wait for the train would run afoul of FTA charter regulations (any vehicles purchased with federal transit money cannot be used for the provision of charter service, and in most agencies, that's all the vehicles they have). That's not an area I'm an expert in, but in any event, the bus would be required to be open to the public, not just those going to/from the train.

transit54 said:

Anderson said:

Probably, ironically, because of Main Street Station picking up some Regionals. Of course, the question is why they wouldn't just work out something with the Greater Richmond Transit folks for some of that operation (i.e. just move one of the city buses to make the run)...it's only about a 15-minute ride, and Main Street Station is actually "somewhere".

Click to expand...

With the caveat that I have no knowledge of the area or the transit agency in question, I will say that most transit agencies are going to be less than enthusiastic about taking on such a service. By their nature, a thruway style service needs to wait for the train, even if the train is late. This creates a nightmare for transit scheduling - you're not going to pay an employee to come in and just do a 15 min run, but you can't rely on the bus always being able to leave at it's scheduled departure time, so it's very difficult to schedule work after that run. So you end up needing to pad the end of the run by some absurd amount to ensure reliability, even if a delay is fairly infrequent.

I'm also not sure if having the bus wait for the train would run afoul of FTA charter regulations (any vehicles purchased with federal transit money cannot be used for the provision of charter service, and in most agencies, that's all the vehicles they have). That's not an area I'm an expert in, but in any event, the bus would be required to be open to the public, not just those going to/from the train.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...one solution would be to run the bus to all 14 trains per day that don't hit RVM (i.e. the 7 NB and 7 SB) and to just charge a "special" fare of something a bit above the "regular" system fare for folks without an Amtrak ticket. This would basically be a one-vehicle thing (which might well be worth an independent purchase of a lone used/refurbished bus). You would run a risk of knock-on issues when a train was super late, but having a policy regarding that to allow the bus to go pick folks up from RVM and return shouldn't be too bad, especially since if a train is likely to be late, the problem is usually going to be known by the time a train passes Fredericksburg (and since the worst wait you'd face in such a case would be about 30 minutes or so for the round trip of the bus...not an unacceptable Thruway wait).

I guess the question is how much traffic such an operation would both generate (from the connection to the larger Richmond bus network making Amtrak travel more appealing) and attract (i.e. overall ridership from the 14 runs per day).

Anderson said:

Looking at what's being aimed for Richmond-to-Raleigh, I think they're going to aim for 110 MPH. Not the Acela, no, but most of the studies going back to the 90s suggest that such an operation would be very successful.

http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/WashingtonDCStudyDetails.pdf

Note: I believe that "existing rail service" means the six trains per day that were running at the time (which it notes), which would mean that we already have three more per day (the Carolinian and, I believe, two Regionals).

Also worth noting: The third track bridge at Quantico (the $75m grant thing) is expected to do zero for travel time (though it will help capacity), but per this report it seems like there's about 20-25 minutes that can be shaved off of travel times without things getting too expensive.

Click to expand...

The plans for the DC to Richmond segment call for a max speed of 90 mph. If CSX won't cooperate with NY State to allow a 110 mph track on a high quality former four track line, CSX is not going to sign up for 110 mph on the RF&P. While it won't be HSR, an upgrade from 70 mph to 90 mph max speed, capacity increases with a 3rd track throughout, fixing of the really slow parts, Acca Yard Bypass, restoration of service through RVM for all Amtrak trains (except the AutoTrain), will help cut trip times between Richmond and DC. The biggest gainer in improved trip times would likely be the trains to Newport News because the slow crawl from RVR to RVM would be fixed.

The funds for the $44 million awarded to VA for the PE/NEPA study for a Tier II EIS of the DC (actually Alexandria station) to Richmond Main Street Station were obligated last summer as I recall. So they should have gotten started on the actual engineering study by now (one would hope) and at some point, we should see initial draft documents made available for the first round of public comments.

afigg said:

Anderson said:

Looking at what's being aimed for Richmond-to-Raleigh, I think they're going to aim for 110 MPH. Not the Acela, no, but most of the studies going back to the 90s suggest that such an operation would be very successful.

http://www.drpt.virg...tudyDetails.pdf

Note: I believe that "existing rail service" means the six trains per day that were running at the time (which it notes), which would mean that we already have three more per day (the Carolinian and, I believe, two Regionals).

Also worth noting: The third track bridge at Quantico (the $75m grant thing) is expected to do zero for travel time (though it will help capacity), but per this report it seems like there's about 20-25 minutes that can be shaved off of travel times without things getting too expensive.

Click to expand...

The plans for the DC to Richmond segment call for a max speed of 90 mph. If CSX won't cooperate with NY State to allow a 110 mph track on a high quality former four track line, CSX is not going to sign up for 110 mph on the RF&P. While it won't be HSR, an upgrade from 70 mph to 90 mph max speed, capacity increases with a 3rd track throughout, fixing of the really slow parts, Acca Yard Bypass, restoration of service through RVM for all Amtrak trains (except the AutoTrain), will help cut trip times between Richmond and DC. The biggest gainer in improved trip times would likely be the trains to Newport News because the slow crawl from RVR to RVM would be fixed.

The funds for the $44 million awarded to VA for the PE/NEPA study for a Tier II EIS of the DC (actually Alexandria station) to Richmond Main Street Station were obligated last summer as I recall. So they should have gotten started on the actual engineering study by now (one would hope) and at some point, we should see initial draft documents made available for the first round of public comments.

Click to expand...

Well, and I think an unspoken gain there is also for the NFK-RVM project. Unless I'm missing my guess, if they're losing 40 minutes south of RVM, then when you factor the "crawl" into things, you get close to a lost hour.

The good thing is that, though it will probably be a multiple of the 1990s numbers, the RF&P upgrades still seem "cheap" by any stretch, and they might (one could always dream, at least) be cheap enough to be state-only, or at least be "earmarkable" by some of the Congresscritters from the region.<br><br>Edit: Also, I don't think I got to bring this up, but there was some fun "code word" talk to the effect of "and we're trying to take steps to ensure that if states to the south of us, such as South Carolina or Florida, want to run trains over tracks we've done all the spending to improve, we can get something out of them and don't have them grabbing our slots for their trains."<br><br>I don't know who Drake thought she was fooling by mentioning one state that is anti-rail and another that is so far away that any project would probably auto-qualify for the LD system (since I doubt that FL would be terminating a train in Jacksonville), but it seems that there's a bit of "trouble in paradise" with SEHSR.<br>

NS between Charlotte and Raleigh will be 90 mph for the same reason. Only the segment between Raleigh and Richmond will be 110 mph... not all of it, but a lot of it. Why 110 here and nowhere else? SEHSR rebuilds the line so they set the rules. CSX will be allowed to run freights on this line, by the way... which should secure the future of the ex-SAL main line between Raleigh and Hamlet. What happens between Hamlet and Columbia over the long run is still anyone's guess.

xyzzy said:

NS between Charlotte and Raleigh will be 90 mph for the same reason. Only the segment between Raleigh and Richmond will be 110 mph... not all of it, but a lot of it. Why 110 here and nowhere else? SEHSR rebuilds the line so they set the rules. CSX will be allowed to run freights on this line, by the way... which should secure the future of the ex-SAL main line between Raleigh and Hamlet. What happens between Hamlet and Columbia over the long run is still anyone's guess.

Click to expand...

But NS trackage between Charlotte and Raleigh is actually owned by the State of North Carolina and operated by NS. That is different from the RF&P situation.

The problem with that line is that there not many segments that are suitable for 110mph on that anyway. The RoW is not suitable. Same is true of RF&P BTW.

jis said:

But NS trackage between Charlotte and Raleigh is actually owned by the State of North Carolina and operated by NS. That is different from the RF&P situation.

The problem with that line is that there not many segments that are suitable for 110mph on that anyway. The RoW is not suitable. Same is true of RF&P BTW.

Click to expand...

My point is, it's no different at all. Even with state ownership of the line, NS still says 90 mph max -- same as CSX says for the RF&P. The only place where trains can run faster than 90 is when a third party builds an entirely new railroad and then says "if you want to use my tracks for freight, shut up while I run passenger at 110". Effectively that's what SEHSR is telling CSX.

I agree that not much of Charlotte-Raleigh would be suitable for 110 anyway.

xyzzy said:

jis said:

But NS trackage between Charlotte and Raleigh is actually owned by the State of North Carolina and operated by NS. That is different from the RF&P situation.

The problem with that line is that there not many segments that are suitable for 110mph on that anyway. The RoW is not suitable. Same is true of RF&P BTW.

Click to expand...

My point is, it's no different at all. Even with state ownership of the line, NS still says 90 mph max -- same as CSX says for the RF&P. The only place where trains can run faster than 90 is when a third party builds an entirely new railroad and then says "if you want to use my tracks for freight, shut up while I run passenger at 110". Effectively that's what SEHSR is telling CSX.

I agree that not much of Charlotte-Raleigh would be suitable for 110 anyway.

Click to expand...

Actually, my understanding is that (at least in Virginia) NS has been saying 79, not 90. Mind you, if they get enough improvements in a deal that might change their tune...but apparently, CSX has been more flexible on speeds provided that they get improvements in the deal.