Amtrak Having to Pay For Maintenance on Raton Line?

[Green Maned Lion]

Maglevs advantage comes when operating underground, particularly in a vacuum. Operated in a vacuum tunnel, the maximum speed of a maglev is theoretically infinity. Without any air resistance and with gravity defeated by magnetic levitation, friction is practically zero. So a use for a Maglev wouldn't be getting from Chicago to Los Angeles in 6 hours- a very high speed railed train can handle that almost. Certainly within 10 hours. No, the purpose for a maglev is something more like getting from New York City to London in an hour and a half. It would involve the most ridiculous engineering project we've ever attempted, consisting of air locks hundreds of miles long.

That speed would be in the order of averaging 1960 miles per hour, and since in order to make a human body withstand it, it would be constant acceleration/deceleration, it would probably hit a maximum speed somewhere north of 3500 mph.

And I know that sounds completely nuts, and believe me, it is. But that is, crazy as it sounds, the only practical application for a maglev train. Because otherwise you are spending way too much money on a toy- steel wheel on rail can do pretty much all of what maglev can do in open air at a tenth the cost, and twice the energy efficiency.

 

[guest Capt. Kirk]

Maglev? That technology is so twenty minutes ago. Now what we really need is a tele-transported ala Star Trek. :lol:

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

When the EB is rerouted, (actually back to its former pre-Amtrak routing(, how about running a connecting train from Fargo up through Grand Forks to Winnipeg?

That might open up the potential for a lot more traffic than the loss of service to Devil's Lake and Rugby. And those towns could be served with a state supported bus or van service, as many midwestern cities are since the loss of mainline bus service.

I think a more useful approach might be to find three trainsets consisting of something like P42, Superliner coach, Cross Country Cafe, Superliner Sleeper, and run a Chicago-Winnipeg train with daytime calling times in North Dakota and Canada. The westbound train could depart Chicago around 9:30 PM, just like the LSL, and arrive in St. Paul-Minneapolis around 6:00 AM, and then have a long station stop, somewhat similar to how the overnight portion of trains 66/67 is heavily padded to provide good calling times in Boston and DC, depart St. Paul-Minneapolis around 8:00 AM, and reach Grand Forks around 2:00 PM. Google Maps says Grand Forks to Winnipeg is 147 highway miles; if you assume an average speed of 30 MPH, that would get the train to Winnipeg by 7:00 PM, and it's possible that the average speed might be somewhat better than that.

Eastbound, that would work out to something like St. Paul-Minneapolis at 9:30 PM, thus 3:30 PM at Grand Forks, and maybe 10:30 AM at Winnipeg. If this implies a Chicago arrival around 6:00 AM, there is a question of how long the train could occupy a platform at Chicago Union Station to let people sleep in a bit, vs whether commuter trains need those platforms.

The other interesting thing about that schedule is that if the train turns at Grand Forks instead of continuing to Winnipeg, it might be possible to get away with having only two sets, though the eastbound train will obviously be delayed departing if the westbound train is significantly late in that case. But the better than twelve hour layover at CHI should help to prevent the delay from cascading to the next CHI departure. And if the train turns at Grand Forks, one might start to wonder if in the short term it weren't cleaned out in North Dakota if the maintenance facility hasn't been built when the train starts running, if that would be any worse than a passenger boarding a car in Denver to go to Emeryville, where that car may not have been thoroughly cleaned out since Chicago.

If a second MSP-CHI frequency is added, the short turn MSP-CHI coach on the Empire Builder may not be needed on the Empire Builder, and that might be a source of some equipment to make this happen. Also, taking some of the Superliners being refurbished by the economic stimulus dollars that were intended to serve IL, WI, MI, and ND and using them for a new Grand Forks train might be an option (admittedly, this would prevent MT, ID, WA, and OR from enjoying those cars, but perhaps that is an argument in favor of accelerating the Superliner III order).

Another option might be to get a single Springfield Shuttle style set, and run it as a day train that would originate at MSP around 8:00 AM, reach Grand Forks around 2:00 PM, lay over for an hour or two, and head back. I presume an economic stimulus P40 and an economic stimulus Amfleet I coach could be found for such a train without any real difficulty.

With the economic stimulus P40s, finding a second locomotive shouldn't be difficult if it turns out that a new Grand Forks train can't be wyed and if finding cab cars is hard at the moment.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Maglev is a solution looking for a problem to solve. Building a Maglev line between Chicago and LA would probqbly cost more than a high speed rail line. Why? the tolerances on the guideway need to be very tight, the alignment will have to be as straight as a high speed railroad for the same speed. No one really knows what the practical maximum speed on rails is yet. But it is above 25o mph, and probably above 300 mph.

Is the maximum grade for maglev the same as the maximum grade for steel rail?

When you're determining the maximum superelevation for tracks that will be used exclusively by trains that tilt, the limiting factor is that you don't want to the train to fall off the track (or even have the flange of the wheel against the track) if the train happens to be going very slowly or comes to a complete stop. Does maglev have exactly the same effectiveness as steel rail at keeping the train on the guideway if the train is going the wrong speed for the superelevation?

 

[PRR 60]

I wonder how you remove 2 feet of snow from a maglev guideway? Do they have maglev snow plows?

Seriously, maglev has always struck me as a idealistic technology that would not translate well to the real world - kind of the rail equal of the fabled "frictionless pulley" problems from college physics courses. It's a great idea in a laboratory environment, maybe less so when the world affecting it is not so well controlled.

 

[bretton88]

Maglev translates to the real world fine. As long as it's used in a market like LA-Vegas. Note the lack of snow in that route. What has not been tested is how maglev deals with snowy conditions. It has been shown to work fine in rain, btw. As an engineer, my opinion is that heated guideways would solve the snow problem. But that is not taking into account cost. It has to be cheaper than tunneling through every snowy climate zone. Practicallity isn't the problem, the high cost compared to low benefits is.