Unlimited money

[Walt]

Would center doors eliminate the need for a vestibule at each end? If so, I wonder which is more space efficient?

 

[the_traveler]

Would center doors eliminate the need for a vestibule at each end? If so, I wonder which is more space efficient?

Also, I wonder if those center doors would have steps? At least 2 of the stations on the NEC do not have high level platforms at all (MYS and WLY) and 2 more (KIN and NLC) have only short (1 door) high level platforms (but LONG low level platforms)!

 

[George Harris]

Unlimited Money?

I would start with restoring train frequencies to something like they were in 1960 and go up from there. Not necessariluy the same schedules. There were some lines that really needed a better spread of train times, and many should have been faster. The big money would have to be in track. Something on the concept of the interstate system: Let's think of a few for starts. I will start with the southeast because that is the part of the country I know best.

1. restore those portions of the old Seaboard Airline main in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida that have been pulled up, do some curve straightening on this route. - make it 110 mph

2. re-do, and put in the few places where it wasn't full double track down the ACL Richmond to Jacksonville, and might as well go on to Tampa, and re-double track the FEC. - make it all 110 mph.

3. double track and straighten that early 20th century Chicago to Florida favorite route: Chicago - Evansville - Nashville - Atlanta - Jacksonville: A new short line from about Tullahoma, Tennessee to Chattanooga with a 4 mile tunnel under Monteagle Mountain would get the Nashville - Chattanooga distance down from 151 miles to about 130. Follow the Tennessee River to stay level with some long tunnels to cut off the bends. Now we can have a Chicago to Atlanta day train with reasonable times on both ends.

4. restore most of the missing double track on the ICRR and the full passenger route to New Orleans so we can have a new and even faster daytime City of New Orleans. As an example of what should be done in other places: This route always cried out for a basic 4 trains per day, with the daytime City of NO, nighttime Panama Limited, and the other two making their day/night transition at Memphis.

5. Tennessee needs a good line Memphis - Jackson -Nashville - Cookeville - Knoxville. Most of this track is not even there now, and when it was it was fairly slow. Passenger trains on this route were not killed off by being able to go faster on the interstate, but by being able to beat them on the 2-lane that preceeded the interstate. Only one slow overnight train Memphis to Nashville even lasted to see 1960.

6. Build a fast track Atlanta to Birmingham and also Atlanto to Montgomery. Then we can see the Crescent restored on its original route on a reasonable schedule. Also can speed up the Southerner that Amtrak now calls the Crescent. Strraighten out the old Frisco and we can now have fairly fast Memphis - Birmingham - Atlant trains, then on to Florida or points east.

I could go on, but I think this gives the start of the idea. WE should be looking at getting average speed of serivces up to above 60 mph as much as practical, plus of course higher speeds on high density corridors.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

3. double track and straighten that early 20th century Chicago to Florida favorite route: Chicago - Evansville - Nashville - Atlanta - Jacksonville: A new short line from about Tullahoma, Tennessee to Chattanooga with a 4 mile tunnel under Monteagle Mountain would get the Nashville - Chattanooga distance down from 151 miles to about 130. Follow the Tennessee River to stay level with some long tunnels to cut off the bends. Now we can have a Chicago to Atlanta day train with reasonable times on both ends.

If we had unlimited money, we should be building 300 km/h or faster track from near the edge of Atlanta to near the edge of Cincinnati; that's 461 highway miles from city center to city center, therefore Atlanta to Cincinnati ought to be under 3 hours; and then Cincinnati to Chicago is 297 highway miles, more or less going through Indianapolis, and would probably be under two hours. An Atlanta to Chicago train therefore ought to be under 5 hours with quality high speed passenger track.

 

[George Harris]

3. double track and straighten that early 20th century Chicago to Florida favorite route: Chicago - Evansville - Nashville - Atlanta - Jacksonville: A new short line from about Tullahoma, Tennessee to Chattanooga with a 4 mile tunnel under Monteagle Mountain would get the Nashville - Chattanooga distance down from 151 miles to about 130. Follow the Tennessee River to stay level with some long tunnels to cut off the bends. Now we can have a Chicago to Atlanta day train with reasonable times on both ends.

If we had unlimited money, we should be building 300 km/h or faster track from near the edge of Atlanta to near the edge of Cincinnati; that's 461 highway miles from city center to city center, therefore Atlanta to Cincinnati ought to be under 3 hours; and then Cincinnati to Chicago is 297 highway miles, more or less going through Indianapolis, and would probably be under two hours. An Atlanta to Chicago train therefore ought to be under 5 hours with quality high speed passenger track.

I was thinking convetional passenger service. Yes, you are right on this. A network of true high speed lines. For this, even 300 km/h is on the slower side of what can be done. As long as you pay attention to the V, V^2 and acceleratio factors, the limit is somewhere well up into airplane speed. California's stated concept is 220 mph, whihc is more like 350 km/h with being able to ultimately go 250 mph (400 km/h). There is no leap into the unknown at all in this.

With stops and some unavoidable slow points near the ends, you can with a 300 km/h line (186 mph) mainage train average speeds of around 90 to 100 mph with stops every 25 to 40 miles or so and averages of 140 to 150 mph with stops limited to every 100 miles or further apart. Kick up the maximum to 250 mph andyou could easily have 5 hours or less New york to Chicago, 4 hours Chicago to Atlanta, etc.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I was thinking convetional passenger service. Yes, you are right on this. A network of true high speed lines. For this, even 300 km/h is on the slower side of what can be done. As long as you pay attention to the V, V^2 and acceleratio factors, the limit is somewhere well up into airplane speed. California's stated concept is 220 mph, whihc is more like 350 km/h with being able to ultimately go 250 mph (400 km/h). There is no leap into the unknown at all in this.
With stops and some unavoidable slow points near the ends, you can with a 300 km/h line (186 mph) mainage train average speeds of around 90 to 100 mph with stops every 25 to 40 miles or so and averages of 140 to 150 mph with stops limited to every 100 miles or further apart. Kick up the maximum to 250 mph andyou could easily have 5 hours or less New york to Chicago, 4 hours Chicago to Atlanta, etc.

300 km/h, though, is a nice, conservative, obviously doable number.

New York City to Pittsburg looks like 369 highway miles, Pittsburg to Cleveland is 140 track miles on the conventional ruote, and Cleveland to Chicago is 341 track miles on the current conventional route. That's 850 miles. If it turned out that the middle 800 miles could be done at 200 MPH, that would be 4 hours plus whatever time you need to cover the slow 50 miles. 250 MPH might be sufficient to get the time down to 4 hours; at 250 MPH, you could cover 750 of the miles in 3 hours. And it may be possible to put a new high speed right of way on a more direct route with fewer miles, and if you truely had unlimited money you wouldn't worry about getting so close to Pittsburg and Cleveland, you might go for a route intended to go as directly as possible from New York City to Chicago.

Then again, making a right of way that goes near Pittsburg and Cleveland support 300 MPH trains is probably cheaper than building a more direct route for 250 MPH trains in addition to building the tracks that go near Pittsburg and Cleveland.

 

[Crescent Mark]

Awesome points George! I'm in favor of all of that of course. That brings a lot of trains south, which is what I'd like to see again since we used to have them all over the place. It gives Atlanta a lot of trains like it used to have (which is WHY it became the state capital in the first place!). A new Union Station would be awesome.

Then we can see the Crescent restored on its original route on a reasonable schedule. Also can speed up the Southerner that Amtrak now calls the Crescent.

What was the original Crescent route?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Would center doors eliminate the need for a vestibule at each end? If so, I wonder which is more space efficient?

The Comet V is a good example of the kind of thing I mean, steps being located at the end doors only:

 

[Crescent Mark]

Pick either doors at the ends or in the middle, not both. If you have them at the ends as well as in the middle, it only takes away space from the car which could be used for seats, etc.

I personally like them at the ends, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

 

[jackal]

Well, the more doors there are, the faster people can get on and off the train--another important thing in commuter systems (but not so much in long-distance systems). I don't think a car with only a middle door would be a good commuter car.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Awesome points George! I'm in favor of all of that of course. That brings a lot of trains south, which is what I'd like to see again since we used to have them all over the place. It gives Atlanta a lot of trains like it used to have (which is WHY it became the state capital in the first place!). A new Union Station would be awesome.

Then we can see the Crescent restored on its original route on a reasonable schedule. Also can speed up the Southerner that Amtrak now calls the Crescent.

What was the original Crescent route?

The Crescent and the Piedmont Limited went from NYC to ATL as is done today. From Atlanta they were operated by the Atlanta and West Point to Montgomery. Then via Louisville and Nashville from Montgomery through Mobile to NOL.

The train than ran today's Amtrak route was called the Southerner.It was Southern all the way from WAS to NOL.(Pennsylvania , of course, between NYC and WAS).

For a few years about 1970 to 1979, I think, the Southern Railway sort of merged the operation between the former Crescent and the former Southerner and came up with a mixed name "Southern Crescent". The word "Southern" in that name was meant to remind us of the former Southerner, but I don't think many people understood that.

Amtrak took the train over in 1979 and dropped the name "Southern" and so we now have the Crescent.

It was a cleverly-done merged identity, the best of both trains. A story unto itself. I can go into more detail on that, if you like. That train used the Southerner's route since, at that time, there was still a train, the Piedmont Limitied, on the old regular Crescent route.

.

In addiition, there was a train NYC, WAS, Lynchburg, Roanoke Bristol ,Knoxville,Chattanooga, BHM, Meridan,NOL known as the Pelican. It was Southern between WAS and Monroe(just at Lynchburg), then Norfolk and Western (from which we get: Norfolk Southern today) to Bristol, then reverted to Southern beyond that. Its route from BHM to NOL was the same as today's Crescent.

There were other trains on these routes which did not make the entire journey. Such as from WAS to ATL, etc.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Unlimited Money?
I would start with restoring train frequencies to something like they were in 1960 and go up from there. Not necessariluy the same schedules. There were some lines that really needed a better spread of train times, and many should have been faster. The big money would have to be in track. Something on the concept of the interstate system: Let's think of a few for starts. I will start with the southeast because that is the part of the country I know best.

1. restore those portions of the old Seaboard Airline main in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida that have been pulled up, do some curve straightening on this route. - make it 110 mph

2. re-do, and put in the few places where it wasn't full double track down the ACL Richmond to Jacksonville, and might as well go on to Tampa, and re-double track the FEC. - make it all 110 mph.

3. double track and straighten that early 20th century Chicago to Florida favorite route: Chicago - Evansville - Nashville - Atlanta - Jacksonville: A new short line from about Tullahoma, Tennessee to Chattanooga with a 4 mile tunnel under Monteagle Mountain would get the Nashville - Chattanooga distance down from 151 miles to about 130. Follow the Tennessee River to stay level with some long tunnels to cut off the bends. Now we can have a Chicago to Atlanta day train with reasonable times on both ends.

4. restore most of the missing double track on the ICRR and the full passenger route to New Orleans so we can have a new and even faster daytime City of New Orleans. As an example of what should be done in other places: This route always cried out for a basic 4 trains per day, with the daytime City of NO, nighttime Panama Limited, and the other two making their day/night transition at Memphis.

5. Tennessee needs a good line Memphis - Jackson -Nashville - Cookeville - Knoxville. Most of this track is not even there now, and when it was it was fairly slow. Passenger trains on this route were not killed off by being able to go faster on the interstate, but by being able to beat them on the 2-lane that preceeded the interstate. Only one slow overnight train Memphis to Nashville even lasted to see 1960.

6. Build a fast track Atlanta to Birmingham and also Atlanto to Montgomery. Then we can see the Crescent restored on its original route on a reasonable schedule. Also can speed up the Southerner that Amtrak now calls the Crescent. Strraighten out the old Frisco and we can now have fairly fast Memphis - Birmingham - Atlant trains, then on to Florida or points east.

I could go on, but I think this gives the start of the idea. WE should be looking at getting average speed of serivces up to above 60 mph as much as practical, plus of course higher speeds on high density corridors.

May I write your name in for President? Say, both of Amtrak and of the Nation?

Seriously, I of course identify with the routes you mention.

I drive over Monteagle Mountain from time to time and always think how dis-advanataged the present rail route is. The poor old Dixie Flagler and Georgian typically "let the hammer down" when they could and did the best they could with the whole route from NASH to CHA to ATL. But, with I-24 and I-75, it was not enough. .

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Great ideas, I like them.

I like the routing proposed above for Chicago to Miami, i.e. Indy, Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta,Macon, JAX and Miami. Valdosta would be included as that was on the old Southern route from Macon to JAX. I would like the old FEC line from JAX to Miami.

Here's a Norfolk Southern track map of their current Georgia holdings: http://www.northgeorgiarailroad.com/images/Img24.gif Of course everything used to connect, because you could get from Griffin to Columbus with no problem, etc. Have the new one cut south into Georgia to do Dalton, Rome, Atlanta (now making use of the ATL -> Macon line), take the left route to hit Griffin (where I live! We have a huge station, but they just converted it to a Welcome Center. I'm sure it can be fixed up...well it's going to have to be for the ATL -> Macon line they're about to do. Maybe Amtrak can get in on it someday), Macon, Tifton, Valdosta, and on to JAX.

Chicago, LaFayette, Indianapolis, Louisville, Bowling Green, Nashville, Chattanooga, Dalton, Rome, Atlanta, Griffin, Macon, Tifton, Valdosta, Waycross, Jacksonville, Ocala, Lakeland, West Palm Beach, Miami.

Any estimates on how long that trip would take?

Not sure how long it would take, hopefully it could be done in about 30 hours.

I have a thought about the Chattanooga to Atlanta route. Might be better to use the old L&N through Dalton, Cartersville, Marietta, rather than the Southern through Dalton and Rome. Why?? Because Marietta is so huge. It is as large now as Altanta used to be. Back in the day Marietta was a completely different town from ATL. Today it all runs together and a stop there would add up ot two stops in ATL, a good idea for such a widely spread region. Of course I realize Rome is important also. And each route serves Dalton, which is good. However, on the freeway one can drive from the Mariette exits to ATl in a few minutes, so, who knows? Just thinking.

 

[Galls]

Unlimited money you say?

Google Maps

So lets see on top of that ROW structure

-Entire fleet just became one type of high speed capable, bi level equipment, capable of running on both diesel and electric lines without changing engines.

-NEC Amtrak stations are now all low level boarding and clearances are corrected to allow the new taller equipment.

-Track spacing is also increased to allow Chunnel like auto trains to run the entire system.

-Smarten up the entire system, essentially allow, but don't practice engineer-less trains.

-Build train stations and routes into the city core then sell the station to the municipalities, let them be in the real estate business and hope it will encourage local public transit.

-Drastically expand Ambus

-Eventually privatize the operation of the trains, while maintaining control of station staff (luggage), equipment, ticketing, routing, dispatch and infrastructure.

-Allow inter-modal freight operations to run on the tracks, to their own facilities.

Fixed link

 

[ray828]

Would replace all superliner 1 cars with new ones from Bombardier and replace some p42s with new more fuel efficient ones from GE. Also would restore all routes and stations once served by Amtrak. Would create high speed corridors between chicago and st louis and detroit and chicago. Many more could be started but those are just two that come to mind. Would invest in amtrak's own infrastructure and other freight railroads that host amtrak so delays could be reduced and rideship could increase. With the national average 4.09 for a gallon of gas maybe more will realize how important amtrak is, but most of this is still just a dream.

 

[AlanB]

-NEC Amtrak stations are now all low level boarding and clearances are corrected to allow the new taller equipment.

I would never want to see the first part of this sentence happen. That would be an unmitigated disaster, causing massive delays to corridor trains and commuter trains alike, not to mention forcing Amtrak to throw away the Acela trains. High level platforms are ADA friendly, and allow for much quicker boarding and detraining than do low level platforms.

Frankly with an unlimited budget, one should get busy installing high level platforms nationwide instead of the current low level platforms.

 

[Galls]

-NEC Amtrak stations are now all low level boarding and clearances are corrected to allow the new taller equipment.

I would never want to see the first part of this sentence happen. That would be an unmitigated disaster, causing massive delays to corridor trains and commuter trains alike, not to mention forcing Amtrak to throw away the Acela trains. High level platforms are ADA friendly, and allow for much quicker boarding and detraining than do low level platforms.

Frankly with an unlimited budget, one should get busy installing high level platforms nationwide instead of the current low level platforms.

Well it did say unlimited money, so who cares for throwing away the Acela sets. While you see massive delays, I see improved capacity with a finite resource, and surly a bi-level train is an improvement over the 2.5 level trains most commuter services seem to be going out of their way for. As for causing massive delays I do not think other implementations of multilevel equipment has proved such a theory.

 

[AlanB]

-NEC Amtrak stations are now all low level boarding and clearances are corrected to allow the new taller equipment.

I would never want to see the first part of this sentence happen. That would be an unmitigated disaster, causing massive delays to corridor trains and commuter trains alike, not to mention forcing Amtrak to throw away the Acela trains. High level platforms are ADA friendly, and allow for much quicker boarding and detraining than do low level platforms.

Frankly with an unlimited budget, one should get busy installing high level platforms nationwide instead of the current low level platforms.

Well it did say unlimited money, so who cares for throwing away the Acela sets. While you see massive delays, I see improved capacity with a finite resource, and surly a bi-level train is an improvement over the 2.5 level trains most commuter services seem to be going out of their way for. As for causing massive delays I do not think other implementations of multilevel equipment has proved such a theory.

Any time you add stairs to something you automatically add minutes to a loading/unloading process. And it gets worse if one has to deal with a wheel chair. NJT's main reason for going to a 2.5 level car is the fact that they simply can't run longer trains and/or more trains into NYP. If they could have done either of those, they would have rather than buying a 2.5 car. This is also why most subway/heavy rail cars don't have stairs and use high level platforms.

An NJT Comet V car can be unloaded in about half the time at NYP with a high level platform compared to say South Orange which doesn't have a high level plat. Even the new 2.5 NJT cars can be unloaded faster than say a METRA Gallery Car can. A Superliner style car is the worst for speed in terms of loading and unloading.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

However, the last thing the Superliner was ever designed for was commuter operations. I was saying that the Amfleet Is should be replaced by cars with center doors, but I wasn't implying that the Amfleet IIs should be.

A long distance train needs different things from a commuter train. A commuter train needs to fit a lot of people into a little space, allow for comfortable standing only operation, and allow 150 people per car to detrain fast. It has no need for between-car travel for anyone but a conductor.

On the other hand, a long distance train needs to comfortable accomodate people for a long long time. Speed of unloading and loading isn't all that improtant- shaving 5 minutes a commuter trip is important, but it isn't important over a 36 hour trip. Travel between cars is important, so they have fully isolated diaphrams and automatic doors.

If you want some ideas of this, compare a Comet II with the very similar Horizon.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

-Entire fleet just became one type of high speed capable, bi level equipment, capable of running on both diesel and electric lines without changing engines.

Why would a system with unlimited money have any track that lacks catenary?

-Drastically expand Ambus

Why not run DMUs on lots of routes instead?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Unlimited money, Joel, does not give one a license to waste it needlessly. There is no reason to electrify some lines outwest used by freight equipment, which might preclude the use of double stack cars.

High-speed dedicated alignments make sense between major cities, but no sense between, say, Whitefish, MT, and Libby, MT. You'd likely still run trains between them, possibly as flex-liner like sections of high-speed trains.

 

[Galls]

-NEC Amtrak stations are now all low level boarding and clearances are corrected to allow the new taller equipment.

I would never want to see the first part of this sentence happen. That would be an unmitigated disaster, causing massive delays to corridor trains and commuter trains alike, not to mention forcing Amtrak to throw away the Acela trains. High level platforms are ADA friendly, and allow for much quicker boarding and detraining than do low level platforms.

Frankly with an unlimited budget, one should get busy installing high level platforms nationwide instead of the current low level platforms.

Well it did say unlimited money, so who cares for throwing away the Acela sets. While you see massive delays, I see improved capacity with a finite resource, and surly a bi-level train is an improvement over the 2.5 level trains most commuter services seem to be going out of their way for. As for causing massive delays I do not think other implementations of multilevel equipment has proved such a theory.

Any time you add stairs to something you automatically add minutes to a loading/unloading process. And it gets worse if one has to deal with a wheel chair. NJT's main reason for going to a 2.5 level car is the fact that they simply can't run longer trains and/or more trains into NYP. If they could have done either of those, they would have rather than buying a 2.5 car. This is also why most subway/heavy rail cars don't have stairs and use high level platforms.

An NJT Comet V car can be unloaded in about half the time at NYP with a high level platform compared to say South Orange which doesn't have a high level plat. Even the new 2.5 NJT cars can be unloaded faster than say a METRA Gallery Car can. A Superliner style car is the worst for speed in terms of loading and unloading.

I concede your point on loading times, but not on Amtrak applicability, mostly from the idealistic principle that Amtrak is intercity rail and not a commuter service with a stop every 5 minutes. So in my fantasy world, where amtrak and commuter rail mix, there shall be 4 platforms, 2 low and 2 high. So it is written so it shall be...

 

[RTOlson]

The California Car has two sets of double-wide doors on each side of the car. I figure that's an OK way to set up bi-level regional/commuter style service.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Unlimited money, Joel, does not give one a license to waste it needlessly. There is no reason to electrify some lines outwest used by freight equipment, which might preclude the use of double stack cars.

I think diesel fuel may turn out to be a more limited resource than copper cable in the long run. Why needlessly waste diesel fuel that could be used to ship freight over highways to places where there is no railroad?

Also, if we had unlimited money, Amtrak and the freight railroads could build their own wind farms to be able to operate with a nearly zero carbon footprint. (They might still have to buy some electricity from some other source when the winds die down. Then again, there is an existing railroad-only hydroelectric plant that produces 25 hz power, and maybe hydroelectric power can be used to run the railroads on the days the wind is not providing enough power.)

We should clarify whether we're talking about the transcon mainlines, though, or short lines that have about one train a day. I can see where some of the latter maybe would be best off running on diesel.

Given sufficient quantities of money, any route can be made to accomodate catenary above double stack freight, as far as I know.

High-speed dedicated alignments make sense between major cities, but no sense between, say, Whitefish, MT, and Libby, MT. You'd likely still run trains between them, possibly as flex-liner like sections of high-speed trains.

In the real world with finite money, I agree that high speed track from Whitefish to Libby is not likely to happen. In any other thread, I would be arguing that, except for CHI to Minneapolis, there is no point in trying to upgrade the Empire Builder route substantially from its current speed. But we're talking about unlimited money here.

 

[George Harris]

You can run double stacks under catenary. It just has to be high. 23 feet above the rail being about the right number. What you won't do is run it on wind farm electricity. Wind farms are primarily a way of looking like you are doing something significant when you are not. The output is too small and erratic to be considered a relable source of power for any large consumer of electricity.

We should be looking at geothermal if we want to reduce carbon consumption / CO2 emission.