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  #1461  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2019, 5:28 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post
And Acela is not responsible to help fund that $28 billion repair bill?
Some of it, yes, but obviously most repairs are the responsibility of states, given they run the commuter agencies that dominate the corridor.

Acela is not the major operator on the NE Corridor. 90-95% of the train traffic on the busiest portions of the NE Corridor consists of NJ Transit and Metro North. The ARC project is primarily a NY-NJ project, not an Amtrak project. Commuter traffic, not Amtrak, drives the corridor.
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  #1462  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2019, 5:55 PM
llamaorama llamaorama is offline
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So are we ever going to stop pointing fingers and saying it won’t work and actually built some good rail in this country, or what?
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  #1463  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2019, 7:28 PM
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Originally Posted by llamaorama View Post
So are we ever going to stop pointing fingers and saying it won’t work and actually built some good rail in this country, or what?
113 miles of true, purpose-built 200+mph HSR is under construction in California as we speak.
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  #1464  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2019, 8:20 PM
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  #1465  
Old Posted Aug 15, 2019, 9:27 PM
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I think that that number is a little bit misleading. The construction is between Madera and Bakersfield.

According to the fact sheet it's 119 miles:
https://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom..._Factsheet.pdf

Currently Amtrak runs 5-6 trains per day along this route with roughly 3 hours scheduled between Bakersfield and Madera, a distance of about 130 miles.

They'll cut an hour off this run easily when they shift the existing Amtrak trains onto the HSR tracks since there will be no freight delays (although there might be some in Bakersfield) and they should be able to operate at 110mph+ with diesels, as does Amtrak's Wolverine in Michigan on conventional tracks.

Also, ACE to San Jose might be made to operate diesels on the HSR tracks as well.
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  #1466  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2019, 2:01 PM
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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
According to the fact sheet it's 119 miles:
https://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom..._Factsheet.pdf

Currently Amtrak runs 5-6 trains per day along this route with roughly 3 hours scheduled between Bakersfield and Madera, a distance of about 130 miles.

They'll cut an hour off this run easily when they shift the existing Amtrak trains onto the HSR tracks since there will be no freight delays (although there might be some in Bakersfield) and they should be able to operate at 110mph+ with diesels, as does Amtrak's Wolverine in Michigan on conventional tracks.

Also, ACE to San Jose might be made to operate diesels on the HSR tracks as well.
All you wrote before is very true. Meanwhile, those very heavy diesel locomotives with their heavy coaches are going to prematurely wear out your brand new rail tracks designed and built for much lighter high speed trains.
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  #1467  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2019, 2:27 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post
All you wrote before is very true. Meanwhile, those very heavy diesel locomotives with their heavy coaches are going to prematurely wear out your brand new rail tracks designed and built for much lighter high speed trains.
They'll be able to run the same rolling stock as electrified Caltrains on HSR, since they will eventually be one in the same, so it's more likely that they'll attempt to piggy-back on the Caltrains order and order 3-4 electric locomotives for the HSR section and then switch to a conventional diesel at Merced. When Pacheco is finished, they can sell the unneeded electric locomotives to Caltrains as backups.
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  #1468  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2019, 6:47 PM
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Somehow lost is the amount of money spent on the St. Louis to Chicago rail corridor and the Detroit to Chicago rail corridor within the last 15 years, without a single mph increase in average train speed resulting from the large expenditure.
US contribution: $1.6 billion in Illinois, $640 million in Michigan.
Illinois contribution $400 million.
Michigan contribution $150 million
Subtotal for the midwest = $2.790 billion.

I repeat, not even one mph increase in average speeds of the trains.
Well at least for the CHI-STL line, the reason is that it's not done yet, the signal work still needs to be done.

Similarly, the new span of the bay bridge (~7Billion dollars) also had no positive impact until it opened...
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  #1469  
Old Posted Aug 16, 2019, 9:22 PM
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If my latest experience is any evidence, long stretches of 110mph kind of gets cancelled out when you have to sit in Summit for 30 minutes waiting on a freight movement.
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  #1470  
Old Posted Aug 17, 2019, 12:26 AM
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If my latest experience is any evidence, long stretches of 110mph kind of gets cancelled out when you have to sit in Summit for 30 minutes waiting on a freight movement.
This is why we need separated tracks for freight and passenger trains. Everyone benefits.
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  #1471  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2019, 3:41 PM
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Atlanta to Charlotte in 2 hours 6 minutes?

https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regi...35JwV9c6AReL/#

Quote:
.....

- A line between the two Southeastern cities could create jobs, reduce air pollution and improve mobility for millions of passengers a year, the study found. But it would cost up to $15.4 billion to build, and no specific funding or construction timetable have been identified. — The FRA and GDOT have completed a draft environmental impact statement on the 280-mile Atlanta-to-Charlotte segment. The agencies studied three routes:

• The “Southern Crescent” route follows the Norfolk Southern railroad right of way north of I-85. It would have six stations in Georgia: Toccoa, Gainesville, Suwanee, Doraville, downtown Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. In South Carolina, it would run through Spartanburg and Greenville on the way to Charlotte.

• The I-85 corridor, which would follow the interstate, with stops in Suwanee, Doraville, downtown and the airport.

• The “Greenfield” corridor south of I-85, with stops in Athens, Suwanee, Doraville, downtown and the airport. It would run through Anderson, S.C., on its way to Charlotte.

- The Greenfield route would cost $6.2 billion to $8.4 billion to build, about midway between the cost estimates for the other routes. The Southern Crescent route would be much cheaper at up to $2.3 billion, but it would also serve far fewer passengers (up to 1.2 million annually) and take far longer to travel (up to 5 1/2 half hours). The I-85 line would cost up to $15.4 billion, serve up to 5.6 million passengers and take up to two hours and 50 minutes to travel.

.....



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  #1472  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2019, 1:43 AM
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Atlanta to Charlotte in 2 hours 6 minutes?
An interesting study that repeats the Texas Central study results. (1) Finding that following an existing railroad corridor meant slower speeds than building a new corridor, and (2) building adjacent to an Interstate Highway is much more expensive than building in green fields.

I would suggest that planners wishing to build new HSR lines in rural areas forget about following existing railroad and interstate highway corridors. Only use them in urban and suburban areas where the cost of land is far more expensive.
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  #1473  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2019, 5:49 AM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Similarly, the new span of the bay bridge (~7Billion dollars) also had no positive impact until it opened...
I had no idea that the new Bay Bridge span cost 7 billion dollars.

We probably should have done without the tower and just built two viaducts and saved a billion dollars for high speed rail.
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  #1474  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2019, 1:10 PM
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I had no idea that the new Bay Bridge span cost 7 billion dollars.

We probably should have done without the tower and just built two viaducts and saved a billion dollars for high speed rail.
The Bay Bridge collects over $228 million each year from tolls.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money...isco-every-day

That's almost a quarter billion dollars per year.

Some math follows.
$7,000 million / $228 million/year = 30.7 years.

It should be standing and collecting tolls 30,40,50 years from now, it should ultimately pay for itself.
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  #1475  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2019, 4:27 PM
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The Bay Bridge collects over $228 million each year from tolls.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money...isco-every-day

That's almost a quarter billion dollars per year.

Some math follows.
$7,000 million / $228 million/year = 30.7 years.

It should be standing and collecting tolls 30,40,50 years from now, it should ultimately pay for itself.
Aren't the tolls primarily for maintenance costs? Are the tolls going up to pay for the new span (I have no idea...).
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  #1476  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2019, 11:57 PM
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I cannot wait to take the Bullet Train from LA to SF. When's the opening date?
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  #1477  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2019, 7:11 AM
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Are we going to be driving cars in 50 years?

And I didn't say that we shouldn't have built the bridge, just that we shouldn't have included the tower which likely does not increase ridership in a material way.
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Last edited by SFBruin; Oct 27, 2019 at 5:39 PM.
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  #1478  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2019, 3:00 PM
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Faster speeds on Amtrak route to Chicago delayed again
By Mark Schlinkmann St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Aug 30, 2019

ST. LOUIS — Long-promised faster rail journeys on the St. Louis-to-Chicago Amtrak route have yet to become a reality, as an additional delay of several months was disclosed Friday.

Guy Tridgell, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said the agency now hopes that 90-mph speeds will be in place for Amtrak from the Granite City-Alton area to south of Springfield by the end of the year.

IDOT last December had projected that to happen by this summer as part of a $1.95 billion, eight-year upgrade of the St. Louis-to-Chicago corridor. As of now, passenger trains still are allowed to go no faster than 79 mph.


As for most of the rest of the route, Tridgell said, the 90 mph speeds are expected to be implemented sometime next year, along with resulting schedule changes.

The agency isn’t offering any particular target date on when a more significant increase — to 110 mph — will be reached.


https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...367a558f1.html
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  #1479  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2019, 4:44 PM
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Faster speeds on Amtrak route to Chicago delayed again
By Mark Schlinkmann St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Aug 30, 2019

ST. LOUIS — Long-promised faster rail journeys on the St. Louis-to-Chicago Amtrak route have yet to become a reality, as an additional delay of several months was disclosed Friday.

Guy Tridgell, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said the agency now hopes that 90-mph speeds will be in place for Amtrak from the Granite City-Alton area to south of Springfield by the end of the year.

IDOT last December had projected that to happen by this summer as part of a $1.95 billion, eight-year upgrade of the St. Louis-to-Chicago corridor. As of now, passenger trains still are allowed to go no faster than 79 mph.


As for most of the rest of the route, Tridgell said, the 90 mph speeds are expected to be implemented sometime next year, along with resulting schedule changes.

The agency isn’t offering any particular target date on when a more significant increase — to 110 mph — will be reached.


https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...367a558f1.html
After 10 years and spending almost $2 billion, Lincoln service trains are going to go just 10 mph faster over just 75 rail miles next year. The existing time per the schedule (use northbound to avoid the southbound padding) is 70 minutes.
The existing train averages mph over those 75 miles.
Math = 75 miles / 70 minutes x 60 minutes / hour = 64 miles / hour
At best, the new maximum average speed could be is 74 miles / hour.
To go 75 miles at 74 miles/ hour, it would take about an hour. or 60 minutes
More math = 75 miles / 74 miles / hour = 1.01 hours or 60 minutes.
Maximum time saved being 10 minutes. Math = 70 - 60 = 10

Remember that almost $2 billion mentioned earlier? Each minute saved will have cost the taxpayers $???? .
Math = $2 billion / 10 minutes = $200 million per minute.

To be fair, much of that $2 billion has been spent north of Springfield. So let's just half that cost for now, awaiting for higher speeds north of Springfield for a final calculation. So that drops the costs to around $100 million per minute saved.

Let's assume everyone riding the Lincoln service trains experiences this 10 minutes saving. The trains average riders per year. Per Wiki, these trains' ridership was 548,955 (FY16). Let's round that up to 550,000 to make the math easier to see.
Math = $100 million / 550,000 passengers = $182 per passenger. That's just for one year. Over 10 years that would be $18.20 per passenger. Over 20 years that would be $9.10 per passenger. Over 40 years that would be $4.55 oer passenger.
I don't care if Amtrak raises fares this much higher, Illinois subsidizes this much more, or a combination of both happens - this is what it has cost per passenger.

Was it worth it for 90 mph max speeds?
Would it be worth it for the planned 110 mph max speeds that could have tripled the amount of time saved?
It certainly would have if the promised speeds ever happen.
The question remaining to be asked, will the promised 110 mph ever become a reality?
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  #1480  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2019, 4:12 PM
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a lot of these track upgrades replaced infrastructure that was maint. deferred or due to be repaired anyway, replacing the wood ties with low maint concrete ties and upgraded signals.

getting 110 mph is really a regulatory holdup at this point...aside from the delivery of the new siemens cars.
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