Flawed Incremental High Speed Rail Approach

[FayeforCure]

There are two veins of thought:

1. improve existing track so existing passenger trains can go faster: the Incremental approach
2. build new track exclusively for passenger rail, so we can get true HSR


Nothing precludes us from doing both (as US transportation Secretary LaHood's plan entails), but just like you don't keep an old vehicle beyond it's useful life-span due to reliability problems, so too will the Incremental approach often lead to over-whelming maintenance costs.

Are we being penny wise and pound foolish by pursuing Incremental High Speed Rail?
After all "patching up the old vehicle becomes cost prohibitive at some point."

the whole concept of IHSR is a farce and will never lead to "true" high-speed intercity trains because the concept of shared tracks is so blantantly flawed and doomed to schedule reliability problems and continued train derailments (the U.S. has averaged 280 train derailments each year over the last 8 years, according to the DOT).


The DOT's intent to deliver high-speed train operations through the FRA's proposed "incremental improvement" of existing freight rails and freight rights of way is a delusional approach that reveals the pervasive lack of high-speed passenger train expertise that now exists in both the DOT and FRA regarding reliable, safe, fast efficient and financially sustainable operations.

Most U.S. passenger lines now run on tracks that can best be described as decrepit (other than the Amtrak northeast corridor). Incremental improvements to our slow rail infrastructure will not deliver world class high-speed trains to America. However, upgrades to these old lines could be the basis for creating the necessary parallel "feeder lines" for the wider spaced true high-speed stations.

The fact is that high, medium and low speed systems require entirely different infrastructure and ROWs. The goal of fast trains (150 mph and faster) operating on slow speed tracks is simply a pipe dream and completely unattainable due to the laws of physics. What's more, high-speed ground transportation must be financially sustainable from an O&M perspective if they are not to be a yearly financial burden to state and federal taxpayers.

http://namti.org/?page_id=37

Unless you call trains that go just 80-120 miles per hour high speed rail.....

The main thing we want to do with HSR is reduce air-travel, more so than car travel.

Patching up the old passenger lines might reduce some car travel but does nothing to reduce air travel.

[thelakelander]

At this point, we still lack plain rail service. You can't even catch a train from here to Atlanta, New Orleans or the Midwest without heading up the East Coast first. Totally insane.  However, whether it's HSR or IHSR, there's a large group out there that don't want either. Imo, rail advocates are going to have to get their act together if they want to see anything built anytime soon.

[FayeforCure]

At this point, we still lack plain rail service. You can't even catch a train from here to Atlanta, New Orleans or the Midwest without heading up the East Coast first. Totally insane.  However, whether it's HSR or IHSR, there's a large group out there that don't want either. Imo, rail advocates are going to have to get their act together if they want to see anything built anytime soon.

True, and politically speaking Rick Scott did the right thing for his (Tea) party:

by killing HSR in Florida he was able to prevent the shock and awe that the first true HSR would have brought to the US in 2016.

What people don't know, they will never miss. That's the beauty of ignorance.

[Ocklawaha]

by killing HSR in Florida he was able to prevent the shock and awe that the first true HSR would have brought to the US in 2016.

THAT IS A FACT! The shock of watching it go belly up, and the awe at the obscene amount of money we threw in the sewer, after a train with no logical customer base.

What people don't know, they will never miss. That's the beauty of ignorance.

Exactly Faye, and since we haven't had rail in the deep south since 1971, NOBODY is missing their train today with or without a $5 billion dollar "investment." Any astute business man or woman would be certain of riders before they jumped off this cliff, just as the hot dog vendor makes certain there are hungry workers around  to devour his product. Not so though with the nutty fringe of the HSR promoters who continuously agitate for trains, but it makes no difference if they are long, short, smart, disasters, over budget, unproved etc... just build it, build it, build it, we want a train! A big red train! A big red train with wheels, that looks like a big Tylenol. Dumb as ducks...

OCKLAWAHA

[dougskiles]

The main thing we want to do with HSR is reduce air-travel, more so than car travel.

That is not enough of a reason for me to support HSR.  A much bigger issue for me is the lack of local rail systems that serve commuters and connect urban areas.  Those would do more to eliminate vehicle miles than HSR between cities.

If nothing else, how about at least one rail line that gets you from the urban core to the airport?

[Ocklawaha]

Faye, Faye, Faye, you do know that they claim to have heard radio signals from deep space last month don't you? I'm sure the maglev bunch can explain all about it, their "trains" which are NOT trains, only cost 15 TIMES the amount spent on true high speed railroad track. In other words, except for a few show cases, you will NEVER see any large scale implementation of maglev.

So to is the rest of your post flawed with fantasy concepts, based on not understanding the animal called the Iron Horse.

There are two veins of thought:

1. improve existing track so existing passenger trains can go faster: the Incremental approach
2. build new track exclusively for passenger rail, so we can get true HSR


Nothing precludes us from doing both (as US transportation Secretary LaHood's plan entails), but just like you don't keep an old vehicle beyond it's useful life-span due to reliability problems, so too will the Incremental approach often lead to over-whelming maintenance costs.

You just don't get it do you? Maglev yahoo's don't get it either Faye. Nobody is advocating running 180 mph on freight railroad tracks, nobody is thinking about keeping true high speed and freight rail on the same track, and nobody is planning to keep "an old vehicle beyond it's useful life, due to (and this is halarious) reliability problems and overwhelming maintenance cost." Whoever wrote this tripe has absolutely no clue what a railroad is or what a railroad does.

Are we being penny wise and pound foolish by pursuing Incremental High Speed Rail?

Absolutely not, this is the ONLY way to pursue it now, and should have been the plan all along.

After all "patching up the old vehicle becomes cost prohibitive at some point."

No one is even thinking about old vehicles, though much railroad equipment is rated to have a 100 year service life. NO we ARE talking about Talgo, tilt-trains, continental and oriental technology... But you might want to know that even back in the day, the USA was setting some speed records.

On May 9, 1893, the locomotive headed up The Empire State Express, between Rochester, New York and Buffalo, New York, set a new land-wheeled speed record of 100 m.p.h. which was national news at the time.  A few days later, the locomotive pulled a train that reached a speed record of 112.5 m.p.h.

On March 01, 1901 the Savannah, Florida & Western, and the Florida Central & Peninsula Railroads were given four cars of mail at Savannah and told to deliver them to Jacksonville.  The first train to arrive at Jacksonville would receive the contract. The Plant System’s route went 31.8 miles out of the way by going through Waycross, Georgia. The train arrived at Jesup, Georgia, stopping only for water and oil. Engineer Albert Lodge then headed for Screven, Georgia. They were moving at an incredible speed from Milepost 69 at Screven to Milepost 74, a distance of five miles in only two minutes and thirty seconds, a rate of 120 mph.

   He made a 40 mile run from Jessup to Waycross in 27 minutes in spite of fog on the nine miles between Blackshear, and Waycross, Georgia,  The train had covered the 34 miles from Waycross to Folkston, Georgia, in about 25 minutes. Near Callahan, Florida, Engineer Lodge increased the speed back up to 120 mph.  The train was on schedule again.  The special had covered  the trip from Waycross to Jacksonville, Florida, in only 59 minutes. It is said that when the cocky FC&P crew walked into Jacksonville Terminal they asked "Has anyone heard from that SF&W train yet?" The station master stiffened and looking the crew right in the eye replied, "That mail is about half way to Cuba now boys."

the whole concept of IHSR is a farce and will never lead to "true" high-speed intercity trains because the concept of shared tracks is so blantantly flawed and doomed to schedule reliability problems and continued train derailments (the U.S. has averaged 280 train derailments each year over the last 8 years, according to the DOT).

This is one of the stupidest statements I have ever seen these guys write. First there is absolutely no reason to think that shared tracks would last beyond a short period of ridership building, once the demand is there, then the second set of mainline track goes in as dedicated HSR. Derailments? Get real, lower speed conventional trains certainly don't have the derailment incidents cornered, higher speed and high speed rail dedicated or not, can still pile them up..hell even maglev has had fatal accidents, all of which proves what? If the writer knew anything about railroad operations he or she would understand that Positive Train Control is being implimented under a government unfunded mandate. The railroads are being forced to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on an unknown technology, but if it works, accidents are going to be all but eliminated. It won't matter one iota if it's a 24 mph freight branchline or a 180 mph HSR mainline.

The DOT's intent to deliver high-speed train operations through the FRA's proposed "incremental improvement" of existing freight rails and freight rights of way is a delusional approach that reveals the pervasive lack of high-speed passenger train expertise that now exists in both the DOT and FRA regarding reliable, safe, fast efficient and financially sustainable operations.

Just the opposite is true, again this guy is lost in space. If he had any contact with terra firma he wouldn't be publishing a maglev journal. He also wouldn't be making unsustainable statements about "financially sustainable operations", because if we're carrying people, that is a fantasy land.

Most U.S. passenger lines now run on tracks that can best be described as decrepit (other than the Amtrak northeast corridor). Incremental improvements to our slow rail infrastructure will not deliver world class high-speed trains to America. However, upgrades to these old lines could be the basis for creating the necessary parallel "feeder lines" for the wider spaced true high-speed stations.

"feeder lines for wider spaced true high speed stations..." WTF?  Virtually the entire Amtrak and US freight mainline network is Class 4, freight 60 mph (97 km/h), passenger 79 mph (129 km/h). Several companies such as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe over which Amtrak runs from Chicago to Los Angeles, is class 5 or 90 mph. Otherwise in the northeast and other corridor lines there is considerable class 6 or 110 mph "decrepit track." Europe, China, Japan, nobody, nowhere, no how has railroads as profitable, powerful or respectable as the USA, we are the envy of the worlds railroads.  Contrary to what this guy seems to think these "world class" high speed railroads are the financial weaklings of the industry.

The fact is that high, medium and low speed systems require entirely different infrastructure and ROWs.

Say's who? This guy is making this up as he goes along, there is simply no such "rule."

The goal of fast trains (150 mph and faster) operating on slow speed tracks is simply a pipe dream and completely unattainable due to the laws of physics.

Again, this happens all over the world - EVERY DAY, so what "laws of physics" was I violating when I ran ¿Los trenes rápidamente de pasajeros con trenes de carga, y de los trenes de carbón?  ¿Think they'll arrest me?

What's more, high-speed ground transportation must be financially sustainable from an O&M perspective if they are not to be a yearly financial burden to state and federal taxpayers.

...And therein is every reason why Rick Scott did Florida a huge favor and killed this thing before we all got to "feel it's pain."  The whole propaganda campaign, trying to snow the public into thinking this was the magic train that would make money carrying people would have back fired big enough to destroy the industry before it ever got a toe hold on the continent.


http://namti.org/?page_id=37

For more comedy I suggest:

http://www.freaknet.org.uk/pages01/p01/wm01.html

Unless you call trains that go just 80-120 miles per hour high speed rail.....

No Faye, that's HrSR if you want the actual acronym. These trains would be implemented long enough to create a demand and build ridership, much as California's Capital Corridor, or San Joaquin Corridors have done.

The main thing we want to do with HSR is reduce air-travel, more so than car travel.

All those airplanes on I-4 are really becoming a problem.

Patching up the old passenger lines might reduce some car travel but does nothing to reduce air travel.

Not true, everywhere where Amtrak or other western railroads have implimented HrSR or frequent conventional corridor service, they have taken huge chunks out of the airline business.

OCKLAWAHA

[JeffreyS]

I just priced an Amtrak ticket from Saint Louis to Chicago I will need in a few weeks. It is $24 that is a reasonable price for city to city service and that is what we need all over this country.  If you cut that 5 hour trip to 3 hours but triple the price it will not be of use to me.

[tufsu1]

what if you cut the trip to 2 hours and double the price?

seems to me there is significant air travel between those 2 cities...and mots of those flights are $50 or more each way

nevertheless, the best post here is Lake's...supporters of rail (yes Ock, this means you) need to band together and recah consensus on local, regional, state, and national priorities.

[Lunican]

Check out the north side of Jacksonville. Not quite what I would call decrepit!

[Ocklawaha]

I just priced an Amtrak ticket from Saint Louis to Chicago I will need in a few weeks. It is $24 that is a reasonable price for city to city service and that is what we need all over this country.  If you cut that 5 hour trip to 3 hours but triple the price it will not be of use to me.

Agreed Jeffery that HSR is WAY overrated.  It is a great thing to have, especially between major metro area's like Los Angeles and San Diego, Portland and Seattle, Richmond and Portland ME., etc... But trying to say we need it between Jessup and Murfreesboro, Gainesville and Jacksonville, or Texarkana and Poplar Bluff, is just insane. If such towns can be incorporated into a route involving major metropolitan areas then it's a win-win. If not then plain old 79 mph does the job as good or even better then an overpriced flying train.

Of course I'm probably like you Jeffery, I just hate to get stuck in those decrepit, "old," high maintenance, railroad cars, when for only a couple of billion, I could ride in a modern plastic train.

car name - VIRGINIA CITY


car name - METIS


car name - J PINCKNEY HENDERSON


car name - SILVER LARIAT


car name - NORTHERN DREAMS

train name - BLUE TRAIN



See what I mean? UGH!

TUFSU1, So sorry my friend, but I support rail done right, and will not compromise my reputation to please someone that wants to ride a train at any cost. Those people are what got us into the mess that became Florida HSR. At least 500 people must have sent me urgent PM'S, EMAILS, SNAIL MAILS, or open comments on MJ, that I needed to "get with the program" or I'd either be left behind, or "all of our efforts would fail..." Considering that those efforts could be summed up in so many sarcastic lines:
"Build it cheap and fast, because Florida owns a freeway..." or maybe, "It doesn't have to be right, because we're Florida," or "Build HSR because it will help preserve historic rail infrastructure..." or even "One reason to build Florida HSR is because it's fun." I could go on, but you get the idea. I'd rather have 20 San Diegan or San Joaquin type trains scooting around THE WHOLE STATE of Florida at 79 mph, then 100 trains blowing along between Miami and Tampa via Orlando at 168 mph. So support the "movement" because a few thousand reporters and their innocent victims have bought into the lie's about this railroad?  I rather sell hot dogs in hell.

OCKLAWAHA 

[JeffreyS]

what if you cut the trip to 2 hours and double the price?

seems to me there is significant air travel between those 2 cities...and mots of those flights are $50 or more each way

nevertheless, the best post here is Lake's...supporters of rail (yes Ock, this means you) need to band together and recah consensus on local, regional, state, and national priorities.

Great post on both points. I think I would vote concentrate on local service then IHSR. Regular trains and lots of local transit is what I fell in love with back when I did the Europe backpack thing. I have never been on 200 mph HSR.

[BrSpiritus]

It's 18+ hours now... you mean with the use of electric and diesel vs steam all we can eke out is a 5 hour time reduction?  Fix the passenger rail system now by adding new routes before we start playing around with flying trains...

[dougskiles]

Great post on both points. I think I would vote concentrate on local service then IHSR. Regular trains and lots of local transit is what I fell in love with back when I did the Europe backpack thing. I have never been on 200 mph HSR.

My feeling exactly.

Why would we not put our money on something that can improve our lives on a daily basis instead of just a couple times a year?  We have to start somewhere - and that somewhere in Florida should be commuter rail and re-establishing regular service between our major cities.

[Ocklawaha]

Agreed gentlemen, and I'd like to make the point that I'm sick of the lousy, decrepit, railroad dining car food... All of this hassle when I could be settled back in my 16" wide airline seat, with a gormet dinner like this!

VIA RAIL, TRAVEL (trav·el)

Pronunciation:/ˈtravəl, /
verb (travels, -el·ing, traveled; also chiefly British travels, -el·ling, travelled)

     1 [no object] make a journey, typically of some length or abroad:the train has been traveling from Jacksonville to Yuma, we traveled thousands of miles.
   *
     [with object] journey along (a road) or through (a region):he traveled the world with the army
   *
     (usually as adjective traveling) go or be moved from place to place:a traveling exhibition
   *
     informal resist motion sickness, damage, or some other impairment on a journey:he usually travels well
   *
     be enjoyed or successful away from the place of origin:accordion music travels well
   *
     dated go from place to place as a sales representative:he traveled for a shoe company through Mississippi
   *
     (of an object or radiation) move , typically in a constant or predictable way:light travels faster than sound
   *
     informal (especially of a vehicle) move quickly.
   
VIA AIRLINE, TRIP:

*
a single journey taken as part of one's duty, work, etc.: his daily trip to the bank.
*
a journey, voyage, or run made by a boat, bus, or the like, between two points: It's a short trip from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
*
an error or lapse in conduct or etiquette.
*
any stimulating or exciting experience
*
trip the light fantastic, Facetious . to go dancing.
*   
[no object] walk, run , or dance with quick light steps:they tripped up the terrace steps
*
archaic a light , lively movement of a person's feet:yonder comes Dalinda; I know her by her trip


The moral of our story? One does NOT travel by air, he or she takes trips, to travel, one must use railroads, ships or bicycles or tennis shoes.

OCKLAWAHA

[yapp1850]

hey ock ADOT launched a three-year, $6.3 million study to weigh the environmental effects of a Phoenix-to-Tucson passenger line and measure which routes and stations would perform best. that route will 2 billion
top speed 110 but  should  state look at  phoenix  to los angles instead because  phoenix  and  los angles have a good transit system but tucson does not and should it go 110 or 150+ and the state does want to take a 83 mile abanded bnsf railroad  from phoenix to tuscon going at 110mph