The Return of Private Passenger Rail Service

Started by tufsu1, June 17, 2014, 12:51:30 PM

Print
Go Down Pages1
User actions

Ocklawaha

#1
June 17, 2014, 01:28:28 PM
As stated by several comments to the article, the track speeds are not 125 the entire way, allow about 7 minutes for each station stop. Trains are planned to run at 79 miles per hour (127 km/h) from Miami to West Palm, 110 miles per hour (177 km/h) from West Palm Beach to Cocoa, The existing track from West Palm Beach to Cocoa will be improved to meet federal standards for an increased 110 miles per hour (177 km/h) speed limit from the current 79 mph (127 km/h). The FEC RY already has the new advanced signaling for traffic control that the rest of the industry is just now coming to terms with. Concerns about bridges being 'old' are silly, they are all carrying mile long fast freights today, a 45 second passage of a lightweight passenger train isn't going to do squat. Even so if there was ever a concern, the railroad would implement a 'slow speed order' for the crossing. Ditto for communities where excessive speed is a concern, however consider until 1968, 65-75 MPH passenger trains made this same trip daily and todays track is light-years ahead of what that was. The only error I see in the story is the part about having to go back '100 years' to find massive passenger rail investment. Not true, Seaboards light-weight 'Silver Meteor' rolled out in 1939, Atlantic Coast Line/Florida East Coast's 'Champion' and 'H. M. Flagler' trains right behind it, what followed was a little more then a decade when the railroads spent like drunken sailors to update every train in the country to what we would recognize today as 'Amtrak similar'. This period was perhaps capped by the crowning glory of the era when the Burlington, Denver and Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific launched 'The Silver Lady,' arguably one of the finest trains in world history, properly named 'The California Zephyr,' in 1949.
Print
Go Up Pages1
User actions