Edited and distilled from an article by Railway Age’s Chief Editor William C. Vantuono: July 14, The Northeast Corridor Commission released CONNECT NEC 2035 (C35): For $117 billion, a 15-year plan “the most ambitious reinvestment program in the NEC’s history, and a new way of planning” for it, a multi-agency, multi-year, shared action plan guided by a long-term vision.” Agencies: Northeast state governments, the federal government, eight commuter rail agencies and Amtrak. A “detailed and efficient sequencing of infrastructure investments covering 150 projects and capital renewal efforts along the corridor. Implementation of C35 will result in a modern and resilient railroad with safe, reliable, and more frequent service; connections to new markets; and reduced travel times between communities.” A "strong federal-state funding partnership to fund C35. The total investment needed to implement C35 over the 15-year period is estimated to be $117 billion in 2020 dollars, and the funding gap is approximately $100 billion, to be shared between the federal government and states. To maximize the detailed sequencing laid out in C35 and provide the certainty needed to make long-term investments in workforce development and equipment procurement, multi-year funding needs to be predictable and should fund the plan, rather than individual projects.”
I need to comment on this. One improvement is possible right now, with capitol expenditures limited to not much more than signs, Some of the NJT MUs that tie up at Sunnyside during rush hours could run to the pocket track, Track 5, at New Rochelle and return to Trenton or whatever from there. This would open-up employment possibilties in Connecticut for New Jersey residentss, and visa-versa. As far as I know, there are no signal or power incompatibility problems. The market for the Connecticut Metro-North service would be established, and then a real through service, including the Bronx stations, would use equipment of both authorities.
If LIRR third rail were installed on the Amtrak West Side line all the way north through Spuytin Dyvel Bridge, and the former two west freight tracks restored from there to Riverdale with LIRR third rail, and a sngle platform for those tracks at Riverdale, some LIRR MU trains now running only to West-Side *Carpenter" Storage Yard, or reversing. at Penn Station could run to Riversale. A year at most would be required for this added connectivity.
High Speed rail for East Coast Elites and to heck with everyone else…like the Midwest I-90 NYC-BOSTON-BUFFALO.CLEVE…TOELDO…DETROIT CHICAGO CORRIDOR WHICH LIKE 50 MIILLION PEOPLE TRAVEL AND WORK ON
And how many of those “50 million” would ride trains built out to the NEC 2035 standards… compared to the buildout costs to achieve this in the Empire Corridor alone.
Don’t ask New York State for its fair share. Even its little piece of the NEC is a disaster (cf. the 189+g shocks recorded in Acela testing) and you have a choice of lateral clearance for expensive negative cant deficiency vs. new construction out into the Hudson to get necessary speed for the little NYC-to-Albany ‘leg’… for a start. More likely the thing would be an extension of the existing push to 110mph HrSR… with 125mph PRIIA being a tempting equipment possibility BUT the leap even to 150 being ridiculously expensive in line relocation/separation alone. Have you looked at a grade survey for the B&A and considered a high-speed conversion? Second-spine via Hartford appears comparable in cost and scope… [:O]
Which gets us… just from the two East Coast elite cities as far as West Albany Hill. If you thought the ex-Alton had too many grade crossings to bridge or eliminate, look at the ex-LS&MS from west of Buffalo to Cleveland… alone.
And that’s before we look at the necessary feeder architecture to make the true-high-speed trains practical for many of that 50 million to ride.
If the project ever gets approved and that is a big IF. New York Politicians will see to it that it is entirely paid for out of the General Revenue Funds as they did or are doing with the Amtrak tunnel replacement project. Meanwhile other states with interstate corridors will continue to be asked to pay a portion of the cost.
We had high speed rail in the 1800s with 100 mph trains in Lancaster NY outside of Buffalo on the Empire State Express. 4 track mainline and 50 passenger trains in each direction.
But that was ragged-edge 100mph, only sustainable a few miles at a time, on a railroad whose management was starkly against adoption of any kind of systematic high speed except to foil the competition. Even at more ‘sensible’ high speed the separation of freight and passenger on that narrow a track spacing led to frequent, and often spectacularly lethal, accidents – no few deriving from speed differential in the same direction, not just opposing at high relative closing speed. That in itself was not a model for safe HSR.
Then let’s get into the section system for popular trains, where the first section leaves on the advertised and trips have to be timed so the last section arrives on the advertised. And you have trains running within sight of each other at 85mph or better… on a railroad prone to prompt and unexpected ‘crosstalk’.
Speed is one thing. Speed with safety is another thing entirely. 19th Century 100 MPH running was far from safe for too many reasons to enumerate. 19th Century lives were cheap and companies would end those lives by the hundreds and not think twice about why.
