I hope you mean that it’s insidious because one cannot effectively run a train without alighting and boarding passengers. Otherwise it sounds a little like your saying you could run faster if you didn’t have to contend with passengers.
Running non-stop trains is one remedy, but that’s not possible in all cases.
With lots of coordination my imaginary railroad marshalls departing passengers into the last car, drops it on the fly before the station, picks up a new carload after the station, again on the fly, so the train itself never stops.
Several things can shorten the length of time a train is stopped in a station, or dwell time. Having long enough station platforms is one, especially so at very busy stations; also busy stations with high platforms help move people on and off more quickly than low platforms. While keeping all people for one particular station in one or two cars may or may not be the answer because you have limited the number of doors which can be used for detraining. Another important factor is to have enough crew members available to open and monitor more doors. Its a matter of trainmasters or other supervisory people plus a knowlegable train crew to make it happen right. And cooperative passengers,
Henry6: Feel that you are right about station dwell times. Would add that high platforms need to be track separated from the main tracks which give flexibility for high wide traffic to be maintained on the mains and also more locations for passenger trains and freights to pass.
Most important to passenger speeds is the elimination of slow orders + slow terrain and curve speeds. Example: Auto train’s 855 miles is covered in a scheduled 17-1/2 hours including a service and crew change in Florence, SC of a duration I do not know. This results in a average speed of 50MPH assuming a 30 minute service stop. If all CSX’s bridges upgraded and curves( reduced to 1 degree or less) were upgraded along with the 2nd track added back then with a scheduled average speed of 70 MPH then total time would be 12-1/4 to 12-1/2 hours.This only assumes a 79 MPH max speed and when PTC is installed and if track is upgraded to class 5 or class 6 under the CSX proposal for the I-95 corridor then time could be reduced even further to cut times to 8 - 10 hours negating the need for a stop in Florence.
As for high level platforms, and I may be repeating myself:
Railroads avoid mainline turnouts because of the maintenance and risk of derailment.
The costs of platform, track, and signaling cannot be justified with the volumes of boarding and alighting passengers typical for most medium distance corridor stations.
Slow orders should be temporary and quickly fixed. Track should be programmed for maintenance on a cycle that ensures degradation does not fall below the agreed service level. The contract for service should stipulate the level of maintenance standard.
I cannot imagine bridges on a mainline railroad that are not maintained to appropriate standards or have not been upgraded for 286,000-pound cars by this time.
Reducing curves is no easy matter. Most lines are locked in by geography and development.
The former requires substantial engineering improvements, even relocation and bypass.
The latter entails costly acquisition of property with relocation of buildings and facilities.
The combination of costs makes extensive upgrading to a maximum curvature of 1-degree impractical for the benefits that can be achieved.
The cost of upgrading the Auto Train route would go a long way toward a separate new high speed line. How much more successful would the Auto Train be; and would it pay for the investment?
1-degree curves may allow Auto train to run at 79 mph (3"SE, 1.37"UE); but this is the practical limit that would not benefit further with PTC. The balance speed for such a curve is 66 mph, so slower coal trains, for example, would be over-balanced and wear the inner rail.
The sum total of all the above posts can be boiled down to one word: commitment. And that word is the bane of Amtrak overall, too. A mental or stated comittment to operate a viable passenger train system by all participants followed by the dollar commitment to achieve the goal. If the commitment is to achieve that goal, then the dollar commitment is justified so. If the committment is parsed by the needs of one party over another (freight taking precidence over passenger for instance) then the commitment is null and void and will not be achieved. Politics and business are the arguements that ensue which are done quite well on other threads, so please don’t answer here…I am just making the observation for this thread, let the philosophical and political arguements be conducted on such other threads.
I had also seen that video, I just couldn’t work up enough effort to track it down and include when I could just let you guys assume I though of the idea first. Actually I remember seeing something quite similar in a Popular Mechanics type magazine in the 1960’s.
I also remember a science fiction short story that involved a skyport, a giant airplane that circled the earth, only landed once a month or so for maintenance. Regular sized jets would ferry passengers, fuel and supplies.
In that story when the shuttle planes docked with the mother ship there was a conveyor system that moved passengers and their seats into and out of the skyport.
Also talking about cooperative, does anybody remember Amfleet once upon a time had entrance front and exit rear doors? I never noticed the system observed or enforced.
As for high level platforms, in the northeast we have enough of them that it’s impractical to have multi-level passenger cars with doors in the low level, instead we put the doors over the trucks in the transition level. Meanwhile Chicago, etc… hotdog shaped multi levels, gallery and Superduper liners can have station platforms at or very near the cars’ low level.
Harvey: CSX has several bridges on its A&WP sub that have speed restrictions. Don’t know why but it does. I’m sure Mudchicken can give us many reasons like the present Kate Shelly Bridge.