Where outside of the Northeast Corridor are Amtrak’s trains permitted to exceed 79 mph?
The former AT&SF Surf Line has several stretches were 90 MPH is permitted. The line is equipt with inductive ATS.
I don’t know if they still do but I thought the former-AT&SF also had some 90 mph stretches along the former Super Chief route in KS and CO.
Definitely they exceed 79 mph in SW Michigan, across Illinois on the way to St. Louis (Lincoln Service Corridor), I read they were planning on Wisconsin South of Milwaukee but before the Illinois border but I believe that is at least 3-4 years off.
All: The BNSF still has ATS on most sections of the Southwest Chief route between Ft Madison, IA and Barstow, CA and therefore they still allow 90 mph in Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, including the Surf line. The track in Kansas and Colorado has been downgraded to class 4 status so that #3 & 4 are restricted to a maximum of 79 mph. By the way, PTC has been fully implemented between Galesburg and L.A. on the Transcon. Yours truly, Edward Johnson (aka RR Johnson)
Empire Service along the Hudson from NYP to CP-169 (just west of Schenectady) 90-110 mph. Harrisburg line Phila to Harrisburg, 110 mph. You may consider these NEC branches though.
On Amtrak’s “Track a Train”, they regularly go 110 mph in SW Michigan. I’ve seen 108 mph between Dwight and Pontiac in Illinois on the Lincoln Service. Pontiac to near Alton should be next for 110.
Thanks for the insight. Is the Texas Eagle permitted to run at these higher speeds between Dwight and Pontiac?
Last I checked, #21 & 22 were still restricted to 79 mph. I don’t know why they cannot do at least 90 mph. Anyone know why this is so?? Edward Johnson
From what I have always understood it isn’t just track conditions that limit speed but also things like the signal system such as distance between signals, the timing of crossing gates, etc. Also the faster they go the bigger the space has to be between trains for safe stopping / braking. Think of it as driving your car. On city streets at 25-30 mphyou can be right behind the guy in front of you. On a highway doing 60 - 65 you need (or should) to leave extra space between you and the guy in front. More space between trains mean less trains can run at a given time.
As to your speed when driving a car–in any place, you should be at least two seconds behind the vehicle in front of you–start timing when the vehicle passes a certain point and it should take you at least two seconds to pass the same point. Of course, if your reflexes are slow, drop back more. I could give some more pointers concerning safer driving, but this not the car driving instruction forum.
And if you are that far back from the vehicle ahead - expect 2 things.
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If you are slightly faster but get no closer than that distance, don’t expect the driver ahead to move to a ‘slower’ lane - he doesn’t even know your there, let alone faster.
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If you leave that much distance between you and a vehicle ahead, someone else will slip into the space and you will then have ‘back up’ even further to maintain you distance behind the inerloper.
Heh my Mercedes manages all that for me under “Reactive Cruise Control”. Heck even lane positioning and braking are automatic if I do not react in time. I could fall asleep and the car would drive itself it if were not for the broken line on one side of the car which Mercedes hasn’t figured out exactly the decision making process there to second guess the driver…so I have to remain conscious in that one area still. It even adjusts the headlights to brights when no oncomming traffic. If I do start to nod off the computer detects my slow down in road reaction time and vibrates the steering wheel first, then a very loud beeping sound to pull over and rest. [8D]
The answer in this century is CBTC, in which the ‘block separation’ is proportional to train speed and composition. Similarly the time that crossing warning cycle starts can be properly timed regardless of speed, so ridiculously long waits that prompt bad driver “choices” are less likely.
NYC had a different version of the idea, with continuous signaling for freight and passenger on opposite sides of common signal posts. (Of course this is the railroad that famously ran sections of its fast trains so close that passengers on the observation platform could clearly make out the turbogenerator exhaust on the following locomotive.)
The argument could be made that longer crossing actuation could be implemented for separate high-speed mains, as for example on the PRR there was nominal separation of freight and passenger. I do not ever expect this to be a ‘norm’ again, and some form of continuous communication is probably better than, say, using ad hoc speed broadcast to choose between long and short crossing circuit triggering…
Personally, I think pervasive use of cab signals eliminates need for any wayside ‘automatic block’ system tied to fixed expensive signal positions. We have discussed this a number of times since 2008.
Well, Balt, you know that you cannot do much about the stupidity of other people except avoid hitting them as much as it is possible.
I often wondered about the brain capacity of people who, instead of driving at speed which enabled them to breeze past stoplights would drive fast and then have to stop at each light. I do not know how many people I have passed again and again in such a situation, watching them waste gasoline and wear their brakes out.
On a recent Auto train trip, my mph app never clock the train more than 71 mph. The old seaboard airline railway would be turning over in its grave.
Maximum speed for autoracks on freight trains is 70 mph. I don’t believe Amtrak’s autoracks are any different.
[quote user=“Deggesty”]
BaltACD
Deggesty
As to your speed when driving a car–in any place, you should be at least two seconds behind the vehicle in front of you–start timing when the vehicle passes a certain point and it should take you at least two seconds to pass the same point. Of course, if your reflexes are slow, drop back more. I could give some more pointers concerning safer driving, but this not the car driving instruction forum.And if you are that far back from the vehicle ahead - expect 2 things.
If you are slightly faster but get no closer than that distance, don’t expect the driver ahead to move to a ‘slower’ lane - he doesn’t even know your there, let alone faster.
If you leave that much distance between you and a vehicle ahead, someone else will slip into the space and you will then have ‘back up’ even further to maintain you distance behind the inerloper.
Well, Balt, you know that you cannot do much about the stupidity of other people except avoid hitting them as much as it is possible.
I often wondered about the brain capacity of people who, instead of driving at speed which enabled them to breeze past stoplights would drive fast and th
Something my father taught me about fast driving: the ‘second for every 10 mph’ rule, and the reaction time allowance, apply not to “the car in front of you” in traffic, but the third or fourth one up. If you cannot clearly see that far in front, you have no business endangering yourself or others with a two-second following distance. You watch the relative speed, attitude, and brake lights way up there and start your reactions accordingly.
and with this goes something else: if you have to brake, pump a couple of times quickly to warn the person following close behind, and stretch the stop if you can so they don’t hit you.
This isn’t how they drive in Boston… but that’s why I don’t drive in Boston if I can avoid it.
i find there are still plenty of places in the Northeast where lights are timed to a particular speed. Annoyingly of course there are also no few areas where the effective light timing is to KEEP you from going at the ‘right’ speed – some cities do this to dissuade people from using certain streets as thoroughfares, or to get you to stop in the CBD. So of course you wind up ‘driving the pattern’ to make the lights.
Almost everywhere I go, the ‘computerized’ lights are either on roads with widely spaced intersections or on side streets going onto high-speed roads. Seldom do these things have extended detection loops for the ‘highway’ direction, but they are usually counting the cars at that ‘side’ entrance so they can use very short yellow and get the light back green for the major road in minimum time. This beats the usual alternative of holding traffic on the cross street to a long interval while even well-separated main-road traffic keeps tripping a loop…
Agreed, that’s how I was taught to drive as well.
Here in the Baltimore suburbs, Balt
Lets see. If Detroit <> CHI has a lot of 110 MPH tracks and if a non stop could average 90 MPH the enroute time would be about 3:10 block to block. The usual 10 stops appear to take ~ 5 minutes max each giving the enroute time of ~ 4:00 compared to today’s 5:15 - 5:45. Amtrak needs to decrease dwell time for each minutes of average dwell makes a total of 10 minutes difference.
Note: CHI <> STL essentially same distance with one less stop. two routes that should operate very similar.