Who can be first to spot the factual flaws (the writing is fine) by our resident retired engineer? My guess is Volker will be first.
Actually, he’s far more ‘right’ than ‘wrong’, at least in my opinion. If even the above-the-line costs of the equipment had to be privately financed, the cost/benefit over good separable-car equipment, even to PRIIA spec, would not really be there for most Corridor operation as currently structured.
Now, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if the folks in authority want to spend beaucoodles of OPM (well, actually, it’s partly mine, but I don’t mind) on rocket trains for the NEC that might come in more handy after Gateway gets built, I won’t complain. But that extra money might be better spent augmenting some of the LC service, or experimenting with better amenity provision…
There is one writing error; he says “demise” when he means “advent”. But it’s pretty clear from the context.
How about you pointing out the “factual flaws” charlie, after all you posted this?
“America is not in that much of a hurry. Frequent, dependable, timely train travel trumps enormous outlays of taxpayer dollars for minimal results.”
Who made you America’s spokesman? Was there an election I missed?
He was being rhetorical in the first sentence. The second sentence is the one with the important thought.
The key words there are “for minimal results”, not that high speed isn’t a useful thing or that HSR isn’t valuable where it provides meaningful gains. As a case in point, we were discussing an “improvement” project in the Midwest that, when expensively completed, might provide something like a six-minute time reduction between endpoints. Joe is saying that the benefits of Acela 2 sets over the same capacity using a much lower-cost (and more flexible) solution are similarly small. While there are plenty of Americans who are in a hurry, and who would pay for HSR speed, I’d expect most of them to actually expect HSR-level shorter trip times, meaningfully shorter than a few minutes here and there, for the kind of extra cost their assessed rates would involve.
Something I’d recommend to Joe, and others, though, is that the actual time gains are not as important here as the perception of better service, and the ability to obtain a high take rate at a high premium over ‘regular’ trains – Amtrak was very successful in being able to fill Acela trainsets at a higher, i.e. more profitable per train, rate than could be charged for equivalent regionals or even the kind of ‘Metroliner’ hauled by GG1s and then AEM-7s. (Some of which, as i recall, had a timing nearly 10 minutes faster than Acela between NYP and Washington…)
As such, I would argue that a more ‘correct’ way to look at this would be to determine the NP
You cannot help yourself can you? Up to this point I have ignored your stalking and snarky asides but you continue to buzz like an annoying gnat.
So instead of your childish taunting dispute the subject matter. Tell us why High Speed Rail is or is not feasibile on existing trackage.
I can easily help myself. But let’s be honest - life would be boring if everyone agrees with you.
I just think it will be a sad day in America when we don’t strive for something bigger and better. And that includes our rail system. We have the K car of train travel in the US.
You are wrong. I can’t even read it. It is not available in my region. Looks like an aftermath of the new EU data protection regulation.
This seems to be a smaller newspaper. The larger ones have overcome this trouble already.
Regards, Volker
But that doesn’t mean you start by buying multiple S-class Mercedes and Panameras when your road infrastructure is crumbling. You build to autobahn standards first, and when you have that lined out your fancy vehicles have a place to make meaningful time (and convenience) contributions.
If we were further along allocating first full financing and then construction commitments for necessary things like the whole of Gateway and the Baltimore business, then it might make sense to direct capital toward trains that will provide meaningful time gains once the expen$ive construction is complete. That is less so when the anticipated completion time of the practical high-speed line starts to nudge the expected lifetime of what are likely to be short-lifetime sets… even if they can be kept running in cheap service as the first-generation TGV trains now are in France.
So yes, I’d buy separable-car 125mph equipment now, and the faster trains when more of the railroad than a few miles around Providence, RI can support actual high speed…
More profitable per train perhaps but not overall.
I still maintain that if the bulk of the $2.45 billion dollar loan were used to upgrade the present fleet with all the bells and whistles, e.g., USB ports, Wi-Fi, desktop seats, etc., the Acela Express would soon be forgotten. The public was ‘schmoozed’ in to using the Acela and I feel they can be ‘schmoozed’ in to abandoning it for the same amenities for less money and virtually the same performance.
Let us hear your observations on this instead of your usual sniping.
While I think there are still reasons to preserve some kind of Acela Express priority to get the low-hanging-fruit revenue from the perception of preferred service, I agree completely with extending some of the amenities to general regional service, especially retrofitting power and connectivity to regular trains (and not just in the NEC). It’s interesting to consider just how inexpensively a modular/harnessed solution for providing USB-C, with its higher permitted power draw, to each seat in a coach could be made; Amtrak itself had a couple of research papers about providing enough bandwidth and security for whole trainloads of smartphone and notebook users. That’s no longer ‘schmoozing’, it’s a lifestyle necessity for many – and it is now years since I rode a private long-distance bus that didn’t have free WiFi and charging ports.
What that introduces, then, is what level of enhanced amenity a better high-speed trainset ought to provide to keep its revenue contribution as high as possible. Starting probably with true high-speed connectivity for at least the first-class users, with permissions perhaps tied directly to ticketing to avoid ‘abuse’ while not inconveniencing users.
Now, personally, I’d consider using throttling restrictions for certain types of Internet traffic while on board trains, or requiring some kind of incremental charge for higher speed, or bandwidth, or content crossloading. But only if fairly high baseline infrastructure were provided.
My posts keep disappearing, so I’m about done for today. No fun when only one side is allowed to play.
[From the New Haven Register]
High-speed train travel is not feasible on the Northeast Corridor.
Congress recently approved a $2.45 billion dollar loan package for Amtrak of which a good portion will be spent on 28 Generation 2 high-speed trains.
Why?
Thanks for posting the article. The following statement caught my eye:
I can only describe what happened in Germany. Of about 27,000 miles of track in 1945 only 5000 miles were destroyed completely. The remaining track was rebuilt as fast as possible to get finally one functioning transportation system. In 1967 the maximum speed was increased to 100 mph.
In the mid 1970s a few routes were upgraded to 125 mph. only in 1991 the first two new-built high-speed routes were commissioned. So far “nothing in the way”
There is another point:
The design of the Acela Express (AE) needed to be changed massivly when FRA required the 800,000 lbs buffer load in 1999. The AE got 55% heavier than its TGV counterpart. Trap doors weren’t possible any longer. The power to weight ratio plumeted from about 30 hp/ton to about 24 hp/ton. The consequences were felt in track and train maintenance, slower acceleration, station stops only at high platforms. That was an American own goal.
Why should that happen again? The FRA crashworthiness standard allow an alternative approach with extensive use of CEM elements so that the Avila Liberty is expected to be 30% lighter than the AE.
I don’t see that the AEs are not practically. With 3.4 million passengers they had $596 million ticket revenue compared to 8.6 million passengers on the Regionals with $637 million.
I think there is a misunderstanding r
Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble as a result of World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP — with an eye on the future — rebuilt the railway systems as straight as practicable.
This is nothing new. Amtrak had no problem capturing the 500 mile and under market, most notably WAS-NYP, from the airlines. From midtown to midtown they beat the airlines hands down.
They won’t be so glad when there is a problem with one car and the whole train is removed from service and a massive delay ensues.
How about it charlie? You started this thread so point out the “factual flaws” you allude to or do you possess the same M.O.as Balt? Running when confronted.
Charlie said that Volker could point out the factual flaws and I knew immediately what he meant. Being from Germany, he would understand that your grasp of history was flawed.
Why, Germany was not bombed into rubble? The new roadbed was not built as straight as allowable?
Volker pointed out nothing.
Maybe you should read Volker’s timeline. The stations and classification yards being bombed has nothing to do with the thousands of miles of track in the countryside.