I saw this story in our press briefing this moring about a potential passenger rail corridor from Atlanta to Charlotte, NC. http://www.gsabusiness.com/news/47824-rail-service-to-connect-atlanta-charlotte?rss=0
The route that makes the most sense to me is NS Via Greenville and Spartanburg, SC. This is the shortest route and serves two other large cities.
Oh, my. Here we go again. GADOT did a study 5 years or more ago. Conclusion was existing route was okay for current speeds. Lots and lots of curves to straighten to get to 90 mph. Above that, new alignment.
As - is and 90 mph would need operating subsidy. New alignment might not, but big capital to invest.
Also relate was blurb in AJC about NS saying there is no spare capacity for passenger trains through the “Gulch”
But, FWIW, you could get a good leg up if you just ran the Crescent as a day train north of Atlanta. You could do this RIGHT NOW. No big study needed. Just do it. Also, it wouldn’t kill anybody to add an Atlanta suburban stop or two.
Spartanburg and Greenville were mere blips on the map when Amtrak took over the Crescent. Anyone who’s driven I-85 knows Charlotte south through SC is no rural backwater anymore. It’s a big market. However, nobody at Amtrak seems to have noticed.
The geniuses in planning at Amtrak seem to still be looking at 1970 (or earlier!) census demographics.
I believe that this route is part of the Crescent Corridor. That being the case, this route will be upgraded anyway. The states of SC and GA could justify investing monies in this upgrade to expedite freight, but to add
capacity for passenger service as well.
It sounds like a good fit to me. The track that will serve the new Charlotte Gateway Station already goes right past the Charlotte Airport and continues on south.
It’s a bit of an exaggeration to call the SE Corridor “High speed rail”, though. I don’t consider 110 MPH, 90MPH on some segments, to be high speed rail in today’s world.
The 258 miles ATL - CLT compares favorable with the 284 miles CHI - STL. However the population base of ATL is probably much less ? The ability to connect at both STL & CHI is much better than CLT’s Piedmont service. Can anyone imagine the 3 states agreeing on costs or anything much less this service ?
Population of ATL 432,427
Population of the ATL Metro Area 5,457,831
Population of CLT 751,087
Population of the CLT Metro Area 2,442,564
I think that is large enough to support a rail link.
As usual, the media is getting out a little ahead of reality on this. I actually had the opportunity to read the scoping document on this today while at the Charlotte city hall. At this point the study is at what’s called the scoping phase, where any interested stakeholders can both identify themselves and suggest items that they feel should be considered in an upcoming environmental assessment. The EA document.
This study is not being done by Amtrak, but is being led by GaDOT along with the FRA. Amtrak is a stakeholder, along with NS and CSX, the 3 state DOT’s, all the cities that his might pass through, the MPO’s for each metro area, the resource agencies, etc., etc., etc. The public meetings referenced in the article are opportunities for the public at large to state opinions as stakeholders before the process starts.
They have identified possible routes from the past study for further consideration. If I recall what I read today, they were 1) the current NS, 2) a route through Athens GA, 3) a route through greenwood, SC, 4) a NS to Columbia, the NS to Augusta and on to Atlanta on CSX, 5) a route using existing medians and rights-of-way along I-85. (Note, I may have the railroads mixed here as my memory is getting bad) .
This will be worth watching, but until the SEHSR project gets to Charlotte, this is WAY out in he future. The final result of this study should be a complete Phase one EA and probably has a 4-5 year study time. Lots of $ for consultants.
The route through Columbia and Augusta currently is right at 362 miles long; I am sure some miles could be cut off by building a new track. This route, of course, would leave Piedmont South Carolina high and dry.
It doesn’t appear they are looking at any census data. How does census data effect “running trains”? [:)]
Yup. This is a GADOT “feed the consultants” deal.
The timeline shows a mid-2015 end date for this phase - which appears to be only route selection.
http://dot.ga.gov/travelingingeorgia/rail/AtlantatoCharlotte/Documents/Schedule.pdf
We’re going to study all sorts of “connect the dots” routes. They’ll model trip times and ridership and estimate costs to implement and in the end, it’ll be the route that connects the largest “dots” on the shortest path on an existing - or mostly existing - rail route. And that would be the existing NS route. We have to wait two years to hear this result, though.
Worse yet, the consultants will only have to dust off some work they did less than a decade ago and update it and amplify it, but will get paid like it’s “fresh work”.
If they were serious about service along the Piedmont, they’d take 10 minutes and look at flipping the Crescent’s schedule. Then, if that produced meaningful results, look into adding some frequency to the service. Then if that worked, look into reducing trip times.
This ain’t rocket science.
Agree. An obvious loser. It’s only in there so Augusta doesn’t feel left out and GA doesn’t think its doing it all for SC’s benefit.
Another obvious loser is the CSX Abbeville sub to Greenwood, then on to Charlotte. Only Athens is on the route. Abbeville sub is less suitable passenger speeds than NS Piedmont.
Another obvious loser is the !-85 alignment. Not so bad in GA, but SC has lots and lots of killer vertical curves. Plus, cost to build make it almost as bad as greenfield.
And Greenville - Spartansburg comes in at 1.2M for gravy.
Versus 120K for Athens GA area and 200K for Augusta area. Why are routes through there even being looked at?
Routes that are based on population demographics of 40-60+ years ago would be fine if the demographics had stayed the same. Since the presumed goal of passenger rail service is to serve people, routes, especially in huge growth areas like the southeast need to change. This may also mean that some routes away from the NEC in the northeast are running through areas that have had stagnant or ven declining populations for 60-70 years. of course, if Amtrak’s guiding principle is “running trains” as they’ve been forever, then it doesn’t matter.
What routes in the NE have been stagnent or loosing populaton where Amtrak actually runs trains? I don’t seen any Boston Montreal service (formerly available on four different routes at one time) or Boston -Maritimes, just north to Portland and Brunzwick. I think Amtrak planners do look at Demographics, but it is really Congress that determines what the route structure is.
If they looked at demographics, there would be a stop or two in suburban Atlanta. There isn’t. There hasn’t even been a whiff of one.
If they looked at demographics, the Crescent schedule would be flipped so that it hit the Piedmont during the day. Again, this hasn’t happened - not even a whiff.
If they looked at demographics, they would have pushed for some intra-FL trains. Again, not a whiff.
These are just a few example of places that have changed a great deal since the 1970s. It’s not Congress that’s holding them back. I’m not talking about new routes, just existing service on existing routes.
I used the Crescent overnight fairly frequently and could not have used it as a day train nearly as often.
The Crescent comes through Charlotte at 2AM in both directions. It would be nice if there was a second trip at 2PM.
The Harrisburg to Pittsburgh train for one. Empire service (13 trains each way between NYP and Albany?) for another. in 1950, Albany had its population peak of 134,995; now only 97,856. if one looks at the MSA which also contains Schenectady and Troy, the population has increased from 746,844 in 1970 to 874,646 in 2012, a 17% increase. The US overall went from 203.2 mil in 1970 to 313.9 mil. in 2012, a 54% increase. If one looked at metro areas in the southeast, such as Atlanta or Charlotte, etc., the rate of increase would be even more. Yet Amtrak (not Congress) has chosen to continue and even beef up services in places where the population growth isn’t there. Why? Just guessing, but probably because of its legacy route structure and it is easier to go along to get along.
Blaming Amtrak’s woes all on Congress or politics is a convenient scapegoat. It has a 40 year history of maintaining the status quo. To achieve any real improvements it looks more and more like we need to privatize operations, as has been done in Japan, UK and even Germany to some degree. While in the latter, I noted that DB wants to take back some local/regional services it let go in the past. Why? Because the private contractors are making an operating profit!!
Schlimm:: Agree — however Amtrak is a creature of congress because those routes you mention just needs congress’ money for ROW improvements esp to double track the single track ROW and money to buy equipment & money to operate trains ( not a lot if Phoeebe’s service levels are obtained )
UK has network rail which is providing large amounts to capital to improve ROW. Network rail as I nderstand it gets its pounds from the government ?