(Crain’s) — President Barack Obama unveiled his high-speed rail strategy Thursday, including a network that would link Chicago to St. Louis, Detroit and several other Midwest cities.
The plan outlines a timetable starting this summer for disbursing $8 billion in federal stimulus grants, as well as a proposal to spend another $1 billion a year on rail improvements over the next five years.
“High-speed intercity passenger rail can play a critical role in certain travel markets, but the United States has historically failed to invest in this mode,” the strategy statement said. “The president proposes a long-term strategy intended to build an efficient, high-speed passenger rail network of 100- to 600-mile intercity corridors as one element of a modernized transportation system.”
Ten potential high-speed rail corridors are identified in the plan, including one that connects Chicago with Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Louisville.
What I find particularly interesting and exciting is that it is projected (at least as of this date) that some/all of the initial service enhancements (i.e. faster/new trains to Madison, St. Louis, Detroit, etc.) will supposedly be in place by 2012. They better get 'crackin pretty fast if they are going to make that date!
It’s already unrealistic - I have an incredibly ugly sense of foreboding with what may happen here when politicians think they can dictate terms to the existing railroad owners/operators what is going to happen.
Mud – I have the opposite mood. The policy is just now starting to be written. The Class Is are involved in writing it. The policymakers are aware of the value to the nation of ensuring the capability of the railways to maintain efficient freight capacity as well as future growth capacity.
At a state level it’s a different matter! But since the states have no money, what does it matter what they think? No money = no influence.
Well, SOME of it can be done reasonably well by 2012. I think you can do Kalamazoo to Detroit and, if you hurry, Richmond to Charlotte. And even Chicago to Cleveland …provided we’re talking 90-110 mph max. A little bit of money can go a long way fairly quickly on those routes and the host and/or ROW owners are pretty friendly to the concept.
There are some silly routes on that map, though. Boston to Montreal? Oklahoma to Dallas? Atlanta to New Orleans? Boston to Albany? Arkansas to Dallas? Not much population along those routes. Not even a whole lot at one or both end points. Some of those routes lack even a half-way decent existing ROW to get started with.
Never give a politician a map and a box of crayons…
…I suppose the projects could use a bit of support from wise railroad people and other leaders in the certain areas. At least a leader {our President}, is on board {to some degree}, finally to help get some HSR projects off the ground…in this country.
Read some of the comments out of Cincinnati & Columbus, …frightening.
If FRA is calling the shots, fine. If they handle it like FHWA does (turn it over to the state agency, which regard most railroads as adversaries in their dealings) - no go.
Will this investment of federal funding into the passenger train business improve the Class 1s capabilities to haul freight better/ faster/ etc. in the future?
I doubt that they will run passenger trains 24/7, so there should be some opportunity for the freight railroads to take advantage of the improvements. I don’t see them increasing HP/ton to run freight faster. Why should they? They still have to enter the terminal at the end of the run. Get there faster=wait longer=wasted money. The opportunity will come if they add tracks to accomodate the passenger trains.
Its too early to go gaw gaw over the subject. Keep in mind that this was only a public statement by a elected official. It doesn’t mean this will become a reality. I’m not taking a stand either for or against the proposal. There are pro and cons to HSR and hopefully the best of judgements will be made by the powers to be on this.
MS - The fear is that the freight railroads will be forced out of certain corridors in the name of short sighted High Speed. Some of this “transportation planning” is flawed by decisions/assumptions made by folks who have zero railroad background and can’t see the whole picture. I hope what RWM is seeing is more prevalent than some of the headaches I’m seeing (freight railroads forced into fewer and fewer corridors - then the passenger people want those corridors, freight be damned…somehow the less efficient, highly taxpayer subsidized, road destroying & clogging trucking industry will take care of that?)
Excuse me? The Boston - Albany route has the largest concentration of cities in New England save for the existing NEC route. Boston (largest city in New England), Framingham, Worcester (3rd largest in New England, and 2nd in MA), and Springfield (4th in NE, and 3rd in MA) (some of the largest cities in New England) are all in MA, and Albany is a key interchange point for passengers in New England.
Currently this route is served by one train in each direction a day - the Lake Shore Limited, which is a embarrassment to Amtrak with it’s (at least for the Eastbound) on-time record. There’s a reason why it has nicknames like the Late Shore Limited and Train Forty-Late! (The EB section is train 48 between Boston and New York, and 448 between Albany and Boston)
Maybe I’m biased by the prospect of living within 10 miles of the line, but looking at the facts, it’s clear you’re not familiar with the area…
BOS - MONTREAL=? sounds like some political idea that those two citys are linked business wise. Even during WW II not that many people traveled by train between those two citys. The terrain will make that route very expensive. Then there is the problem of customs. Now if anyone thinks that the Canadians will build or allow the HSR the 49 miles from somewhere near Rouses Point to Montreal to reduce the present scheduled 1-1/2 to 3 Hr.I’ll be surprized.
ATL - New Orleans? I wondered why the ATL - Montgomery - Mobile - New Orleans route wa not considered as the terrain is better but then realized that the population was even less and the gulf coast mess would require new ROW ( as proposed after Katrina) from north of Mobile to New Orleans. But the ATL - Birmingham - Meridian proposed route would require another new track the whole way because of NS traffic (remember the Cresent cancellations in the past to just add some capacity. Meridian - New Orleans will require at least more 2nd track. The population just isn’t on this route.Wonder if this is a left over from Trent Lott?
BOS - Albany: Now that is a different story. Tying Springfield to New Haven could give HSR for those citys west of BOS. Springfield - Albany only a tilt train could reduce travel times. There would need to be new ROW to traverse the terrain in a reasonable time. That is going to be a long time in coming. The present 99 rail miles springfiel - Albany is only about 65 air miles. Eventually tying this route into the Albany -
I’m VERY familiar with the B&A. A very nice 40 mph RR on the west end. It’s not upgradable to any real degree, at least west of Sprinfield. So, you’d need some all new and VERY expensive ROW to get through the Berkshires. Boston to Springfield to New Haven - maybe. But west of Springfield to Albany - forget it. All of Massachusetts has 6.5M people 4.5M of which live in Metro Boston. Albany NY has 1.1M.
I can believe that Springfield and Worscester have large populations outside of the NEC in New England. Most of the “cities” in ME, NH, and VT are really just large towns. Worcester and Framingham are really
Me too. Southwest has 7 round-trips daily Tulsa-Dallas, and the same Little Rock-Dallas. If they sold every seat on their 733s or 73Gs that would be about 1,000 passengers a day. I guess if the high-speed rail had 50% market penetration we could fill one train a day each way. I-35 and I-30 are not exactly clogged with autos.
I’d like to add the proposed Chicago-Twin Cities “High Speed” rail route to the questionable category. Southwest has eight round-trips on that route. Other air carriers fly that route so the market is larger than Tulsa-Dallas. But…
What I find hard to get people to understand is the “aggregate and batch” aspect of transportation. I know Southwest is known as “The Airline Without Hubs”, but they do “hub”. Chicago is effectively a Southwest hub. Their business on the Chicago-Twin Cities route can feed into/from about anywhere in the US. As one example, Southwest can easily ticket a passenger from the Twin Cities to Orlando with a change of planes in Chicago. The other air carriers on the route can do the same.
This diversity of destinations (and origins going the other way) is a tremendous advantage for air passenger travel. In any transportation operation where the unit of production doesn’t match the unit of sale (virtually all passenger business fits this criteria) the carrier has to aggregate the sale units (passengers) into production units (a plane load or train load) and move them as a “batch”. The more possible destinations the carrier has for its sale units, the easier it is to aggregate and batch.
The proposed “High Speed” rail service between Chicago and the Twin Cities will have a limited abil
Perhaps I was misunderstanding the types of modifications needed for HSR operation. I was thinking mainly smoothing out some of the slower sections of the railroad, upgrading the track for higher speeds, adding some capacity where needed (west of Worcester there’s a lot of single track), and implementing more frequent 90 MPH service with a P42/Amfleet coach set.
I do agree that the Berkshires will be a major problem. A new alignment would be really cost-prohibitive, so the train could just use the existing CSX line. Just add double track and a bunch of passing sidings (itself expensive, but less so than a new route) so that the freight trains don’t clog up the service.
And remember that the point of this wouldn’t be to get people between Boston and Albany. Rather, Albany is the gateway to the rest of the US (save for the rest of the east coast) from Boston. Trying to get to Chicago? Lake Shore Limited (or the Albany - Chicago HSR route) via Albany. Anywhere on the West Coast? SW Chief, Empire Builder, or other trains, via Albany and Chicago. Texas? Texas Eagle via Chicago and Albany. Albany is just a passing-through place…and passengers from Boston have no way to get anywhere in the US without using the once-a-day Lake Shore or going via a southerly route.
So it’s not a Boston - Albany route… It’s a Boston - Almost Anywhere In The US route.
Maybe it wouldn’t actually be that high speed… Just implementing a much more frequent service, and adding capacity and speed to an existing route. No electrifcation, just P42s and Amfleets.
I’d like to add the proposed Chicago-Twin Cities “High Speed” rail route to the questionable category. Southwest has eight round-trips on that route. Other air carriers fly that route so the market is larger than Tulsa-Dallas. But…
What I find hard to get people to understand is the “aggregate and batch” aspect of transportation. I know Southwest is known as “The Airline Without Hubs”, but they do “hub”. Chicago is effectively a Southwest hub. Their business on the Chicago-Twin Cities route can feed into/from about anywhere in the US. As one example, Southwest can easily ticket a passenger from the Twin Cities to Orlando with a change of planes in Chicago. The other air carriers on the route can do the same.
This diversity of destinations (and origins going the other way) is a tremendous advantage for air passenger travel. In any transportation operation where the unit of production doesn’t match the unit of sale (virtually all passenger business fits this criteria) the carrier has to aggregate the sale units (passengers) into production units (a plane load or train load) and move them as a “batch”. The more possible destinations the carrier has for its sale units, the easier it is to aggregate and batch.
The proposed “High Speed” rail service between Chicago and the Twin
It just astonishes me that people continue to ignore the fact that this proposal will spend $8 billion (probably more by the time cost overruns, kickbacks, and fraud are counted) that we as a nation do not have, to do something that the market has clearly said is never going to be financially sustainable.
If you support this project, you are supporting borrowing $27 for every man, woman, and child in the United States to pay for it, AND subsidizing operations forever with taxpayer dollars. This will likely pay for one high speed corridor somewhere in the nation that a minscule fractiton of taxpayers will ever utilize.