Once again News wire fails as their web site for this report is incorrect ------ ??? Here is the correct web site
http://www.necfuture.com/get_involved/public_meetings.aspx
Have now edited this thread with a correct address
Here is the link: http://www.necfuture.com/get_involved/public_meetings.aspx
I checked it and it does work. You will have to copy and paste it yourself.
[I]
[Comments redacted, as the corrected link does give access to the plan documents]
Some on here may note with interest the comments on p.8 regarding through service from Long Island to Washington, Philadelphia, and ‘points in New Jersey’ …
When I could not connect to the site thru the Newswire link yesterday, I went to the necfuture.com site and found the page, but it was not working, so it was not Newswire’s fault. Just now I went back to necfuture.com and found the page was now working:
http://www.necfuture.com/project_docs/reports.aspx
There you can download the :
Preliminary Alternatives Report
I’m partway through the prelim alts report.pdf and have a couple thoughts:
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I like guiding principles set out in the Alternatives Development Process. It’s all about the current and future market for transportation - not about trains and routes.
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Why is the FRA doing Amtrak’s work?
I find the statistics in 2.3.3 interesting.
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Only 9 per cent of all trips begin north or south of New York and end on the other side of New York. That suggests we should look at 2 rail lines, New York and Boston and New York and Washington.
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North of New York: 85 per cent of all trips begin in New York or Boston but only 27 per cent of all trips end in those cities. 27 per cent is a lot of trips. That must be what drives Acela Service. However, 73 per cent of trips begin or end in Providence, New London, New Haven, Bridgeport or smaller places and are also important.
2a. A small point. Since Acela is an express service and makes few or no stops at stations between New York and Boston why do all Acela trains stop at Route 128 (11 miles south of South Station) and Back Bay (1 mile south of South Station)?
- South of New York 95 per cent of all trips begin or end at New York, Philadelphia or Washington. However only 57 per cent of all trips begin and end at those cities. This leaves 43 per cent of all trips beginning or ending in intermediate cities: Newark, Newark Liberty Airport, Trenton, Wilmington, Baltimore, Baltimore Washington International Airport or smaller places. For Acela this is a 3 city combination rather than the 2 city (New York and Boston) combination. And the intermediate cities are still important here.
3a. Amtrak’s Northeast Regional service is important here despite the fact that convenient but slower commuter service is available between New York and Philadelphia at a much lower fare.
- Speaking of fares, discount buses offer low fare service all along the northeast corridor and carry a great many passengers. However, Amtrak succeeds despite its higher fare structure. This is especially apparent on the New York to Philadelphia route where Amtrak must compete with both the NJT and
While Amtrak has done their own study (Next Generation) there is always the chance of bias with an in-house report. FRA, being a part of DOT, must look at intersecting interests like commuter rail, freight operators on the NEC, connecting transportation, etc.
Midland – That was my thought and I was waiting for someone to point that out. Actually this report should have been expanded to include imput from the FTA to completely cover the items. Several items in the FRA report brought out ----
1. Possible Crossing under Long Island sound at 2 different locations has been hinted at by some of our posters.
2. Two different routes Hartford - BOS
3. A route thru Annapolis
4. A route thru Reading to Harrisburg
5. Alternate routes Hartford ---- NYC
6. Many complaints by other interested parties are in the report complaining about no consideration outside the present NEC. Any report needs limitations somewhere and FRA’s mandate for this report may have had those limitations.
If most of these routes are ever initiated the NEC WOULD HAVE A MUCH MORE EUROPEAN FLAVOR IN TRANSPORTATION ??
You forget you are talking about the US Federal Government with an agency, department, bureaucracy, duplication, redundancy, counter redundancy, conflict, graft flow, etc.for everyone all the time. Any one of a half dozen similar reports could have been and/or will be produced by another group within a short amount of time. Thus another billion or so dollars will go up in rhetoric and nothing really accomplished. Except fodder for FB, Trains, and other forums.
Henry,
Since we were a British colony the Boston – New York route has been one of the most heavily traveled in the country. At first it was coast wise shipping but beginning in 1836 trains became part of it and expanded until 1890 when the Thames River was bridged at New London and there was direct train service between New York and Boston. For historical reasons this service began to deteriorate in the 1930’s. Before the Penn Central took over the New Haven Railroad the government had to send diesel fuel to the New Haven because the railroad had run out and its credit was so bad no private company would deliver any. Without the government fuel the locomotives would have run out and stopped. From that low point Amtrak completely rebuilt the road with concrete ties and welded rail, electrified it in the 90’s and runs regular service. Northeast Regional service is better than anything either the NH or the Penn Central ever ran and Amtrak has given us Acela on top of that.
I don’t see that as a total lack of accomplishment.
John
What the New Haven accomplished, what transpired into PC and CR and Amtrak are all separate from the competing, duplicating, time wasting, planning and studying and reporting that does not do work but talks and preaches and takes apart others’ works. How many pages of repetitive blather is there. There is a summary, and index to the summary, and summary of the index followed by a hypothesis summarized and indexed then editorial commentaries repeated in diagrams and graphs which are explained in more rhetoric duplicating the initial statements and summaries and the conclusion that was stated as the purpose of the exercise and report in the opening paragraph of the first summary. All this is followed by a summary with an appendix with footnotes and five blank pages to add your own notes. Five committees or agencies with 3000 man hours each producing over 1000 pages of claptrap with the same or different or competing conclusions. Then Congress has to take it into a committee to investigate and hear and produce another round of wasted man hours and pages and pages of testimony and conclusions which may or may not be the same as any of the reports and findings of the agencies. A snap shot of the American way of not getting things done. We can’t do HSR because we move at the speed of light…candlelight in a windstorm.
Perhaps. But in southern New England Amtrak’s High Speed Rail route is controversial because it would bypass almost every city between Boston and New York. It would require a whole new rail line, and inland route (which would parallel the old New York and New England’s route), leave the Shore Line right after Boston and not return to it until the train was south of Stamford station. As a result both Rhode Island and Connecticut are not supportive of it. However, it would be more direct and cut time off the Boston to New York segment of the trip.
The inland alternate to the Shoreline route would go thru Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford. Why is Conn not supportive? The original Amtrak proposal went this route, and then made a bee-line for Boston. That is until Rhode Island caught wind of it, and then Amtrak had to put a dog-leg in the route to serve Providence. I see in the FRA study for Hartford-Boston, there is an alternative thru Providence and another thru Worcester, but I don’t remember any direct route.
Even if you look at a flat road map of CT you can tell that the hills or mountains are all north-south, that travelling east or west across the state is a series of ups and downs and twists and turns. The only place you can find a somewhat level east west route is from the LI Sound shore line to maybe 5 miles at most inland. Yeah, there are parallel routes…but they are probably twice as long and slow following small stream courses and climbing up and over what ever is in the way. Then you’ve got RI and eastern Mass, no pool tables there either. It is easy to take a crayon and ruler and put a line on paper, it is something quite different to lay track on undulating ground (at best) and through narrow valleys.
John WR: NY-Philadelphia: You did not report the NJT-SEPTA conecting service, and I have have told that no-railfans that don’t care for buses do use it, friends who are musicians in partiuclar. This despite the need to change at Trenton (same platform) and no quicker running time that Megabus. The fare is 1/2-1/3 Amtrak regional.
What an embarrassing mistake. How could I be so stupid. Anyway, I went back and corrected my post. I can well understand how a musician with an instrument that does not fit under a bus seat would want to keep it with him rather than putting in an under the bus compartment where it might be damaged or, even worse, stolen. I sure wouldn’t risk it.
To repeat myself, NJT plus SEPTA fare New York Penn Station to 30th Street Station is $24.50. It is cheaper than Amtrak Regional but not quite half. Buying a ticket a month in advance Amtrak costs $36. Of course if you buy your ticket the day you travel Amtrak can be a lot more.
While the area of the inland route thru CT is hilly, there is nothing considered mountainous. A “bee-line” route was partly built with big cuts and fills a hundred years ago, but I believe was bought out by the NH. Modern day HSR can handle bigger grades. I’m sure Amtrak and FRA had some idea of the terrain they were proposing to cross. The present Shoreline route is a series of rocky headlands, bays and drawbridges, and is itself no pool table glide.
Mountainous is a phrase. But the hills are enough in Southern New England to have been impediments to easy east west routes. Most roads found water courses to follow up and another one to follow down and thus the lack of straight lines. Look at what the B&A had to do to get out of Boston up and over to the CT Valley and what the had to do to get to Albany, NY. Likewise most lines through CT itself wander because of the need to follow water courses rather than fight up and down grades…thus, except for the Shore LIne, most all other lines are more either north and south or diagonals across the state via summits and valleys.
Henry, like I said, Amtrak, FRA, and even the RR builders of 100 years ago do not agree with your constraints.