High-speed rail, red herring, and my lament

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

During my ride home from Mark’s symposium, I debated what symposium topic would be the best for the forum to discuss and dissect. This is it:

There was a relatively young (my guess is 24-27) guy at the symposium who was very energetic, enthusiastic, and genuinely interested in trains. I found his energy and enthusiasm very encouraging, as I think youthful enthusiasm is invaluable to any industry. His passion for trains reminded me of mine before my ideas about the potential for short lines ran into the quagmire of the 286,000 lbs. car, the prohibitive cost of investment, and the lack of enthusiasm of Class 1s.

However, my encouragement went slightly sour. His passion seemed entirely devoted to the concept of high-speed rail. Don’t get me wrong; I am not trying to sound high handed. As far as I know, he has a great idea, and I certainly hope he is able to make millions on it as well as transform the face of American transportation.

My problem is, it seems to me that high-speed rail is a red herring that is sucking the lifeblood out of railroading. He is not alone, the general public seems to view high-speed rail with an enthusiasm that I think distracts it from goals that are achievable.

I think this is a problem because this spent enthusiasm is setting such lofty goals that society is unlikely to ever begin on the journey to achieve them and society is being distracted from undertaking rail projects that are within its economic and political reach = fix Amtrak? How droll. Let’s instead direct our energy toward the exciting and romantic topic of high-speed rail.

I wish I could see someone direct their enthusiastic energy toward an idea like this:

High-speed rail will cost X billions of dollars to build and will likely generate X amount of riders per year and require the taxpayer to dole out X dollars every year in order to sustain it. However, we can fix the passenger service we have for 1/20th the cost of implementing high-spe

2

Gabe - you might want to look at Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s transportation initiative. This is a 50 year plan for the state of Texas that envisions a 4,000 mile network of transportation corridors across the state. Each corridor includes highway (toll roads), rail, and utilities. Each will be built and maintained by a public/private joint venture.

The first one to be looked at is the I35 corridor from the Mexican border, through San Antonio, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth to the Oklahoma border. This stretch of I35 is already 6 lane highway in many areas and is close to capacity - with about 50,000 - 60,000 vehicles per day. There is a real need to lower the NAFTA trucking congestion - thus the rail component.

Finally, Texas has a lot of wind power, but limited electrical transmission capability. It is also a unique state in that it’s power grid is almost enitrely within the state – thus the utilities portion of the plan. Of course Texas already has a lot of oil and gas pipelines, but long distance water pipelines will be needed - especially in San Antonio.

dd

3

Gabe

I happen to agree with you 100%.

Most of the regional rail systems under consderation are hub and spoke systems with the spokes generally not more than 300 miles long. At distances of 300 miles or less, airline service is not particularily attractive to the traveler and not very profitable for the airlines. That leaves the mode of choice as the automobile.

As you know from your experience traveling between Indianapolis and Chicago, and as I have have found in my driving experience, it can be very difficult to average more than 50 miles per hour for automobile travel between the major points on the proposed systems. If this rail service is hoping to get most of their business from drivers, is it really going to be necessary to offer a service that cuts travel time in half?

They may be out there, but I have never seen a cost/benefit study that compared “high speed” service providing average speeds of say 100 mph with a service that would have average speeds of 65 MPH. My guess is that the lower speed system could be developed for about half the cost of high speed.

There is no doubt in my mind that the price tag of billions of dollars blew the Florida proposal out of the water. The consequence is that Florida is either going to have to live with traffic congestion on main intercity routes, or spend billions on additional highway lanes. Maybe a medium speed rail system plus some additional highway construction has a much lower overall cost.

It seem that the public likes the idea of the glamorous system, but is not willing to put up the money to buy the system. Why not focus on solving the problem?

Jay

4

These kind of studies have been done and result vary according to route (surprise! surprise!)

Here’s one study http://www.garail.com/Pages/pdf/2004jaxreport.pdf

It shows that 79 mph service on this route would cost about 3/4 that for 110 mph and bring in 85% of the riders and about 70% of the revenue.

This one http://www.garail.com/Pages/pdf/sehsrexecutivesummary.pdf

shows that 79 would cost 1/4 of 110 mph service, bring in 85% of the riders and 80% of the revenues.

The difference is that the first route very straight and flat while the latter is chocked full of 3 degree curves. Even with “tilt” trains, the existing route would only be good for 90 mph. 110 would require lots of realignment.

5

Don,

To add to your statistics, most people scoff at anything under 140 mph. Imagine how much more such a system would cost. There comes a point where you have to completely rework the track.

Gabe

6

I suspect that high-speed rail is going to have to be built along the same methods as the original rail system was - numerous small systems that were eventually tied together. Building a NY-Chicago system would be a very daunting task. Filling the needs of local travel first (as has been discussed), then tying the systems together would have the eventual result of a larger, seamless system. Of course, that means that the terminus for the Chicago-Indianapolis line will have to be the same as the Indianapolis-Cincinatti line, even though they may be built years apart. Same for the Cincinatti-Pittsburg line, etc. (Those are examples, not anything I know of that is planned.) There are also considerations of types of equipment to be used, etc.

7

Gabe – I am in total agreement with you. But it is very hard to get people – never mind masses of people, never mind the media and (finally) the politicos to get behind really practical high return projects; it’s always the spectacle and the sex that sells. I can think of hundreds of examples… so it remains for the dedicated, not particularly glorious practical types to proceed, as best they can. Freight railroading earns a positive rate of return on investment, so private enterprise can manage it. Passenger railroading never has, so… oh well, we’ve been there before!

8

An interesting comparison can be made in commercial aviation. The various proposals for SST’s and the earliest widebody designs turned up in the 1960’s. Most of the media attention and glamor (and developmental grants) went to the SST designs while the widebodies grew quietly out of military freighter concepts such as the C-5. Most of the SST concepts went by the wayside except for the Concorde and Tu-144, which were actually built but were never profitable. The widebodies were actually built to a wide variety of designs and many airlines have some on their roster.

9

Virtually no railroads were constructed with the idea that their primary purpose was to move people. Most of the the time the justification came from being able to move goods and people. The earliest RRs in the US were built to move goods. Passengers were a bit of an after thought. For example, the Reading RR was built to haul antracite from Reading to Philadelphia.

If we are going to rebuild exisiting or build new routes for high speed, it would be a shame if the transportation of freight wasn’t included as part of the plan.

10

Gabe- At the risk of sounding preachy, simply put it is indicative of the direction society in general has been going. We want things to be faster, better, more grand. In short we want more out of everything, regardless if it cost us more or less (although less is preferred) so long as its faster. The internet is a prime example. I can view the Trains website regardless of whether I’m using AOL or Netscape,etc but I may be paying differently for for speed, quality, and other benefits. High-speed rail is similar. People are paying to get to their destination faster than they can (legally) drive there and they can avoid the airports and airport delays. Heck, when O’Hare is averaging a delay in 30% of ALL flights in and out it’s not hard to understand why people think its the next great solution. Plus how often do you hear of people who have fears of riding on trains.[;)]

Personally, I’m hoping we try developing matter transfer like on Star Trek before we worry about implementing high-speed rail, but I don’t think it’ll happen. It would be much better and quicker to to beam home when I’m tired of being around the in-laws . [:D]

Mike

11

His passion for trains reminded me of mine before my ideas about the potential for short lines ran into the quagmire of the 286,000 lbs. car, the prohibitive cost of investment, and the lack of enthusiasm of Class 1s.

Gabe,

This may be a little off topic, but a law has been enacted to address the problem of the 286,000 lb cars. It provides tax credits for short lines investing in the heavier rail. I read about it in the latest Railway Age.

George

12

I am in agreement with the 50 MPH average speed in a car. I find that I average about 50 MPH on American interstates, and I think I was averaging about 50 MPH in a rental car on the German and Austrian Autobahns – their peak speeds are much higher but the car I rented couldn’t keep up with the Bimmers in the fast lane, and there are the road construction speed zones, mountain pass toll plazas, stopping for meals and gas.

But come to think of it, does the Acela do NY-DC in a bit under 3 hours? That puts them in the 70-75 MPH range – so much for the 150 MPH capability. Does the Acela do any better than the Pennsy Congressional with a GG-1 pulling Budd stainless steel cars back in the 1950’s. Perhaps someone can weigh in on Acela schedules (and the schedules of non-Acela – in Philly I saw an AEM-7 pulling a string of Amfleet cars that seemed to go on forever, so Amtrak must have non-Acela service on the NEC).

And then for NY-DC, if 70 MPH average gets you there in 3 hours, 50 MPH gets you there by car in 4 hours and change. Provided you don’t get in traffic jams and don’t make 50 MPH average, the car may get you there quicker because you have to buy a train ticket, be there ahead of time, stand in line to board, and so on. As far as flying NY-DC, given the amount of time you have to be there ahead of time on the plane, I would be inclined to drive instead of fly as well.

Now the non-high speed train limit is 79 MPH, but you are not going to average 79 MPH either. I think ways of speeding up trains by streamlining the slow-speed parts of the trip, however, merit looking into. Trains had this thing about how the California trains beat the Amtrak trains on the same line because the California trains are run like commuter trains with 2 minute stops with passengers wrestling with their own bags instead of Amtrak with their longer stops and baggage service.

13

FOFLMAO. Mike you are a master at applied technology. Escaping the In Laws has been the goal of all married men since H.G. Wells wrote “The Time Machine”…

LC

14

Paul:
The Acela Expresses are significantly faster than the Congressional with Budd built stainless steel cars, and hauled by a GG 1. infact the Northeast corridor also has regional trains - which while slower than the Acela Expresses - are faster than the Congressiona.

The Acela Express averages~ 80 mph between New York and Washington, but 66mph between New york and Boston, and i don’t consider either average speed typical of high speed passenger rail.

Driving between New york and Washington is a real bear what with tolls and traffic. I doubt if you could evenaverage 50 mph except late at night when there are few cars on the road.

For Gabe:
As I understand it, high speed passenger railis not and was not really intended to compete with the car, it was more or less intended as an alternative to air transportation. Yes, high speed passenger rail is expensive, but how much more expensive than air transportation i don’t know. Most of Amtrak’s ridership is in the Northeast corridor where the Acela Expresses run. I don’t know how politically possible it might be to upgrade the present day passenger train.

15

My biggest problem with HSR is that most advocates seem to want TGV style, and want it now. There is no practicality here. Meanwhile, do we even need true HSR? Talgo has proven itself both competitive and effective, and California is running very capable systems using conventional equipment. Isn’t service satisfaction a better measure than an arbitrary speed number?

16

I agree with Gabe. Even more remote than HSR is Maglev, a real waste of money in my opinion, even with the China success. At least HSR sticks with standard gauge tracks that can be used by intermodal freight at night, etc. The main task right now, as I see it, is to somehow come up with the tax money to:

Put Amtrak in decent shape, with good catenary throughout the corridor and cars repaired and in good condition and crews feeling that they have a future and people care about them, and decent passenger amtenites from the phone call to the attentand handing you the luggage as you debark.

Seemless travel with information and ticketing Greyhound-Anmtrak-commuter lines

Restore the links necessary for good connections where passenger demand warrents, such as Salt Lake City - Las Vegas - LA. Give Cleveland decent service not just in the middle of the night. Buffalo - Detroit - Chicago, Toronto- Chicago, possibly via Detroit, etc. Of course, Chicago - Atlanta - Florida.

Boston North Station - South Station

Help the short lines cope with the heavier cars to strengthen the overall rail network

The Chicago project

That is the short list

The long list would be to upgrade Washington - Richmond and Boston - Portland or even Boston - Bangor to become part of the NE Corridor in every way.

Upgrading Chicago - St. Louis - KC to high speed, incrementally

Cleveland - Columbus - Dayton -Cincinnati. and Detroit - Toledo - Dayton Cincinnati, ditto

Detroit - Chicago (project partly in place)

and similar corridors, already discussed

17

Obviously none of you have ridden a true TGV HSR train… If you had, you would want nothing less in America…Nothing less…

And as far as cost is concerned, its less per mile than any light rail system being built anywhere in America…mostly because the bulk of the right of way is rural rather than urban…

If the Feds can spend up to $7 billion per year on intra city transit to build a couple of hundred miles of light rail, the Feds can spend as much on inter city HSR… In my opinion the Europeans are on the right track, while we are on the wrong track…

18

(1) I have traveled via TGV, among other high-speed rail alternatives. It was really cool; but, so are diamonds–I trust you see my inference.

(2) I didn’t necessarily say high-speed rail is worthless. I am just asserting that (1) a re haul of Amtrak would deliver more bang for the buck and (2) despite your money claims, high-speed rail is a non-starter because tax payers awe over it until they see the price tag. I seem to remember something in Florida supporting my position?

(3) Finally, I am asserting that, because high-speed rail makes it a non-starter, I wish rail could generate enthusiasm that is seen over high-speed rail toward projects that are achievable. Romantic ideals are muscling out the practical ones.

Gabe

19

Commuter rail is the way to go, and maybe that is what has started to happen. As more cities and urban areas have them, then maybe we can consider connecting some of them up with inter city trains or HSR.

20

Gabe-

There is so much to say about this topic. Let me simply say I agree with you basic premise. I suggest that you and others interested take a look at the down side of high speed rail as personified by the ongoing battle between Amtrak and the State of New York over proposed 110+ mph service between NYC and Albany using rebuilt turbo trains on existing track. Here is one article on the issues from todays BLE site news.

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=12224

LC