6 of the top 8 OD pairs are “daylight” portions of the run. The shocker was that the less populated, but daylight, southern half of the route beat the heavily populated, but overnight nothern portion of the run.
In the case of the NC stations (Charlotte, Salisbury, High Point and Greensboro) while we have the Crescent with poor overnight times, we have a daylight alternitive, the Carolinian to the north, leaving Charlotte at 7:40 AM. Much more heavly used then the Crescent.
Which begs the question why the Crescent isn’t a daylight train north of Atlanta. In fact, it should actually be two daylight trains. One south of Atlanta and one north. None of the top OD pairs is from a location south of Altanta to a place north of Atlanta. And, why the Crescent doesn’t make a suburban stop one either side of Atlanta is also a mystery (except these suburbs only developed in the past 25 years - maybe Amtrak didn’t notice it yet)
Oltmand: The new mid day carolina service would tie in very well for a daylight ATL - CLT train, Again it all comes down to equipment. There is none yet! If you review old SOU, SAL and A&WP timetables you can see how much more service was north of ATL.
New York - Atlanta daytime is a stretch. Washington - Atlanta is doable with morning trains via Lynchburg except Sunday and daily via the longer route via Richmond and Raleigh. A noon train from New York ahead of the Crescent could make it to Charlotte at a more respectable hour. The Carolinian could be extended to Birmingham 8 hrs behing the Crescent; and a morning Charlotte - New Orleans train would be only 4-5 hrs behind the Crescent and balance the New York - Charlotte coverage. I imagine comparable return trips would work.
It would be interesting to see the ridership figures when Southern was operating the “Piedmont” as a Washington-Atlanta day train. They may be a bit dated but it would provide a starting point for the feasibility of such a schedule.
My mistake! I meant extending the Piedmont to Birmingham. Actually, the Piedmont might make it to Montgomery; but then there is the scheduling at Birmingham and Atlanta that I haven’t gotten into yet.
It would be very similar to the Palmetto. I’d figure 16-17 hrs for a ATL - NYP train via the Cresent routing. (The Carolinian goes the long, slow way!) Leave ATL at 7 AM, arrive NYP 11PM, with very respectable arrival times in Northern VA and the bottom end of the NEC.
You could probably do this almost immediately - even if it was a second train on the route, since the NS Piedmont Div isn’t up against any capacity restraints. West of Atlanta, it’s a different story. More service would cost you some additional track.
Harvey: Of course the Montgomery - Charlotte route depends on equipment. However I believe that an Atlanta - LaGrange - Auburn - Montgomery route would be better than going by Birmingham since the Cresent already provides daytime service to ATL _ BHM. An early morning departure from Montgomery (0500) would provide end point commuter riders to Atlanta and then a day trip on to Charlotte and beyond is feasible.
Harvey: Again it comes down to equipment. An Atlanta - Washington train that would go by way of Raleigh - Richmond would only card 1-1/2 hours longer than going by Lynchburgh right now. This train could use part of the now planned Charlotte - Raliegh noon time NCDOT train that is going to start sometime this year. (Save equipment for a while). More importantly this would give for the first time in over 40 years same train service to Raleigh - Richmond for Atlanta passengers. This route would give a much higher concentration of midpoint potential riders. Both short term (equipment restrictions) and mid term considerations need to be thought of. Now since NCDOT and VA have completed most of their initial study of the HSR EIS the reviving of the old SAL Raleigh - Petersburg, Va route may only be 5 - 7 years away. Unfortunately the old SAL Norlinda - Roanoke Rapids SALsecondary that came off the SAL was abandoned by SCL or that route could have been used sooner at least temporarily.
I checked the aerial photos and the xSAL is a veritable snake-path with more and sharper curves than the xACL route. There is no way that the xSAL Petersburg - Raleigh line would ever be suitable for even fast 110 mph service, let alone high speeds. Frequent, and the seemingly most prevalent curves are in the 2-degree range. I’d say the SAL was abandonned with good reason. Even with tilt equipment, only sustained speeds of 80-85 mph with intermittant, more restrictive curve zones would be possible. What are they smoking at the VA and NC DOT’s?
Between Petersburg and Raleigh, the advantage of a shorter distance of 134 miles for the xSAL as compared to 169 for the existing, xACL route is largely overcome by upgrading the existing line to 110 mph. If 10-mile or longer stretches can be fully grade separated, speeds of 125-150 mph may be possible with little curve easement and relocation to shave off a few more minutes. Why spend a lot of moolah to rebuild the SAL line for virtually no improvement? If a new track is needed, why not exploit the flexibility and capacity of a multiple-track mainline?
Harvey: I suggest you go to www.sehsr.org and read the full EIS and also look at the alignment. You will note that the curvers you mention are eased and grade separations planned for. I agree using all the old SAL ROW is not feasible but the plans for that HSR take that into account. BTW reading the whole thing will take several hours so set out a block of time. Note: the color rendition is a little hard to make out on all of the maps.
At the moment I still can’t believe that VA and NC aren’t spending hundreds of millions more than would be needed beyond curve relocation, property acquisition, and dislocation costs.
Illinois found it would cost $0.5 billion just for 100 miles of grade separation for a 125-mph upgrade with no curve relocation. For that kind of money, it would be nice to share with CSX rather than upgrade two separate lines at twice the cost. Or does everyone accept on-going grade crossing collisions at freight lines and the possibility of derailment and release of dangerous and toxic materials? Somebody really must want passenger trains off their tracks!
Okay, I took a look at the Richmond - Raleigh SEHSR study section.
A couple things first: no scale was shown for the alignment overlay aerials and the color coding seemed different at times.
The first thing to strike me about the alignment aerial overlays was how much of the route required realignment and relocation for all speed levels. The diesel options for Charlotte - Atlanta ran from $1.015 billion for 90-110mph to $1.379 billion for 150 mph for 262 miles, a 36% increase. Much of the increase in costs may be attributed to additional grade separation; so there is little difference in the amount of relocation that is needed. The small change in costs favors the faster alternatives where significant ridership increases from 660,000 at 90-110 mph to 1,142,000 for 150 mph, 73%, can be achieved at substantially less cost.
Back to my earlier post: assuming relocation work is comparable north of Raleigh, using the CSX A-Line and upgrading to 110 mph would save around $700 million for the 197 miles. At this point there is no comparison to the existing route as a baseline. At this time there may be no $700 million. If the A-Line could be grade-separated with little or no curve relocation for half as much, $300 million, that might be the better deal.
Harvey: At the bottom of each level 3 map is the scale (on my screen approx 2" = 1000ft) and the color coding of each route (three alternative’s colors and one color for a common alignment) which is hard to make out at first. As far as the all NS alignment is concerned that is not a high traffic density route and AMTRAK’S figures for the Cresent (admittly a night run except north of Charlottesville) do not show many boardings and off loads. There was a reason that tax dollars built I-85 on the Greensboro -Raleigh - Richmond alignment.
I’m worried that since CSX want 3 or 4 tracks on the A - line for their corridor proposal that there would not be enough ROW width to build HSR along side.
Staying at the top of the screen to page though, I missed the legend; but what are the differences between Va-1, Va-2, and Va-3?
I’m not arguing the demand in the I-85 corridor. If anything, that should encourage decision-makers on the need and viability for improved rail passenger service. The only discussion here is how best to achieve that under today’s conditions.
What does CSX need all that capacity for? UP and BNSF transcons each carry much more than CSX according to the traffic density maps published in Trains maybe a year ago. Again, I still think shared tracks offers more flexibility and efficient utilization of assets than separate despite the list of supposed drawbacks - some costs of which result from not playing nice with others.
Harvey: The web site has two states listed NC and VA. Clicking the state map brings up level 1 essentially an overview of each state. Level 2 breaks each states map into sections approx 20+ miles north - south. The level three aerial photos have approx 1-1/4 miles each, The level 2 & 3 Maps are given as a continuation from VA to NC. Level 3 Va being VA001 (located at Richmond Main Street Station) - VA092 (VA-NC border) and NC being NC093 - NC152 (151 covering the old SAL Raleigh and NCDOT Raleigh station).