The Keystone West High Speed Rail Study, a PennDOT/FRA report reviewing alternatives for increased Pittsburgh-Harrisburg passenger service that was recently released for comments, is posted on Western Pennsylvanians for Passenger Rail’s (WPPR) website, www.wpprrail.org. Comments should be sent to keystonewest@planthekeystone.com by March 31. Also posted is WPPR’s response to PennDOT.
As someone who lives in State College, the Tyrone to State College spur is way too much wishfull thinking. It seems to think that the students and other travelers would be agreeable to take the bus west to Tyrone even if they were actually wanting to go east to Philly and NYC or south from Harrisburg to Baltimore and DC (east and southeast is where a significant majority of the students are traveling to and from). That’s not going to happen due to the aditional 90 miles if one travels west to Tyrone, then heads east to Harrisburg. However, they could try connecting buses to both the Lewistown station [for east bound] and Tyrone [west bound].
By far most of the student travel to and from State College takes place on Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings. Those 2 days there are special dedicated buses to and from State College serving the major communities, usually non-stop, that would beat or equal the travel times by train and at a lower ticket price. As for the weekday service, there are local greyhound buses between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh via State College that do take awhile due to frequent stops. However, there is also Mega Bus which has expreses running non-stop between NYC and State College over I-80 and then non-stop on to Pittsburgh and vice versa. Connections are made in State College to Mega Buses going to/from Philly, stopping only in Harrisburg.
The biggest western Pa passenger railproblem is the loss of population. PA dropped all attempts year ago in regards to building a higher-speed rail service between Philly and Pittsburgh due to the population loss in the Pittsburgh and surrounding area.
What might be possible would be to extend one more of the NYC to Harrisburg corridor trains to go on to Pittsburgh and return. Bus service between State College and Lewistown could again be resurrected to see if the east to and from traffic would justify it, while the same wou
[quote user=“alphas”]
As someone who lives in State College, the Tyrone to State College spur is way too much wishfull thinking. It seems to think that the students and other travelers would be agreeable to take the bus west to Tyrone even if they were actually wanting to go east to Philly and NYC or south from Harrisburg to Baltimore and DC (east and southeast is where a significant majority of the students are traveling to and from). That’s not going to happen due to the aditional 90 miles if one travels west to Tyrone, then heads east to Harrisburg. However, they could try connecting buses to both the Lewistown station [for east bound] and Tyrone [west bound].
By far most of the student travel to and from State College takes place on Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings. Those 2 days there are special dedicated buses to and from State College serving the major communities, usually non-stop, that would beat or equal the travel times by train and at a lower ticket price. As for the weekday service, there are local greyhound buses between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh via State College that do take awhile due to frequent stops. However, there is also Mega Bus which has expreses running non-stop between NYC and State College over I-80 and then non-stop on to Pittsburgh and vice versa. Connections are made in State College to Mega Buses going to/from Philly, stopping only in Harrisburg.
The biggest western Pa passenger railproblem is the loss of population. PA dropped all attempts year ago in regards to building a higher-speed rail service between Philly and Pittsburgh due to the population loss in the Pittsburgh and surrounding area.
What might be possible would be to extend one more of the NYC to Harrisburg corridor trains to go on to Pittsburgh and return. Bus service between State College and Lewistown could again be resurrected to see if the east to and from traf
More train frequency would be a major step forward followed by incremental improvement in train speed, much like what the state of pa did with the key stone service between Philly and Harrisburg.
Convenient train service in nw pa is non existent. The Pennsylvanian needs to be extended to Cleveland and or Detroit, connecting those two markets plus Pittsburgh to NEC corridor. An early empire state train needs to be extended to Cleveland, giving Cleveland and Erie pa a daylight train to NYC.
Why connect a group of cities in population decline (and already served) to the east coast when there are booming metro areas (Houston, Dallas, Phoenix) with little or no service where corridor services could be viable?
I would disagree on Detroit as I used to live and work there. That city is NOT a goner as everyone thinks, because of it’s excellent geographic location it could easily revive and grow to two to three times it’s current population. You just need honest people with integrity in Detroit City Hall and it looks like bankruptcy might achieve that. I am really impressed with what I have seen so far with Detroit attempting to bounce back. Detroit has huge potential for a major rebound. On that note the Michigan investment in the Chicago to Detroit corridor is a very wise investment if Detroit can pull off it’s rebound…which I am optimistic it will.
Detroit to Albany, NY and Detroit to Toronto could once again be booming rail passenger corridors. Though I might say that Windsor,ONT to Toronto isn’t half bad with current VIA Rail service. They just need to bring it under the river to rehabbed MC Depot…which btw, is getting new windows frames and glass panes in an effort to seal the inside from the outside weather and prevent more deterioration.
Invest in infra structure and they will come. Cleveland has made great strides over the past 20 years. Well on its way to rebirth as has Pittsburgh. Those two cities are not in decline.
I am not discounting the needs of other areas of the country. Just addressing the needs of nw pa and the north coast.
Detroit already supports 3 corridor trains per day (to CHI). A Houston-Dallas corridor train has already failed. Seems like you should run trains where people want to use them.
Three trains from Detroit to Chicago is fine. Unfortunately it adds about 24 hours to Detroit to NYC or DC trip. Thier has not been a direct Detroit to NYC train since the early 70’s. For years Pittsburgh - Cleveland- Detroit regional service has been discussed. In reality Amtrak had never provided any city west of buffola any kind of service except the middle of the night lake shore. Even with this poor scheduling the train has been well received
I would be all for a DET-CLE-PIT corridor train, but at the present time Ohio won’t pay for trains. Same problem with CLE-NY. Having the states pick up the costs of corridor trains seems like a good idea, until they don’t.
Doesn’t mean we don’t keep pressure on the powers to be until the won’t becomes we will.
It doesn’t have to be a state supported train. I am sure you remember when the Pennsylvanian was an nyc-pit-cle- chi train and when the lake shore was reincarnated as a state supported train. The status quo can change based on need and public policy.
Never give up keep on pushing. If we gave up in 1971 the only NYC to chi train would have been the old broadway limited. The water level route was declared dead may 1 1971.
Note that some of the route from Baltimore north to Harrisburg is now used by Baltimore Light Rail system. A scenic ride. Hard to imagine Amtrak sharing the racks or RoW, but anything is possible.
IMO, that was a mistake. Losing that heavy rail corridor and building light rail on it.
There is a lot of commuters that travel daily from the southern end of PA into Baltimore (cheaper cost of living north of the mason - dixon line). That is a place that I think could benefited and made use of a heavy commuter rail line. But we would need to toss the LRVs off the Northern Central portion of their route.
Given that the RoW from CHI to DET is increasingly 110 mph, perhaps continue east through Canada to Buffalo and NY as the old Wolverine did in NYC days?
[quote user=“alphas”]
As someone who lives in State College, the Tyrone to State College spur is way too much wishfull thinking. It seems to think that the students and other travelers would be agreeable to take the bus west to Tyrone even if they were actually wanting to go east to Philly and NYC or south from Harrisburg to Baltimore and DC (east and southeast is where a significant majority of the students are traveling to and from). That’s not going to happen due to the aditional 90 miles if one travels west to Tyrone, then heads east to Harrisburg. However, they could try connecting buses to both the Lewistown station [for east bound] and Tyrone [west bound].
By far most of the student travel to and from State College takes place on Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings. Those 2 days there are special dedicated buses to and from State College serving the major communities, usually non-stop, that would beat or equal the travel times by train and at a lower ticket price. As for the weekday service, there are local greyhound buses between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh via State College that do take awhile due to frequent stops. However, there is also Mega Bus which has expreses running non-stop between NYC and State College over I-80 and then non-stop on to Pittsburgh and vice versa. Connections are made in State College to Mega Buses going to/from Philly, stopping only in Harrisburg.
The biggest western Pa passenger railproblem is the loss of population. PA dropped all attempts year ago in regards to building a higher-speed rail service between Philly and Pittsburgh due to the population loss in the Pittsburgh and surrounding area.
What might be possible would be to extend one more of the NYC to Harrisburg corridor trains to go on to Pittsburgh and return. Bus service between State College and Lewistown could again be resurrected to see if the east to and from traf
Because it is so much easier when you already have your foot in the door AND when one end of the route is in the NEC.
Doing corridor extensions in the east is much easier than trying “greenfield” corridors elsewhere.
I’m not familiar with the Canadian side, but I understand the old Canada Southern (NYC) is almost entirely abandoned. I suppose they could use the Via routes thru the Hamilton area. Nevertheless, crossing the border twice, and so much Canadian milage would seem to be problems.
On secnd thought. there are German transit systems where light rail does share tracks with regular passenger and freight rail, and with proper design and equipment, so could the Baltimore Northern RofW. Karlsburg was the pioneer in this, and one route shares tracks with tracks used by high-speed trains (although not the super-speed portion of their route).
In the USA, note Cleveland’s sharing of tracks between the ex-Shaker Heights system lines and the Windemeer - Airport heavy rapid transit line.
Trains using Cleveland union terminal never shared tracks with either the shaker hieghts rapid or the CTS rapids. The shaker and the CTS did share the tracks from about east 55 the street west to union terminal. They used the tracks that were for interurban lines that were out of business by the time the terminal was opened.
The " steam railroads" as they know as had thier own tracks.
The two rapid lines and the steam railroads shared the same right of way but not the same tracks
Below are links to WPPR’s comments submitted to PennDOT about the Keystone West High Speed Rail Study as well as the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership/WPPR report, On Track to Accessibility (OTTA), that discusses the estimated benefits and costs of three daily Pittsburgh-New York trains. OTTA emphasizes that increased service frequency, rather than slight increases in speed proposed in the study’s alternatives, would be the way to achieve the greatest ridership gains in the most cost-effective manner.
http://www.wpprrail.org/Keystone%20West%20Study%20comments.doc
http://www.wpprrail.org/On%20Track%20to%20Accessibility%20Report%20and%20Cover%20Letter.pdf