New Rail Lines Using Interstate Rights-of-Way

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

Sheldon, I agree with much of what you said, aside from limiting trailer length to 35’, and not allowing 53’ trailers and 80,000 GVW’s

Granted, personally I prefer a 48’ trailer to a 53’, and a 40’ is my “Sweet Spot”, but I primarily do regional route deliveries, not Coast to Coast OTR.

I have been a professional driver for over 36 years, and have said for MANY of those years, that there is too much going over the road, that should go by rail, but too many people are too impatient, they want to order Tomorrow, and Get it Yesterday, and the RR’s simply can’t match OTR time wise in the long haul.

That said, there are commodities, perishables, and high value, such as electronics, that do make sense to rubber tire it, and without 80K GVW’s and 53’ trailers, that just doesn’t work.

Also, reducing the GVW’s and trailer lengths, will just increase congestion, road wear, and pollution.

Reducing trailer length and GVW, will just put More trucks on the road, and increase the Tare weight on the roads, with more trucks carrying the same freight. You aren’t likely to get the GVW reduced enough to offset the increased weight of the additional trucks, the weight difference between 35’ and 53’ is fractional, you’re just stretching the box length, which also stretches the bridge length, which reduces the affect of the weight being carried

In Texas, they run 60’ trailers in Intrastate service, because it makes sense, the areas they use them are designed to handle them, and the distances/economy justify them.

Nope, I have less than Zero desire to go to Texas and haul 60’ trailers

Doug

22

And an organized drug ring.

And A 16 year old murdering a 14 yr old.

Attempted robbery of a pharmacy - but the suspect is from Aberdeen, so half credit.

And a Hit and run death of a E-scooter.

I somehow doubt having a high speed rail stop is going to ruin Havre De grace. If the criminals are that desperate, they’ll go to Perryville and hire an Uber.

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23

Not high speed rail. But some higher speed dedicated passenger tracks are possible, especially between some larger cities, instead of just widening the Interstates year after year.

24

One of the tests of the Brennan monorail was that it was stable no matter what the ‘maximum number of riders’ tried to do to get it to tip.

For fun, note that the Brennan worked perfectly happily on a cable strung between two points, even with propped-up support leaving the cable ‘humped’. I admit that made a believer out of me.

I also admit it was not as thoroughly considered and described as the atmospheric-traction system (which among other things was so well written that it convinced Isambard Kingdom Brunel to build it). Perhaps we should reconsider both…

25

Yes, I was being a bit “over the top” with some of that, just because I have grown a bit tired of the idea that somehow we should be more like Europe, or Japan.

And I knew from our previous conversations you are close by, my explanation was for the other readers.

I honestly don’t know the travel habits of the population in general. I have a few friends that travel a lot, and I know people who hardly travel at all outside the region.

I personally have not traveled a great deal in my lifetime. I am well traveled in this region, in most of Appalachia, up and down the east coast and a moderate amount into the upper midwest.

My work or lifestyle has not provided opportunity or need. My desire has been mixed. Cost and time have always been barriers for me. Nearly all my lifetime travel has been by automobile - go where and when you want.

Not with my first wife, or the current wife, have regular annual “vacations” ever been a thing. I can’t even understand why someone goes to a resort in the Caribbean?

I have seen a great many historic homes that can be toured, road a fair number of historic trains that can be rode, been on most of the Museum War Ships on the east coast. I could give you the tour of Gettysburg, or Brunswick, or Harpers Ferry, or Luray…

Been to all the cool historic cities in the east.

But a $10,000 trip to Europe - not happening, no interest.
A trip to New York city - been there a few times, not going back.

Baltimore/Washington/Wilmington/Philly - worked in and around all my life, know my way around pretty well. Go those places when I have a reason, not for the culture or night life.

So maybe I am out of touch with the “need”, or maybe not?

My wife and I recently talked about a train trip just for fun. It was so hard to figure out on the AMTRAK website - I gave up.

Sheldon

26

Get the trucks onto flat cars, and the need to grow the highways will slow down dramatically.

Sheldon

27

Every overpass is going to need to be replaced. It’s not just the height, but any bridge over a divided highway has a pier in the median. It won’t be just exits, but every road or street overpass. Maybe even some railroad overpasses.

Is the railroad going to be single or double track? Are the medians going to be wide enough for a single track? Double track or a siding?

I’m in a van on a divided highway. Coming into Omaha, we lost the grassy meadien for a concrete divider. Where do you go then? The land is pretty well developed in cities along these highways.

Jeff

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28

Sheldon, I feel your immense frustration with Amtrak. I recently explored taking the auto train to florida instead of flying /renting a car. Not only was it a much longer travel time, even with all the airport nonsense, it was much more expensive!

My selfish desire for more accessible, affordable, and higher speed train travel is simply because my partner and I enjoy traveling, we have lots of plans to travel, and I like trains. But its just not a feasible mode of passenger transportation in this country.

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29

Doug, I understand the science and the economy. And I do understand some things need to move by truck.

The shrinking of cars in terms of size and weight has leveled off. But until the civilians learn to drive, bigger trucks mean more dangerous conditions because of the knuckle heads in the cars.

My father was in trucking management most of his life - Baltimore terminal manager for CAROLINA, BRANCH, Philips Bros. He also briefly worked for the Southern Railway in their DC piggyback operation.

But agreed, even if the trucks stayed the same, fewer of them would be a big help.

Sheldon

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30

So this may surprise you, or not. I am 67 years old, and I have only flown on a commercial airline 4 times in my life.

And in my limited experience, I would have to be going more that 1000 miles to ever consider it again.

Travel wise, at my age, there are only a few places outside this region that I might want to go. Trains and airplanes generally go to cities - I have seen enough cities.

When we do travel, we travel in the comfort and performance of our FORD FLEX, 118" wheelbase of comfort, 390hp of twin turbo power, and more comforts than the living room.

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Sheldon

3 Likes
31

We’ve had time after time after time to do that, from Clejan to Kangourou to Fuel Foilers to HPIT and Iron Highway, and it never works. Canadian Pacific had the Expressway, nearly as good an effort as there could be, and ultimately it was given up. The United States is full of little single- and double-track ramps to facilitate trailers on or off flats as part of the Millennium of Better Throughput and… you know… few if any of them get any particular traffic.

32

One of the proposed ‘solutions’ to the Del Mar problem was move the tracks to the I-5 corridor. To SANDAG’s credit, the consultants stated that the I-5 corridor would take much longer and cost much more than the tunnel option. They also mention the I-5 corridor option would also mean that the trains would be running over the bluffs in Del Mar years longer than the tunnel options.

I did get a chuckle out of a NY Times article on this mess. The article fitted my stereotype of an NY Times reporter going someplace out west, explaining the situation from some privileged locals and ignore the much broader picture (i.e. Del Mar is no way representative of San Diego County). I also got a chuckle from a couple of commenters wondering why a couple of the southbound lanes couldn’t be repurposed for the railroad. Notwithstanding the impracticality due to grades and curvature, the response from much of the populous living north of Del Mar would likely be to wait for a major Santa Ana and burn the whole place to the ground if Del Mar succeeded in getting that idiotic proposal approved.

SANDAG == San Diego Association of Governments

33

If you look at the Interstate map, I think you’d find a huge amount of it - perhaps a clear majority - were built parallel to existing railroad lines. Interstate 94 from St. Paul MN to Billings MT pretty much followed the Northern Pacific’s mainline for example.

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34

I would actually disagree here. When I was I Germany this past summer, I took the train from Braunschweig to Hamburg and to Berlin, both times we had stations in small towns of under a couple hundred, I guess there are even some stations that are basically middle of nowhere but serve the farmers there quite well. I feel like we have a different lifestyle but not in the way of urban areas, but rather one of car-centric design and society. This said I do love cars and think they will always serve a use, especially on something like a camping trip or road trip.
My suggestion is that we have Regional or state train lines that are interconnected to one another that way there will be more places people want to go and this way the ridership will increase if you can go to anywhere in your state in half the time. And in Europe they have different levels of train service with Regional trains being the lowest and slowest. I believe it is more possible than people in the states realize, at least outside of monetary terms. That is another story and one that I do not have enough experience in.

35

The problem is that the railroads anymore refuse to even look for smaller shippers or receivers to do business with. When the last glass plant in my town stopped needing 3 cars of sand a day in the 80s due to the rise of plastic bottles and containers BN literally stopped serving the plant entirely. Which led to the local pressure treatment plant that got 4 loads a week of lumber losing service.

Now that line is nothing more than car storage for covered hoppers. Even when frac sand was in huge demand in Pennsylvania rather than hauling the cars loaded with the sand down this line instead NS built a transload facility to get it off of trucks that make a 20 mile trip that the freaking former BN line used to service.

36

Out west they run doubles and sometimes triples on the interstates.

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37

Welcome to the forum, John_Antill!

38

Welcome on board, John_Antill.

David

39

Welcome on board, John_Antill!

40

To some extent I think there’s sort of a false premise here. That is, that the interstate highways go where people need to go.

Before any such undertaking, the first thing to do is look at the flight destinations from cities along such a proposed path. I can tell you from our local airport, those destination are not anywhere along the interstate routes.

When it comes to driving destinations in my state, the cities along the interstates are not far apart. You can drive across the entire state in 5 hours 40 minutes (distance of 388 miles) at the speed limit, according to Google Maps. Amtrak is not time competitive today, and even with faster trains, which would stop at stations outside of the population centers in the cities it passes, it may still not be faster overall. The only people who would benefit are the people who pass through the state on their way somewhere else.

Having said that, I think the best use of transportation money is local mass transit. Going somewhere on vacation that doesn’t require a car is awesome. No driving on unfamiliar roads, no dealing with parking or finding a gas station. Whether it’s rail based or road based, public or resort shuttles, it’s quite liberating to drop the “I have to have a car” mindset.

1 Like