A reformulated new NEC plan with defined phases and a lower price tag:
Hoping Amtrak will post more details later today on their web site. But, from how it seems in the article, this makes more sense than their previous $170B do-it-all-at-once proposal. Amtrak needs to make this kind of thing their core competency.
-----oops! The original plan was $117B, not 170, so new plan is more, not less. Still, it has rational, integrated steps.
I know there are professional psychologists on this board, but unless you are one of them please keep your opinions about “sanity” to yourself. The rest of us have opinions abut Amtrak that are quite different from yours, and from the standpoint of a national transportation system, of public goods, they are quite a bit more sane than yours, in my layman psychologist’s opinion.
Philiadelphia enquirer has an article.
USA ARTICLE
AMTRAK news release click on below then click on NEC improved RAIL PLAN.
OK. I fixed it. it’s objective now.
But, I am a professional railroad manager, so I guess that gives me the right to pass judgment on Amtrak’s actions, no? Should I call your credentials into question? I’d rather not.
Your “credentials” apply to whatever narrow field it is you professionally manage, nothing more. They do NOT make you an expert on how our national transportation system, or even our rail passenger system, should be structured. And we don’t know if you are even good at it, I have known plenty of managers who, shall we say, are not the brightest bulbs.
As for my credentials, I am a professor of Political Economy and have a PhD related to Political Economy. I wouldn’t claim that those facts make me an “expert” on national transportation policy either, but then I am humble enough not to try to tell everyone that they are “insane” to disagree with me.
BTW, now that I see you changed your titled to “rational thinking”: my doctoral dissertation is a critique of “rational choice” theory in the social sciences, I sort of can claim credentials on theories of rationality.
The article stirs several thoughts:
Why does the country need a 220 mph passenger railroad in the NEC or anywhere else for that matter? With a top speed of 160 mph, as I understand it, the running time from Philadelphia to New York will be cut to 62 minutes, with a corresponding cut, presumably, in the Washington to New York market. The Acela competes favorably against commercial air. If we can believe Amtrak’s numbers, it has the lion’s share of the rail/air market today.
Stretching out the investment makes sense, but it also increases the risk of getting the revenue, cost, and ridership projections wrong. Seriously wrong! The proponents of the California High Speed railway project have had to revise all three number sets several times. Their estimate of the cost, even after the recent pull back, is nearly double the original cost.
“Amtrak says the costs of building the new rail system would be offset by 40,000 construction jobs a year for 25 years, 22,000 new permanent jobs, and increased revenue and productivity for East Coast employers.” I would like to see the studies that came up with these figures. Ultimately, the cost of the 40,000 construction jobs will be capitalized. An investor owned business would have to earn a return on the capital investment as well as cover the operating costs. The numbers for a variety of high speed projects as reported by the GAO, as well as my review of several overseas operator’s financial statements, shows that there is little likelihood of recapturing the capital costs through the fare box. Moreover, developing the correlation statistics to prove a relationship between improved passenger rail in the NEC and a corporation’s financial results attributable to higher productivity would be a huge challenge.
Each year I download the President’s proposed budget from the OMB and place the key numbers in a spreadsheet. Based on my experience in corporate planning, amongst other things, I don’t b
Come on guys, the “sanity” bit of Don’s was just a figure of speech. In any case, speaking as one of the several psychologists on these forums, it’s actually a legal term, not a clinical one.
Right, and keep our monitor in mind, who lately has begun to weary of our passenger conversations between midnight and 1 a.m.
AMTRAK ISSUED A NEW VISION REPORT FOR A MORE DETAILED REPORT THAN THE NEWS RELEASE.
click on vision report ( 1st item )
Now to sam1 points.
[quote user=“Sam1”]
The article stirs several thoughts:
Why does the country need a 220 mph passenger railroad in the NEC or anywhere else for that matter? With a top speed of 160 mph, as I understand it, the running time from Philadelphia to New York will be cut to 62 minutes, with a corresponding cut, presumably, in the Washington to New York market. The Acela competes favorably against commercial air. If we can believe Amtrak’s numbers, it has the lion’s share of the rail/air market today.
Stretching out the investment makes sense, but it also increases the risk of getting the revenue, cost, and ridership projections wrong. Seriously wrong! The proponents of the California High Speed railway project have had to revise all three number sets several times. Their estimate of the cost, even after the recent pull back, is nearly double the original cost.
“Amtrak says the costs of building the new rail system would be offset by 40,000 construction jobs a year for 25 years, 22,000 new permanent jobs, and increased revenue and productivity for East Coast employers.” I would like to see the studies that came up with these figures. Ultimately, the cost of the 40,000 construction jobs will be capitalized.
, I don’t believe that one can project data for more than five years with any degree of accuracy.
5, No, I am not anti-passenger rail. If I were I would not participate in these forums. I am for improving corridors services where feasi
What makes this rational is that you don’t HAVE to do any of the 220 mph new alignment. The project is phased in steps. If you get to 2030 and you are going 160 mph and capacity on the transportation network in the northeast is acceptable, then you can push the 220 stuff out or off the table.
The jobs pitch for any project is a red herring. You always want to get a project done for the least amount of material and labor. You want to make jobs? You can pay guys to dig ditches and then fill them back in again and pay them for it. It’s only good if the jobs you create provide the maximum good for the bucks.
Looks like they are modernizing the existing corridor first, adding capacity to the pinch points and hitting the slow spots. Each piece can rise and fall on it’s own when they go make their pitch for capital money.
I also think it’s good to have the end-game sketched out so the pieces you build along the way can fit together.
Imagine if California had thought this way about their HSR project…
[(-D][(-D][(-D]
As long as a discussion stays “cool” and each contribution actually adds to the issue, there is no reason for a moderator to step in.
Now on topic:
Even in Europe, HSR in excess of 200 mph is not implemented, when there is no need for it. When DB revamped the line from Hamburg to Berlin, they decided to lower the standards down to 125 mph, as the difference in traveling time were negligible (< 10 minutes). The savings were considerable.
When the line was opened in 1846, traveling time between those two cities was about 9 hrs. By 1914, the time was down to 2 hrs. 15 minutes. The introduction of “high speed” diesel cars in the 1930´s resulted in a cut down by 30 minutes. Today´s ICE trains do the 180 mile jump in about 100 minutes.
On a side note, some of the discussions about passenger service and HSR remind me of arguments exchanged during the childhood days of railroads. When the king of Prussia was asked to grant state financing a line from Berlin to Potsdam (his summer residency), he turned the request down with the words, " Don´t see a necessity to be in Potsdam an hour earlier".
DON; You state so much better my thoughts. The use of each piece to go together was an eye opener from when I read the 2010 report. Filling in one leg at a time makes sense and allows the planners to see how much ridership gains if any will happen with the next.
It appears that changing routing to Hartford - Providence - Boston is a better idea ?
since the brunswick - trenton upgrade is already in the works the first piece is now started.
I would like to see an item by item breakdown of the costs but I believe the primary costs of the project to be the price tag on the expensive capacity improvements vs the higher speeds. Namely the two new tunnels into NY as well as expanding the number of tracks. Last I heard (and this is probably wrong), 30% of NEC track capacity was other operators besides Amtrak (Freight and Commuter). That capacity constraint was keeping Amtrak ticket prices high in some markets. So I think Amtrak should break down the costs more so folks can see how many Billions go for what part of the investment.
Oh and one more comment. Higher Speeds does mean higher capacity on the track. So it should be outlined where on the NEC the trains are slowed to below 110 mph and why they are slowed below that speed limit AND more importantly if those areas will be addressed first. Pretty sure the NEC trains are not flying across all the bridges at 120 mph because some of those bridges are ancient and should have been replaced decades ago.
I read the Amtrak news release and scanned thru the 2012 Vision Report, and noted that they will make electrical improvements including constant tension cat. I didn’t see anything on changing from 25 Hz to 60 Hz. Is that going to happen?
that question was not answered to my satisfaction. IMHO there certainly should be consideration to do that. All the 25 Hz comes from PRR construction. There would be power savings from not having to run rotary converters or solid state converters. another benefit would be that power conversion transformers are much heavier for 25 Hz and dual frequency rather than just 60 Hz transformers. for the last few years all new AMTRAK power supply and 138 kv to 12 kv transformers are dual frequency. The transformers on AMTRAK motors are dual frequency. ALPs & most EMU’s on NJ TRANSIT are dual frequency. SEPTA’S motors unknown & Silverliner - 4s are unknown but silverliner - 5s are dual frequency.
It is unknown if SEPTA’s motors are dual frequency or just 25 Hz.
MN RR M-8s are supposedly 60 Hz only ( also DC third rail capable ).
The reason these 2 frequencys work so well is the CAT voltage for 25 Hz is 12 Kv and 60 Hz is 12.5 Kv. Some of the above equipment that can use 12.5 kv 60 Hz have center tapped transformers for that voltage and can be end tapped for 25 kv 60 Hz. The CAT itself needs no modification since its voltage capacity is almost 14 kv.
Problems for conversion to 60 Hz for AMTRAK are many. many circuit breakers and many transformers cannot handle the 60 Hz. the PRR signal system is powered by using frequency multipliers to double & redouble 25 Hz to 100 Hz . Maybe rotary converters can provide 25 Hz to the frequency multipliers ? AMTRAK is insalling 60 Hz
Blue Streak, Metro North (NH) and NJT have already converted to 60 Hz. Did things happen during those conversions to scare Amtrak off?
No – MN RR conversion occurred during a ridership lull where they converted their rolling stock over a 2 week period. Had some gliches but were pushed to change due to COS COB 25Hz power station way past service life.
NJ TRANSIT. – converted DC Lackwanna system CAT ( many weekends ) and all new power stations added. Henry can tell us how long it took? Many of NJ EMUs require a switch thrown on the outside to operate 25 or 60 Hz. Manhatten direct trains change on the fly as well as ersey shore trains. Trenton trains are all 25 Hz