Why should the Northeast have all the fun and money? How can we just miss 1/4 the US population between NY and Chicago via Upstate NY and Ohio and not have high speed trains? What would the middle of PA look like if the PRR had not run out of money and wired the Keystone thru Horseshoe Tunnel all the way to Cleveland? Since we can only afford one or the other there are 11 Citys over 100,000 people on the Water Leval Route but the route thru Pittsburgh is faster and growth due to such a line might make up for it. Current proposals for Midwest High Speed rail are increamental. Let us either electrifie current NYC or PRR routes track and then up grade tracks later or as needed.
What do you propose to use for money?
5 questions for you. First how do you propose to pay for this private public partnerships or make the railroads pay for it via an unfunded mandate. 2nd how will you maintain doublestack clearence for the freight railroads plus allow for overhead unloading of IM containers and trailers. 3rd what will the power source be for the engines. Will it be coal nuclear natural gas or green power. 4th are you talking new consturction or using exsisting ROW’s. Lastly how are you going to grade separate all those crossings.
Wall money.
Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Proposed in 1905 as a 742 mile, straight-line, high speed route, without crossings; estimated ten hours travel time at a cost of ten dollars. Just under twenty miles, between La Porte and Chesterton, were constructed, 1906-1911.
http://www.howderfamily.com/blog/chicago-ny-railroad/
Over 110 years of waiting and still not likely to happen anytime soon.
Balt, that’s hilarious! [Y]
Show up with a few lawyers, engineers, and lots of money. (Compare https://genius.com/Warren-zevon-lawyers-guns-and-money-lyrics )
Huge costs, and not much benefit from even fuel savings; too much flat terrain needing only partial power from the locos, which are there only for ‘peak’ needs. So it’s not justified by the economics - cost/ benefit, rate of return, etc.
- PDN.
PRR didn’t ‘run out of money,’ they observed falling passenger volume early and saw a perfectly good solution for far less cost in diesel-electrics – this still holds good for any future NYC-Chicago service on normal tracks. The predominant use of PRR electrification Harrisburg to Pittsburgh (no particular need to take it to “Cleveland” on PRR) was to be freight, and while there is substantial ‘bang’ for electrification there it is not something that existing diesel power can’t handle at orders of magnitude lower fixed charges.
It’s easier than that. A major part of the PRR line to Chicago is essentially gone, and has been for some time. There is little point in pretending the capital is there to restore it to even HrSR speeds, let alone constant-tension wire it.
Meanwhile there WAS a comparable plan to wire some of the Water Level Route – anone remember that full-page cut of the electric locomotive that otherwise went unmentioned in Kiefer’s 1947 report on motive power? – but there again ‘Dieseliners’ did anything required (and it might be mentioned that, had a need for sustained 120+ running been needed at that time, there were designs of Diesel that would have accommodated it, probably including the Ingalls lightweights with Bowes drive).
It is possible that, given the congestion on parts of what used to be the Water Level Route, some of the operating efficiency of electrification for freight that was observed on PRR in the six-track region in New Jersey might be observable in those
The currently-named “Chicago Line” through NY was heavily grade-separated by the NYC, although there are still crossings on the line.
It was originally also mostly, if not all, four-track - two freight, two passenger. So the geography is mostly available there, even through cities. At least for one more track.
There would be dozens of small issues to contend with, however - places where connections branch off to the north or south, locations of stations, the aforementioned crossings, etc.
I was talking with someone last night who noted that they can drive to NYC from here almost as quickly as taking the train right now. This might change their minds (I never did ask them about parking in the “City…”)
But the bottom line is still funding, and the ROI, even if adjusted for the whole public use thing.
Almost as quickly?
In 1969, my father dropped me off at Penn Station 10 minutes before Metroliner time. He then made it out of the City, down to Silver Spring to pick up a couple of people, then back in (and get parked) to meet us at the platform as we came in. And we were moving at 100mph a considerable part of the way…
Most people taking the train from New York to Chicago don’t start anywhere near GCT or – even all the ones boarding at intermediate points – finish anywhere near Union Station. I believe it’s getting to where even airplane speed doesn’t outweigh the time and complexity of having to rent vehicles to get from origin point to the ‘mass’ high-speed transport, and then again to the ultimate destination point, within the envelope of ‘straight driving’ time … at with at least one, perhaps two orders of magnitude cost saving for the marginal cost of the driving. Just taking parts of the trip up to 110mph (and destroying normal sleeper comfort in the process) isn’t going to fix anything other than surplus budgeted funds for infrastructure development. You’ll have to make 1000-mile nonexhausting day trips a practical reality, at no more than airline cost – that can be done, but not with incremental excuses that ultimately turn out to provide only a few pathetic minutes actual time improvement. You could also develop practical ‘business sleeper class’ of some kind workable for an overnight trip in this particular corridor, as has been brought up a few times especially in some V. Payne threads. But again this won’t involve disseminated patches of raggedy 110mph on concrete ties…
What I am proposing that the Trans-Con Power Grid move over one of the Eastern 2 trans-con railroads either PRR Keystone or the NYC Water Leval Route. The New York Power Authority has a power line from Niagara Falls that shadows the Water Leval Route. By moving the power line they free up land for other uses and have high speed clean rail at the same time.
HSR is not 100 -110 MPH running. If you can’t do 150-175 MPH for sustained distances you are wasting HSR funding.
There is an old discussion involving this, with similarity to co-location of cellular data radio antennas to powerline ROW. At least one powerline, in the New Jersey ‘meadowlands’, was specifically built along a railroad ROW with bridges for catenary included. with the specific intent of reducing the subsequent cost of electrification.
The problem then, and the problem now, is that there are safety issues involved with co-locating HVAC longlines with train traffic. Some issues that might concern power companies will be addressed by the civil enforcement provisions in PTC once that is active and debugged, but the risk involved with derailments around 132kV and higher structure is a significant problem, as may be the suppression of electric field in the track structure.
MC is likely to have considerable knowledge of this subject and historical approaches to it.
There are many miles of “overbuild” of (former) Philadelphia Electric Co./ PECo transmission lines over former both PRR and Reading electrified lines in the Philadelphia area. There may be others elsewhere in the NorthEast Corridor (NEC), but I’m not familiar enough with them to say for sure.
Link to one of my photos of some of the more spectacular ones:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48838227@N02/4478124502/in/dateposted-public/
Also, the railroad’s own transmission and distribution system for its electrification is often 132 kV and is often on the catenary towers as well (PRR & RDG).
As it happens, there have been several major derailments under such systems, fortunately AFAIK with no terrible effects on the High Voltage AC transmission system above. In chronological order: PRR Congressional Limited at Frankford Jct./ Phila., PA in 1943; Amtrak Colonial (?) at Chase, MD in 1987; and Amtrak 188 (?) also at Frankford Jct. in 2015.
- PDN.
I am guessing that PRR/PC/Amtrak Power Directors had a ‘quick handle’ on shutting off the power once notified of the derailments mentioned.
If outside parties were in control of 132Kv & higher transmission lines along a right of way, cutting the power and the consequences of cutting the power may be very different.
A closer look at the overhead Cat. on the NE Corridor shows that the intercity high voltage wire is on the upper brakets and the power wire is below.
The former PRR Chicago - New York mainline is still definitely there save for the small portion around Tolleston, IL. CFE operates the mainline as far east as Crestline, OH.
Tolleston is in Indiana.
The former PRR main between Fort Wayne and Chicago still exists but much of it is single track and not even remotely suitable for high-speed operation. It was already being downgraded to somewhere between a secondary main and a long branch line under Conrail management.