You are the prez of Amtrak and, for the next 5 years, Congress has found an extra $2B for you to spend on expansion. (total of $10B over 5 years)
Keeping in mind, you’ll have to “bank” some of the capital in order to cover on-going operating expenses.
Here are the typical costs for doing a new, 350 mile corridor on existing ROW in a rather “average” part of the eastern USA. How much of which would you choose to build? Why?
Well, the 2-train 79 MPH service wins hands down. The operating expenses and ridership all seem proportional, but the boost to 90 MPH and then the boost to 110 MPH, hoo boy does that suck up all of the capital.
Apart from the glamor of the 110 MPH train, here are the things going for the 79 MPH. It takes so much less capital improvement that I can take my pot of money and spread it around, serving more routes, communities and more people and getting a bigger political base to support future expenditures. The second thing is that the real business may be in closer city pairs within that 350 mile corridor, so the shaving of a few minutes for a 50-90 mile trip may be of minor consequence. The higher speeds of 90 or 110 MPH may give bragging rights, but depending on whether I have Acela-style HP/ton and what the terminal speed limits and other slow zones, that higher peak speed may only confer bragging rights and not much in the way of quicker trip times. Finally, (you knew this was coming), the 90 or 110 MPH may pay a big fuel consumption penalty unless you have a highly streamlined train, and in the era of 4 dollar gasoline, bragging rights on fuel usage may be an important public policy issue to pin down continued funding for operation of the trains.
But here is the thing. You compare 2-train 79 MPH against 4 and 6-train 90 and 110 MPH, and I don’t have a clear picture of what is restricting 79 MPH ops to 2-trains per day. Would increasing the number of trains per day require a much higher capital budget for more sidings, crossovers, or double tracking on account of the freight train traffic? Is 2 trains at 79 MPH what the freight railroad would consider without major upgrades to the line, and that either higher frequency or higher speed starts to cost the big bucks?
Given a choice of things my priorities are 1) getting the frequency up because more trains per day allows for flexibility that is at the heart of mode choices, 2) solve the freig
Well, the 2-train 79 MPH service wins hands down. The operating expenses and ridership all seem proportional, but the boost to 90 MPH and then the boost to 110 MPH, hoo boy does that suck up all of the capital.
Apart from the glamor of the 110 MPH train, here are the things going for the 79 MPH. It takes so much less capital improvement that I can take my pot of money and spread it around, serving more routes, communities and more people and getting a bigger political base to support future expenditures. The second thing is that the real business may be in closer city pairs within that 350 mile corridor, so the shaving of a few minutes for a 50-90 mile trip may be of minor consequence. The higher speeds of 90 or 110 MPH may give bragging rights, but depending on whether I have Acela-style HP/ton and what the terminal speed limits and other slow zones, that higher peak speed may only confer bragging rights and not much in the way of quicker trip times. Finally, (you knew this was coming), the 90 or 110 MPH may pay a big fuel consumption penalty unless you have a highly streamlined train, and in the era of 4 dollar gasoline, bragging rights on fuel usage may be an important public policy issue to pin down continued funding for operation of the trains.
But here is the thing. You compare 2-train 79 MPH against 4 and 6-train 90 and 110 MPH, and I don’t have a clear picture of what is restricting 79 MPH ops to 2-trains per day. Would increasing the number of trains per day require a much higher capital budget for more sidings, crossovers, or double tracking on account of the freight train traffic? Is 2 trains at 79 MPH what the freight railroad would consider without major upgrades to the line, and that either higher frequency or higher speed starts to cost the big bucks?
Given a choice of things my priorities are 1) getting the frequency up because more trains per day allows for flexibility that is at the heart of m
Paul, it is unfortunate that you are not the Governor of Ohio or Texas. I’d like to see a basic Heartland Flyer type train put in place between Cleveland and Cincinnati, as well as Houston and DFW. Run them for a couple of years to see if passengers show up, and then increase spending if they do.
I took Econ 101 and Econ 102 at Northwestern University, and if there was only one thing I remember 30 years later, it is the law of diminishing marginal returns.
That 79 MPG gets you 60 MPH average is really good – I think the Hiawatha is exceptional in being able to do that. The 90 MPH at 70 MPH avg seems fair, if it didn’t cost so much, but the 110 MPH to get 72 MPH avg is purely a question of bragging rights.
60 MPH average is a “Hiawatha” that takes 1 Hr 16 Min, 70 MPH is 1 Hr 14 Min, 72 MPH is 1 Hr 12 min. I try to tell people that the Hiawatha length of 80-100 miles is the “sweet spot” of corridor rail, and here those big bucks would save 4 minutes.
The other thing, what is the Hiawatha right now, 1 Hr 35 Min? I ran some simulations of 110 MPH operation, assuming the same terminal slow zones and reasonable HP/ton, and I came up with 1 Hr 15 Min – the Wis DOT guy said their study said 1 Hr 10 Min. We got people here who want to make “Chicago Milwaukee in 1 Hr, Chicago Madison in 2 Hrs” a talking point, but if they want to be accurate, it is more like “Chicago Milwaukee in 1:15, Chicago Madison in 2:30”, which is not the same thing.
I still would push for the 4 trains/day if I could – it is more efficient with the equipment as it needs 4 train sets plus one spare instead of 2 train sets plus one spare.
How effective do you think the Interstate Highway System would be if they had just widened the existing roads?
Under President Eisenhower, they took a clean piece of paper and planned new routes. They eliminated low overpasses, steep hills, intersections, and sharp curves. The Feds paid for 90% of the construction and the states agreed to maintain them once they were built.
I think it’s sad that we in this country are deciding whether or not we can afford to save 15 minutes on a three hour trip by going from 79 to 110 MPH, while the rest of the world’s trains are upgrading to 250.
If we ever figure out that oil is a finite resource and find other ways to generate electricity, trains won’t need to use any fossil fuel at all. None of the other transportation media, passenger or freight, have the ability to run total electric.
It is so easy to be glib saying “penny wise and pound foolish” when you are spending someone elses tax dollars. Only you aren’t spending someone elses tax dollars because that someone else isn’t parting with the money.
Don Oltmann’s question was, you are going to get 10 billion dollars over the next 5 years, how will you spend it? Will you spend it on a limited amount of medium speed trains (110 MPH) or spread it around on a larger amount of conventional speed trains (79 MPH). The question is not a strawman argument – if that legislation ever gets out of committee in the House, some Amtrak president will be faced with that question. Forget being mad at President Bush because with 70-30 margin in the Senate, the bill is veto proof if it ever comes up for a vote.
The analogy of plunging head first into a high-speed rail network with the Interstate Highways is completely weak. Our local advocacy group has this poster we put up every year at the annual model railroad show, “Let’s Build Interstate II.” No, such a high-speed rail network would be nothing like an “Interstate II” because there is nothing like the network of local roads, state and Federal highways to feed into it.
The Interstate Highway was a smash hit because of the high rates of auto ownership and the network of roads feeding it. What is going to feed Interstate Highway II? The system of mass parking ramps, rental cars, and taxi concessions feeding the air transportation system? A Federally-subsidized bus network? Commuter and light rail? Where should the high-speed rail go that there is this supporting infrastructure or likelihood of getting that infrastructure?
I guess the answer is that if “we” get 10 billion dollars for major capital projects anytime soon, we are going to sit around in a snit that we didn’t get the committment to the 350 billion of the Vision report. And if we get the 3
The Interstate Highway Act(s) Congress passed in 1956 and following are just as you say, but originally, the Eisenhower Administration had envisioned something different: a sytem of interstate toll roads from city’s edge to city’s edge.
Actually, the original Chicago Skyway (1953 IIRC) was like that: it ended at Stony Island Boulevard, a true boulevard that hooks onto a drive thru Grant Park and then South Lake Shore Drive downtown. It wasn’t until later that it fed onto the Dan Ryan (not until 1962 or later because the Dan Ryan wasn’t opened until 1962).
I wonder how much different American life would be if we hadn’t “enabled” so many metro areas with ring superhighways and spurs running downtown that seemed always to take the apartments of the poor. Perhaps we would be living in a more balanced system of transportation with fewer suburbanite
Nothing glib about it. If you put a 20 mile per hour bandaid on the system you might as well set the ten billion dollar pile of money on fire & roast hot dogs over it.
It’s like buying one very expensive TV ad and the saying “See? It didn’t help my business a bit.” If you are not going to invest in an ad campaign, then save your money. One comercial will do nothing.
The “No feeder network” argument is a straw man. There is no feeder network for air travel and it manages to attract people just fine. With train stations in city centers, the urban transit systems that are already in place will feed it. When large numbers of passengers are arriving by train, car rental companies will demand room for a counter. Cab companies will start hanging out at the front door. Starbucks will want to rent counter space.
Speed and frequency are the two issues that kill passenger rail. Passenger rail from Charlotte to Atlanta is available once a day, at 2:00 AM and the trip takes longer than it does to drive it. Do you think taking 15 minutes off the trip by making the train 10 MPH or even 30 MPH faster will bring many new passengers? USAirways has 19 flights a day from Charlotte to Atlanta. I believe the passengers are there if rail was faster more convenient.
I stand by my statement. Upgrading from 79 mph to 90 or 110 is money down the rat hole. A better plan would be to pick one high density corridor and do it right. Call it a proof of concept investment. Acela has proven that a fast frequent train has a market. Lets expand it and get it up to it’s design speed.
OK, you are right and I am wrong. You would take the 10 billion dollars, and I take it we are both in agreement that there is some probability of getting that 10 billion dollars even if it isn’t everything we want. You plan is to take the 10 billion and do one corridor in one place of the country right with a proper HSR, perhaps in the Midwest with flatlands and low curvature existing rail corridors so we can do it within 10 billion; my plan is to replicate the California type service in maybe 5 other corridors.
The reason you are right and I am wrong is that your plan would provide travel times that beat driving, even when you take into account the drive to the train station, the rent-a-car at the other end, while my plan won’t get the projected ridership because driving will be always faster, even if I pick corridors suffering from chronically congested driving such as California’s I-5.
So now that we are in agreement on that general set of principles, what is our stand on the Three Rivers, the Sunset, the Starlight, for that matters, the entire LD part of Amtrak? Canada pretty much made the decision to go with the one LD train as a “national heritage” and concentrate on their Montreal-Toronto corridor. Are you OK with that, or is there some reason to keep the Sunset around?
My point was that the cheapest way is not always the best way. It serves no purpose when you invest in minor improvements to an obsolete system. To borrow yet another metaphor, it does no good to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
There actually is a plan afoot to expand high speed rail on the east coast.
I am for it, because it will improve service along a route that I use. But I believe they are doing it wrong. Using existing rights of way greatly reduces the cost, but it also greatly reduces the value. If the Interstate Highway system had been built on all existing rights of way, the roads would not be much more useful than the old roads. Just able to accommodate more cars. Sharp curves, steep hills, and intersections decrease safety and reduce speeds.
The same is true of high speed rail. Incidentally, I don’t believe that 90 or 110 mph can be called high speed rail with a straight face. Much of the rail infrastructure in America today follows rivers and other terrain. That made it cheaper to build, but greatly restricts speeds. There are routes in the northeast where trains need pusher engines to help them over hills, or even have to double the hills, making two trips up the hill. That needs to be addressed for both passenger and freight.
It is long past time to invest in rights of way that are up to modern standards. Some of them might even be able to follow the Interstate routes, for at least part of the trip. Particularly in the flat area of the great plains.
If the first infusion of money is used to build one true high speed service in a corridor that has a lot of
The question is not one of having a competition. Economics is the question of making choices. There is always a fixed amount of money to do anything, no matter how worthwhile, and Don Oltmann’s question is that if you were Amtrak President and were given 10 billion in capital money to advance the cause of passenger trains, how would you spend it?
The way Don posed the choices, some kind of tilt rolling stock would be used, be it Bombardier or Talgo or some new thing from Siemens Semmering-Pauker-Graz, so the curves are not that big of an issue. Two big issues affecting speed are access to terminal areas – the Hiawatha train between Glenview and Sturdevant runs pretty much 79 MPH flat out combined with a minimum station dwell and whatever acceleration and deceleration you get can get with the HP/ton and the brakes they have. The other is grade crossings.
The Hiawatha runs a substantially slower speed from Chicago Union Station to Glenview and at Sturdevant to Milwaukee. If your 250 MPH HSR (actually, it is more like 150 – 250 is in special tests) has the same slow zones in the terminal area, we are back to asking the same question as to whether shaving 15 minutes off a trip is worth the money.
As to the spending money sprucing up a rat hole concept, the two high-profile projects recently undertaken are the California trains and the NEC Acela and related fixed plant improvements. The California trains are one of pouring money down the 79 MPH rathole, and as far as I can tell, there is a good feeling among the public about those trains and the level of service they provide.
The Acela trains, I guess those are the 120 MPH rathole because they are not true high speed apart from a short section north of New Haven. A big chunk of change was spent on extending the electrification north of New Haven, the thing that is supposed to save us from peak oil. Big dollars were also spent on custom rolling stock, basically shaving that proverbial 15 m
The route from which he lifted those numbers already has 79 mph trains.
The ICE & the TGV run 300 K, which is about 180 MPH.
Those speeds cannot be matched on existing right of way. Even Acela has to slow down on much of it’s route. It would require the clean piece of paper approach.
I don’t expect Amtrak will ever step up to the 21st century, but you asked what I would do if I was the decision maker. I would choose one 21st century route over a system wide Band-Aid. I believe successful operation of the one modern route would cause people to demand similar treatment on their favorite route.
The proposed track alignments don’t exactly follow the existing tracks and the 110mph diesel trains will average 85-87 mph according to the website. Looks like a pretty effective upgrade to me.
And on the original thread, I’d go for the 6 train 90mph service - the emphasis being on a usable train service operating at a reasonable speed that will attract business and other users.
Option 4 is a game-changer. Uses up all the capital, but there’s something pretty impressive to show for it. Penny-parceling the money here and there is less likely to change public perceptions.
The points about Acela are very well taken. There are only 2 sections of track on its entire route where it can use its full speed. Most days, I get to se Ac-SLOW-a cruise by behind my office building at about 40mph (it’s not going much faster than the cars on the street).
Most of the time gained by the Acelas is due to skipping stations, not the speed of the train. That strikes me as counter-productive. Consider: I live 15 minutes from the Old Saybrook, CT station, where I have free parking and easy access from interstates, major state roads, and local streets. But Acelas don’t stop there. To take Acela, I have to drive to New London, which, while about the same mileage, has no parking (a $20 / day garage is available down the street) and is located in the center of downtown and difficult to get to (and so takes 10 minutes longer). And only three trains a day stop there (two Northbound, 1 southbound). To really have Acela service, I’d have to drive to New Haven (1 hour) or Providence (90 minutes).
Far better to take the Regionals (the non-Acela NE Corridor version), which stop at all the stations. Personally, I think the reason Amtrak does so well in the NE corridor has nothing to do with Acela and everything to do with the fact that there are about 50 trains a day (counting both Acela and Regional). I would NEVER drive to Pennsylvania to visit my family if the Pennsylvanian service had more than one daily train.
So I agree with those who say “Add more slower trains.” This is what separates European and Japanese rail systems from ours. They actually have OPTIONS when taking the train.
So for $6 million a mile the study says you can get 110 mph but only put 6 trains a day down the line? I would say the assumption that the existing corridor ROW will be used for such a small amount of trains is limiting the cost benefit ratio at the higher speeds. For just triple that kind of money you are close to building a fully separate track across the midwest topography on any alignment you choose with a capacity of 100+ trains a day.
Of course the intercity passenger demand isn’t there but single level trailer freight could fill 20+ trains a day if the line-haul rail product was dependable as most interstates are running 8000 trucks a day.
As to spending somebody else’s money the interstate system already did that. The users of the interstate in no way come close to repaying the original capital costs to the Federal government. On the Federal side the cash flow from “users” didn’t even get into the black until the 90’s and that was only due to the lower capital spending as they system started to be built out. Would the interstates be as popular if the per mile tax was say $0.18/mile?
So why slap a cost/benefit analysis on passenger rail when no “user only” analysis was applied in the Clay Commission report. Instead the Clay Commission report made the numbers work by taxing all roads and directing those funds only to capital construction on the limited access highways and interstates.
The way to change the public perception is to build a really fast mixed use corridor and then let them choose. Flordia’s populace voted for this but then the number crunchers came in and said it wouldn’t pay for itself. A real analysis of alternatives needs to look at how well the main competition did in paying for itself.
Short of that for the money proposed the best alternative would be this:
Build a completly new track along the existing right of way with sidings every 10 miles designed so there are no facing points. The maximum passe
Approximately 92 per cent of the U. S. population over 18 years of age is a licensed motorist. That works out to more than an estimated 204 million motorists. Most of them pay directly or indirectly federal income taxes. In addition, all of them pay the fuel taxes and fees associated with operating a motor vehicle.
All roadways in the United States, including the interstate highway system, have required an infusion of intergovernmental transfers, which is a fancy way of saying that they have gotten and continue to get general fund monies to cover the difference between what the user fees cover and the cost of building and maintaining the roadways.
For the federal highways the transfer comes from the general fund. This is also true for most state roadways. For county roads in Texas, at least, the transfer funds come from bond issues, which are paid for with property taxes. For city streets in Texas, 92 per cent of the cost is borne by property owners, most of whom drive a vehicle. Practically everyone pays county and local property taxes, either directly or through their rental arrangement.
The users of the highway system have paid for it. And they are continuing to pay for it. They pay directly through user and fuel taxes or they pay through general taxes.
Rich people, as well as businesses that cater to the upper classes, pay a higher percentage of the income tax burden than people down the economic ladder. To the extent that their federal and state income taxes are transferred to the highway trust funds, they are subsidizing people who pay a lesser share of general taxes.
To argue that the interstate highway system was paid for by people who don’t use it, for the most part, is not supported by the facts.
The difference between the subsidies received by the highway trust funds, as well as the aviation trust fund, and Amtrak, or the nation’s commu