US high-speed trains on track again?

[steve_bank]

California's attempt at high speed rail did not get very far.

These days we just don't have the experience managing and planning such a large scale project. China does and soes it well because they have a centralized authoritarian govt. Right of way is irrelevant.

No one can say how much it will actually cost. When budgeting for a complex proposal sometimes I would double the estimate and if still looked ok I might go with it.

The Portland Or light rail system worked out well. Here in Seattle light rail is expanding in stages. Pre pandemic ridership was high.

Today I walked down to Chinatown and took light rail to the UW medical center for an appointment. On the way bck I got off near a store and went shopping, and took a surface streetcar back near home. The light rail goes underground for about 8 miles then surface out to SeaTac airport. Very popular. People can park and take light rail to within walking distance of the baseball and football stadiums and also UW Huskie stadium. It was all well planned.

Back in the 70s I would take a train from Stamford to Danbury to visit sisters. The region used to be criss crossed by feeder lines down to the coast and main rail line.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Hartford connection I believe would be to get the line away from the land that costs a trillion dollars per acre, and a bonus city is added. Likely doesn't increase time also due to screwy curved coastline track. Heading to Providence might be because around there is where the current Acela actually reaches its highest speeds, meaning straights. And Providence isn't exactly out of the way.

Thanx, JH. Good that someone actually looked at what was being proposed.

Long Island Sound? 20 to 30 miles is what... $250 million per mile, to be dirt cheap (Musk is fucking out of his mind with his $10 million /mile idea, a new highway costs just shy of $10 million a mile!), that'd cost $5 to $7.5 billion, just for the tunnel... and honestly, it'd likely be 4 to 5 times that. I'm just curious how this thing lands into New Haven.

Has Elon Musk ever published how he calculated that cost figure?

It's about 12 miles / 19 km across between Strongs Neck near Port Jefferson on the NY side and Stratford near Bridgeport on the CT side, calculating using the farthest-out bits of land on each side. Between Port Jefferson and Stratford is 17 mi / 27 km.

Home - The Bridgeport and Port Jefferson Steamboat Company - though it's now diesel. For the last half century or so, just about everything bigger than a motorboat is powered by diesel engines. The only surviving steam engines are for nuclear-reactor-powered ships, just like for thermal electric powerplants on land.

From its FAQ, its travel time is 1h 15m. That's 14 mph / 27 km/h average. A train in a tunnel can go about 100 mph / 160 km/h (Chunnel value), meaning a travel time of 10 minutes.

And for this situation, it is much less about time and more about, "How in the heck can we afford to build a train line from Penn Station to Stamford, Connecticut?! Heck, Greenwich would probably could $20 billion, forgetting about getting a line just to New Rochelle. So tunneling under the Sound takes that part out of the equation, but still... as with all engineering, it is hard to make costs disappear because you end up just trading one headache for another.

I wonder if any thought was given to just running through Long Island and make the 20 mile crossing to Rhode Island. Could loop two routes, one to Providence/Boston and the other Hartford/New Haven (though that would seem silly). Metro North from New Haven to NYC is about 2 hours. In a car it is anything from 1 hour to 10 days.

 

[lpetrich]

I considered the Rhode Island option, and it's longer than what one might at first think. Go to some online map site like Google Maps and see for yourself.

Between Greenport on LI and Old Saybrook CT is 12 mi / 20 km, a comparable length of tunnel to Strongs Neck / Stratford.

The shortest route to Rhode Island is Montauk LI - Westerly RI at 21 mi / 33 km, and for Greenport LI it is 32 mi / 50 km.

Providence is well inland, about 25 mi / 40 km from the coast.


An alternative to this route is a purely inland route.

The existing Amtrak route departs from Penn Station eastward into Queens, then goes north into the Bronx, and merges with Metro-North's New Haven line at New Rochelle. The line then follows the coast all the way to Stonington, CT, near the CT-RI border, where it goes inland to Providence and onward to Boston.

This new route would branch off a little after New Rochelle and then go inland to Hartford.

 

[steve_bank]

The idea of tunnels to replace ferries on Puget Sound has been floated, no pun intended. The problem is always who pays for it. There is also resistance from people across the sound on the islands and peninsula. A bridge or tunnel would open up their area more than they want. Housing prices would go up.

Would people on LI I want mass transit between the island and Ct? Montauk would probably be flooded with torists. There are exclusive wealthy areas as you get farther out on the island.

 

[Rhea]

Would like to see more progree in this. It would be great for medium sized cities.

 

[steve_bank]

We are too tied to cars.

In the old Sherlock Holmes movies he always had a train schedule in his pocket.

 

[Shake]

If Biden had wanted to propose a real infrastructure bill, one at least twice the size he's proposing (like what even Joe Manchin wants), we could maybe get some high-speed rail in this country. I'd also love to see more light-rail in smaller cities, connecting them to the suburbs. The corridors for such things already exist in many places, whether alongside current roadways, or where old rail lines have since ceased operation.

I wish I knew where I could find the good article I read sometime within the last year about the successes and failures of urban subway systems. It discussed how public transport needs to be well-planned and coordinated between the various modes of transportation: the trains and the buses.

Yes, unfortunately, we are all too much in love with our cars in this country. This means it would take a major societal shift in mindset to become a reality, and be something which would not only survive, but thrive.

 

[Rhea]

But I bet the kids today could make that societal shift.

 

[bilby]

We are too tied to cars.

In the old Sherlock Holmes movies he always had a train schedule in his pocket.

Sherlock Holmes is set in a time and place with more railways than anywhere else in history.

At the end of the second railway boom in the 1870s, there were few towns or even villages in England (and certainly in South East England around London and the Home Counties) that didn't have a railway station with a regular passenger service. From around 1890 until the outbreak of war in 1914, it was practically impossible to find a location in the Home Counties that was not at most a half hour walk from the nearest railway station. In London that's still true today; Indeed, in the city and Westminster it's difficult to be five minutes walk from a railway station.

The late Victorian and early Edwardian railways in England were incredibly comprehensive. Trains went literally everywhere.

 

[Rhea]

Cool. Didn’t know that.

 

[steve_bank]

I once heard someone say you;ll have to pry my steering wheel from my cold dead fingers. Cars are part of our male identity. Chevy and Ford pickup trucks have gotten ridiculously large.

Mass transit works well in Portland and Seattle. High ridership. Light rail which is expanding here. When I got to Portland in 1979 I sold my car, got a bus pass, and rode my bike to commute. Got a car when I had to commute too far to a job.

High speed rail to Portland and then the Bay Area doesn't make sense. Flying to SF from Seattle will still be a lot faster.

Bridges and roads are in dire need of maintenance and repair. That should be the first priority.

IMO Biden is putting way too much into one bill. Like 5G for everybody everywhere.

The country is too big and dispersed to get rid of cars.

Ca dd not do so well on high speed rail. They proposed a rail to nowhere, the idea being if it is there people will expand around it.

 

[ZiprHead]

I once heard someone say you;ll have to pry my steering wheel from my cold dead fingers. Cars are part of our male identity. Chevy and Ford pickup trucks have gotten ridiculously large.

And ridiculously expensive. My brother just bought a new Chevy P/U. Over $70K.

 

[steve_bank]

I once heard someone say you;ll have to pry my steering wheel from my cold dead fingers. Cars are part of our male identity. Chevy and Ford pickup trucks have gotten ridiculously large.

And ridiculously expensive. My brother just bought a new Chevy P/U. Over $70K.

Bring back the original Ford F150. No carpets, plain painted steel, and radio optional.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not high-speed, but right now Amtrak looking at maybe expanding. White is existing, red is proposed new line, blue is expanded service. I was surprised to see the Wolverine line under expanded, as I thought that had a decent number of trains on it. The Wolverine is nice as it is a good deal of Amtrak rail until about Indiana where it goes to Norfolk Southern and the pausing of the train starts. I'm surprised that there is no indication of expanding service between Cleveland and Chicago. The current trains (Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited) arrive around 1 AM to 4 AM (if on time).

Train traffic is mostly on private rails, which is problematic. Freight companies don't make huge bundles of money per mile traveled, so they need to keep their trains moving. At the same time, it isn't like those tracks have trains every 15 minutes. It is complicated, and would be nice if the systems could be merged together with a better schedule. Building new track is ridiculously expensive (not the track, but the land). Which means there aren't a ton of options.

 

[Politesse]

America is working hard to build high speed rail options, but America is fighting back.

 

[lpetrich]

Will only go as fast as Amtrak's existing long-distance trains, but worth noting:

Welcome to Amtrak Study Hall (UPDATED Aug. 14 with Additional Commentary) - Railway Age - August 14, 2023

The Federal Railroad Administration’s Congressionally mandated Long-Distance Service Study, launched in late October 2022, is roughly 50% complete. An interim, 120-page report (download below) was recently posted to the study’s website. It is curiously labeled as “Draft – Not for Distribution,” which might explain why it was erroneously interpreted as “leaked information,” setting off a flurry of comments. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a public document; therefore, I’m distributing it!

noting
FRA Kicks Off Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study - Railway Age
and
Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study – Study to evaluate the restoration of daily long-distance intercity rail passenger service and the potential for new Amtrak long-distance routes

Also
FRA’s Long-Distance Study Produces Map of Expanded Amtrak Services - Railfan & Railroad Magazine
shows the proposed map.

It fills in a lot of the gaps of the current long-distance routing, including restoring service between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles and also Portland OR. The proposed service will also include the two contiguous-US states without Amtrak service, South Dakota and Wyoming.

 

[lpetrich]

Amtrak Connects Us - Amtrak Media - no new or restored long-distance routes, but plenty of relatively short-distance new service, like Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland in Ohio and Minneapolis / St. Paul - Duluth in Minnesota. Amtrak has several such short-distance routes, the Northeast Corridor and state-supported routes, and IMO that is the most reasonable way to go.

The US now has an intercity passenger line not associated with Amtrak:  Brightline originally All Aboard Florida, home page High-Speed Passenger Train: Buy Tickets Today | Brightline

Expansion history:

• January 13, 2018 - Ft. Lauderdale - West Palm Beach
• May 19, 2018 - Miami - Ft. Lauderdale
• December 21, 2022 - Boca Raton (infill: btwn Ft. Laud & WPB)
• December 24, 2022 - Aventura (infill: btwn Miami & Ft. Laud)
• September 22, 2023 - West Palm Beach - Orlando International Airport
• (planned) - Stuart (inflll: btwn WPB & Orlando)
• (planned) - Orlando - Tampa
• (proposed) - Cocoa (infill: btwn Stuart & Orlando)
• (proposed) - Cocoa - Jacksonville

Operating speed:

• Orlando-Cocoa: 125 mph (200 km/h)
• Cocoa-West Palm Beach: 110 mph (175 km/h)
• West Palm Beach-Miami: 79 mph (130 km/h)

"Trains cover the 235 mi (378 km) route in 3 hours and 25 minutes, with an average speed of 69 mph (111 km/h)."

Brightline route between Orlando and Tampa still on the table: ‘Making tremendous strides’ - still planning it and trying to get funding for it

But the Stuart station should be done at the end of 2026.

 

[lpetrich]

Over in southern California and southern Nevada, preliminary construction work has started on a true high-speed-rail project, Brightline West between the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas. Brightline West High Speed Rail Project | Nevada Department of Transportation

Brightline West halfway to $12 billion funding for Las Vegas high-speed train - Jan 23, 2024 / 12:15 PM PST

LV-to-LA rail project: Brightline West work begins along I-15 | Road Warrior | News | News Columns - February 12, 2024 - 6:00 am

Brightline has been conducting fieldwork in the median of Interstate 15 in both Southern Nevada and California.

The work will lead to the final stages of design before groundbreaking occurs. The majority of the work, which includes boring and core samplings, utility potholing and land surveying, will mainly occur in the daytime, but some night work is possible, to minimize traffic disruptions.

Brightline West announces update on high-speed rail project connecting Las Vegas to California - Mar 4, 2024 / 09:51 PM PST

The trains will run Rancho Cucamonga - Hesperia - Apple Valley - Las Vegas in the median of I-15 for almost its entire length.

RC is 41 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, on a Metrolink commuter-rail line.

While Brightline's Florida trains use diesel locomotives, these trains will be electric, using overhead cables. They will have a top operating speed of 186 mph / 300 km/h, comparable to the fastest trains elsewhere in the world. It is expected to travel its 218-mi route in 2h 10m (avg. speed 101 mph).

Google Maps highway distance and time: 230 mi, 3h 21m (avg. speed 69 mph). Four hours is a more plausible number (avg. speed 58 mph)

 

[lpetrich]

Amtrak's 2035 Map Has People Talking About The Future Of U.S. Train Travel : NPR

Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure package has two provisions involving passenger rail: $85 billion to modernize public transit (commuter rail, buses, stations, etc.) and $80 billion to improve and expand the nation's passenger and freight rail network.

"You and your family could travel coast to coast without a single tank of gas onboard a high-speed train," Biden said at the plan's unveiling.

What projects?

The proposed transformation would mean some 30 new routes, and more trips on 20 existing ones. It projects 20 million more people served than the 32 million that rode Amtrak in the 2019 fiscal year.

It shows an array of potential new service lines: new rail connecting all of Texas' biggest cities and new connections across the Midwest, including between Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, and Cleveland. In the Southeast, new routes would stretch from Atlanta to Chattanooga and Nashville, Tenn., Savannah, Ga., and Montgomery, Ala.

There would be service to every state in the contiguous U.S. but South Dakota — a fact that drew the ire of Gov. Kristi Noem, who criticized the infrastructure package.

 

[lpetrich]

There is a proposed high-speed-rail line between Houston and Dallas, TX.

High-speed rail in Dallas-Fort Worth could become reality - Axios Dallas

Texas developer pushes back against bullet train in Dallas - "Hunt Realty Investment says an elevated rail track in downtown Dallas would disrupt its plans for a $5 billion development."

Amtrak backs Texas Central bullet train

• A proposed “Texas Central” bullet train would shuttle passengers from Dallas to Houston in under 90 minutes.
• The project is expected to cost at least $33.6 billion, a sum that private investors have not yet raised.
• Amtrak announced plans to revive the Texas Central project, which went virtually dormant in 2022.