When President Obama persuaded Congress to include $8 billion for high-speed rail in the economic stimulus, he had in mind upgrades to existing freight and Amtrak tracks that would allow trains to go as fast as 110 miles per hour. In a lot of places, the main upgrades that are necessary are improvements to grade crossings.
Under Federal Railroad Administration rules, no grade crossings are allowed when trains go above 125 miles per hour. At 110 to 125, an “impenetrable barrier” (such as this four-gate crossing) must block traffic at grade crossings. From 60 to 110, the FRA allows conventional two-gate crossings, that is, the gates only need to block the “entering” lanes of the road.
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The other good news is that none of the 20 passengers on board the train were hurt either. Twenty passengers? Why are we spending more than a billion dollars a year subsidizing Amtrak trains, much less considering spending tens of billions on high-speed rail, when some of those trains carry fewer than half as many passengers as could fit on a typical intercity bus?
Antiplanner(sic) thanks for showing your political agenda again.
In fairness, it’s possible that the sort of speed upgrades envisioned by grade separation and grade treatments could significantly increase ridership (and enable operating profitability.) For example, on Amtrack’s Piedmont route (Raleigh to Charlotte), back in 2001 took about 4 hours by train. NCDOT upgrades (mostly grade crossings and minor, inexpensive upgrades just to get things running at 79 mph in many places) have reduced that to 3:12. If they implemented the 110 mph plan that’s been studied it would take 2:30 (not 110 mph everywhere, about 89 mph average speed).
By comparison, driving is about 2:45 if you don’t hit traffic but don’t speed too much.
It’s a reasonable supposition that passenger loads could be significantly different when the trip time is competitive or less than driving than when it’s obviously not competitive at all.
The much bigger problem for Amtrak, in my mind, is not the corridor trains where hypothetically service could be successful, but the (Congressionally-mandated, of course) service on hugely money-losing long distance trains. Transcontinental and intercontinental journeys are never going to be that popular; they can’t compete on time, obviously, and nor can they compete with cars for ability to stop and sightsee. Twenty passengers on a plane can justify a point-to-point commuter aircraft.
I laugh every time I see people fawning over Amtrak. All it means is that they have never had to rely on it.
I commuted for 3 years from Philadelphia to Manhattan on Amtrak, and I can assure you that it is one of the most poorly run, customer unfriendly, “businesses” that I have ever encountered.
The general employee attitude is that their life would be better if they just didn’t have to deal with those “stupid passengers.”
The train I rode regularly was on time less than 50% of the time, where on-time is defined as less than 10 minutes late.
One of the conductors I knew quite well’s favorite saying was “we promise say day service.”
Their rates make no sense; they offer no discounts to try to load balance their full and empty trains. It would cost me $400 to take my family to Manhattan on the weekend, so, naturally drive instead, yet they pull empty trains all weekend. (it’s also slower, btw, though we would take the train if the price were reasonable… i hate driving)
It is sad. but true, that the entire operation is a massive joke.
It would be good to have more train operating companies, though American railroads fear open access.
Imagine if Virgin operated trains along the NEC?
Virgin once proposed to run trains in Florida, though Wendell Cox helped to trashed those prospects.
John Thacker Says:
The much bigger problem for Amtrak, in my mind, is not the corridor trains where hypothetically service could be successful, but the (Congressionally-mandated, of course) service on hugely money-losing long distance trains. Transcontinental and intercontinental journeys are never going to be that popular; they can’t compete on time, obviously, and nor can they compete with cars for ability to stop and sightsee.
THWM: Well both have there place, but then we have dumb things like no intercity train service to a place like Pheonix, markets can over lap.
Twenty passengers on a plane can justify a point-to-point commuter aircraft.
THWM: Though we don’t know the context of these 20 people on this train.
This is why no can trust what O’Toole or Cox write.
It’s always done for some sort of politcal spin factor.
Irrelevant. It’s nuts to insist that there must be intercity train service to every city. If there are no city pairs within a reasonable distance to justify corridor service, there’s no point in subsidizing a massively expensive, inefficient, energy inefficient (which it is at low loads) long distance trains.
Anyone who has ridden the Amtrak Carolinian knows that there’s extremely low loads between Raleigh and Richmond, because the train is both slow and takes a circuitous route. It fills up close to DC. However, due to the nature of trains, it will on occasion be “sold out” for passengers going from Charlotte or Raleigh to DC, Baltimore, and points north, because the train is full from Richmond north, despite being nearly empty between Raleigh and Richmond.
Now, implementing the SEHSR might make the Charlotte-Richmond travel sensible and competitive (or faster) than driving, and increase loads. But in areas where there is no comparable possible corridor traffic, trains are not a sensible solution.
Why must a large city that is located far away from any other major population center (as often happens in the West) have trains? I understand the localism and political pressure in Congress, but I don’t fully understand the appeal from train fans.
Trains are not magical solutions; nor are they even the most energy friendly in all situations.
We know it was going 65 mph. Once you take into account driving to the station, getting a ticket, boarding, etc., that’s not competitive with driving time. And we don’t have to examine this particular trains, we can look at Amtrak’s publicly available financials and reports. Amtrak wastes tons of money on extremely unprofitable routes whose loads, based on the data published there, are so low that Amtrak is actively wasting fuel compared to those people driving, taking a bus, or flying.
This is all relative, we also look at the differences between locomotive hauled trains vs. DMU’s.
Yes, THWM, it’s all relative. Which is why we also look at the merits of intercity buses and commuter jets when the situation calls for it.
A romantic who wants trains even when they’re worse for the environment than alternatives is the real obsessive.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/RailBus_in_Tomsk.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/DreiL%C3%A4nderBahn_Finnentrop.jpg
So Tomsk has a world class transportation system, eh? Must be a world class city. 😉
prk166 said:
So Tomsk has a world class transportation system, eh? Must be a world class city.
THWM: The DMU in that photo is some thing simple.
Though in America we fail at even doing simple things.
Once you get “near” your destination, you still need transportation. A car surely helps out with that.
You might save 20% to 60% in initial travel time, but most of the time difference will become negative in using local transit or walking.
Just as people park, then walk.
If highwayman’s glib comments stop occurring, I’m going to be worried the world is becoming a more constructive, interesting place to live in.
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