Quote:
Originally Posted by UrbanImpact
You're not getting the point. How are you going to remove over 75 miles of at grade crossings??? The rail lines run through the most urban areas of South Florida. There is no room to bridge the streets over.
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The obvious answer is to raise the tracks onto a viaduct vs raising the streets. Besides being very expensive considering it’s length, it ignores grade problems with industry and other freight tracks along the line. You shouldn’t park freight cars on ramps. All those industries built their loading docks and servicing tracks at grade with the existing tracks, not 20 feet above grade. What they would end up with is a roller coaster mainline, more unacceptable to the comfort of passengers on trains than level grade crossings.
So, more likely a split level track configuration would be the answer, with freight trains running on the existing tracks and passenger trains running 30 feet above grade the entire way. Something that may be done if Brightline (Virgin) was spending $50 billion vs the $2 to $3 billion. The better solution would mean no Brightline (Virgin) train services at all because the costs would have been far too expensive. As it is, they are barely raising the $3 billion to re-double track most of the way, using lift bridges already built decades ago.