High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program (USA)

[phoenixboi08]

Originally Posted by Jasonhouse

Why is Paducah labeled as Memphis?

Good question...I'm assuming it's a graphical error

[M II A II R II K]

Amtrak, CHSRA plan joint HSR gear order

Read More: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/...tml?channel=54

Two U.S. high speed rail players, Amtrak and the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), will combine efforts to advance a joint order of up to 62 high speed rail trainsets, with a Request for Information (RFI) possibly issued as early as this Thursday.

The combined order presumably would offer economies of scale for both entities and the supplier, since California seeks HSR equipment capable of 220 mph speeds. For Amtrak's part, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman last month said the company “is advancing plans to acquire new next-generation high-speed trainsets and ending its plans to purchase 40 additional high speed passenger cars to add to the existing Acela Express fleet." The joint plan, first reported by Trains magazine, would direct 32 trainsets to Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, with 30 being delivered to the Golden State. Trains attributed the collaborative effort to Frank Vacca, now CHSRA's chief program manager and formerly with Amtrak as chief engineer.

.....

[aquablue]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Amtrak, CHSRA plan joint HSR gear order

Read More: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/...tml?channel=54

Will these be custom built trains or existing models?

What current models or companies do you think would be a likely choice? AGV, Valero, Bombardier?

[ardecila]

Existing models would be great. It all depends on how much leeway FRA is willing to allow with regard to safety and crashworthiness standards. If FRA is flexible, then Amtrak and CHSRA can order existing models with only minor modifications. If FRA doesn't budge, then this will balloon into another expensive Acela boondoggle.

[M II A II R II K]

• Video Link

[Busy Bee]

And to think he's a Vanderbilt!

If you want to a good piece of reporting, Dan Rather Reports on AXStv did a piece last year about a half hour long. Not sure if it's online anywhere.

[phoenixboi08]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

And to think he's a Vanderbilt!

If you want to a good piece of reporting, Dan Rather Reports on AXStv did a piece last year about a half hour long. Not sure if it's online anywhere.

Just an excerpt
• Video Link

*you can purchase the full episode on iTunes

[phoenixboi08]

Glad people are speaking up...

Originally Posted by Keeping CNN Honest: 10 Ways Anderson Cooper Got the Rail Story Wrong

Last Friday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper ran a segment about high-speed rail as part of his “Keeping Them Honest” series. Reporter Drew Griffin did an “exposé” of a Vermont rail project that spent .00006 percent of the federal stimulus money on needed track improvements and came in on time and under budget. Scandal!

It amounts to a high-profile smear campaign on the high-speed rail program from a mainstream media source trying to expose government corruption and waste where none exists. Cooper makes it clear they’re going to stay on the story; they already did a similar takedown of the California rail program.

I’ve counted ten ways this story was misreported. Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed any…

full story

Originally Posted by Streetsblog "Keeping CNN Honest" -- You Can Too!

Perhaps most importantly, Snyder provides some much needed context, almost entirely lacking from Griffin’s piece. She points out that the Vermont rail project accounted for .00006 percent of the Recovery Act as a whole, that the Vermont Agency of Transportation spent most of the $241.2 million in stimulus money it received for transportation on roads, and that the public is still waiting for Anderson Cooper and CNN—or any of the major cable news outlets—to investigate the $4.7 billion highway to nowhere in Alabama . After decades of federal policy where the “interstate system has been the beneficiary of more than $600 billion in public subsidies over and above what it rakes in from fuel taxes and tolls” and passenger trains have largely been ignored, rail has some catching up to do.

full story

[aquablue]

I had grown tired of Anderson Cooper for a while now. After reading this, now I'm even more sick of him.

[Xing]

http://mashable.com/2013/02/10/high-speed-rail-map/

Charlie White23 hours ago

Whether a high-speed rail system ever gets built in the United States is still up in the air, but if it is, artist and activist Alfred Twu has figured out exactly where those speedy rail lines should go.

Twu started working on this map in 2009, when President Obama's plan to build high-speed rail was unveiled. "There were many such maps being made by various designers," says Twu, but since then he's updated the map with labels and put it on Facebook, and it struck a chord. It's gone viral.

"With the huge response it's generated, I created a petition to the White House to fund such a system," he told Mashable. After just a week, that White House petition already has 27,528 signatures.

Twu's not just guessing where those routes should be, either.

Twu's not just guessing where those routes should be, either. "The routes are based on various studies by government agencies and advocacy groups," he explains.

We like the map's colors and its overall design, into which Twu put a lot of thought. "Some artistic license was applied to make it more elegant and have it be a series of distinct lines like a subway map," he says. "Colors were selected to convey the idea of the U.S. being made up of several interwoven regional cultures that come together at major cities — like an internal melting pot."

Trains zipping across the continent at 220mph might sound like a far-fetched futuristic concept, but Twu thinks this project could be built out much like the Interstate Highway System was built in the 50s, he says. "I've seen 2030 and 2050 as potential dates from various advocacy groups," Twu added.

SEE ALSO: Nonstop High-Speed Trains Enabled by Docking Trams

As you look at the map, you'll see that Twu included unshaded routes, which he says were "purposely left open to interpretation." He says the general idea of adding those routes would be that they would handle "lower-speed trains, as well as potential future high-speed routes."

But certainly there's not enough money to do something like this, given the economic situation in the United States at the moment, right? Tsu says cost estimates for a high-speed rail system like this range from $1-$2 trillion. Geez, that's a lot of money. He responded, "Sounds like a lot, but divided over four decades, that is around $25-$50 billion a year or 80-160 dollars a year per person. That's one tank's worth of gas money."

To get a closer look at the map, view or download this .PDF file.

What do you think, readers? Will this speedy rail system be going near your house? Should the United States catch up with the rest of the developed world and build the system, or should budget constraints keep us from spending money on this futuristic conveyance?

Bonus gallery: Here's a design concept showing how those high-speed trains might work:

[ardecila]

Quincy, IL? Reno, NV? Cheyenne, WY?



ROFL This guy uses the Star Trek font, clearly has no idea about network planning, yet this is the vision that captivates America. Any publicity is good publicity, I guess...

The problems have been listed elsewhere, but

A) it's extraordinarily difficult to build between Denver and Las Vegas. That's why the transcons didn't do it and the interstates took 40 years to finish the route (Glenwood Canyon, San Rafael Swell, etc - not easy terrain).

B) high speed rail is not time-effective for trips of this length. Individual journeys between cities along the route might keep things profitable, but the huge unpopulated areas of the Great Plains and the Mountain West mean that transcontinental lines don't make sense unless we can double speeds using a maglev or something. Chicago-New York is about as long as we can get, and even there, most travelers would still choose to fly. The seats would be occupied instead by people traveling to/from intermediate cities. This is why HSR plans are being developed in regional networks instead of a national one.

C) this map seemingly picks segments randomly from the existing Amtrak map, regardless of what makes sense in a national network. Tiny cities like Quincy and Reno don't need HSR spurs. Not every line needs to pass through Chicago, either... a cutoff from Springfield to Indianapolis would enable a variety of other city-to-city trips within the Midwest.

[Alon]

It got a thorough pummeling in the comment section of CAHSR Blog.

[202_Cyclist]

Proposal boosts valley-LA rail link
Officials confident $162M plan will pass


Passengers await the arrival of an Amtrak train at the Palm Springs station in May 2010. Image courtesy of the Desert Sun.

Written by Skip Descant
Desert Sun
March 6, 2013

"The recent draft of the 2013 California State Rail Plan includes a Coachella Valley Route that would connect Los Angeles to Indio, expanding passenger rail service for the Palm Springs region.

The proposal calls for eight stops, with three — Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage and Indio — in the Coachella Valley.

The project would require cooperation with Union Pacific Railroad, which may be the largest obstacle..."

http://www.mydesert.com/article/2013...y-LA-rail-link

[202_Cyclist]

The President announced his FY2014 budget proposal today. This would include $40B for high speed rail and other passenger rail investments.

"Proposes Dedicated Funding for High Speed Rail Investments. The Budget provides $40 billion over five years to fund the development of high-speed rail and other passenger rail programs as part of an integrated national transportation strategy. This system will provide 80 percent of Americans with convenient access to a passenger rail system, featuring high-speed service, within 25 years. The proposal also benefits freight rail and significantly restructures Federal support for Amtrak, to increase transparency, accountability, and performance."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defa...sportation.pdf

[Innsertnamehere]

ohhh I just wish we had a government dedicated to rail upgrades like that here in Canada! I am excited that the US seems to finally be realizing that rail is a potential form of passenger travel.

[Busy Bee]

This is great news and really reassuring that the administration hasn't given up on HSR investments in the rest of the term.

Regarding Canada, I too think it is beyond bizarre that they seem to have such a humdrum attitude about having modern rail... Considering the progressive nature of the country, the perfect pairing of Toronto-Montreal PLUS the domestic transport vehicle powerhouse in Bombardier, which is akin to Boeing not having an airport in Washington state...

[Innsertnamehere]

It's because the Conservatives have been in office since 2006. they did spend $923 million on upgrading the Toronto-Montreal corridor, but nothing too serious.. I look forward to the 2015 election where a hopefully more progressive government wins power, and spends some actual cash on regional rail.

[jtk1519]

Would-be bullet train operator’s private plans for Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston line about to become much more public
By Robert Wilonsky
rwilonsky@dallasnews.com
2:53 pm on April 5, 2013 | Permalink

Texas Central High-Speed Railway has spent the last few years privately — very privately — looking at how to connect Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston with a bullet train moving upwards of 200 miles per hour. But soon, they say, those private plans will become quite public when they issue a notice of intent. That in turn will trigger an environmental impact statement evaluating the would-be, could-be rail alignment and the proposed stops between here and down there.

“It’s almost like jumping out of the frying pan into another frying pan when the public process starts,” says Travis Kelly, the director at Texas Central High-Speed Railway tasked with handling the marketing.

Kelly says the private operator — a consortium that also includes Central Japan Railway Company — hopes to reveal its preferred and alternative alignments this summer. At least, he says, “That’s when we expect to be ready.” But it’s also up to the Federal Railroad Administration, which will oversee the project — even though it’s not funding it. There also needs to be a determination of “which state agencies will play a role” in the line, he says, referring, of course, to at least the Texas Department of Transportation, which also hopes to see high-speed rail travel between Houston and the DFW.

Kelly says Texas Central High-Speed Railway got on board with DFW-Houston long before TxDOT applied for its federal grant. He says the group studied 97 city pairs throughout the U.S. Some, he acknowledges, would generate higher ridership than the Texas route. And some, he says, would have been cheaper to build.

“But we saw a significant need for high-speed rail in the state,” he says. “You have two large metropolitan areas on either end of a flat undeveloped piece of the state and no legacy carrier, and we saw a good opportunity to fulfill a need and make a profit. I wouldn’t say we’re doing it because TxDOT can’t … but Dallas-Houston was right in that sweet spot where we thought we could build it cheap enough and pay off construction costs over time. We talk frequently about our model not being one-size-fits-all. We think this approach is custom-made for Texas.”

...

http://transportationblog.dallasnews...e-public.html/

[afiggatt]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

The President announced his FY2014 budget proposal today. This would include $40B for high speed rail and other passenger rail investments.

"Proposes Dedicated Funding for High Speed Rail Investments. The Budget provides $40 billion over five years to fund the development of high-speed rail and other passenger rail programs as part of an integrated national transportation strategy. This system will provide 80 percent of Americans with convenient access to a passenger rail system, featuring high-speed service, within 25 years. The proposal also benefits freight rail and significantly restructures Federal support for Amtrak, to increase transparency, accountability, and performance."

Here is the US DOT 64 page budget highlight summary of the FY2014 proposal on transportation spending. The FTA also gets more proposed funding for transit: $2.5 billion for Transit Capital Assistance and $6 billion for State of Good Repair projects. There are a lot of transit agencies that would not mind applying for grants from those 2 categories.

I think the $50 billion for transportation infrastructure would be a useful injection of funds into the economy and for long term investments, although I'm sure a lot of the $25 billion for roads would end up being spent on questionable rural highway projects. But that is just the political reality.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

ohhh I just wish we had a government dedicated to rail upgrades like that here in Canada! I am excited that the US seems to finally be realizing that rail is a potential form of passenger travel.

No matter which party is in power we will get higher speed rail 15 years after the US since we are a nation that follows what ever the US does 15 years later.
Our 930 million has not get us refurbished LRC cars yet, or refurbished Budd railcars, nor has it increased speeds. The 430 million spent on trackage has resulted in times only 1 minute faster on the Toronto-Ottawa route than the 4 hr schedule of the 1980's with LRC. More than half the time the so called express train cannot adhere to its schedule and is more than 10 minutes late. With cutbacks by the current government, the future does not bode well for Via Rail.