Overhauling Amtrak

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by electricron

Amtrak has tried that train before with many different train operation modes, it failed even Amtrak's easy standards.
Desert Wind history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Wind
"The original Desert Wind was a day train with Amfleet equipment. The northbound train left Los Angeles mid-day and arrived in Ogden the following morning to connect with the eastbound San Francisco Zephyr. The southbound departed Ogden in the middle of the night after the arrival of the westbound San Francisco Zephyr from Chicago and arrived in Los Angeles in late afternoon. The 811-mile (1,305 km) journey took eighteen hours.[5] Beginning in 1980, the Desert Wind exchanged a Chicago – Los Angeles through coach with the San Francisco Zephyr at Ogden; this service expanded in 1982 to include a sleeping car. After the renamed and rerouted California Zephyr began using the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad main line in 1983, the Desert Wind began connecting with the Zephyr at Salt Lake City.
Later, the Desert Wind and the Seattle-bound Pioneer would operate together with the California Zephyr from Chicago to Salt Lake City, where the trains separated. This created a train of 16 Superliner cars running from Chicago to Utah, the longest that Amtrak had ever operated aside from the Auto Train. With Amtrak needing at least four locomotives to pull this massive train through the Rockies, the Pioneer began splitting off at Denver in 1991, while the Desert Wind continued to split from the Zephyr at Salt Lake City.The Desert Wind was discontinued on May 12, 1997, a victim of Amtrak's recurring budget cuts that also eliminated the Pioneer days earlier."

811 rail miles in 18 hours, that's averaging 45 mph between LA and Odgen.
18 hours is too long for a day train, which is probably why Amtrak added a sleeper car to the Desert Wind train. In fact, 811 rail miles is longer than the 750 rail miles for the train to be considered a long distance train, where Amtrak would not get any state subsidies to fund any loses.

All studies in the last 10 years along this corridor involve a day train between LA area and LV. I am not aware of any EIS studies for a train on tracks north of LV, hence why this train is not on Biden's or Amtrak's map.

I suggest waiting for either LA to LV trains to enter service, then try extending it later after completing the require EIS studies. The one mode Amtrak has not tried in the past is a true high speed train. Although I think 811 miles is too long for a HSR line to attract enough premium paying passengers to fund. Using the 3 hour rule, 811 rail miles / 3 hours = 270 mph average speeds, which is by far more than the maximum speeds present HSR technology supports. Doubling the elapse time to 6 hours would halve the average speed of the train to 135 mph, which is doable with HSR technology today. But at 6 hours elapse time, how many premium passengers will there be willing to pay HSR premium fares? I suggest not enough. I believe there are valid reasons why no one is planning a train between LV and SLC today.

Thanks for the response. While I agree that a slow Amtrak line to LA would be a hard sell (and obviously was), I have to think there would be considerable interest in a high-speed SLC-Vegas route (420 miles). The route is heavily trafficked by cars and takes about 6 hours. A high-speed train traveling at 140 mph could do it in 3 hours. Given that the flight takes ~1 hour, a 3 hour train ride without the hassles of flying would be very attractive.

I also think that if a SLC-Vegas service was reinstated today that would be more viable than it was when it was discontinued 30 years ago, even at slower speeds. Both metros are at least double the size they were back then. If you could match the travel time that it takes cars, you'd see ridership.

Therefore, I still think it would be a good idea to at least consider the route.

Also, news for the thread:
Passenger trains at the Boise Depot? City council hopes to resurrect Amtrak line

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Thanks for the response. While I agree that a slow Amtrak line to LA would be a hard sell (and obviously was), I have to think there would be considerable interest in a high-speed SLC-Vegas route (420 miles). The route is heavily trafficked by cars and takes about 6 hours. A high-speed train traveling at 140 mph could do it in 3 hours. Given that the flight takes ~1 hour, a 3 hour train ride without the hassles of flying would be very attractive.

I also think that if a SLC-Vegas service was reinstated today that would be more viable than it was when it was discontinued 30 years ago, even at slower speeds. Both metros are at least double the size they were back then. If you could match the travel time that it takes cars, you'd see ridership.

Therefore, I still think it would be a good idea to at least consider the route.

Breaking a long distance train LA to SLC into two shorter distance trains LA-LV and LV to SLC is one way to make the 3 hour sweet spot a 6 hour sweet spot.
In that scenario, the LV to SLC HSR should not include any passengers at all coming from California, or at the same ratio as the LA to LV, because you have added a transfer to the entire trip, getting off one train to board another.

The combined populations of the "entire states" of Nevada (3 million) and Utah (3.2 million) is 6.2 million. The LA metro area population is 13.1 million. The Inland Empire area population is another 4.2 million. The southern California urban areas the HSR train between LA and LV draws from is a market of 17.3 million.

17.3 million potential customers from just southern California is almost 6 times larger than the 3 million each from the "entire states" of either Nevada or Utah.

For HSR to be even close to financially viable, to pay off the capital costs of building an entirely new railroad corridor and then operating and maintaining it, it needs lots of passengers buying lots of tickets to ride the trains. You need many trains running on the tracks that the market can bear - a train every hour in both directions, or every half hour, sums up to at least 48 trains a day. With an average of 250 passengers per train, that's up to at least 12,000 passengers per day on the trains. Do you think you could get 12,000 passengers a day riding the trains between LV and SLC as easily as you can between LA and LV? I did not think so.

For your idea to work, LV needs to be the metro with 17 million people with LA and SLC with 3 million people. Sorry to remind everyone, LV is not that huge.

[Hatman]

I've been peddling this map around on Reddit these last few days, and I'm curious what members of this Forum would say about it.


These routes would all be state-supported medium-distance trains, with trips lasting between 5-9 hours. I feel like this is the correct length for a train (perhaps stretching it just a little, even), because any longer trips would require more expensive accommodations - like the sleeping cars on the old Pioneer route. Imagine the Amtrak San Joaquim service in California, which runs multiple trains per day on a route 300 miles long, lasting 6 hours - and apply that to the Great Basin, and I think you've got a recipe for success.
Granted, there are some elements here that are merely plausible but not necessarily probable, such as the new rail line in the median of I-15 between Moapa and Cedar City (120 miles) and a new rail bridge across the Snake River Gorge near Jerome, Idaho, in order to include a stop at Twin Falls. These could happen, but are not strictly necessary to connect the main city pairs.

I think that by having multiple departures on these medium distance routes, rather than having a single daily departure for a long-distance route (say, SLC to Los Angeles, or SLC to Portland Via Boise), the rail service can be much more focused, more reliable, keep a tighter and more competitive schedule, and can be upgraded more easily to more frequent departures and faster service. I love the long-distance trains, and I hope things like the California Zephyr never go away. But I also hope that Amtrak doesn't create any more of them, and instead focuses on shorter, more manageable, and more local routes, such as the ones on this map.

[SIGSEGV]

The economics of the Wyoming route, other than the Cheyenne to Laramie segment (which would be an extension of Front Range service) seem suspect to me.

Also, I would extent the Prospector to Logan (the routing is quite circuitous, but Utah State).

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Hatman

I've been peddling this map around on Reddit these last few days, and I'm curious what members of this Forum would say about it.

These routes would all be state-supported medium-distance trains, with trips lasting between 5-9 hours. I feel like this is the correct length for a train (perhaps stretching it just a little, even), because any longer trips would require more expensive accommodations - like the sleeping cars on the old Pioneer route. Imagine the Amtrak San Joaquim service in California, which runs multiple trains per day on a route 300 miles long, lasting 6 hours - and apply that to the Great Basin, and I think you've got a recipe for success.

6 hours would be about as far as I would go with multiple regional trains from one large central city as a hub. LV, Boise, and Cheyene are 3 hours too far (using your time stamps). Another difficulty with your routes is crossing state lines. You have to get stakeholders in the other states to convince the other states to subsidize these trains in their states, a very difficulty task to do.

About the only proposed train on your map that looks doable to me is the route to Moab. 6 hours or less, all within Utah, seems reasonable to me. Salt Lake City to Provo could use the UTA Frontrunner tracks, and a spare locomotive and a few spare Comet cars will be all you need to extend a train to Moab, assuming you can get the train on the existing UP tracks south of Provo.

[Mister Uptempo]

The first ALC-42 built for Amtrak left the Siemens plant in California over the weekend, and should be arriving in Chicago on tonight's California Zephyr.

Locomotive No. 300, one of only a handful of ALC-42s that will sport Amtrak's Phase VI livery, will be front and center for a press event scheduled for Tuesday at Amtrak's rail yards. Afterwards, No. 300 will head to the Northeast Corridor for service.

img src

Amtrak also released a Siemens-produced video touting the ALC-42 today-

• Video Link

[Eightball]

^^^ looking sharp

Must say I am tickled my Ft. Myers comment drew some interesting feedback! Obviously Miami is bigger, but my initial thought would be connecting to Tampa via Brightline, of course. Sure, Ft Myers is spread out(ish) but it is 13th largest metro area w/o intercity rail service, all the older residents could be a built in market, and Tampa is a straight shot and close. There are still some rail tracks in the metro area as well. I would think Brightline would do it before Amtrak but who knows...

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by Mister Uptempo

img src

Amtrak also released a Siemens-produced video touting the ALC-42 today-

• Video Link

I’m really liking the new livery.

[homebucket]

Very nice.

[M II A II R II K]

A 148-year-old tunnel is the biggest rail bottleneck between D.C. and New Jersey. Here’s the new plan to replace it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/trans...e-rail-tunnel/

.....

- A plan to replace the decrepit Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel in Maryland, which officials say is needed for safety reasons and to meet East Coast passenger and commercial rail needs, is moving forward after years of delays. — Amtrak and Maryland announced an agreement Friday on a $4 billion plan to build a replacement in the next decade. The railroad is completing the design and negotiating property acquisitions, while promising the tunnel will carry electric-powered trains to reduce environmental impacts on Baltimore neighborhoods along the new route. — Trains slow to a crawling 30 mph in the two-track, 1.4-mile tunnel between Baltimore’s Penn Station and points south, creating delays up and down the corridor. The tunnel is the biggest chokepoint between Washington and New Jersey.

- Amtrak said it plans to replace the post-Civil War-era tunnel with single-track twin tunnels that would arc about a half-mile north of the existing tunnel. Trains would travel up to 100 mph. The proposal is a scaled-down version of a plan approved four years ago by the Federal Railroad Administration that called for four single-track tunnel tubes. Railroad officials say by building only two tunnels, the project will save $1 billion and up to two years on construction while still tripling train capacity to accommodate future demand. The additional two tunnels could be built in a second phase as funding becomes available, Amtrak said. The proposal is dependent upon Amtrak securing federal and state funding. Amtrak has budgeted $65 million for design and preconstruction work in the next year, including negotiations to acquire more than three dozen properties, including 22 residential buildings, 13 businesses and four churches that would be demolished.

.....

[202_Cyclist]

$4B Amtrak Tunnel Replacement Project in Baltimore Has Begun
Replacing Amtrak’s Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel will take a least a decade or more to complete.

June 21, 2021
Associated Press

"BALTIMORE (AP) — Replacing Amtrak’s Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel will take a least a decade or more to complete. But the $4 billion rail project has officially begun. And officials say it will eliminate the biggest passenger rail bottleneck between Washington and New Jersey.

The Baltimore Sun reports that officials kicked off the project's official start at an event on Friday that included the great-great-granddaughter of Frederick Douglass..."

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...more-has-begun

[ardecila]

re: the ALC-42,

I live next to the BNSF corridor in Chicago so I have multiple Amtrak, Metra and freight services passing my window daily. The new Chargers (same product line as the ALC-42) are dramatically quieter than any of the other locomotives that pass by, even the Genesis and F40PH used by Amtrak and Metra that were supposedly designed for passenger service decades ago.

I can't overstate how much nicer it is to have a locomotive run through your backyard with a whoosh instead of an earsplitting roar. It just feels so much more civilized and even futuristic. At a subconscious level, it just makes Amtrak feel like less of an outdated relic. They also supposedly spew far less particulate pollution in the air than other locomotives. Hopefully the ALC-42s will bring these benefits to the long distance trains as well as corridor service (and hopefully Amtrak maintains them such that they don't get louder with time).

[Busy Bee]

^Good stuff

[Eightball]

$4B for such a short tunnel seems insane but at least it is happening, I guess...

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by Eightball

$4B for such a short tunnel seems insane but at least it is happening, I guess...

Interestingly I've thought that only $4 billion for a "short" tunnel directly under a dense historic city is what seems insane. Just imagine how much more it would likely cost if it was an auto tunnel.

This is awesome news. You cannot underestimate how important to the NEC this new 4 track tunnel will be. Huge news all around.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

This is awesome news. You cannot underestimate how important to the NEC this new 4 track tunnel will be. Huge news all around.

Is Amtrak building 4 single track tunnels or 2 single track tunnels that can be expanded later with more funding?

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Interestingly I've thought that only $4 billion for a "short" tunnel directly under a dense historic city is what seems insane. Just imagine how much more it would likely cost if it was an auto tunnel.

This is awesome news. You cannot underestimate how important to the NEC this new 4 track tunnel will be. Huge news all around.

European cities are often much denser (to say nothing of being far older) with stronger unions, but able to build at a fraction of the cost... https://tunnelingonline.com/why-tunn...-in-the-world/ as you are likely aware. But yes, this will still be a huge improvement!

[Busy Bee]

^Correct, my awareness that leaner, more experienced tunneling/rail infra operations in other societies are likely able to do the job for less did not change my opinion that $4b for an urban rail tunnel on a scale not scene in the US often, to say the least, seems reasonable based on worst expectations. Let's see if they can stick to that estimate. If they can it will bode well for an increased pace of major transport infrastructure in the US, as long as the party that usually supports such things remain in charge of the purse strings.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by electricron

Is Amtrak building 4 single track tunnels or 2 single track tunnels that can be expanded later with more funding?

Just a 2 track tunnel initially (actually 2 single-track bores). It sounds like the existing B&P tunnel will remain in use for the occasional freight train, but with the passenger trains relocated I'm guessing the existing tunnel can be rehabbed up to modern codes at a reasonable cost in the future, for a full four tracks thru Baltimore. That, or the B&P tunnel will be reduced from two tracks down to one track, with the roof chiseled out to allow double stacks.

Usually single-track bores are preferred in urban areas - wider tunnels need to go deeper to avoid settlement on the surface, so that creates issues with grades.


There will also be a new West Baltimore station with full-length, high level platforms and handicap access.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by electricron

Is Amtrak building 4 single track tunnels or 2 single track tunnels that can be expanded later with more funding?

The project says twin tubes, but it's slightly confusing because the EIS map shows 4 tracks within a what seems like single bored tunnel, so honestly I'm not 100% sure.