bmclaughlin807

The freight railroads don't willingly share their tracks. One could say there's evidence that they've been trying to force Amtrak off their tracks for years.

matthewbrandon

I'm an locomotive engineer for csx and i would love to see amtrak offer more high speed rail connections between more citys outside the northeast corridor and around chicago. The biggest problem that amtrak faces is that we(the freight railroads) control most of the track they run on. In the high profit markets they own their own track such as in the northeast and around chicago. As for fuel consumtion its unreal how much freight we can move for such little fuel, i bet amtrak can move a amazing amount of people per gallon

dr. nate

I want a bullet train. If we had trains that could do 300 mph with no unexpected stops then you'd be able to beat an airplane with all of the delays you have when trying to push back from the gate and actually take off.

One of the problems with America is that we feel that we need to live life at 1,000,000 mph. That is one thing riding a bicycle will do, it will show you that life can be more enjoyable at 20 mph.

-Nate

ericy

Ultimately we will need more tracks so you can have something dedicated to passenger service. Otherwise passenger trains are at the mercy of the schedules of freight trains.

CSX has plans in the works for a major upgrade:

https://www.nationalcorridors.org/df2/df05142007.shtml

Some of the Amtrak routes don't make all that much sense. In the Midwest, the thing goes through at something like 3AM, which is hard to get excited about. For those routes with just 1 train per day, it might make sense to try and concentrate on regional service.

gwd

Are you suggesting that we return the rails-to-trails multi use paths back to rail service? rails-to-trails-to-rails? Some of the paths around DC were once used for passenger rail. It might be the cheapest way to gain right of way.

Nightshade

Anything to get those damn 5>6 mpg fuel guzzling, soot emitting, driven buy a Delbert Dumbutt,
semi trucks off the highways would be a very good thing. Spending money on rail would require
monies be taken from the highway infastucture but with fewer ,and then only short trip, semi's
on the roads to damage them it would take less money for road maintance.

Right now America's money is going to the wrong infrastucture need to keep Big Oil profitable

ericy

I think I have cycled nearly every mile of the WO&D at one point or another, and I was on it yesterday going to/from work. With regards to that specific trail, the patterns of development adjacent to the trail aren't ideal - lots of low-density housing and parkland, and lots of grade crossings. And given that we are getting Metro out to Dulles, it would seem redundant to try to reclaim that trail.

For long distance rail, there isn't any need to reclaim urban trails. Once Peak Oil hits with a vengeance, we can reclaim freeways for rails. How does that idea grab you ?

What I really meant by my comment is that lots of rail lines only have two tracks, and some have been downgraded to just one track (to save on maintenance). This makes it hard for a passenger train to pass a slow freight train - they need to wait for the other track to clear before they can hop over and pass. With 3 tracks, you have a sort of passing lane in the middle. If the traffic levels are high enough, then they upgrade to 4 tracks (I presume that this would be treated such that each direction gets it's own passing lane).

Elkhound

Well, part of the purpose of turning the abandoned lines into multiuse paths was to preserve the rights-of-way in case they were needed later.

Platy

I think it would be a win/win situation if our foreign trade partners used some of the trillions of dollars they've accumulated to finance about $200 billion of rail improvement in the U.S. Maybe China could reconstruct the freight infrastructure and Japan could install a separate passenger rail system. Add some European designed and financed mass transit for good measure. Foreign dollar holders have run out of conventional places to productively invest their dollar assets, so why not?

wahoonc

I have been suggesting this for several years. Besides the government already owns the right of way

Aaron

gosmsgo

I was at a transportation conference today with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT)

They said that the world was coming to the end as far as road construction in missouri in 2009.

They also said that they will continue to use "practical design" standards when constructing or upgrading roads. That means that they will continue to reject all bicycle and pedestrian accomodations on any of their roads and (even worse) bridges.

ericy

What did they mean by the "world coming to an end"? That they would not build any more new roads? Did they give the reasoning for this?

gosmsgo

Because they had a huge bond issue called "admendment 3" a few year ago where they borrowed a bunch of money to do a huge amount of road projects. Mo went from near the bottom in the rankings of maintained roads to an estimated 9th. That combined with the federal program geared for bankruptcy without an increase in fed gas tax and huge increases in road construction costs due to high metal and fuel costs spells huge changes.

Yes, they say they would not be able to build any roads and may not be able to maintain what they have.

gosmsgo

I should note that they never actually said that "practical design" meant that they would reject all bike/ped accomodations but everyone here knows that to be true. We have seen it happen everywhere in Missouri except on those towns that are right by the Katy Trail.

decisivemoment

As a former Amtrak employee I'll tell you that it is more efficient than driving alone, and more efficient than flying, but less efficient than stacking up with two or three other people in a compact car. Unless, of course, we're talking about electrified routes (i.e. Northeast Corridor, Keystone Corridor) in which case the train beats other modes of transport stone dead for efficiency.

Diesel locomotives are reasonably efficient but nowhere close to electric. By far the most efficient mode of transportation -- where you get the 600mpg per passenger numbers -- is high speed rail like the French TGV. Amtrak NEC, though much better than diesel, is not as efficient as the TGV because the trains are heavier to comply with the higher safety standards required when you're mixing passenger and freight.

cerewa

just to put this in perspective, imagine somebody offers to ship one bicycle frame weighing 10 pounds (with packaging) for you from Los Angeles to New York City, ~2800 miles and all you have to cover is the fuel cost for that amount of freight. That's 0.035 a gallon of diesel, and will run you 13 cents or so. Make it a hundred bike frames and the freight company needs a whopping $13 worth of retail-priced diesel.

(see https://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/policy/freight2004.pdf , stating that average USA freight railroads ship a ton 410 miles on one gallon)

dr. nate

I saw this on yahoo's front page this evening.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...n/4232548.html

I figured I'd post it since we were talking about trains.

-Nate

pedex

diesels are only about 15-20% efficient, eliminating that leaves only the electric motor losses and transmission loss of the electricity which with high voltage a/c isn't much

US trains are limited to 70,000lbs per axle, so a 6 axle diesel loco is normally ballasted to right at 420k lbs so it can apply as much of its 4-6000 hp as it can. Yes, they add weight to them, even with the motor and traction motors and a very strong chassis they still come in underweight. But the electrics have more power, typically the front and rear cars are powered and its substantial, a lot more than you'd think and with only a few cars they really boogie. Thats why they can perform like they do, big diesel freight loco's aren't geared to run like that. Reason they use electric to drive the wheels is control, easier to control than with a clutch or fluid coupling especially when potentially millions of pounds of rolling stock are involved.

Anyway, rail right behind ships is the most efficient way to move big loads, yet the world superpower has a rail system third world countries would laugh at.

pedex

lots of places are about to be faced with this:
existing roads are now too expensive to maintain as the price has shot up while incoming revenue has not
things like forced bussing will be looked at as obvious places to cut back on city costs
fleets of municipal cars will be less frequently replaced
anything to do with transportation infrastructure is gonna get looked at to be axed

price of asphalt and new road among other things has about doubled in just 2 years, tax revenues have not

AlanK

Back to the subject at hand...

As others have noted most Amtrak interstate routes only travel at about 30% capacity. This, combined with antiquated locomotives makes long distance passenger train travel inefficient. If the trains were at 80% + capacity it would be much more efficient.

Traveling via rail seems to be appealing for relatively short trips (about 300 miles or less). But for long trips, well, spending an entire day or several days on a train isn't very pleasant. Several years ago I took Amtrak from Seattle to DC - never again.

lyeinyoureye

*cough*higher*cough*

Roody

It cracks me up when you do that *cough* thing. I think you're always right--so far anyway. I'm gonna tray and catch you. But pedex seems to be quite the train buff too.

I imagine that diesel locomotives are more that 15 % efficient. But when you think about it, the efficiency of the engine isn't really the important thing. They haul so much tonnage, the whole system is just plain efficient.

Did anybody read John McPhee's essay on the coal trains? He wrote that these huge trains--the largest construction ever built for moving things--are as sensitive as a bicycle. Like a bicyclist, the engineer can feel the slightest grade when he's piloting a coal train. Going over the crest of a tiny hill, the front engines will be braking hard on the descent, while the rear engines are still straining to push the back of the train up the other side of the hill. I'm glad I don't have to do that on my bike!

Sometimes I have to stop for a long freight train on my way home from work, late at night. These are "car trains," hauling shiny new Cadillacs, just built in Lansing a hundred yards from where I stand--14 cars per car, and 200 freight cars or more per train. Other times it's one of the coal trains from Wyoming, pulling up at the power plant that looms over me with stacks more than 600 feet high, unloading coal to run the auto plants. Coal goes in one end and Cadillacs come out the other end, it all moves in trains, and it's all happening right there, where I'm standing in the street by my little bike, watching those trains. Trains are ****ing cool!

pedex

^^ what makes them efficient is steel on steel is low friction and they never climb steep grades, which also makes interstate highway to rail conversion a problem, rail beds typically stay well under 3% grades, interstates attempt to stay under 6%

wahoonc

I agree. It would take some re-engineering of the interstate to convert it to rail, but with the government already owning the ROW it eliminates the land acquisition portion of the equation. And with the exception of some overpasses and the mountains the bulk of the interstate could be converted pretty easily, and from some non-binding conversation with a couple of civil engineers, the newer interstates are built heavy enough that a track could be laid directly on top of the existing roadway with minimal additional requirements.

The article that Dr. nate referenced is interesting reading, especially the graphs on the impact of the different methods of travel.

Aaron

Roody

I used to ride a train from Grenoble to Geneva, in the French Alps. It sure feels like those electric passenger trains are going up steeper grades, but I don't know if they really are.