Delmarva Peninsula - Diamond State Line

TheOneKEA wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 8:20 pm It certainly could be electrified on either the PRR 12kV 25Hz system or a modern 25kV 60Hz system, but should it be electrified?

Why not use AIROs? Then wire not needed unless 12 - 16 RTs a day became a result.

TheOneKEA wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 8:20 pm Should the portion of the route from Wilmington/Newark to Dover be electrified, to allow for through services from Dover to Philly? I'm curious to know how many of the throngs of cars fighting their way down I-95 and I-495, to US 13 and DE 1 are coming from the parts of Philly served by SEPTA, and if a through service from somewhere in the Philly metropolitan region to Dover would actually draw away any of that through car traffic past Wilmington.

It certainly could be electrified on either the PRR 12kV 25Hz system or a modern 25kV 60Hz system, but should it be electrified?

The Delmarva Peninsula is pulling in tourists and others from Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. Ideally, train originates from NYC and travels down the corridor to NYC, Philly, and Wilmington before branching off down the Delmarva. And remember it's another 50 or so miles from Dover to Salisbury/Berlin, MD, where they propose the terminus to be. I don't think electrifying the line would make sense considering the investment involved, let alone the mix of freight involved on the line too. Even in its heyday as the PRR's backdoor route to Hampton Roads, the line saw a descent amount of trains, particularly during the War period, and was only double tracked but nothing more. Today's it's a single track line with passing sidings (yet more likely needed for the restoration of passenger rail).

jp1822 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 4:09 am The Delmarva Peninsula is pulling in tourists and others from Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. Ideally, train originates from NYC and travels down the corridor to NYC, Philly, and Wilmington before branching off down the Delmarva. And remember it's another 50 or so miles from Dover to Salisbury/Berlin, MD, where they propose the terminus to be. I don't think electrifying the line would make sense considering the investment involved, let alone the mix of freight involved on the line too. Even in its heyday as the PRR's backdoor route to Hampton Roads, the line saw a descent amount of trains, particularly during the War period, and was only double tracked but nothing more. Today's it's a single track line with passing sidings (yet more likely needed for the restoration of passenger rail).

You just touched on one other thing: Washington and Baltimore traffic. Folks there are not going to like the idea of going north just to go south and east.

So, keep this idea for NYC/Philly traffic... but keep going once you hit Salisbury/Berlin. Take the right hand turn (or use Airos and push-pull) and terminate in DC. You get the Baltimore/DC/Annapolis/Kent Island traffic and you also do double duty with commuter service.

"Know so first hand from younger days", Rehoboth is "The District" during summer - especially on weekends. But then, there is no reasonable way to have any Delmarva service serve there, as such is 35 miles away, or in utterly annoying "Newspeak", "it's an hour" from its closest proposed stop Seaford.

All told any kind of rail service from Wash to the Peninsula is simply a no start.

So far as Philly goes, my remembrances are that they go to the South end of the Jersey Shore; New York, absent being in The Hamptons crowd, go to the North end of such.

Those are good remembrances, believe me...... I sold my vacation house in Worcester County, MD as the trip through Delaware was getting absolutely CRAZY, even with the new expressway Route 1. Mr. Norman, you'd probably never recognize the Delaware region these days........I do the "remember when" every time I go over the St. Georges Bridge!!! SO much traffic, and it is coming from NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. Many retirees now reside in Delaware and their families often live in Philadelphia and NYC. Believe it or not, Snow Hill, MD even has a LOT of NYC and Philadelphia transplants....Even for work purposes at the colleges in Dover, Salisbury, and Princess Anne. It's a totally different traffic pattern - but YES, there still is the above pattern you mention, but start multiplying it!

I agree - forget running anything through the Delmarva to get to Baltimore or DC. Never happening..... But one can dream!

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 5:15 am You just touched on one other thing: Washington and Baltimore traffic. Folks there are not going to like the idea of going north just to go south and east.

So, keep this idea for NYC/Philly traffic... but keep going once you hit Salisbury/Berlin. Take the right hand turn (or use Airos and push-pull) and terminate in DC. You get the Baltimore/DC/Annapolis/Kent Island traffic and you also do double duty with commuter service.

At least I've found sometimes that it's equidistant from baltimore to the eastern shore, in summer, between either the bay bridge or the nothern route.
Since at least one transfer would need to be made anyway, I wonder if there was track upgrade, and hourly service to newark, if there could be viable service in summer.

Folks, ignoring a DC to Salisbury rail link to hook up with a Diamond State Line Amtrak is fool hearty. People aren't going to go DC or Baltimore to Wilmington and then Salisbury, to get to Ocean City. They're going to hit I-97 or US-50 to Annapolis and then US-50 the rest of the way to the beach by car or take the Bay Runner to Ocean City from BWI Airport (ticketed by Amtrak), because it's a shorter trip (3 hours or so one way on a good day). Build the rail link to get them there in under 2 hours and it's worth it.

Hmmm... Wilmington to Ocean City by car is 2.25 hours. Average of 54 MPH assuming you're lucky with traffic and the lights. Are the current rail lines going down there fast enough? Nothing public on the track there!

Absent building another bridge across the bay, the only rail routes on the peninsula are up through Delaware. It's one thing to rehab an existing right of way to add a new service, but quite another to build a new rail line across the Chesapeake Bay.

Electrification wouldn't be needed for through service. Diesel trains could operate as far as 30th St. Sta., and dual-mode engines could go farther up the corridor.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:So far as Philly goes, my remembrances are that they go to the South end of the Jersey Shore; New York, absent being in The Hamptons crowd, go to the North end of such.

This may be an anecdotal observation based on the habits of people I know, but there is a fair contingent of people who head to the Delaware beaches, especially people living in Chester County; a trip from many points in Chester County to the Delaware beaches takes less time than a journey to most destinations "down the Shore."

jp1822 wrote:Even in its heyday as the PRR's backdoor route to Hampton Roads, the line saw a descent amount of trains, particularly during the War period, and was only double tracked but nothing more. Today's it's a single track line with passing sidings (yet more likely needed for the restoration of passenger rail).

The good news about this line is that it's still quite capable of being restored to double track. According to a quick survey of Google Maps, it looks like that short of moving some telephone poles and relocating some grade crossing equipment, a second track could be laid down tomorrow on the Delmarva Secondary from the C&D Canal all the way down to near NASA's Wallops Island facility outside Chincoteague, with only the single-track swing bridge over the Nanticoke River in Seaford preventing the line from being a clear double tracking project. Even most of the stretches of the possible routes north of the C&D Canal lend themselves fairly easily to double tracking.

The bad news is that there is no easy way to Wilmington for this corridor. As it stands right now, there are only two routes to reach the Delmarva Secondary that would make up this corridor. One option is a direct connection between the the Delmarva Secondary and the NEC at Davis Interlocking just east of Newark. The other option is from an interchange with the NEC at Edgemoor to the Shellpot Secondary, then the New Castle Secondary, and finally the Delmarva Secondary. Neither option provides direct, one-seat service between the Delmarva Peninsula and Wilmington. If the Airo's turn out to be reliable and can run reverse directions, great, but I'm not sure if the Delmarva Corridor's service could even happen without building a wye at Davis Interlocking so that trains leaving Delmarva could turn towards Wilmington in addition to the existing merge towards Newark or rebuilding the Mill Creek Connection to link the Shellpot Secondary to the NEC south of Wilmington Amtrak station. There is one more option to connect Delmarva to Wilmington station, which is to restore the link between the Shellpot Secondary at the NS Edgemoor Yard and the NEC just north of Landlith Interlocking, but I don't imagine that Amtrak would love having trains run on such curvy track through a freight yard that borders Wilmington Shops, not to mention the loss of one-seat rides for any traffic to and from Philadelphia and points north.

This came up in my feed; you may need to be a member of the Abandoned Rails group:

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:04 pm Absent building another bridge across the bay, the only rail routes on the peninsula are up through Delaware. It's one thing to rehab an existing right of way to add a new service, but quite another to build a new rail line across the Chesapeake Bay.

I am aware of that and know it would be required for such a service. And yes, it's going to be expensive. But oh is it going to be worth it in the very long run.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 12:02 pm

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:04 pm Absent building another bridge across the bay, the only rail routes on the peninsula are up through Delaware. It's one thing to rehab an existing right of way to add a new service, but quite another to build a new rail line across the Chesapeake Bay.

I am aware of that and know it would be required for such a service. And yes, it's going to be expensive. But oh is it going to be worth it in the very long run.

Without commenting on any cross Bay issues I will say (as someone who has spent a good bit of time there recently) Annapolis would HUGELY benefit from restored service to DC. Unfortunately the original terminus has been built over (now the Graduate Hotel), and much of the ROW through Parole has sprawl all over it/ Some of the intown ROW remains as a trail (and some from DC to Odenton was purchased for that ridiculous maglev project).