Pony up for the NEC infrastructure

To address Mr. Colt's question, as far as Amtrak is concerned the Inland Route has been "torn up".

Actually, the Boston & Albany, which comprises the Springfield-Boston segment of the so-called Inland Route, is the principal route for freight traffic into New England.

However, I must wonder how many others have noted the "stealthful' discontinuance of Weekend Regionals #140 & #147 effective with the current TT, or for that matter the Daily Bay State (remember when corridor trains had names, anyone???) that I think vansihed during Y2K.

Inland Route service was started as I recall during Nov 1971; I don't think it was ever more than "one a day' plus the Lake Shore. I guess today, you can still connect with "The New England States", or 448-449, but somehow, I would 'think twice' about an EB routing considering the Lake Shore's 'stellar' timekeeping, the frequent "bustitutions' made, plus the train itself's rather uncertain life expectancy.

"On paper", it would appear that 54-SPG-448 would work, except who knows when the latter will actually show up (or will it go arf arf rather than clang clang). WB/SB 449-SPG-55 is a five min connection; likely "illegal'. 449-SPG-437 is of course "safe", but care to spend 2+ hours sitting around Springfield?

By way of reference, April 27, 1952 New Haven Form 200 timetable shows seven connections through Springfield. Other than a GCT-Worcester Sleeper line, all were "change at Springfield'. So I guess the Amtrak Bay State was "groundbreaking' of sorts.

Incidentally, I must note the "nice" System Timetable photo of the Acela @ I think Mystic. However, I could not help but note that the set pictured has shrouds removed. Restoration of thse shrouds is one of the very few "aesthetic plusses" Amtrak has scored.

The "Inland Route" to which I referred was not the one via Hartford and Springfied, but rather, as Mr. Norman correctly noted, the route through Putnam and Blackstone to Readville. It is mostly abandoned now, although I believe the ROW is intact.

As to Mr. Weaver's comments: The Turbos may have been "junk"; certainly they were expensive to maintain, but I disagree that an E unit and coaches could maintain the same schedule. I did ride from Back Bay to GCT in 3:35 in 1969, and I'm massively disappointed that -- after all the spending for electrification -- the Decela can better that running time by only ten minutes. Where is the promised 3:00 time?

On the south end of the NEC, Mr. Norman is right in saying schedules are much faster than they were 30 years ago. "Conventional" Amfleet trains can make NY - WAS with five stops in 3:10, where in 1969 the "Afternoon Congressional" made the trip in 3:35 by skipping Trenton, and the "standard" running time was 3:50. Still, the best Acela Express can manage is 2:45. That's not much progress in 35 years.

I was set back (i.e. with my seniority at the time, I could not hold) from engineer to fireman during part of 1970 so I decided
to take the very best firing job that I could hold and that turned out to be
a New Haven - Boston and return job on the turbo train or whatever going
east and the overnight train going west.
The turbo train had six separate engines and often only three of them
were working. In any event, one had to be set up soley for the APU, in
otherwords for head end power for lights, heat, ac etc. Sometimes we
ran that jalopy with only three or four working and that meant much less
power and very slow getting going.
Under these most frequent conditions, the turbo would not perform as well
as an E-8 with five cars making the same stops. There were a few places
where the turbo train was allowed a higher speed but it did not seem to
matter anyway as it seldom made it up to the higher speeds.
What it did in the timetable or once in a while does not matter to me, I was on the thing three times a week and I can tell you, the standard
equipment did a bitter job.
I can also tell this one now that I am safely retired, one day out of New
York after I had been set up for a while, I had a job from Penn Station to
New Haven with a GG-1 and a number of cars. A turbo train was running
around that day with a lot of big wheels riding it. I was stopped on track
four at the old station in Bridgeport and the bridge was open. Before the
bridge got locked down and the signals cleared, the turbo with all of its
glory stopped next to me on track two. When the signals cleared, I got a
go from the conductor and notched out. To put it midly, we left that thing
in our dust and had already cut off our train and were going back light to
motor storage when the turbo train was coming into New Haven. The
officials were not pleased about it but I never heard any official from
anyone. I don't think they liked their turbo train being shown up by a
pitifully old electric locomotive and not even a New Haven one at that.
I guess Cos Cob had a good head of steam that day too.
Noel Weaver

hsr_fan wrote:During test runs, the Acela Express operated at 160+ mph on the stretch through Princeton Junction. How they determined that the variable tension catenary could support a max revenue speed of 135 mph, I know not.

Wasn't it fear that the vertical oscillations induced by the pan on the lead power unit would cause the trailing unit to tangle in the wire? I think that was a secondary argument for fixed tension catenary, in addition to the sagging caused by thermal expansion in warm weather. Just watching the Acelas run through New Brunswick, you can observe a fair amount of vertical movement of the cat in their wake.

<i>Wasn't it fear that the vertical oscillations induced by the pan on the lead power unit would cause the trailing unit to tangle in the wire?</i>

It's hardly fear. High speed pantograph tracking isn't an exact science, yet. It was such an unknown when the TGV was being designed that the TGV was origionally going to be gas turbine. It wasn't until late in the project they realized they could in fact get good tracking at 186mph, provided only one pan was up. That's why the trainline 25kv bus exists on those trains. The technology is advancing in France and Japan, now some trains use actively controlled pantographs.

<i> I think that was a secondary argument for fixed tension catenary, in addition to the sagging caused by thermal expansion in warm weather.</i>

Yes. The PRR's catenary isn't - and never was - intended for sustained 100+mph running, to say nothing of 135+mph. Remember, the design speed of the GG-1 was 100mph, even if they had the power to get over that (and HP was dropping off at that point, I believe it peaks at 70mph), going faster could damage or even lock up a traction motor, though granted a 110mph burst wouldn't be that harmful. But certainly, there was no sustained 125mph running with the GG-1s, unless a few were regeared for it.

Pantograph issues existed with the Metroliners, too.

<i> Just watching the Acelas run through New Brunswick, you can observe a fair amount of vertical movement of the cat in their wake.</i>

Wiggle Wiggle. That wears the wires out. Variable tension catenary actually sucks because it never stays put (it physically can't), and it endures a slight loading/unloading as it heats and cools. I don't know who figured out the weight thing, though I think it was the British. The neat thing? once you have weights, the tension stays constant and the wire behaves a lot nicer, and also stays where you want. And a 2 year old can math out the forces on it...

That said, it makes sense to convert the easy parts and curves first - terminal areas have a lot more wire support, and low speeds through them means less risk of problems anyway.