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The best way to speed trains up is to eliminate time going 0mph. Less time on sidings waiting for freight trains to pass. Things that make stops shorter: level boarding, eliminating power changes, more doors? The second best way is to spend less time going slow. Fix slow turnouts, straighten curves,...

The Cardinal does use 1st street, but not in that direction. If the premise is that the only time Amtrak sends Superliners through 1st street is non-revenue moves of equipment between Beech Grove and Lorton, they should just send them via the Cardinal route, drop them off somewhere near Alexandria, ...

AREMA chart specifying clearances between wire and train or tunnel ceiling: https://i.imgur.com/446cZex.png Let's assume it's "polluted" so we need the extra clearance, and double it to find the distance from the tunnel ceiling to the train roof: 12.5kV: Normal: 15.5" Minimum 13.5&quo...

Saying "no wire through 1st street" is, to me, the tail wagging the dog. Bad policy. It allows VRE to use antiquated rolling stock which is fine for now but should not be considered non-negotiable in the future. How about: 1. If you're electrifying south of WAS there is literally no excuse...

North Carolina just made a deal and got a grant to acquire its portion of the S-line.

https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local ... 41010.html

In addition it looks like North Carolina has just inked a deal to acquire the S line from CSX.

https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local ... 41010.html

Waking up this thread from its COVID-induced slumber. NCDOT got a $25 million BUILD grant to put a passenger station in Lexington, which is roughly halfway between High Point and Salisbury. https://www.the-dispatch.com/story/news/local/2020/09/11/lexington-receive-25-million-new-train-and-bus-statio...

Retractable, train-mounted gap fillers help with the tangent(straight) track requirement as well. With gap fillers, you can actually build curved high platforms with full ADA accessibility without so much as a bypass or gauntlet track. Sheer genius. I have not yet seen a solution that allows all of ...

$77m + $80m = $157 million for new trains in NC. Wow! NCDOT seems to be moving slowly toward high platforms. This makes sense, because level boarding is probably the lowest hanging fruit for making the Piedmont faster. With this in mind, I think it would be a worthwhile investment to: (1) Get coache...

If they are planning a new lift span bridge hardly any higher than, and with no curve improvements compared to the old bridge, then they have achieved *exactly* nothing. Forget the I-95 bypass; they should just build a curved, fixed span, connecting the two sharp curves at either end of the bridge i...

I love all the drawings of a layout for a station for Atlanta at Atlantic Station. This is much better than the original (abandoned) proposal at 17th street half a mile west. In all, this would be a fantastic spot, but for the fact that it has no connection to MARTA. In that sense, it is no differen...

Now would be the time for NCDOT to buy out CSX, wouldn’t it! It doesn’t seem like the company is wedded to most of its branch lines. Underrated comment. NCDOT should buy out the CSX line from Goldsboro to Wilmington and hand it to the NCRR to operate as a branch of their mainline. Include it in the...

4. Long Bridge/Virginia Virginia has just committed a huge chunk of state funding toward passenger rail. Doubling down in Virginia by dropping an extra $2b on passenger rail on top of what the state is already planning to spend could provide the spark to turn what currently looks to be a generation...

Alleviating bottlenecks on the existing NEC, or taking measures to extend the NEC past its existing termini are the most critical improvements, because they build exponentially on what is already there. Here are the options: 1. North River Tunnel North River tunnel is obviously the most critical, bu...

They aren't just economic spheres. Tennessee is so geographically and historically divided that they are legal entities, enshrined in the Tennessee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Divisions_of_Tennessee Now *that* is a trip. In comparison, North Carolina (my home state) has the mountains, the p...