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The logical bus connection is to Salisbury. Much better schedule there. I think a tourist-focused rail service definitely between Asheville and Hendersonville would be a smash hit. Tourism is really going like gangbusters in Asheville right now (and the car traffic that comes with it is there to boo...

Japan has built / is building HSR routes where large segments are more than 50 percent tunneled. Tunneling is much more common over there so it is cheaper and there are more people and companies with experience so it is just not that big of a deal. Often, they chose to tunnel even when flat straigh ...

Empire connector is double track since it openened, except for two places , the Spuyten Duyvil bridge and the box tunnel from 44street to NYP. My understanding (Thanks, Wikipedia !) is that the second track trhough Manhattan was added a few years after the connection initially opened. As for the si...

Sorry to bring back a nine year old thread but somehow this seems like the most appropriate place to ask this question. (That and, I really appreciate the picture posted here by jhdeasy!) I recall reading online somewhere, from an unreliable source, that Amtrak has an easement for construction of a ...

Piedmont cab ride showing track realignment and a new bridge under construction. http://trn.trains.com/photos-videos/videos/2015/12/piedmont-cab-ride-video" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Article in FEB trains. Wow! Amazing to see such extensive railroad engineering underw...

Eminent domain is actually pretty bulletproof in the US and well tested in the courts. Once you have your Environmental Impact Statement or Finding of No Significant Impact completed and signed, there's not much landowners can do to stop condemnation of their property. They can sue to argue that com...

Any plan that does not remove Madison Square Garden and improve the track layout and platform configuration is, from a transit perspective, DOA - spending a lot of money for not enough nresults.

Looks good; I drive that crossing that is being grade separated (Morrisville Parkway) all the time. NCDOT will be temporarily closing the road for a few months pretty soon to do the cutover. That is one of the curvier stretches on the NCRR. The topography is not that difficult so I am not sure the h...

Because that bridge is close to downtown Durham, numerous other grade separations and crossings, and the Durham Amtrak station, and because a sewer main lies close below the surface, any fix at Gregson alone would be at least in the high eight figures. NCDOT does plan a grade separation project at M...

I would say the only assumption I have stated that is not based in fact, or at least some official study, is that the B&P tunnel can be refurbished reasonably for two-track use for at least local commuter trains. And I am not the first to make that assumption, the FRA study from 2006, MARC plans...

Redundancy is good, and If freight were out of the picture, two new bores plus a refurbished b&p tunnel would be sufficient redundancy. Freight is what has driven the scope from two new bores plus refurbishment of the old tunnel, to four new bores. That is why I hope freight interests bear a sig...

What you suggest sounds absolutely reasonable but doesn't jive with the latest b&p tunnel draft EIS. Every remaining option except the do-nothing alternative now calls for four new tunnel bores along the Great Circle alignment. That is what I mean by scope creep. They studied potential reuse of ...

I may have misstated somewhat. Let me correct: Since the scope creep in this project is driven by freight interests, let the scope creep be funded by freight interests (ie the port of Baltimore, CSX, even a freight line item in the budget of the FRA or Maryland DOT). Don't spend one penny of Amtrak ...

That's my point - double stack freight to the port of Baltimore is a parochial issue, rather than a great matter of national interest. It doesn't make a difference, on a national scale, whether cargo comes in through Baltimore or Hampton Roads or Charleston or Savannah or New Jersey or Houston or Wi...

We had some previous discussion on the subject in this thread , wonder if the mods could be so kind as to merge? The problem here, as transportation blogger Alon Levy noted, and I agree, is that what should really be a two-track passenger project has ballooned into a four-track double-stack daddy-ma...