Brainstorming A National Network

Hello Everyone.

I'd like to request your help. I want to start compiling ideas on the concept of a new National Rail Network, patterned after the interstate highway system. I think the Amtrak forum is appropriate for this discussion because it is the closest thing that exists to a National Rail network. Furthermore, I would like to think that passenger service would be an integral part of this system.

I'm just going to throw out a series of initial concepts and would appreciate input and debate on them. I'll present them as "What?, Where?, and Why?" with a few comments at the end.

What?
A new, national rail network, electrified and multi-tracked, intended to provide transportation of freight and passengers efficiently and quickly.
Where?
The system would be built along the abandoned and secondary rail lines that crisscross the United States. Examples might be the old Milwaukee Road transcontinental line, The old Santa Fe passenger line across Kansas, and the old Rock Island Line paralleling Route 66 in Oklahoma.
Why?
In short, Economics, Security, Energy, and the Environment.
Comments
Economics, security, and energy go hand in hand. Railroad electrification is currently the only viable alternative to our transportation infrastructure which currently rely's exclusively on fossil fuels. I know a considerable amount of electricity is generated by coal. But nuclear, hydro-electric, and alternative energy are in the mix. And those energy sources are all home grown. Not imported from countries which support and finance radical fundamentalism and terrorism. I wish Amtrak would point out how much oil doesn't have to be imported because of the existence of the northeast corridor. What if it was equivalent to the North slope of Alaska? Would that shut the critics up?
Electricity is also cheaper than liquid fuel, btu to btu. But an electrified infrastructure is a huge up front investment. But even if it's a wash after it's all said and done, who would the American public want to pay? The lineman living in Rural Kansas who maintains the electrified system, or an Arab Sheik who gives his people no future and supports radical causes?

The environment can be the greatest argument of all for this system. An electrified rail system could literally be powered by wind farms in the Dakotas. Or by installing 100 million compact flourescent light bulbs.

Imagine if the $600 billion for the Iraq war had been invested in this system.

OK. Off my soapbox. Here's a few issues about the details.

How can this system most efficiently serve freight and passengers? I don't feel a TGV system would do that. You don't need to ship DVD players and onions at 200 mph. The interstate system is successful because everyone uses it. Passenger cars pay the majority of the gas tax to build a system that heavy trucks can use. For this electrified system to be successful, everyone has to be able to use it. I think 120 mph is fast enough. And what about mixing freight and passengers? Could a 4 track main safely mix coal and passenger trains?

I think it should be government owned and maintained, with open access. Buy an locomotive and cars, buy a time slot, and you and I can run on it.

How would this system affect and be accepted (or fought) by the road and air lobbies?

Where could a section of this system first be built to demonstrate it's feasibilty? (Harrisburg to Pittsburg? Kansas City to St. Louis?) How long should it be to be successful?

All brainstorming is welcome. [/b]

Much of what you suggest was proposed by Gilbert Carmichael in an essay called Interstate II. Its a little dated, but still relevant. Mr. Carmichael was the chairman of the now defunct Amtrak Reform Council.

I fully agree with your premise, though I might quibble over some details. I think all interested parties - including Amtrak, the freight railroads, passenger advocacy groups, state transportation departments, etc. - need to have a role in the process. The first step is to analyze travel patterns and conduct market studies to find out where people want to go. This, of course, is beyond our abilities. The results of such a study would form the basis of a network, and provide a set of clearly defined goals.

I wouldn't limit the system to electrification. One of the beauties of rail is that it is not dependent on any single form of energy. Electrification should be employed where practical, but that does not necessarily mean everywhere.

I'm also not sure public ownership of the tracks is necessary. I doubt it would be cost effective to buy it all up. A public-private partnership is probably more practical.

If you are proposing a whole new rail network, I wouldn't limit its location to existing abandoned ROW. For one thing, modern construction methods often provide straighter, more direct routes than those constructed in the 1800s. Also, population has shifted in the last 100 or so years. I think the Interstate highway system is a good analogy. Some roads were built from scratch, on new ROWs. Some were built by upgrading existing roads. Of course, upgrading an existing RR would raise issues of compensation for the railroad's current owner, but that could be factored in.

Don't forget Ethanol. Then it could be argued that Amtrak is producing jobs for American farmers.

MikeinNeb wrote:Hello Everyone.


What?
A new, national rail network, electrified and multi-tracked, intended to provide transportation of freight and passengers efficiently and quickly.
Where?
The system would be built along the abandoned and secondary rail lines that crisscross the United States. Examples might be the old Milwaukee Road transcontinental line, The old Santa Fe passenger line across Kansas, and the old Rock Island Line paralleling Route 66 in Oklahoma.
[/b]

Many, perhaps most, of the new routes in Europe have been built alongside the motorways. Modern TGV rail has the power to climb gradients not possible for the 1950s type of train. I suggest that any new routes in the US should use the Interstates and forget about the historic routes, using them only for entry into cities. They can be built either alongside or above. Indeed, I see no reason why in some cases two lanes should not be taken from the road for rail. (No level crossings of any kind).

I am thinking of the LGV Nord from Lille to Paris. The trains whizz alongside the Autoroute, leaving the cars behind as the train goes at least twice as fast. Also the new line in Britain which parallels the M2 motorway, with similar effects. The same has happened in Germany where the New lines often are alongside Autobahns.

There is already discussion in Europe about hydrogen powered trains. The devices necessary - megawatt fuel cells - are foreseeable. This would give trains the convenience of electric traction without the inconvenience of overhead cables. Overhead only makes sense with a really dense service - tens of trains an hour.

(Ethanol from food is immoral and should not be allowed.)

If building new lines , i dont see the need for heavy frieght to use them .
Intermodal , lcl carload frieght ,express most definetly .
i would have mixed trains at 150 mph , along the lines of amtraks express operation , in this way higher frequency can be justified .
but the "frieghtcars"would be similiar to passenger cars , with removable containers for intermodal operation .

I think the Amtrak forum is appropriate for this discussion because it is the closest thing that exists to a National Rail network

No, they're a national rail operator, not a network. And unless this ends up being an Amtrak owned-and-operated network (where's the funding coming from, incidentally?), I don't see the relevance herein, especially when you say:

I think it should be government owned and maintained, with open access

Then you really have to show not only how to fund, but how to dispatch and how to keep a highly-signaled main line (especially with the FRA oversight you have implied) relatively solvent. NEC-level signaling is overkill when it comes to freight operations—and any freight locomotives that operate on such a system will require cab upgrades in order to use this system, which will result in most freight railroads eschewing it in the absence of incentives funded outside of their own revenue streams.

How can this system most efficiently serve freight and passengers? I don't feel a TGV system would do that

IIRC, freight operates along the Neubaustrecke lines at night while the ICE trains are not operating, albeit not at the same speeds as ICE trains. (The Neubaustrecke is equivalent to France's LGV, where the TGVs operate at high speeds.)

I think 120 mph is fast enough

120 mph is a plateau crossed in the 1960s/1970s, generally speaking. Given today's technology, it is not competitive for passenger rail except over short distances.

David Benton wrote:If building new lines , i dont see the need for heavy frieght to use them .
Intermodal , lcl carload frieght ,express most definetly .
i would have mixed trains at 150 mph , along the lines of amtraks express operation , in this way higher frequency can be justified .
but the "frieghtcars"would be similiar to passenger cars , with removable containers for intermodal operation .

The French have one or more postal TGVs. High speed parcels are possible but no conventional freight at all.

The British post office has mostly abandoned rail despite having invested a lot in specialised trains (not High Speed).

The British post office has mostly abandoned rail despite having invested a lot in specialised trains (not High Speed)

Still relatively high-speed, if you're referring to the Class 67 (a nice EMD/Alstom hybrid that I wish Irish Rail had gotten for its Enterprise and Dublin-Cork trains)—that engine's capable of 125 mph (achieved 143 mph in tests). The motorways won't achieve the same results; and air mail wouldn't be cheaper either.

Irish Chieftain wrote:

The British post office has mostly abandoned rail despite having invested a lot in specialised trains (not High Speed)

Still relatively high-speed, if you're referring to the Class 67 (a nice EMD/Alstom hybrid that I wish Irish Rail had gotten for its Enterprise and Dublin-Cork trains)—that engine's capable of 125 mph (achieved 143 mph in tests). The motorways won't achieve the same results; and air mail wouldn't be cheaper either.

They also had some dual voltage EMUs.

I don't think that a "passenger only" type system (meaning high speed) would work. There are volumes of discussion about that already.

What I'm talking about is getting ton-miles and passenger miles on the electrical grid rather than burning aviation fuel, diesel fuel, and gasoline.
Again, the model is the interstate.

Now is that realistic? How successfully could you mix freight and passenger trains? How was it done way back when with the Pennsylvania Railroad on the Northeast Corridor?

I understand the rationale of not having a unit coal train running on the same track as a TGV. But those are two extremes. I'd like to think that this system would be intermodal freight trains. Is the density of the freight the critical issue regarding safety? Perhaps unit trains such as coal and grain could move at night.

My thought is 90 mph intermodals being passed by 120 mph passenger trains.

todays freight car or locomotives are just the same as a coal drag.
running 300 ton freight units with 150 ton freight cars makes no difference if you run 150 ton double stacks or 150 ton coalcars they do same damage.

single level container trains move at 100 mph in Europe . This would be the traffic you would want to attract . And it would be taking it form trucks , not the existing heavy haul railroads .

You might be able to get containers on some kind of train that would be compatible with passenger train speeds. But for bulk commodities like coal, that wouldn't work. Besides, why spend all that extra energy in hauling coal trains at passenger train speeds? Any efficiencies gained by using electricity, would be used up by hauling them faster than makes sense.

Heavy-traffic passenger and freight railroads, like the New York Central and Pennsylvania, tended to use separate tracks for passenger and freight trains, although the separation wasn't absolute.

I don't think that a "passenger only" type system (meaning high speed) would work

Why not? It works elsewhere.

There are volumes of discussion about that already

Yes, empty discussion. The results of investment in such are evident in spite of the discussion (or excuses thereof, should I say).

What I'm talking about is getting ton-miles and passenger miles on the electrical grid rather than burning aviation fuel, diesel fuel, and gasoline.
Again, the model is the interstate

Why that model? It's not applicable. There is no example of "open access" rail in operation anywhere in the world; the USA gets the closest with "trackage rights". You cannot compare the interstate highway with railroads, because you do not dispatch highway traffic nor control cars, buses and trucks in the same manner as trains. (Imagine trying to establish "block lengths" on the highway? especially during morning and evening rush? There would be a lot of waiting to get on, in that case…)

As for electrification, that would require new locomotives; and implying "open access" means that the freight railroads "gotta buy their own". Not worth it, to them; especially since they'd have to electrify their own mains where they connect to this network. They'd keep the diesels.

Now is that realistic? How successfully could you mix freight and passenger trains? How was it done way back when with the Pennsylvania Railroad on the Northeast Corridor?

The PRR had several other routes besides the NEC on which to run freight. Their passenger trains were somewhat slower than today's ones, believe it or not, so conflict was not as easily introduced. Are we singling out the PRR as our standard, though? because their main line is in pieces nowadays and is devoid of the former number of tracks it used to have in other places.

There's no reason to remain stuck on 120 mph, again.