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  • Fredrick Douglass Tunnel (Replacement of the Baltimore and Potomac B&P Tunnel)

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1364169  by orulz
 
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 Wilmington or wherever. We shouldn't be spending $2+ billion of extra federal money so that Baltimore can retain or increase its market share over other east coast ports. This is what happens when decisions are made based on politics rather than empirical cost effectiveness.
 #1364180  by ExCon90
 
Also, if ships keep getting bigger, the width of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal becomes an issue (I don't know how wide it is now). I can't foresee a "post-C&D" vessel sailing right through Hampton Roads to reach Baltimore, only to have to return the same way, again passing the Port of Norfolk--two days after it was just there.
 #1364302  by Gilbert B Norman
 
The immediate comments made by Messrs. ExCon and Orulz, even if deviating away from passenger train discussion, I find interesting.

From the discussion, I find that the Port of Baltimore has not been on the building frenzy that all too many ports have embarked upon with "visions of sugarplums" in a post-PANAMAX world. I have noted the concern I hold at several topics more related to the shipping industry.

It would appear to me that East Coast maritime ports, from "Miami on up" are outdoing one another to throw the biggest post-PANAMAX party. I am fearful that there will be a "nobody, or not that many, came", and Baltimore will be vindicated for not jumping on the bandwagon with projects such as a Port funded double stacking of CSX's Howard Street tunnel.

To summarize points I have made at the other topics, the West Coast ports will not take lightly the loss of traffic from watching what was "their" business sail through the Canal to the East; neither for that matter will it so taken in Fort Worth and Omaha. The labor issues confronting the West Coast now appear stable. Additional stability matters, namely political stability, could make the Port of Lazaro Cardenas, Michuan (Mexico), into a "player". There the cost structure would be dramatically changed - and the KCS a beneficiary being the only road serving that Port.

Let us not hope that one will look out on a port facility and see too many cranes pointed skyward. I couldn't help but note that during a three day visit to Miami last February at a port that seeks to be "a major player" - and not just where the Love Tubs tie up.

Finally at this forum which addresses Amtrak affairs, allow me to note that PANAMAX is a term to describe the largest vessel, length overall, beam (width), draft (deep) the Panama Canal can handle. Those dimensions will greatly increase when new locks under construction (beset with many delays, of course) enter service.
Last edited by Gilbert B Norman on Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
 #1364323  by mtuandrew
 
Since this is a passenger rail project firstly, I have a suggestion - have the public agency purchase a TBM wide enough for 3 tracks abreast at Plate F and bore a new B&P tunnel, then sell it to CSX at a used-car discount so they can bore their own 2 track Plate H tunnel.
 #1364419  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
orulz wrote: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 Wilmington or wherever. We shouldn't be spending $2+ billion of extra federal money so that Baltimore can retain or increase its market share over other east coast ports. This is what happens when decisions are made based on politics rather than empirical cost effectiveness.
Can you substantiate this with some evidence? The Class I's are investing big in PoB access, and State of Maryland has well-defined self-interest in funding upgrades (more solidly justified than, say, some of the money the New England states are thinking of spending on deepwater dredging to catch a couple token PANMAX ships on flypaper). It's a little presumptuous that some detached executive decision can be made from above saying, "no, Maryland, we're overruling you on executive orders because Hampton Roads--and the jobs it ends up taking from Baltimore--is a better strategic port for the balance of the lower 48." Maryland's going to sell that to its voters...how again?...when the traffic is swimming around the general vicinity? Their port, their economy, their math that shows it's worth baking that consideration up-front into a tunnel designed to last 100 years. Like it or not, the U.S. is a 50-state union with separation of national vs. state powers. Short of having another Constitutional Convention to re-federalize the whole country, state-level interests matter and are an inseparable component of national initiatives. In times of better-functioning gov't as well as chaotically dysfunctional gov't.

Alon Levy's a great transpo blogger on many things, but he explicitly--it's right there in the "About" mission statement on his blog--sticks to a borderless analysis of passenger rail issues in order to boil down some complex math (he being an advanced mathematician by trade) into useful national comparisons. That's his specialty. It explicitly ignores local issues and political-structural issues such as local vs. state vs. national legislation sausage-making that shapes national rail projects (not just here, but also with worldwide comparisons) because it's too unwieldy to offer up useful analysis incorporating that whole kitchen sink. Other transpo bloggers of renown have their own parameters for doing the same, because they have to place limits to be able to write coherently at all. So keep that in mind; the gospel being preached by some leading voices is intentionally not covering the same spread. Just because that's being argued from a national perspective doesn't mean the local perspective is baseless. ALL politics is local, even on the Euro HSR systems that are the envy of the world.

This is a tunnel with a 100-year lifespan. The economics of freight rail and deepwater port shipping are changing a lot on a 20-year level, and the players have a vested interest in baking in provisions for the unprojectable eras >20 years out with their major infrastructure investment decisions. It is not a parochial decision in the slightest to conclude up-front "if you build this tunnel with under-wire clearances that can take a 20'6" tall double-stack under electrification that may someday be increased to 25 kV...we won't ever have to debate the need for building or modifying a freight-only tunnel if the need gets so acute the Port's livelihood depends on it." For total cost-of-ownership over lifetime of the city's rail infrastructure, that's a big savings--not a boondoggle--to take future considerations into account up-front. That's what they're going for. And the local considerations do matter. For preventing another mushrooming boondoggle they just have to keep the contracting corruption from entering the picture, and the mission creep with non-associated builds apart from the tunnel from creeping into the picture. Levy hits that aspect dead-on in his writing about Gateway: it's not the tunnel, it's Penn South and the other associated lard in the whole Gateway package that are driving up project costs off-scale with what other countries are able to do for their money...and loading that initiative up with potentially unacceptable risk for further cost bloat. The tunnel itself, however, is pretty much the going-rate for the construction difficulty. And the Gateway tunnel will be built for Superliner-under-25 kV clearances that Penn can't currently take...but might in the 100-year lifespan of the thing. If the B&P replacement sticks to the script and is only a tunnel, there is no reason why they can't cover all their bases for 100-year traffic without ending up with a boondoggle on their hands.

Future-proofing isn't something to sneer at. It's smart planning when the cost of doing it one-and-done is orders of magnitude less than shorting it...going "Oops" in 20 years...then having the endless debate about a specialty freight tunnel costing 30 or 40 times as much as baking the extra 4 feet of vertical clearance into the New B&P. All because they goofed on their projections for one stinking mile of co-mingled running underneath the city. Even a "borderless" national perspective is going to endlessly ridicule something so stupidly short-sighted as that. Scrutinize the efficiency of the build's execution, not its relatively straightforward intentions. All this national vs. local tug-of-war won't matter if they get 100 years of capacity considerations for a tunnel build that sticks to exactly the going rate for said tunnel build.
 #1364445  by orulz
 
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 or other passenger rail related money beyond what it would take to build this as a passenger only project. And also bake in certain assurances that freight will not interfere with passenger traffic in any way.
 #1364468  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
It is not that simplistic. The state of Maryland has a vested interest in carving out traffic lanes to the Port of Baltimore, so they will be seeking public funding--including federal sources--for the 4 feet of vertical clearance above-and-beyond that of a Superliner roof. Tunnel dimensions are intrinsic part of the passenger-driven design for the thing, and the funding sources therein. It's completely impossible to part that out completely. The freights are doing tens of millions in self-funding on clearances for their own lanes in/out of the Port on the various freight-only lines. The one place where they (much moreso Norfolk Southern, since CSX has more pre-existing access points to the Port it can self-upgrade) need public assistance is for that very little bit of NEC co-mingling under the city that's unavoidable. As all the freight-only lines converge on the coast they have to cross over or quickly on/off the NEC for short distances. This just happens to be the only place on the NEC where that cross-on/cross-off of potentially very heavy intermodal traffic coincides with a major piece of tunnel or bridge infrastructure up for renewal and/or new-build. These types of considerations are in no way rampant across the Corridor; it's a case of coincidence that the B&P just happens to be one of those very few places.


As for slots...whatever oversize volumes uses it will absolutely be nocturnal jobs. Intermodal from a shipping port is not time-sensitive like a local serving an on-line business during company business hours. Where these kinds of heavy jobs run on passenger lines they're relegated to the graveyard shift when commuter rail isn't running at all and there's no Amtrak except for maybe the very last straggler of the night. Second, the old B&P tunnel is slated for a full rehab once the new tunnel opens. They need a separate funding shot after the New B&P full-funding to formally put a timetable on that rehab, but they fully intend to close down the tunnel, do a complete resurfacing + as-needed structural reinforcements + drainage upgrade...and reopen it as non-AMTK tracks 3 & 4 through Baltimore, since the New B&P only has enough footprint for 2 tracks. Presumably that means MARC gets the old tunnel full-time, and any general freight of standard dimensions is assigned exclusively to the old one. Same general rehab plan as what they aim to do with taking each of the North River tubes offline after the Gateway tunnel opens. A refurbished old B&P tunnel is perfectly fine for local traffic once they get full breathing room to idle it for 2 years and do a thorough job rehabilitating the structure to like-new condition. So the amount of 100-year freight co-mingling in the new tunnel is neither all that huge or anything one is going to see during passenger hours. You're talking a couple of long consists going through between midnight and 5:00am, and if the Port business grows those same trains just get longer and longer...not all that more frequent or widespread across the schedule. I suppose if Amtrak's got a couple Night Owl's dotting the graveyard shift that's the only time they'd ever switch back to using the old tunnels. Otherwise the new one is mostly theirs 18 hours a day every day.
 #1364496  by orulz
 
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 the old B&P tunnel but that was inconclusive at best, mentioning mushroom farms and storage facilities in the same breath as backfilling and refurbishment, because the old B&P was deemed unusable for freight.
 #1364500  by west point
 
Four separate tunnels are much better for the accident that sooner or later will happen in one of the tunnels. Then you need to plan on just using three tunnels at any time due to maintenance. Then the possible use of 2 freight trains in opposite direction means for full flexibility you need 3 freight tunnels.
For the 4 foot difference in tunnel bore the shorter tunnel still requires 87% of the spoil that the larger tunnels will require.
So to just build one smaller tunnel makes no sense.
There will be more costs for the liner's, TBM, higher volume exhaust fans, and more interlocking but for the difference in price makes no sense to build the smaller bore.
 #1364517  by orulz
 
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 significant chunk of the costs. In fact, let freight interests pay outright for two of the tunnels and let them be dedicated use. Then let Amtrak/MARC refurb the old B&P to get a third and fourth passenger track.
 #1364530  by west point
 
orulz wrote: Redundancy is good, and If freight were out of the picture, two new bores plus a refurbished b&p tunnel would be sufficient redundancy. use. Then let Amtrak/MARC refurb the old B&P to get a third and fourth passenger track.
There are some assumptions not based in fact.
1. Amtrak and MARC are already delayed thru the old tunnel now since it is only 2 track.
2. With the new Acela-2s to come on line Amtrak proposes to have 1/2 hour Acela service.
3. As well more regionals and maybe a LD train or 2 more once the New York Gateway tunnels are complete.
4. MARC plans to add more trains WASH - BAL - Wilmington which is going to require 4 tracking from south of PHL - WASH. That is the long term plan in the NEC improvement plan. IF ( a big IF ) the B & P tunnel is capable of being refurbished MARC may use it as a storage for trains laying over or even for BAL - WASH locals
 #1364542  by orulz
 
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 dating back to at least 2012, and even the NEC future studies make it too. The current DEIS only states that the B&P cannot be adequately refurbished for double stack freight trains. I have seen no suggestion anywhere that four passenger tracks from West Baltimore to Penn Station could possibly be inadequate. The ultra high investment NEC alternative would have six tracks through Baltimore but tracks 5 and 6 would be on an arrow-straight alignment in a bored tunnel along US 40.

So it seems to me, barring some technical reason that the B&P cannot be refurbished for double track commuter/local use, the only reason they are talking about 4 brand new tunnels between West Baltimore and Penn Station is freight.

Admittedly, this is all going from memory from having read all these studies, in some cases years ago, and I don't have the time to check my references so please feel free to fact check me and correct if necessary.
 #1412269  by Jeff Smith
 
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Baltimore Amtrak tunnel replacement would cost $4 billion

The Federal Railroad Administration wants to go ahead with a $4 billion project to replace a 143-year-old Amtrak tunnel that passes under West Baltimore and is a major bottleneck in the rail corridor from Boston to Washington.

The agency's preferred route for a new Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel would take it in a wide arc beneath neighborhoods including Reservoir Hill, Penn North and Sandtown-Winchester, displacing 22 homes, five of which are vacant, according to a recently released final environmental impact statement.

The new tunnel would replace the existing 1.4-mile tunnel beneath Bolton Hill and Sandtown-Winchester, allowing more trains to pass through and at faster speeds.
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