Howard Street Tunnel Baltimore

A public private partnership between Amtrak, CSX and MARC.

What do you think? I've put together a map showing how I think CSX could be worked in.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... X6W9pWoZ8M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ops, forgot to share it.

So a couple things:

1.) This would work with a 5 track tunnel. CSX would get priority on one track. Amtrak and MARC could use this track but CSX would get priority on it. It would run from the wye at route 1 to the Bayview Lead. The other option would be to build a wye onto the Hanover sub and wye trains up the Hanover sub to where the WM used to branch off.

2.) The Howard Street tunnel and Baltimore Belt line would continue to operate as a railroad. CSX would permit a few MARC trains to use the Belt Line. New MARC stops would be added in Central and East Baltimore.

No way Jose

mmi16 wrote:No way Jose

Very insightful.

gprimr1 wrote:

mmi16 wrote:No way Jose

Very insightful.

The sky can't support all that pie.

If the original tunnels could be built over 100 years ago..there is no reason better tunnels can't be created today. Look how much we spend on freeway overpasses and airports...even the East Side Access project in NY. The benefits of moving hundreds of commuter, Amtrak, and freight trains efficiently through Baltimore would be beneficial to all parties.

cu29640 wrote:If the original tunnels could be built over 100 years ago..there is no reason better tunnels can't be created today. Look how much we spend on freeway overpasses and airports...even the East Side Access project in NY. The benefits of moving hundreds of commuter, Amtrak, and freight trains efficiently through Baltimore would be beneficial to all parties.

See all the 'push' CSX has had against the modernization of the Virginia Ave. Tunnel in DC - after 3+ years the Federal Highway Administration has OK'd the project and now the 'locals' want to go to court for the next 100 years or more. In any tunnel project in Baltimore for either CSX or Amtrak there are thousands more affected parties than are being affected in DC.

If a 'new' tunnel were completed by 2050 for either or both, I would be amazed and spinning 78 RPM in my grave.

cu29640 wrote:If the original tunnels could be built over 100 years ago..there is no reason better tunnels can't be created today. Look how much we spend on freeway overpasses and airports...even the East Side Access project in NY. The benefits of moving hundreds of commuter, Amtrak, and freight trains efficiently through Baltimore would be beneficial to all parties.

Back in the day, much was different.

The Baltimore Sun recently published an article talking about potential replacements to the Howard Street Tunnel: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs ... tml#page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - it looks like the original poster's idea is one that they are potentially considering. I hadn't previously realized CSX has track rights in the B&P Tunnel, and certainly having their funding in addition to CSX/MARC/fed/state would be a boost there.

Considering that relations between Amtrak and CSX are not all that great,that will be a tough sell on CSX's part
to get double stack clearance on the NEC to/from the portals of any new "B+P" tunnel bore.
But if the "deal" includes better handling of Amtrak's trains on CSX,that might sway Amtrak to
allow it.

CSX having trackage rights on Amtrak is news to me. Anyone know when that happened, and did Amtrak get a quid pro quo? Unless they mean over the Long Bridge, if that belongs to Amtrak now, but would that include the B&P Tunnel?

Remains of an agreement between Amtrak and Conrail for freight rights split between NS/CSX.

So the original agreement dates from the conveyance of the Corridor to Amtrak, and the subsequent Conrail split between CSX and NS meant that the two railroads decided who would get what?

The new B&P tunnels were supposed to be designed to handle double-stacks under wire (IIRC, that's 23'1" of above-rail clearance for 25 kV wires over an unshielded metal roof of a 20'6" height freight car...which they would provision for even though the wires are currently 12.5 kV). But I don't know if pinching pennies is going to start paring back those dimensions. The plan was more or less to take the old B&P tunnels offline for rehab once the new one opened, then reopen the old and segregate MARC commuter rail and non-overheight freight there while Amtrak and overheight freight to Port of Baltimore gets access via the new tunnel. Freight obviously being an overnight thing, but also unavoidable for (NS? CSX?...I forget which one can't get DS's from Point A to Point B right now) to get the traffic it needs to get to the Port without doing a little bit of NEC overlap. Thus, it wouldn't be a luxury but rather somewhat of an economic necessity so long as they're not so destitute for funds that they have to slim the bore down to minimum dimensions.

ExCon90 wrote:CSX having trackage rights on Amtrak is news to me. Anyone know when that happened, and did Amtrak get a quid pro quo? Unless they mean over the Long Bridge, if that belongs to Amtrak now, but would that include the B&P Tunnel?

The Western Maryland was the party with the trackage rights that was used for the stone trains from Bittenger, PA to Sparrows Point for Bethlehem Steel. While Beth Steel and the Western Maryland have ceased to exist as ongoing business concerns, the WM's trackage rights have been conveyed on to CSX, who is not utilizing them at present.

Those rights began with the Pennsylvania Railroad and continued through Penn Central and Amtrak; the rights beyond Amtrak were further conveyed through to ConRail.