NYS rail plan announced

http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/p ... 09092.html

Governor David A. Paterson and New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) Commissioner Astrid C. Glynn today announced the release of the 2009 New York State Rail Plan, providing the first comprehensive update of the State’s rail strategy in 22 years and fulfilling a prerequisite for federal funding for rail capital improvement projects. The announcement was made at the Capital District Transportation Authority’s (CDTA) Rensselaer train station.

The key points:

* Doubling the number of intercity rail passengers along New York’s three major corridors: New York City to Albany, Albany to Niagara Falls and Albany to Montreal, as well as strategies to increase reliability on all three corridors;

* Providing frequent and convenient passenger rail service connecting cities across the State as an energy and time-saving alternative to driving or flying, helping to reduce congestion on highways and at airports. Rail plan goals include:

• Achieving on-time performance of at least 95 percent between Albany and New York City;
  
  Improving rail service between Albany and Niagara Falls, with connections in Utica, Syracuse and Rochester. The Plan includes a Third Track Initiative, which aims to establish a dedicated third track for high speed passenger rail service across Upstate from Niagara Falls to Albany with a potential for reducing the travel time by 2 hours or more;
  
  Shortening the travel time for rail service between Albany and Montreal. Currently, trains take about eight hours to make that trip. The Plan’s goal is to reduce that time to 6.5 hours; and
  
  Establishing new passenger service, where viable, such as between Saratoga and Albany, Niagara Falls and Buffalo, and Binghamton and New York City;

* Increasing freight rail usage by 25 percent to reduce growth of truck traffic and energy consumption;

* Allowing modern freight cars to access the New York City metro area and Long Island along routes east of the Hudson River;

* Adding at least three new intermodal facilities/inland ports across the State to serve the rapidly growing container segment of rail traffic, which will help remove long-haul trucks from highways and deliver products to consumers faster; and

* Creating the first “green” short line fleet in the nation.

There is a long list of federal and state legislators commenting favorably on this directly in the press release.

It will be very interesting to see what happens next. I'm wondering what the over/under on the amount of time will be before the first negative advertisement appears...

* Creating the first “green” short line fleet in the nation.

Quick, paint all the Alco's green! That's what they meant, right?

By that criteria, they're too late! The Rutland's ALCOs were "green"... and they ran in New York...

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story. ... yID=777952

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor
Last updated: 12:11 p.m., Monday, March 9, 2009
The 2009 New York State Rail Plan, unveiled this morning at the Rensselaer Rail Station, includes a number of initiatives, but gives little detail about how the state will pay for them.

Glad to see that they are giving some thought to freight traffic, but if you ask me, upgrading the capability of the region to handle freight trains seems much more important than high-speed (passenger) rail.

Tax Railfans for every picture taken of a train/railroad related subject. The project would be paid for in 1 year. On a more serious note. The 3rd track is a great idea but they're going to have to eliminate alot of highway crossings to get that kinda increase in speed/time savings. Consider this. The State takes over track 2 from Albany to Buffalo. Heavier rail and concrete ties all the way. State pays for the reinstallation of Track 3 for use by freights. All these tracks still need to be connected at interlockings to allow Amtraks to pass each other in opposite direction and allow freight service to exsisting customers and trackage currently South of the CSX Mains. I would also sugest to double track the West Shore around Rochester and send the through trains that way to avoid the congestioned in Rochester, NY. Rebuilding interlockings and a complete redesign of the signal and dispatch systems. While working in South Florida, I got to see The State of Florida redouble track the CSX mains (now owned by the State, CSX is a tenant) from West Palm Beach to Miami. Over a 100 miles and dozens of new interlockings and rebuilt yard trackage all on the Florida tax payers for the Tri-Rail commuter service. It can be done, but up here, we're talking 300 miles and dealing with winter weather for 4-5 months. Mega bucks and I'd say atleast 10-15 years. Mind you, I support the package, but , wow, what a project it may be.!!!!

Here's a better one - while you're double tracking the West Shore as Roadster suggests, turn the Kodak traffic over to the R&S. Put a couple additional tracks back in at Genesee Junction to handle the R&S/CSX traffic. Built a passenger station somewhere near MCC or RIT. You can now start at Fairport and tear out the whole main line all the way to Attridge Road. The real estate sale alone would pay for much of the additional yard trackage at Gen Jct, the city would love to open up the downtown area, and CSX would avoid the bad part of town. Less taxes, less track to maintain, they would still keep the Kodak traffic except for a switching charge to R&S for the last few miles of delivery. If you're trying to attract new people to ride these billion dollar trains, having the passenger station anywhere except downtown would be a plus.

I love this idea of change lingering in the future. These are all great points. However, first of all, I don't think the West shore can be double tracked East of Henrietta as easily as you might think. Many of the overhead road crossings and canal crossings towards Monaco oil and Baird Rd are 70 to 100 years old, and too narrow. The street tunnel beneath Baird road area is one lane, beneath 75 ft deep worth of roadbed. They will no doubt have to tear these out and put in all new infrastructure. That would be an unbelievable job in this day an age !

The West Shore through Fairport alone is elevated 75 ft above Baird Road. In todays dollars, this would likely be outrageously huge and overbudget. I hope they find a lot of immigrant Chinese and Mexican labor, and have whips and chains to boot. Actually, that brings up an idea... why don't they use prison labor to do the tasks accomplished for dimes on the dollar back in the 1800's when this roadbed was all laid out by immigrants and slave labor.

Use of prison labor would save tons of redundant taxpayer expenses. There's no reason we should be paying for inmates to sit and eat up our taxes while we also pay contractors huge amounts to do what the inmates should be forced to do for dimes on the dollar. Especially when prisons are overloaded and overbudget as it is. Wild ideas come with price, and I hope someone besides the taxpayers will be helping pay the price.

FlatWheeler wrote:Use of prison labor would save tons of redundant taxpayer expenses. There's no reason we should be paying for inmates to sit and eat up our taxes while we also pay contractors huge amounts to do what the inmates should be forced to do for dimes on the dollar. Especially when prisons are overloaded and overbudget as it is. Wild ideas come with price, and I hope someone besides the taxpayers will be helping pay the price.

Not a bad idea and as the prison labor dies off during the work just throw the bodies in and use them as part of the fill for the road bed! Give them quotas on how much work they must do. Make them work for every crumb of bread and drop of water make them dig with shovels, picks, and wheel barrows!

I'd like to go to one of these press conferences so I could ask these folks just one question.

If there was any market, if there was any demand for people to need to go back and forth between Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany, quickly... wouldn't the airlines be offering that service right now? Wouldn't Amtrak already have a better service between these cities? Wouldn't some of these cities have their own commuter services, oh, you know, like Ontrack? Yeah.

There's a reason the Northeast Corridor makes sense. It connects 4 major large cities that are so large they're difficult to drive to and park in. Cities that have infrastructure already there so you don't need a car. And it passes through areas that are for the most part well populated.

There's also a reason that you don't have that corridor in upstate New York. The cities are all much smaller - and get smaller every year as people and businesses flee the insane taxes that never seem to go down. Just what we need, something else that will add to the tax burden. Sure it's paid for now by the Feds, but the stimulus money runs out after a while. People won't move back just because there's train service here. They have to have jobs to be able to afford all the taxes and maintain some kind of standard of living too. Just because Joe Biden could afford to commute on Amtrak every day as a senator in Washington, doesn't mean everyone can.

I've yet to hear any explanation of just what will make people actually use this service once it's built, either, or how it will help a guy who's located in a city suburb bring more business to his store that's a $30 taxi ride from the station. People up here just don't think that way. If I need to go to Rochester or Utica, I drive there - and I avoid the Thruway's ever-increasing tolls whenever possible.


I notice none of these stories had any comment from CSX, either. Then again WSYR-9 News had them adding a "third rail" between Albany and Buffalo. I'm not sure what good that will do, but whatever. And let's not forget that they pretty much had to give up on an Amtrak station stop in Lyons not that long ago.

It's too bad it would be about impossible to rebuild the West Shore, because I think they'd have better luck using the ROW of that for a high speed line than working with CSX.

FlatWheeler wrote:I love this idea of change lingering in the future. .

I must be tired, I read that the first time as "changing lingerie" ...

i agree!!!!!!!! you cant run a train at 150mph across a grade crossing. i think a train moving at 150mph will travel a quarter of a mile in 5 seconds. right ? and yes, they should move all the stations just outside of the city. im all for high speed rail but it just doesnt sound like they have really examined all angles.

After reading all of the press resulting from the announcement, I'm convinced this is more about adding track capacity and raising relative speeds than it is about bringing bullet trains to upstate.

does anyone know if they plan on using different trainsets like the acela ? im pretty sure the genesis engines are capable of 110mph. what about freight ? will they raise speeds to 70mph ?

dummy wrote:does anyone know if they plan on using different trainsets like the acela ? im pretty sure the genesis engines are capable of 110mph. what about freight ? will they raise speeds to 70mph ?

Does anyone really think that NYS is going to install bullet trains up here? This is about adding track capacity so that Amtrak wont be dodging CSX freights every couple of miles. Adding track and signal capacity, strengthening bridges, perhaps eliminating some grade crossings... pretty much all things that benefit CSX, and to some extent will help Amtrak service. If this was packaged as "improvements to help CSX freight" there would be an uproar. Package it as "high speed rail stimulus" and dont mention CSX, you'll probably get more support.

-otto-