by OrangeGrove
The portion of the Northeast Corridor from New Rochelle to New Haven is not actually owned by Amtrak, but rather by Metro-North.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman
seacoast wrote:I was surprised to learn that CT DOT is now opposing electrification of the New Haven - Hartford - Springfield corridor. Apparently, they are claiming this is due to public opposition, but I'm pretty certain that there is no opposition to the plan, nor will there be. Is this simply cost-savings conveniently blamed on NIMBY? Is it rooted in a capacity issue west of New Haven?No one's formally proposed electrifying the Springfield Line, but there's an active "ELECTRIFY ALL THE THINGS!!!" short-attention span contingent in the Legislature. Same folks who keep harping on Danbury Branch electrification and light study money on fire every few years. They've been pushing it for the Hartford Line similarly since the day it was announced. I wouldn't read anything into Malloy's statement other than cutting off those same local pols before they pollute all this NEC FUTURE tension with their own "Can I haz shiny thingz?" letter to the FRA.
It's odd because I was under the impression that this project was top priority for the Malloy administration, and that in fact CT DOT was diverting money from other projects (including the CT River Bridge replacement) to help pay for the electrification.
A few months ago, CT DOT/Malloy wrote the FRA to ask that they not electrify Hartford to Springfield, and that seemed odd, but this downright bizarre. Thoughts?
Greg Moore wrote:No, but honestly, it would be nice if the US started to consider it more often in more areas. Allows more flexibility in power supply among other things.Yes...eventually. But wires alone don't a "Springfield = Keystone" make.
bdawe wrote:I'd love to know more about the way the line's grade crossings play into it's potential speedsPrior to start of the project, the Wallingford and Meriden crossings all had 25 MPH speed restrictions. Those restrictions ran from MP 12.5-13.5 and MP 17.8-19.7, with Meriden also having a 60 MPH restriction from MP 17-17.7 on an S-curve just south of the downtown crossings. Other than that, the only permanent restrictions between New Haven and Windsor Locks station at MP 47 were MP 0-1 (35 MPH) at the split with the NEC in New Haven, MP 1-3 (60 MPH) through Cedar Hill Yard limits, and MP 36.3-37.4 (20 MPH) through Hartford Viaduct + the junctions with the Griffins Secondary and Manchester Secondary. Everything else was 80 MPH with not a single individualized restriction. So those crossing clusters were bigtime toilet clogs.
BandA wrote:At what service density does electrification become cost-effective for a railroad?Depends on so many variables that's almost impossible to answer in a vacuum. More useful line of inquiry might be taking a line with some potential electrification upside, then working backwards to deconstruct the cost variables specific to that one application. Rinse, repeat with other examples. Eventually you'll see enough patterns start to emerge amongst similar-profile lines to be able to classify them into categories. Demographic and scalability data will line up, and then you'll have educated enough guesstimates for final candidate picks to pass the electrification smell test. Generally speaking, the topmost priorities have broad consensus and the secondary priorities are slam-dunk if the top priorities ever get addressed. So we're not dealing with many unknowns until we drill down a few thousand route miles on the priority pile.
bdawe wrote:Thanks. Your posts are always illuminating.F-line, I want to second that praise.
BandA wrote:At what service density does electrification become cost-effective for a railroad?The answer I got from oddly a highway traffic engineer is when traffic is so high, that your defect detectors don't talk unless there is a problem!
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The current upgrades install kitchen-sink crossing protection at those spots: quadrant gates, wayside horns, and advanced warning devices. That's enough to increase the speed limit through Wallingford cluster from 25 MPH to 80 MPH and Meriden cluster from 25 MPH to 60 MPH. However, immediately south of Wallingford it's now gone from 80 to 91 MPH and immediately north of Wallingford from 80 to 110 MPH. South of Meriden it's now 110, with the restricted S-curve now 80 instead of 60.F-Line, thanks for that insightful analysis. I had no idea that the current track work would raise speeds in those areas to such an extent. Coupled with the longer stretches of dual track south of Hartford (eliminating need to wait on late running Shuttles to clear), I imagine there will be significant time savings on the NHV-SPG runtimes. Any guess as to what kind of time savings we could be seeing here come next year?