R&DB wrote: ↑Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:06 pm
Folks;
My post a page or so up was meant to further the re-opening of passenger rail service in the USA. &70 years ago Passenger rail ran over 100 mph on a regular basis all over this country. Then in the 1970s the Class 1s, no longer saddled with passenger traffic, allowed their infrastructure to decay and actively downgraded it by removing track. My conjecture is that public funds spent for passenger rail should be allocated to restoring what the Class 1 railroads ran before 1970. Whether that is operated by Amtrak, regional commuter roads or private is immaterial. The need exists.
Everywhere 100+ mph passenger trains in America? Really?
Which US railroads providing passenger train service allowed speeds over 100 mph prior to 1970?
Per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_spee ... ted_States
Federal regulators limit the speed of trains with respect to the signaling method used. Passenger trains are limited to 59 mph and freight trains to 49 mph on track without block signal systems. (See dark territory.) Trains without "an automatic cab signal, automatic train stop or automatic train control system "may not exceed 79 mph." The order was issued in 1947 (effective 31 Dec 1951) by the Interstate Commerce Commission following a severe 1946 crash in Naperville, Illinois involving two Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad trains.
So, for around two decades before Amtrak existed, most American passenger trains were limited to 79 mph max speeds.
Per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab_signa ... ted_States
So, how many American railroads adopted cab signaling?
Cab signalling in the United States was driven by a 1922 ruling by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) that required
49 railways to install some form of automatic train control in one full passenger division by 1925. While several large railways, including the Santa Fe and New York Central, fulfilled the requirement by installing intermittent inductive train stop devices, the PRR saw an opportunity to improve operational efficiency and installed the first continuous cab signal systems, eventually settling on pulse code cab signaling technology supplied by Union Switch and Signal.
In response to the PRR lead, the ICC mandated that
some of the nation's other large railways must equip at least one division with continuous cab signal technology as a test to compare technologies and operating practices.
The affected railroads were less than enthusiastic, and many chose to equip one of their more isolated or less trafficked routes to minimize the number of locomotives to be equipped with the apparatus.
Repeating the more important points
49 railroads targeted, one district at a minimum, was what was required by the ICC.
Per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_classes
In 1925, the ICC reported 174 Class I railroads, 282 Class II railroads, and 348 Class III railroads.
At most, 49 railroads out of a total of 804 total railroads, around 6%. That means 94% of the railroads in the USA did not have to test cab signaling. Of the maximum of 6% that did, only just one division was required. Most Class 1 railroads even back then had more than one division. So were down to less than 3% of all the track miles in the USA had cab signals and even less had continuous cab signals after 1950.
In most of America, after 1950, logic suggests that at least over 97% of the tracks did not allow speeds over 79 mph. I'm sorry, I do not agree that trains were flying down the tracks in
most of America at 100+ mph speeds during the 1950s and 1960s.
Just like I would not state that Acela trains speed down "most" of the famed NEC at 165 mph speeds. Yes, they do, but for just 33.9 miles of the total 453 miles of the NEC. I do not and will never agree that 7.5% of the NEC is most of it.