FRN9 wrote:It would be great if they could see this as a first step of a Chicago > NYC HSR line and build it out accordingly for 225MPH trains.
You are SO stealing my idea from practically half my posts in this forum.
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 07#p725802
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 90#p722518
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 50#p725670
I don't care about the fact that you tend to post before me and I often respond just to agree with you. I reject your reality and substitute my own! (incidentally, thanks to Mythbusters for creating the best argument catchphrase ever).
Anyways, that all was a joke, just making fun of how we keep on agreeing. Anyhow, I do think Chicago-Cleveland definitely could be upgraded for at least 225. The straight track means if all of the track was built to 225mph standards, that's the speed you would be going practically the entire way from Hammond to Toledo (barring station stops). You also can add 1 or 2 tracks as needed to allow at least 1 dedicated passenger track. There's room much of the corridor to add a 2 new tracks (again, great for fast passenger service). I've pointed this out a few times, NYC-Chicago is 925 miles using the existing Capitol Limited/Pennsylvanian. If the 1st 225 miles takes 2 hours, and the last 200 miles takes 3 hours (combining current best times for PHL-NYC and PHL-Harrisburg), then the middle 500 miles has to really be bad for the whole route to not work. I mean, if the goal is to have a trip time of 12 hours, then all you need is to cover the middle 500 miles in 7 hours (which is doable without new track). Given 2 hours for Chicago-Toledo, and 3 for NYC-Harrisburg, a 60 MPH average speed on the Cleveland-Harrisburg section leads to a total trip time of 10 hours. So even if only 200 miles of the route is true HSR, another 200 is maxed out at around 125-150 MPH, you can still come pretty close to competing with air on a 900-mile corridor. Not to mention the intermediate traffic.
In order to add some originality, supposing Chicago does the West Loop Transportation Center (or some sort of through-tracking project for Union Station), the next question would be extending the line up to Minneapolis. Since we've established that a 150 MPH average speed between CHI and NYC yields a 6-hour, air-competitive trip time, getting CHI-Minneapolis up to that level leaves a total trip time of 9 hours for Minneapolis-NYC. Given that a flight from MSP to LGA usually takes 2.75 hours (the return trip would be a full 25 minutes longer), if we give 2 hours for getting to MSP (which is generous since TSA recommends
getting to the airport two hours early, 1 hour for traveling from LGA to downtown NYC, and really you would only lose about 3 hours by taking the train.