$461 million to save 12-15 minutes: HSR Controversy in NC

Feds' rail money could slow down in NC House bill

http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/9346202/

Sadly, the proponents of passenger rail in North Carolina seem to be confusing HSR with commuter rail and even mass transit:

Rep. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, said she believes high-speed rail is needed, especially with commuters paying more to put gas in their vehicles.

"We have got to continue moving forward progressively with mass transit in this state," she said.

The Raleigh to Charlotte service isn't directed towards "commuters" and it most certainly isn't "mass transit."

In contrast, the opponents are putting forward coherent arguments about the state picking up the tab for increased operating costs. Again, it comes back to the same unanswered funding base issue as in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. How is North Carolina going to pay for the third daily round trip? It's pretty obvious that a 12-15 minute improvement to the schedule isn't going improve labor and equipment utilization enough to pay for the additional round trip.

It's a pity that the funding base issues are getting in the way of yet another grant. If only the grant applications had required a secure funding base for expanded services. Of course, if the issue had been addressed, before the grants were made, we wouldn't have seen a single state reject the HSR grant money, let along 3, or possibly 4!

The third train is already in operation , there are no extra operating costs associated with the federal grant . if a fourth rain is added , there may be some additonal running costs , but it wouldnt be a huge amount more than what is already been paid .
bit of a red herring I think .

The 3rd and 4th daily frequency refer to the Raleigh to Charlotte Piedmont service, not the Carolinian which does cover those cities. The funding NC received covers the costs to purchase and/or rehab of rolling stock to provide for four daily round-trip Piedmont trains - along with the track and capacity upgrades to allow it. As for covering the cost of operations, the increased ridership because of the improved frequency, trip times and on-time performance may well cover it. For the first 5 months of the fiscal year, Piedmont ridership is up 102% from the first 5 months of FY10.

If they could reduce the driving times between Raleigh and Charlotte by 12-15 minutes with a $461 million series of federally funded projects, it would seen by all as a great deal and bargain. The $461 million includes closing 33 grade crossings which will be a boost for safety and automobile traffic. With a Democratic Governor, this is mostly noise from the reactionary right. Doubt if anything will come of it.

afiggatt wrote: If they could reduce the driving times between Raleigh and Charlotte by 12-15 minutes with a $461 million series of federally funded projects, it would seen by all as a great deal and bargain. The $461 million includes closing 33 grade crossings which will be a boost for safety and automobile traffic. With a Democratic Governor, this is mostly noise from the reactionary right. Doubt if anything will come of it.

Putting Mr. Figgatt's statement into a perspective North Carolinians can understand, according to Google Maps, the drive time from Raleigh to Columbia, SC is only 16 minutes faster on the interstate than by US Route 1. I doubt that many of them would consider the construction of I-95 to have been a waste of money.

i stand corrected on that .is S.C obligated to actually run the increased frequencies ??? .
i would imagine the increased frequencies would allow for some efficencies to be made in train crew utilisation .
What does a crew do now ?. Does the crew of the first train Raleigh - Charlotte , return on the later Charlotte - raliegh train the same day .?does tht constitute one or 2 days work ???

The work's detractors have been making it seem like a lot of money spent with little gained, but that's best-case times.

In practice, the trains get slowed down by various bottlenecks and conflicts with other trains, so reducing them or eliminating them will bump up the trains' average speed. That's what much of the incremental work has been so far.

lpetrich wrote:The work's detractors have been making it seem like a lot of money spent with little gained, but that's best-case times.

In practice, the trains get slowed down by various bottlenecks and conflicts with other trains, so reducing them or eliminating them will bump up the trains' average speed. That's what much of the incremental work has been so far.

Agreed, it's no different than fixing a road or a highway to eliminate speed restrictions. I'll bet this attempt by Ric Killian and his fellow congressmen to stop NC from spending funds to cut the travel time will fail miserably. Sorry Mr. Wayne, don't see much of a controversy here.

Let's put the 12-15 minutes in perspective.

The Piedmont service will get the most benefit from these improvements because the Piedmont trains do not suffer under CSX dispatch and track between Raleigh and VA.

Currently the train runs between the RGH/CLT city pair in 3:12. The margin of safety for the morning train to become the midday train is currently about 2 hours and 15 minutes, meaning if there are delays on the way from Raleigh to Charlotte in the morning, there is time for the train to run probably more than an hour late, get cleaned and turned around, and head back to Raleigh.

The increased reliability of the double-tracking and the raising of speeds will make that margin of safety bigger and at the same time less needed. Once that is done, then NCDOT Rail can add the fourth frequency with confidence that the trains will leave on time out of RGH and CLT, all the time. Once we have four frequencies, the time between CLT departures and the next train to Raleigh will fall to about 1:30.

The closer the subsequent departure is to the arrival of the previous train, the more stops get made in the same number of hours worked by train crews, and the less you have to staff expensive split shifts. This is a recipe for rising cost recovery, though I think the trains already cover 79 percent of their operating costs with fares.

villager wrote: The closer the subsequent departure is to the arrival of the previous train, the more stops get made in the same number of hours worked by train crews, and the less you have to staff expensive split shifts. This is a recipe for rising cost recovery, though I think the trains already cover 79 percent of their operating costs with fares.

A 12-15 minute time saving per trip will never allow for an additional round trip with the same number of crews. You still have increased man hours as well as increased fixed benefit costs. The incremental improvement just doesn't pay for itself.

Would the amount be in addition to money needed to keep the line at existing standards, or is it the amount necessary to maintain ,and improve, while also paying for unfunded mandates such as positive train control? Improvements in trip time notwithsatnding, crossing elimination may be reason enough to spend the money .

goodnightjohnwayne wrote: A 12-15 minute time saving per trip will never allow for an additional round trip with the same number of crews. You still have increased man hours as well as increased fixed benefit costs. The incremental improvement just doesn't pay for itself.

You have to look at it from the perspective of the corridor goal, which is 5 in-state roundtrips daily, akin to the Downeaster service.

At 3:12 with a 2:15 turnaround time right now, the one-way deployment time for a trainset is effectively 5:27. Tack another 3:12 onto the back of that and you have about 8:40 assuming no delays, and you may be paying some overtime. (I'm not sure)

Cut 12 minutes off the schedule and increase the reliability so you only need 1:30 to turn around a train, and now the one-way deployment time for a trainset is effectively 4:30. Now you can run back another 3 hours and even with up to 30 minutes running late (which most Piedmonts don't run that late and the improvements should make that even less likely) then you can crew a roundtrip in an 8-hour shift.

Same revenue service (1 RGH to CLT roundtrip) with lower cost and higher attractiveness due to speed improvements.

The person who made the point about US1 and I-95 is also right on the money.