Noel Weaver wrote:I think the best way to do genuine high speed rail between New York and Boston is to by-pass Connecticut altogether. it can be done although the cost would be huge. Utilize the Long Island Rail Road ROW mainline from New York to Greenport or rather Orient Point. Tunnel under Long Island Sound to about Westerly, R.I. area and from there to Boston you already have a decent railroad with no drawbridges and probably a lot less NIMBY problems as well. Keep the present route to serve Connecticut but run all premium services over a new route. The cost would be extreme but probably no more than a new ROW through Westchester and Connecticut and you get rid of the major capacity problems between New York and New Haven as well as the drawbridges all along that route. If this was Switzerland it would have been done by now but this is not Switzerland. You would need two brand new tracks to be used only for the new trains between New York and Boston. Existing tunnels under the East River and maybe existing ROW through Queens but new elevated ROW or maybe a combination of elevated and tunnel sections through western Long Island. East of Ronkonkoma there probably would not be any ROW problems except for grade crossings. No intermediate stops for the most part although maybe one stop somewhere around Riverhead to serve Long Island. Talk about putting people to work, this would definitely do it. Outlandish, maybe, but I don't see much hope for getting through the State of Connecticut where NIMBYs and boaters rule over common sense and the good for all. New York - Boston in two and a half hours could probably be done going this way provided you don't have major speed restrictions through any areas. As I said the cost would be in the billions plus but it will probably not be any cheaper through Westchester and Connecticut. Oh well, I can dream can't I.
Noel Weaver
This solution isn't cost effective. For that many billions of dollars you can do a lot more good with projects all over the country. Long Island Sound is 100+ feet deep off Orient point, and from there it's 20+ miles to Watch Hill (through granite). Compare to the much shorter Gateway tunnels where the Hudson is only ~30 feet deep and the tunnel is not nearly so long (through soft mud).
Trains from Boston to New York already fill up with high demand. People are not suffering because of the slow speeds. The biggest problem is lack of capacity and reliability due to the draw bridges.
To get more capacity between New York and Boston, it is very simple: restore the inland route. From New Haven to Springfield it's already capable of higher speeds than the coastal route. Some marginal improvements between Springfield and Boston would make it time competitive with the coastal route, and open up service to a bunch of new city pairs. Go nuts, spend two billion on improvements to get speeds even higher, and you're only spending 10% or less than what a Cross-Sound tunnel would be. While you are at it, replace the old draw bridges with reliable new ones with higher clearances so they don't need to open as often. Want to spend more? Create a new alignment from Hartford to Worcester along I-84. That area is not densely populated and would not have nearly the resistance that you will get trying to carve through old money, politically connected Old Lyme, Mystic and Stonington.
