What would a High Speed Freight Train look like?

David Benton wrote:can the well cars operate on the nec if they only have one container in them ???

I believe so, but you'd have to consult Amtrak's clearance standards. As long as the NEC meets full Plate B standards, you'd be fine for shipping single-stacked containers - the width at, and just above, the rails is constant from Plate B through Plate H. See here for AAR Plate standards. The problem comes when you want to operate through New York Penn Station. Amtrak doesn't allow freight through the North River tunnels, and the detours suck (either up to Albany, or across New York Harbor on a carfloat.)

David Benton wrote:i wonder what sort of market there would be for such a service boston - Washington .

Possibly. But like I noted, service between those places gets tricky with the carfloat in the middle. This might possibly be fast enough to warrant service between New York and Washington (including Philadelphia and Baltimore), but you have to weigh the 125 mph running against the need to shift from train to truck.

Yes, they can, but only generally at night due their significantly lower speeds. Frankly, I don't think there is much container traffic on that route. It's mostly local coal, auto rack and manifest/mixed freight. The container traffic uses alternate parallel freight mainlines.

If the proposed new Tappan Zee bridge replacement gets built, perhaps the detour around NYP could be dramatically shortened/lessened in suckiness.

Champlain Division wrote:Yes, they can, but only generally at night due their significantly lower speeds. Frankly, I don't think there is much container traffic on that route. It's mostly local coal, auto rack and manifest/mixed freight. The container traffic uses alternate parallel freight mainlines.

If the proposed new Tappan Zee bridge replacement gets built, perhaps the detour around NYP could be dramatically shortened/lessened in suckiness.

You would still have to use the Empire Connection which literally puts you into Penn Station.

I don't see why you'd have to use the Empire Connection to cross at Tappan Zee - you'd go north on the CSX ex-NYC line on the west side of the Hudson, turn left onto the (as-yet-unreconstructed) bridge, cross, loop down to the Metro-North line below, and either go north to the Housatonic or south towards the New Haven line. No use of the Empire Connection or crossing into Manhattan necessary, since there's a freight connection on the northeast side of the East River.

Either way, a freight connection south of the Selkirk Hurdle is really necessary to make true high-speed freight workable to New England.

I thought he was talking about high speed intermodal using the NEC sorry! I get what your saying though and that could definitely work.

You still don't want freight passing through a busy terminal like NYP via the Hudson Tubes just for safety's sake. The NEC south of NYP should remain predominently passenger for the reason of its underwater tunnels and its many large pax terminals.

Where a design like my high speed freight train would shine is in long distance over land routes. Large cargo carrying capacity trains at the same speed the passenger trains are running would branch off and/or bypass major metropolitan pax terminals much like freight railroads do today. The aim here is not to reduce their terminal dwell time, but to reduce their Points A to B transit time AND help the new high speed lines to actually EARN revenue at the very least offsetting the costs of running passenger trains. Such a combination might actually end up earning a profit thereby eliminating the need for any federal subsidy.

Passenger departures on the hourly; freight departures hourly on the half hour - - 30 minute separation.

the french planned a high speed container network . it was a hub and spoke operation . fixed consist trains but at every hub containers weere switched between trains by high speed cranes . Wether it ever came to be i dont know .

Both the UK and France have high speed mail trains:


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=J6zml3WyO ... re=related (100mph)


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr5TnLyy9Y8 (170mph)

Once again, we're not talking about exclusively mail carrying high speed trains. We're talking about high speed FREIGHT trains. Ones that would be capable of carrying single intermodal containers and any LCL type palletized or package/express loads and mail. Virtually anything that could fit inside two 10T X 10W X 30L and one 13T X 10W X 40L compartments.

And FAST.....this concept must maintain the same cruising speed as the high speed passenger trains.

With all due respect, the European concept just doesn't compare to the idea of massively speeding up the movement of the volume of freight handled on rails in the U.S. I'm sure the idea of moving 8,000 to 10,000 tons of train over a mile, to a mile and a half, long at 150 to 220 mph causes the European mindset concerning freight to quickly reach information overload. They have trouble believing it even when they see it while visiting here and viewing our current freight moving technology. ("All that and faster with upgraded technology?.........BZZZZZZZT! That does not compute!!! That does not compute!!!.......")

I'm sure the idea of moving 8,000 to 10,000 tons of train over a mile, to a mile and a half, long at 150 to 220 mph

Why would you want to do that? It's not going to happen anywhere.

The cost would include a lot more maintenance on the track, and you still wouldn't want to mix that with high speed passenger trains.

There is a new freight only route from Rotterdam into Germany. I don't know how fast it is but it doesn't have any passenger trains on it, to delay the freight. (It's electrified the whole way.)

Why would you want to do that?

I have already clearly stated above why I, or others with the same vision, would want to do that! Such a query suggests that the poster has not read the entire thread carefully before responding. Nevertheless, I shall state again using the quote below why I would want to do such a thing:

The aim here is not to reduce their terminal dwell time, but to reduce their Points A to B transit time AND help the new high speed lines to actually EARN revenue at the very least offsetting the costs of running passenger trains. Such a combination might actually end up earning a profit thereby eliminating the need for any federal subsidy.

This is a capitalistic free market approach presenting an alternative to heavy federal subsidization which WILL be required to operate a national high speed rail network. I am trying to expand HSR advocacy beyond the standard "subsidize or public/private partnership" mindset neither of which I believe will work in the long run.

In the case of heavy federal subsidy, the politicians won't be able to keep their fingers and noses out of the process thereby screwing everything up as they have with Amtrak. Conversely, with public/private partnerships there won't be enough dollars to finance it on the public side because that's also a subsidy which will be resisted by conservative capitalist politicians who naturally hate subsidies. On the private side there will be a natural resistance to risking investment dollars on something that is unproven nationally.

So, my idea is for the federal government to finance the cost of construction and equipment acquisition similar to the Eisenhower Interstate System and let a free market use the system earning the cost of operation via revenue for a premium fast freight forwarding service. User fees levied on certain percentages of freight revenue could support operation and maintenance of the network and the trains, both freight and passenger.

Call it a pipe dream or whatever you will, but please don't ask me why I would want to do such a thing because you very well should know why by now.

mtuandrew wrote: Either way, a freight connection south of the Selkirk Hurdle is really necessary to make true high-speed freight workable to New England.

There's absolutely no real commercial necessity for a freight connection south of Selkirk. Quite frankly, there's precious little freight business to be had on the east shore of the Hudson, and there hasn't been for decades.

Personally, I object to the use of the contrived term "Selkirk Hurdle." It's a bogus, made-up term. What most people fail to grasp is that the Poughkeepsie Bridge was never restored to service after 1974 because there was no commercial motivation for even a minimal outlay to restore it to service. It wasn't needed even 35 years ago and it isn't needed today.

There's nothing wrong with routing freight traffic through Selkirk, and it was clear even in the 60s that the Poughkeepsie Bridge and New York car floats were outmoded and headed towards extinction.

200 cars means any advantage of high speed is lost in the marshalling etc . short sharp and fast , is whats needed .

Once again, the idea here is to reduce long distance transit time drastically as in L.A. to N.Y. or CHI to JAX, etc. Two days as opposed to five or a day and a half as opposed to 4. The marshalling, or "freight classification" time as we call it here in the colonies, would pretty much be assumed to be the same as it is now.

No containers on board, but just a lot of package express could go in shorter, hotter trains, to be sure.

David Benton wrote:200 cars means any advantage of high speed is lost in the marshalling etc . short sharp and fast , is whats needed .

That is the concept developed by British Rail in the 1960s and 70s. They called it Freightliner. The train conveys only containers on flatcars from one trans-shipment point to to another. There is no marshalling time.

It now exists as one of the freight companies. I see them sometimes coming from Southampton port to points further north. It replaces lorry traffic and so relieves congestion on the roads.