President Barack Obama unveiled today his strategic plan for building a network of high-speed rail corridors across America, and yes, the Eugene, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver B.C. corridor is on it. (Noticeably missing is the fantasy Las Vegas to Disneyland line that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned voters about in the same breath he ridiculed the notion of volcano monitoring.)
Obama calls the $8 billion allocated thus far a mere “down payment,” and the 90-mph definition of “high speed” is a far cry from the 120-mph designation in Europe, but both the plan and the money mark a dramatic turnaround from our nation’s recent rail strategy… or lack thereof.
As for the Pacific Northwest corridor, don’t expect a big pot of cash anytime soon. The bulk of the money will initially go to shovel ready projects so as to create jobs as quickly as possible (the $8 billion is part of the $787 billion stimulus package,) but some money will be available for planning and engineering. I’ll leave it to the geeks at Seattle Transit Blog to tell us what we might expect on our corridor, and when we might expect it.
How’s Boeing’s expertise in rail transport systems?
Kudos to the Discovery Institute for its tireless advocacy of high-speed rail for the Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., corridor. If Canada would just go along, the system could be quickly and intelligently designed.
1)
Not good. In a museum in the Portland area, there is a Boeing-Vertol LRV, used from San Francisco Municipal Railway. Supposedly when they started turning 20-25 years, SF MUNI could not wait to get rid of them, as the new Bredas came on line. MUNI only has 2 left of them, and they are not of the Market Street Railway(the historic preservation group that does fundraising, restoration, and promotion work for the F-Line Fleet), but to be used for work-train and wrecker use.(SF MUNI has a history of using older streetcars for this purpose). That and a few cars for the Chicago El is pretty much Boeing’s experience in railcar building. Does that mean aerospace companies can’t adapt for rail? Look to our neighbor to the north. Bombardier builds both railcars and regional aircraft, but they got the expertise when they bought the companies that built them, like the Montreal Locomotive Works and Urban Transportation Development Corporation. The latter was a Crown Corporation of the Ontario Government by the way.
A little on the Boeing LRV.
http://www.trainweb.org/oerhs/.....v_1213.htm
By the way, the Amtrak Cascades equipment was a design originally a reject by our railroads because they were not able to get it to work. I am not talking about Amtrak, try Boston and Maine, Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, and a few other railroads of the past. The TALGO was originally built for RENFE of Spain around 1949 by American Car and Foundry. When our railroads re-imported it, they did ask for a few changes, such as limiting the articulation, because fixed sets were uneconomical during the early streamliner days. WHile our railroads gave up, RENFE refined thee design, and it was reimported into the US in the early 1990s, unable to be used in the Northeast(Low floor trains don’t mix with high-floor platforms, like the ones in Penn Station), it ended up finding a home in the Pacific Northwest.
If the $8 billion goes for “shovel ready” projects the PNW should get a fair chunk. Most of the near to mid-term projects on the Vancouver BC to Eugene corridor could start construction fairly quickly.
There are only a handful of other high speed rail related projects outside the NEC that have a majority of the engineering complete.
Wonders ROTCODDAM:
Once upon a time, Boeing Vertol branched out from helicopters to subway and light-rail rolling stock. After a few big mistakes in its light-rail program, the company dropped all rail products in the late 1970s.
Joel @2,
Honestly Joel, you may not support Intelligent Design, but that kinda blinders on attitude toward Discovery makes you an enabler. Nothing they do anywhere else could possibly balance the damage they’ve done with Intelligent Design, and any bit of credibility they are granted is credibility that they use to help undermine science education in the United States.
And nothing going by the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, either. A transcontinental link would be nice as well, but I’d presume it’s unfeasible. I also wonder why this plan doesn’t link the line coming west from New Orleans all the way into San Antonio, and Little Rock to St. Louis. I mean, that’s kinda hilly country, but not exactly mountainous, right?
High-Speed Rail: another example of where America has completely punted technological expertise to the Japanese and the Europeans. The only way to get it running quickly is to borrow (i.e., buy) their designs.
There are two political obsticles to making this happen:
The first will come from the conservatives who want to make headway claiming this is an example of government spending in an area where private business should handle it. Of course, railroads are private businesses, and that’s why we don’t have anything like an adequate system now.
The second obsticle will be the politicians who will try to block anything which doesn’t run through their district (or get an adequate bribe in equivilent local projects before agreeing to step out of the way). Remember that the Trans-Continental Railroad was continually blocked before the civil war due to arguments over the southern, middle, or norther routes – it was only after the southern states seceeded that Congress was able to quickly choose the middle route.
2/7 Hitler brought us the Autobahn and the VW beetle, but that sure as heck didn’t make up for everything else.
Then again, the wording of your comment is decidedly “punny”, so maybe you intended it to be entirely tongue-in-cheek.
Nonetheless, at least they’ve been supporting one good idea, and it’s pretty nice that the Cascades gives us a leg up on the rest of the nation in terms of high-speed rail. I’m somewhat disappointed that more consideration isn’t being given to improvements for the full length of the west coast corridor, so as to return the Coast Starlight to offering a speed advantage over driving between here and southern California…but maybe that’s my bias from having offspring who’ve permanently settled down there and having more or less had my fill of air travel from working in a job in the 90’s that sent me all over the country.
You’re sure right, Joel, about the “Canada gap”. Alice and I were really surprised when we took the Cascades north for the first time. After hurtling north from Seattle, it proceeds from the border to Vancouver at the speed of a slow walk.
And the tracks will go where?
What about the impact studies?
How will this be funded once in place?
The only thing around here that is shovel ready is cow manure.
Right now incremental improvements to the mainline will work pretty good, need to elevate the track near Centralia to avoid the floodplain problems there.(Might as well raise I-5 or build a better flood barrier for it as well) The TALGO trains work better in curves than current rolling stock.
As for a transcontinental line, people might be surprised, but there is a Long Distance Train currently doing about 90MPH on portions of it’s route(averages 55, though) in the west right now. It is Amtrak Trains 3 and 4, the Southwest Chief(modern incarnation of the Super Chief).
Here’s the current WSDOT wishlist for the Cascades Corridor. Via Seattle Transit Blog of course.
i said it when it first was reported and i will say it again now……IT IS ABOUT TIME.
still upset that it does not connect for cross-country trips but this is exactly what is needed on so many levels i don’t know where to begin.
the best news i have had from this white house todate
@11
Railroads already have ROW (right of way) where their current tracks are laid. These ROWs are usually from 50 to 100 feet wide.
Janet Napolitano of DHS unveils terror threat from right-wing extremists, and I’m in it.
2, 7, 10
Is there a credible group that’s against hight speed rail between Seattle and Portland?
The Discovery folk aren’t exactly sticking their neck out on this one.
If building the rails can be tied to national defense in some way, it would make it politically easier to get this project underway — like Eisenhower did with the freeway system. No conservative obstructionist could withstand the taunt that he was weak on national defense.
16 Good.
This seems like a good starting point. I’m happy.
For folks wanting a North-South (Vancouver -> San Diego) or cross-country railway, it’s probably not such a hot idea.
I’d have to try to dig it up, but a professor in Japan did research a few years ago. The magic number for a train trip is somewhere around 4 hours. At that point, the convenience of skipping security, leaving from downtown, arriving from downtown, etc. etc. compensates for the lower speed of the train.
Even at 200 mph, Seattle to LA is a 6 hour trip if you don’t stop for anything. A plane will get you there considerably faster. It is what it is.
Unlike, say, Mr. Connelly’s comments.
When we’re talking high-speed trains between Seattle and Portland are we talking about fixing up the current system so the trains can make the run faster or are we talking about building a new system?
@16, 19
That report needs to replace the word “could” with the word “are”.
90 mph?!!!!
WTF?
This does 90 mph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tel.....50692c.jpg
They just built it from a 60 something year old design. We could borrow/buy this design.
22–if you read the full documents that the administration just released, the plan is to do it in phases. New right-of-way is expensive so in a lot of cases it’s upgrading existing service to the lower-tier version of high-speed rail (90+ MPH on existing rights of way). There are lots of identified projects in our area that would help us toward that goal.
Doing this right, with new rights-of-way, is going to be expensive.
Even Alaska is getting in the act, where needed, and a little late. I have been following since the collapse of Colorado Railcar(tourism down, ARR, the cruise lines, and Rocky MOuntaineer not buying(their regular customers for ultradomes) no business. TriMet had to loan the contractor money to deliver the Diesel Multiple Units ordered for a commuter rail line.(Blame host railroad for that, their customers would not shift delivery times to times when the commuter trains were not running, so they needed an FRA Compliant vehicle)). The last car delivered passed through the Port of Seattle bound for Alaska, ARR 751, just arriving in Whittier. It might be interesting to see if it is put in service now, or next month when the ARR Passenger schedule ramps up. Due to a landslide on the Seward Highway, highway access to the Anton Anderson Tunnel into Whittier is shut down. The rail line is still operational, and this week the ARR has pressed into emergency passenger schedules. The limited service October thru April sees no trains South of ANchorage on the Passenger side.
http://www.alaskarails.org/fp/.....er/007.jpg
18:
While the ‘weak on defense’ jab is great, the theory behind your idea is a bit outdated. After WWII, the defense aspect of the the IHS was to move troops about the country rapidly in case of invasion. This was why they did their best to design the system to keep mountain grades down to 5% as much as possible, because trucks of the day couldn’t handle steeper grades all that well when fully loaded. And invasion then meant a seaborne invasion on America’s coasts. In today’s environment a cross-ocean invasion would be ridiculously expensive, incredibly large, difficult if not impossible to conceal, and easily defeated out in mid-ocean. IIRC, the DoD did consider rail-mounting ICBM launchers for a while (similar to Soviet designs), but nothing ever really came of it.
Disaster-relief as an additional aspect would be a good selling point, but the defense aspect would be a nice political football to crush R’s with.
Broadway Joe, you ever read Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor? There was a couple a parts in the book where they were looking for ICBMs near a rail line, and it was mentioned that moving them by rail in a combat role is a bad idea, it gives them a narrower focus to look.(IN the books case, wehre they were looking for some ICBMs in Japan, and they could only be moved on rail, they were limited to the Standard Gauge network, which is a small portion of it.) As for Debt of Honor, it is a great novel.
As for the situation in Alaska with the Seward Highway I was talking about, here is the Anchorage Daily News article.
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska.....60272.html
24 Where’s “Smitty”, now that we need him?
(That’s the late, legendary Frank Smith, the guy who used to drive the Royal Hudson.)
20 A lot of people would gladly take six hours of comfort over two hours of misery.
In truth, trains compete more directly with other wheeled transportation, at least until we see the next surge in petroleum prices.
Nope, never read that book. But I remember reading about DoD ideas about rail-mounted missile-delivery systems. Can’t remember where or when I read that, but I figured that this was quite a ways back, probably from the Sixties. And the Soviets did have such systems at one time or another.
31, Joe
Rail Garrison
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.m.....asp?id=788
re 27: Mounting missiles on randomly traveling train cars would make them virtually impossible for an enemy to locate.
Anyway, the purpose is to find a pretext that Republicans could support.
drool, I heard about it, TRAINS Magazine did a good story on it a few months ago. 90MPH for a steam locomotive? The Mallard went even faster, and UP supposedly said unofficially they once got an 800-series Northern in the old days up to 130 on the flat terrain east of Colorado. Also, in one of former NP Dispatcher Jim Fredrickson’s books, he mentioned in a caption next to one of NP’s 4-8-4s he had taken photos of, that there were stories of crews taking a little liberty with them on the tracks between Seattle and Portland. The odometers pegged at their max, around 80MPH, but using the stopwatch and mile-marker method, it went over a 100. In the Diesel era, they made sure the crews staid at track limits, with speed governors.
Be sure and thank your children and grandchildren this weekend as they are the ones who are going to have to pay for all of these pipe dreams.
Speaking of Trains: I was in the Rainier Valley yesterday and witnessed a minor accident between a sound transit light rail train and a car. It took over 4 hours to clear the tracks and get the train moving. I can’t wait for one of these fucking trains to breakdown in a tunnel or on the I-90 bridge and strand several thousand riders for 3 or 4 hours.
There are plenty of improvements to the existing right-of-way that would drastically improve speeds of present trains. (As I type, a northbound freight is sounding off as it passes one of the most dangerous crossings in the state of Washington.) There have been numerous detailed proposals to improve this crossing, though not fully engineered, it would not take long to reach that stage. Improvements like this can be built to high-speed rail specs for the future while improving speed and safety of existing equipment (passenger and freight).
Washington already has been paying for improved local passenger rail for about 10-15 years, and it started with supporting the local train between Seattle and Portland, and adding a train North of Everett to Vancouver B.C. Now there are multiple frequencies between Seattle and Portland, 2 North of Everett, and if they can permanently resolve the dispute between Amtrak and the CBSA, we might see the 2nd Train terminate in Vancouver B.C. as well, instead of Bellingham. The State that has funded improvements for decades is California. It started with Amtrak threatening to cut LA-San Diego service a little, and when Sacramento stepped up, they funded restoring San Juoquin Valley service. Now there are about 12+ SD-LA trains, and a few continue North as far as San Luis Obisipo. Not bad for 30 years, plus that bond measure that passed in 1990 helped. THey just voted for the first installment of a new High Speed Rail system. Meanwhile, as the US plans, argues over how to pay, and the usual arguments, the US falls further behind. Morocco is the latest to prepare for building High Speed Rail. Also, an example of incremental improvement to a rail network? Germany and France. Other states stepping up to the plate include North Carolina and Illinois. In fact, when Canadian National was going to renege on Illinois’s plan to boost a frequency on the Chicago-Carbondale local, Senator Durbin sent a strongly worded letter, the co-signers included half the Illinois Congressional Delegation, and the then-Junior Senator from Illinois.
Now I am one that would like to see rural branch line services improved wherever possible, even if it means bringing back Mixed Trains. At least plan for it, when gas prices hit a higher price and stay there for awhile. Might as well have the bases covered. Mixed-Trains still run in rural Canada, and the Alaska Railroad has a waiver that allows them to operate Mixed Trains regardless of what is carried in the freight section, just had not needed to exercise it in 30 years. The irony is, the last time they used it, they were owned by the Federal Government, not the state of Alaska. The ARR calls themselves the last Full Service Railroad in the US. THis particular run of the off-season weekly passenger train Anchorage-Fairbanks shows it.
http://www.alaskarails.org/sf/mixed/IMG_0457.jpg
The Discovery Institute pursues commuter rail projects for weird reasons. Something tells me the Obama team didn’t listen to bizarro Reaganites who tried to privatize – and kill – Amtrak. All these right wing think tanks are funded by oil, gas, energy, airline and pavement interests. I wonder if Discovery has bucked that trend.
Not sure. I wonder if the Nuclear Lobby is pro-Northeast Corridor at least. The power for the Acela Express and Northeast Regionals, as well as New Jersey Transit, South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Regional Rail(SEPTA, except for work trains and shunters, is dieselphobes when it comes to commuter trains, all current services are electric), has to come from somewhere, and Coal is dirty.
32:
Thanks for confirming for me, though I had the timeline wrong. I could’ve sworn it was in some old library book I’d come across back in my high-school days, full of crazy-ass ideas like the XB-70 Valkyrie and the nuclear-powered WS-125 (a/k/a B-72) bombers…..
36 The biggest improvement would be for Congress to summon the will to force the railroads to give passenger trains priority over freight.
41)
I think we might be partly there. SUpposedly the Surface Transportation Board now has better(could be even better) enforcement powers. The Down Economy is helping too, some of the notoriously late trains are getting better on On-Time Performance. The Starlate, California Zephyr, and Sunset Limited have all had recent bouts of being on-time. In the case of the Sunset, which by the way carry numbers 1 and 2, had the streak broken only by a case of a bad toilet in a sleeper that needed to be fixed, stuck in Palm Springs. There is talk of making the Sunset Daily, from the 3 days a week it has been since around 1969! The ICC gave Southern Pacific permission to drop it, provided Southern Pacific improve on-board services, they had dropped all food service, the Sleepers, and were even charging for pillows in coach! The obvious reason those amenities were removed, bad service, the few who were riding would drive or fly, they can claim even higher losses, and drop the train.
http://www.railpac.org/2009/04.....for-april/
The traditional services should see some more upgrades too, partially because in the case of Amtrak 7/8(Empire Builder) they are rural lifelines, and as we learned recently, nothing in D.C. gets passed without at least 60 votes to advance the bill. Of course there will be pet projects, but I wonder, are they pet projects if you agree with them? One case, Senator Mark Crapo(R-ID) wants the Pioneer restored. It’s a tough call, remember the Pioneer will almost entirely be running on Union Pacific territory, and they notoriously delayed the old run of it too. Even the dispatchers, when confronted by then Amtrak CEO Graham Claytor(possibly the last Amtrak President/CEO who had any exprience running passenger trains pre-Amtrak, as he kept the Southern Railway out of Amtrak most of the 1970s, by the way), were rude when asked why was the train sitting in the siding when no freight was visible, for hours. There is a restoration study underway, and I wonder what the reccomendations on how to start it will be. Seattle-Denver with through cars at Denver bound for Chicago like it used to be(prior to discontinuance, they put a coach and sleeper on the Eastbound California Zephyr), or have it connect with the Starlight at Portland? Will it serve Wyoming? Also, Boise, a good ridership source in the old days, was on a branchline loop, of which UP has abandoned some of it. How would Idaho’s State Capitol be served?
@42
Thanks for the posts!
Your Welcome. Just trying to pass on some things I have learned over the years. A train on the chopping block at the same time the Pioneer was cut, is the Texas Eagle, saved by a last minute loan from the State of Texas, in 1997. Unfortunately the Houston Section still got cut, so Houston, a major city, by the way, currently only has the Sunset Limited. There probably is the potential for HSR especially in DFW-Houston-Austin-San Antonio, and some service into Louisiana. In fact, remember that pool of money the Louisiana Governor said was only for the LA-LV train? Turns out Louisiana DOT is trying to get some of that money for a train between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, selling it as helping evacuate New Orleans when Hurricanes come. It worked out last year, but pretty much was limited to what was in the New Orleans area.
The bigger picture in the Texas-Louisiana area, a regional network is the next step. You have evolving Light Rail networks in Dallas and Houston, and something budding in Austin(a small diesel-powered Light Rail line they are calling Urban Commuter Rail, the light DMU was built by Stadler, a Swiss company, by the way). In Dallas, they took delivery of their High-Floor LRVs just as the ADA passed, so I like how they adapted. In TX, everything is big they say, so why not the LRV trains? They added a Low-Floor section to the just delivered vehicles(The FTA mandates a 25year life span). Houston is going one better than Portland on accessibility. A 100% Low Floor LRV! In Dallas-Fort Worth, there already is a good Intermodal system, with DART Light Rail and Bus, Trinity Rail Express Commuter Rail, Fort Worth transit buses, and at the station in Dallas where they come together, Amtrak’s Texas Eagle pulls in, as well as a newer service, the Heartland Flyer, to Oklahoma City. For awhile(may still be) was using some of the oldest Bi-levels in the Amtrak inventory. Even rail critics probably have it in their backyard at least.
Yes!!!
#34 Evergreenrailfan,
Yes 90….they are limiting it to 90.
I have seen Mallard in person at York. If you ever get to England you MUST make a pilgrimage to York to the railway museum.
drool, sorry about that, I was sort of answering my own question. One of the reasons they built this new one, is it is the only sub-class of that particular type that was not preserved. Now there are some Hudson-type Steamers preserved here and in Canada, including a few of Canadian Pacific’s Royal Hudson(of a pool that pulled King George VI’s train across Canada on a royal tour), but probably the most famous sub-type, the one used by New York Central, not one was preserved, either for static delay or running. The NYC was interesting in keeping their’s moving. Besides having to take on coal or oil along the way, they had to take on water, but for the latter, the NYC was one of the railroads that got around it. Scoops and track pans.
EvergreenRailfan,
“The TALGO was originally built for RENFE of Spain around 1949 by American Car and Foundry.”
The TALGO was designed by Spanish engineer Goicoechea with financing by Spanish angel investor Oriol. Hence its name: TALGO = Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea-Oriol (Goicoechea-Oriol Light Tilting Train).
It is true that mass production was done by American Car and Foundry in the USA under the direction of Spanish engineers, as the US market was much bigger than the Spanish one. But both the initial and subsequent designs have always been done in Spain.
Sorry about that. Still, even then it was much better than GM’s attempt to diversify into passenger rail. Using bus bodies on rail bogies, and a streamlined locomotive. Problem is, they were single-axle trucks, an uncomfortable ride, and the locomotive was underpowered, taken from the switchers they were building at the time. Union Pacific tried the GM Aerotrain out on the City of Las Vegas, but it needed a helper to get up Cajon Pass. After various trials and public appearences, they ended their days on the Rock Island in commuter service.
http://www.carofthecentury.com/the_aerotrain.htm
The Wikipedia article on the GM Aerotrain, The other site I posted was based around the GM Promo materials of the train.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....M)#History