Cross-Chunnel Comparisons

The High Speed 2 fiasco in the UK has prompted me to update my map of high-speed rail in France.  Obviously the two countries are frequently compared, and here's more in that vein in relation to HSR.

1) Population density is much lower in France than in the UK.  This can be seen by simply inspecting the existing and proposed lines in either country in satellite view, and it is backed by data.  The island of Great Britain is 80,823 sq mi (209,331 sq km) in area and had a population of approximately 64,500,000 in 2021, for an average population density of 798 residents/sq mi (308 residents/sq km).  Continental France is 206,665 sq mi (535,261 sq km) in area and had a population of approximately 65,500,00 in 2022, for a population density of 317 residents/sq mi (122 residents/sq km).  Great Britain is approximately 2.51 times as dense as continental France, and continental France is 39.8% as dense as Great Britain.

2) France is somewhat better at containing urban sprawl than the UK.  This is a qualitative observation on my part, and it isn't uniform across either country.(*)  Areas of France such as the wider region around Lille or the Mediterranean coast from Marseilles to the Italian border are very sprawled out, with little countryside between developed areas except where the geography makes building impossible.  And the UK has compact, relatively contained cities and towns, such as Norwich and Yeovil.  But, overall, I think sprawl is less of a problem in France.

3) The combination of the previous two points means that the French routing strategy of connecting HSR lines with existing urban stations via "off-ramps" to legacy lines works quite well.  The existing approaches to the central stations are fairly direct, and the off-ramps can be built fairly close to the cities.  France generally has avoided building new approaches or stations within existing urban areas.  Lille is the only exception so far.  In contrast, the UK has decided to heavily rebuild existing stations and build new approaches in Birmingham, London (completion uncertain), Manchester (recently canceled), and Leeds (canceled a few years ago).  The prices of those stations has become outrageous and are part of the reason HS2 has been so severely curtailed.

4) France has built a number of stations directly on new LGVs.  Some have been built because there is no classic line near the new HSR line, some because there is only a classic line on one side of a city, and some because the nearest city is too small to serve with off-ramps.  Some stations are connected to the nearest city with legacy rail or a tram system, but others are fundamentally car-oriented, with only limited bus service. Overall, I think the success of these stations is mixed.  A few stations serve an attraction directly, such as the CDG station and the Disneyland station, and these are more successful in terms of passenger counts.  However, the very rural "beetroot" stations are relatively cheap to build, so they may be successful financially.  In the UK, the inline stations at Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange are fairly complex and expensive, though they should have high utilization.

5) Paris is semi-central to the country, whereas London is closer to being at one end of the country.  France needs to build a lot more track-miles to fully connect the country, but as explained above, most of those miles were or will be much cheaper to build.  But the main advantage to being central is that the rest of the country does not connect to the capital through just one link that risks being saturated before demand is completely met.  Each link to Paris can absorb a large number of passengers coming from a smaller number cities.  In the UK, the rest of the country will be funneled through one link.

6) On the purely practical side, France has completed 1,699 miles (2,735 km) of HSR track starting in 1981.  The UK has completed only 70 miles (113 km) starting in 2003.  France simply has vastly more experience at everything related to HSR, including track design and construction, rolling stock design and construction, and operations.

7) Both of my maps are fantasy maps.  However, the French one is much more realistic because my suggestions use the same routing principles as the French have been using for decades, and the resulting alignments have been much cheaper to build than HS2 in the UK.

All of the above raises the question: is there any way for the UK to "catch up" with France?  No, not directly.  The UK will never need to build as many HSR track-miles as France.  Nor will it ever be able to build as cheaply as France given the substantially different human geography of the two countries.  The UK could and should learn a fair amount from France, but the former country should also look to places like Japan, South Korea, and Germany for lessons.   Those countries have population densities of 840, 1,340, and 600 residents/sq mi (326, 516 and 233 residents/sq km) and so have more experience in building around existing populations.  The UK also needs to look inward and try to understand why HS2 turned out to be so expensive.  If the UK adapts, it might be able to catch up with France qualitatively, connecting a large portion of its population via HSR, but the UK will need to change a lot to do so.

(*) The relative sprawl of each country probably has been analyzed quantitatively, but since I am an amateur, I don't feel the need to track the studies down.

Fantasy Isle

As a complement to the previous post, I have developed a map of high speed rail in the United Kingdom.  It is a combination of existing lines, lines under construction, projects canceled by the Johnson and Sunak governments, and my suggestions for lines the UK should build in the future.  Those categories are available as separate layers in the map.  A few notes on my suggestions:

1) It is a fantasy map.  A previous version of the map was somewhat more realistic, but I see no point attempting to be serious when the actual UK government has demonstrated it has no interest in a national system.  The Sunak government has even taken a scorched earth approach to the canceled segments of HS2 by authorizing the sale of previously purchased properties.  It has no interest in any future HSR projects, and any Labour government will find restarting the previous program difficult for practical and financial reasons.

2) My system nonetheless could probably built, though not economically.  A few of the lines might be close to economic viability if construction costs are reasonable.  "Reasonable" in this case would be £100M/mile and £1,000M per station.  HS2 has blown way past those numbers to £396M/mile and £4-6B for stations in London and Manchester (now canceled).

3) I have chosen to tunnel the lines into city centers in order to maximize train speed.  Long approaches to existing stations on existing lines would reduce the average speed along those lines.  Building new approaches would be very expensive in dense urban areas, and very disruptive to the existing urban fabric.  I have chosen tunnels for those reasons and because, as stated above, I don't have to be serious here.

4) A lot of England is basically suburban or exurban, similar to New Jersey, especially in the Midlands.  Cities and towns all connect, with very little actual countryside between them.  That is part of the reason the per-mile cost of HS2 exploded.

5) Stoke-on-Trent is a polycentric mess.  The existing station isn't near the center of the biggest constituent city, Hanley.  I have chosen to put a tunneled station under the center of Hanley because more bus routes run through there, but either location might work.

6) I've spaced out most of the stations, but Sunderland is an odd case.  It is very close to Newcastle, and the two are connected by existing rail and a joint metro system that partially runs in the rail right-of-way.   However, as it is near the end of branch, adding one stop wouldn't impact as many passengers as adding a stop between, say Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester at Stockport.  And I feel the benefits of having a station in economically depressed area would be significant.

7) I have not included a station at Heathrow or any other airport (apart from the under-construction station near Birmingham Airport).  The French TGV system does include stops at some airports, but they are generally ones that are outside of built-up areas, such as CDG, making routing to them easy.  Heathrow was well away from built-up areas when it was first constructed, but it has been swallowed by London's sprawl, and constructing a HSR link to it today would be very expensive.  Nor is there a need to build one.  HSR systems are replacements for short-haul flights, not glorified airport shuttles.  With a fully-built UK HSR system, nearly all major English cities would be within two hours of London.  Even the Scottish cities would be well under four hours away, making city center-to-city center times competitive with airlines.

8) I have included some projects such as a second Severn tunnel and a second Chunnel that aren't technically high-speed lines, but which I think will be needed as part of the overall rail system in the future.  The existing Severn Tunnel is already 137 years old, and a replacement will be necessary at some point.

9) The HS1-HS2 link - which was initially proposed as part of HS2 but rejected early on - won't be needed until there is more capacity across the Channel.  Then the limiting factor would be HS1.  The link might be technically impossible depending on how HS2 is constructed.

10) The 2100+ routes are pretty speculative.  Who knows what the state of the world will be by then, and there's a good chance that anything planned now will need radical changes.

That's enough scattered thoughts.  Enjoy the map.

High Speed Halt

In a move that is both eminently reasonable and entirely shortsighted, the UK PM Rishi Sunak canceled the northern section of High Speed 2, a high-speed rail project extending from London to several northern cities.  Specifically, he canceled the section from just north of Birmingham to central Manchester.  The reason stated was the rapidly increasing cost of the project, which had grown from estimates in 2010 of £17B for a ~335 mile-long network to £98B in 2023 for a ~230 mile network.  The network is now planned to be only around 130 miles in length, with a currently estimated cost of about £62B.  The responsibility for completing the final section in the south, from Old Oak Common in the London suburbs to the terminus at Euston Station in central London, has been removed from the purview of HS2 Ltd, the entity that had been supervising the construction.  Work on the section had already been paused earlier in 2023, and will supposedly resume, but the timeline has not yet been clarified.

This move is reasonable at one level, as the explosion in cost from the earliest estimates to the latest figures published this past summer means that the utility to the country in a standard cost-benefit analysis has declined significantly.  There is, of course, little point in building public infrastructure that is so expensive that the cost of servicing the debt undertaken to build the project outweighs the economic gains from whatever service the infrastructure provides.  That applies to water, sewer, road, and airport projects as well as rail projects.  The UK government, which has been run either in part or completely by the Tories since 2010, has been unable to control the costs of the HS2 project, and has decided to limit the project to the section where substantial construction has already been done.

However, the statements by the Sunak government on the changes to HS2 don't explain how it plans to get the costs for the parts of HS2 that (currently) survive under control.  There is no reason anyone should believe that current estimates for the project will turn out to be any more accurate than previous ones.  The Sunak government claims that up to £36B that was going to spent on HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester will be invested in other projects.  I expect that number to be both reduced by further cost increases in HS2 and by future budget issues that will "require" diverting the previously diverted funds to existing programs.

It should be no surprise to anyone that the Conservatives have failed to control their own project.  Fundamentally, the UK Conservative Party - along with many conservative parties elsewhere - does not believe that government can do anything well, and that the private sector is inherently more efficient at everything.  This has been proven wrong over and over again.  The private sector is not reliably competent at delivering complex public works in many countries, including the UK.  But the Tories outsourced not only the actual implementation of HS2, but also a lot of the design and high-level management of the project, to entities that are not working for the public good, but for private profits.  Some of the cost increases have been exogenous (inflation, COVID), but I suspect a lot have been due to complications that come from not having the incentive to make accurate estimates or figure out the least costly way of doing a particular task.

Despite the questionable of utility of HS2 at the current cost, cancelling the northern sections is nonetheless short-sighted.  HS2, at least on the western side of the Pennines, had two purposes. First, it would reduce the travel time between Manchester, Birmingham, and London.  Reduced travel time would increase economic activity in areas affect by the project.  Second, it would free capacity on the West Coast Main Line for local and freight services.  In train operations, mixing high- and low-speed trains reduces the number of trains that can run per hour significantly.  With the high(er)-speed intercity passenger trains removed from the WCML, the number of other trains that could run would increase by more than the number of high(er)-speed trains removed.  But the need for increased capacity on the WCML north of Birmingham will not disappear because HS2 P2b was canceled, nor will Manchester get any closer to the south, where most economic growth in the country has occurred in the past few decades.

The response of the Sunak government should have been to slow the construction down while it examined the root causes of the cost increases and developed in-house government expertise to manage the future portions of HS2.  Stopping and starting construction disrupts supply chains and employment pipelines, as does long gaps between major projects.  High Speed 1, aka the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, was completed in 2007; HS2 construction did not begin until 2020.  Both institutions and individuals will naturally lose competency over periods far shorter than 12 years.  And when there are future projects in the pipeline, companies are less likely to try to milk current projects, as they have incentive to do a good job in order to get the next one.  Now there is no clear future after 2033, when HS2 is (currently) projected to be completed.  Though project names are being thrown about by the Sunak government, they are largely just old plans that haven't gone anywhere, or minor if necessary upgrades.  The UK needs to commit to a national HSR system that it will build out over the next 75-100 years in order to signal to companies and individuals that it is worthwhile to make long-term invests in education and equipment.  So far the Sunak government hasn't done that, and probably won't given that it has decided that pro-car and anti-environment rhetoric is a useful electoral tactic.  What a Starmer government might do is unclear at this point, and unimportant unless Labour actually wins the next election.

Slowing construction of HS2 would have a downside, of course, which is that financing would have to be carried for an even longer time before farebox revenue and economic benefits start to cover debt repayment.  Nor is there any guarantee that much could be done by the government at this point.  A lot of the increases could be exogenous, or they could be political, meaning that the specific details of construction have been (and continue to be) altered to buy off specific opponents.  It may be that too many bad decisions are locked in, and nothing can be done.  But the Sunak government should try, and then should apply those lessons to future projects.

As a distant observer I don't know exactly how the UK returns to a point where it can build rail projects at a reasonable and predictable cost.  But I believe it should.  Otherwise, the country have difficulty increasing productivity as congestion will continue to increase as the population rises.  The UK's recent experience is in contrast to countries like France, Spain, and Italy, where national HSR systems are moving forward at close to estimated costs.  But those countries have been building more regularly, and have been more judicious in their outsourcing.  Whatever the problem in the UK ultimately is, I hope they identify and resolve it soon.

(1) A side benefit of completing the line between Manchester and London would have been the reduction of flights between Manchester and London area airports, some of which are runway slot-limited.  However, I don't believe it was part of the project's cost-benefit analysis.

NYC Transit Mapping Revisited

It's been a while since I've done any mapmaking, but the bug has bitten me again.  I've updated my NYC Airport Transit Access map, my NYC Transit Projects map, and my NYC Commuter and Intercity Rail map.  The changes I made consisted mostly of sorting the existing features into layers, and updating the colors and line weights.  Gurgle has made number of changes to their map interface since I started using it, and mostly not for the better.  But you get what you pay for.  Beyond that, however, those maps are somewhat outdated.

Because I want to preserve the old maps, I have created a new map which includes more details about the existing system, along with some expansion proposals.  One proposal is the IND Second System from 1929, which was a fairly ambitious plan that has only been partially realized over the years.  There have been many proposals, both simple and comprehensive, made since then, but trying to gather them all into one online map is not something I will get to anytime soon.  However, the map also includes my own proposal, which reflect the many changes to NYC from 92 years ago.

Of course, my proposal is a fantasy, as there is no chance of it being funded.  Due to the the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway is on hold, as transit ridership in general has not recovered from the severe plunge caused by pandemic.  Subway ridership reached about 3.1M/day as of October 2021, but that is still far from the 5.5M/day average in 2019.  Given that transit receives intermittent federal funding in this country, I would not be surprised to see SAS P2 completion pushed out by at least 5 years.

In the meantime, enjoy my NYC Subway Lines and Proposals map.  Please note that it is a map of physical infrastructure, not services, so it does not convey the same information as the traditional NYC subway map despite some similarity.

Thanks For Nothing, Guys

There's No Map to Human Behaviour

I've been working on several maps lately, but I don't really feel like making a full post about each.

• Washington's soccer team, DC United, is looking for a site for a new stadium.
• Amtrak has proposed a revival of the ARC tunnel which shares a lot of the canceled project's flaws.
• I've made a major addition to my Southwest high speed rail proposal: a line between the suburbs of Las Vegas and a point on the the Los Angeles - Phoenix line east of Blythe.
• I've more or less finalized the southern portion of my crazy idea to redraw California's counties, but the northern and central areas still need more work.

Enjoy!

Beaver State Rails

At the request of a fellow commenter at the (unofficial) California High Speed Rail Blog, I have created another railroad map, this time for Oregon. Comments:

• The map is comprehensive but not complete.
• I've included the interurban lines of several systems, but not their local streetcar lines.  Additionally, no strictly urban streetcar systems are included.  This might seem like an arbitrary division, but interurbans often hauled freight (in small amounts) whereas streetcar systems almost never did.   Thus, the distinction.
• No modern transit systems are included.  Right-of-ways abandoned by their original operator and reused later by a transit system are shown as abandoned.
• For some logging railroads, I have only found brief descriptions of their general location, and have not been able to figure out the exact alignments.  These are drawn with simple, straight lines.  I may remove them in the future if I cannot find more information about them.
• Temporary logging spurs are not included.
• A number of abandoned lines are submerged in various reservoirs around the state.  I've drawn lines through the water, but they are not at all accurate.
• Colors are as follows: green = BNSF; brown = UP; blue = everybody else; red = abandoned standard gauge; orange = abandoned narrow gauge.
• Because of the limitations of GMaps, the content is split over several pages.  I've arranged the lines from north to south, but I have no control over where the breaks occur.  If an area you would like to look at is on two different pages, try flipping back and forth.  The page breaks aren't fixed, so all of the lines you want to see may (or may not) end up on the same page.

THE/ARC of History

Though updates indicate that rumors of it's death may be premature, there was a flurry of reports (here, here, here, and here) on the move by the current governor of New Jersey to kill the new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, which currently has the moniker of Trans-Hudson Express, or THE (which is a stupid acronym to use).  Apparently the project is not very far along, as only one of the three tunnel sections has been started.  Work on the very deep expansion of Pennsylvania Station has not begun either.  And the minimal amount of work completed is the only upside to the cancellation.  It will eventually be built, because the need won't go away.  But when it is restarted, there will be the opportunity to do it better.

TTP makes a good argument in this post, which is still relevant despite being a couple of years old, that the tunnel would make more sense if it connected to Grand Central.  LIRR is already building a new, deep level station there, which is scheduled to open in 2016.  The THE project (see how the acronym doesn't work?) should connect to the ends of the tunnels of the East Side Access project, which extend south from the station to 37th St. to allow for storage of a limited number of empty trains.  Though most or all of that storage would be eliminated (I haven't seen a track diagram of the new construction), it would no longer be needed because trains could run through from Long Island to New Jersey.  (The TTP post has a link to past discussions of the benefits of run-through trains.)  The main downside of routing the Access to Region's Core (ARC) tunnel to GCT is that it would preclude a stop at PSNY due to the configuration of existing underground infrastructure, such as subways and a major water tunnel.  However, all four railroads (Amtrak, LIRR, MNR, and NJT would be able to split their services between the two stations, so there would probably be few people who couldn't make a connection at one station or another.  Oh, and the GCT alignment would cost more less (because it would eliminate the cavern under 34th St. called for by the current plan).  But, as I've pointed out before, the cost of major infrastructure projects is modest compared to what we spend on "defense."  And since this is likely to be the only conventional rail tunnel built into Manhattan for the next 50 years or more, it makes a whole lot of sense to do it right.

Update:  According to this diagram from NJ-ARP, it is possible to serve both PSNY to GCT with a new tunnel.  However, it appears to me that the proposed configuration would require some cut-and-cover work on 31st St. and Park Ave., unlike a deep tunnel directly to GCT.  I've also come across the annual report for 2009, which includes a good outline of the problems of the current proposal.  One of the most important is that Amtrak trains would NOT be able to use the new tunnels.  That is a mind-boggling limitation.

Mise à jour: I've had a small discussion on the topic here.  The NYT has a good article on the project from a few years back, and Herbert weighs in with a nice rant.

Une autre mise à jour:  One really has to wonder how these decisions get made.  Just about everybody recognized that the current deep dead-end station was a bad design before it was selected, but nonetheless it's the one that was picked.  I guess that connecting to GCT would have forced the commuter rail systems to work together, which they refuse to do.  Selecting a dead-end station allowed them to avoid that horrific scenario.

Une troisième mis à jour: Another comment of mine never appeared here, so I'm posting it below: 

Philg: another thing you need to consider is the size of the tunnels.  The loading gauge (overall width and height of the vehicle) plus dynamic considerations plus room for a catenary means that a tunnel for a conventional train is much larger than that of a subway.  See this post (http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/06/tunnel-sizes.html) for a diagram.

<i>I can’t figure out why it should cost 14X more to build a much more limited system today.</i>

Well, some reasons might be: worker safety standards much higher, design safety standards are higher, the current up-front price tag includes equivalent capabilities that were added incrementally to the PATH tubes, the geological conditions are different, and the construction techniques are different.  I'll note that neither of us is an expert in large infrastructure projects so there are likely a whole host of considerations that we don't know about that nonetheless exist.

<i>If we are committing to incinerating $14 billion taxpayer dollars, why not use it to make it possible for more people to live in Manhattan and walk to work</i>

That's a false choice, of course, aside from governments having a poor history of providing private goods like housing.  Look, the need is there. The North River Tunnels are at capacity and they are major constraint on all commuter and intercity train travel to/from points south and east.  Even if NYC were to engage in some kind of massive building campaign, that doesn't mean New Jersey won't grow.  NJ is a separate semi-sovereign state; there's no way for NYC to limit its growth.  And Amtrak ridership on the NEC will keep going up because the population is increasing everywhere on the East Coast.  I'm not going to justify the current price because I don't know the basis for it, and because I think the current design is stupid.  But it would be wrong to say that the current plan is a complete waste.  It would still result in two new bores and a station that NJT will use, plus improvements in NJ.  When completed, the project will free up capacity for Amtrak and make rehabilitation of the existing tubes easier.

Christie is actually the one person who could bring some sense to this project - if he really wanted to (though possibly he's unaware of the poor decisions that led to the current design).

Click on my name for a bit more discussion.

Ah, I just found this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/06RtunnelNJ.html?_r=1&ref=nyregionspecial2) when I was searching for ridership numbers.  The multimedia attachment explains the construction techniques vs. the existing North River Tunnels (not the PATH tunnels).

Mise à jour numéro à quatre: An article in the L.A. Times says that Christie will make a decision (again) by Thursday.

Moar: Another news report, and a couple of blog posts.  Data from the API shows that NJ could raise its motor fuels taxes considerably without destroying civilization as we know it.

Are we there yet: Three more articles.  The last indicates - surprise, surprise - that Christie is a lying shit.

Are we there yet: Christie has found a way to keep his name in the news for another couple of days.

Are we there yet: Christie is still hogging the limelight thoughtfully considering the project's fate.

Are we there yet: The entirely predictable outcome will be announced tomorrow despite an incident that showed just how fragile the current tunnel infrastructure is.

Finally (2010-11-10):  The arrival was so anti-climatic I forgot to post about it.  Christie continues to be a liar, promising to fix New Jersey's roads without saying how the work will be paid for.  LaHood's op-ed was pretty good,  and he has followed up by asking for money back from NJ.  This article has some speculation about what might happen next under the Hudson.

Postscript: Atrios wonders if this concept is a good alternative to the canceled tunnel.  It is and it isn't.  The link would provide new capacity between Secaucus Junction and Midtown Manhattan, which would be useful to many commuters, but the tunnels could not be used by commuter or intercity trains.  The point of the ARC project was to provide more one-seat rides on NJT into Manhattan, and to free up capacity for Amtrak in the existing North River Tunnels.  The new concept would serve NYC interests better, especially if a new station was built at 10th Ave. and 41st St for the 7 Line.  I think the best alternative for a new crossing of the Hudson would be to drive a new tunnel from the partially constructed ARC portal in NJ directly to Grand Central.  It would be the cheapest, it wouldn't require any C&C work or condemnations in NYC, and it would provide a (more or less) redundant path through NYC for conventional rail trains.

Southwest Groundlines

I've been picking at my regional high-speed rail map for the Southwest for a while, and I've decided enough is enough.  Here it is.  I'd like to think it is self-explanatory, but I've provided some commentary below.

The main point to note is that it is a fantasy map.  I feel it's one that is fairly well grounded in reality, as several of the core routes are based on the current proposal by the California High Speed Rail Authority.  I've also taken into account city population rankings and city pair air routes (see the second page on the map) for my new lines.  But I've also made two major assumptions.  One is that the Federal Railroad Administration will grant a full waiver for HSR trainsets to operate on mixed traffic (freight and passenger) lines.  Currently, lightweight trainsets are prohibited from operating in mixed traffic due to the FRA's somewhat ridiculous safety requirements (which is a long discussion for another day).  I've also assumed full cooperation from BNSF and UP.  Currently the latter is fighting all efforts to have HSR lines anywhere near its property, let alone having frequent passenger operations on them.  BNSF has been more cooperative, but it still would probably not want as much passenger traffic on its lines as I propose.

As I mentioned, several of the core lines, with track that enables high-speed trainsets to travel at up to 220mph, are based on the current CHSRA proposal.  Those lines are San Franscisco-San-Jose-Chowchilla-Los Angeles, Sacramento-Chowchilla, Los Angeles-Irvine, and Los Angeles-Riverside-San Diego.  With the exception of Chowchilla, which is just an interchange point, those cities are all ranked in the top 25 most populous in the country.  I've added five more lines of similar capability: San Jose-Oakland, Mojave-Las Vegas, Riverside-Barstow, Riverside-Phoenix, Phoenix-Tuscon, and Quartzite-Las Vegas.  Phoenix and Las Vegas are connected with dedicated track due to their size and the amount of air traffic between them and other cities in the network.  The Oakland-San Jose line is important because of the difficulties of crossing the bay, and because over half of the population of the SF MSA lives east of the bay.  The Phoenix-Tucson line doesn't compete with an air route because the two cities are too close, but they are both large and the connecting freeway is very busy.  Finally, the Riverside-Barstow line provides more direct routes from San Francisco and Las Vegas to Riverside and San Diego.  I think the importance of all of the high-speed lines is pretty clear.

What might not be as obvious is the inclusion of lower speed lines.  To explain them, let me first describe the two models for HSR systems around the world.  One is a closed system, as used in Japan and Spain.  In those systems, HSR trainsets operate only on dedicated lines, much like a subway does.  Dedicated lines make for less complicated trains, but have a downside, which is that passengers must transfer between trains if their destination is not on a dedicated line.  While a transfer between two trains is usually much less frustrating than a transfer between two planes, it still is a disincentive to taking a train.  An open system, as in France and Germany, allows for "one-seat rides" between a greater number of destinations by utilizing parts of the existing railroad network.  In France, in fact, most locations served by HSR trainsets are not on dedicated lines.  Now, the US does not have an existing passenger rail system anything like what European countries have.  Nonetheless, it still has an extensive rail network that could be exploited to people.  Utilizing the track would require significant upgrades and extensive cooperation between the freight railroad companies and the CHSRA, but it could be done.  I think the low speed lines I propose (marked in green and purple) are logical if one accepts the premise that one-seat rides are important.  A few might be marginal if for some reason the cost of driving doesn't rise significantly.  I expect costs to rise a lot - soonish if Americans come to their senses, or later and more dramatically if they doesn't.  The track on the low speed lines would be upgraded to either 79mph or 110mph, based on a combination of cost and traffic potential.

The Stockton-Fremont-Redwood City low speed line merits a specific comment.  One of the hotter points of debate about the CHSRA system proposal is the choice of route into the Bay Area.  CHSRA has selected Pacheo Pass (Los Banos-Gilroy) over Altamont Pass (Tracy-Fremont) several times.  I think doing so makes sense because going through Pacheo Pass would allow a single train to serve both SF and SJ once the initial segment is constructed.  This would increase the probability that the initial segment is successful, which is very important.  The Altamont Pass route has the advantage of reducing the SF-Sacto distance significantly once the second segment is constructed (which most people seem to think would extend the network to Sacramento).  However, that route would mean the frequency of arrivals and departures from SF and SJ would be about half as often as they would be if Pacheo Pass was selected.  More frequent departures make a transportation system more convenient, which boosts its use.  That's the main reason why I decided to keep the Pacheo Pass route.  However the circuitous route from SF to Sacto via Pacheo Pass would definitely reduce the number of people taking the train between the two cities.  So a shorter route would be needed.  I've included two, actually; one through Altamont Pass and across the southern SF Bay on a new bridge, and one through the Carquinez Strait.  Both routes include existing UP track that would be upgraded.

Another thing that I should expand on is the three types of stations I propose.  The first, a full-service HSR station, would be one where nearly every train would stop.  Obviously every train has to stop in a station at the end of the line, but there is no point in bypassing a major intermediate station like SJ, Fresno, or LA.  The time savings from skipping any one stop is minimal, and there will be demand at all times of the day from passengers in big cities.  Full-service stations would open early and close late, would provide services like checked baggage, and would have various businesses located inside the facility.  A limited-service HSR station would be an intermediate station where not every train would stop.  A few, like Blythe or Elk Grove, might have only have two or three arrivals in each direction per day.  Others, like Palo Alto, Burbank, or Escondido, might see every other train stopping.  Most of these stations would not have other services co-located on the property, but some might.  Finally, a low-speed station would be a location on a low-speed line where a HSR trainset stops.  These locations would see several HSR trains a day, but also might see other electrified trains, conventional diesel-hauled trains, or both.  Once again most would not have services co-located, with exceptions.

Some minor points

• The map is diagrammatic.  I've laid the lines out in some detail so the distances would be fairly accurate.  But they should not be interpreted too far beyond that.
• The map shows only lines served by HSR trainsets.  Lines not shown include those that host commuter trains or regional services.  Note that some of those lines are immediately adjacent to dedicated HSR tracks.  (Actually, other passenger lines are on page 2 of the map.  Remember when looking at them that non-HSR trains can operate on lines marked in green, purple, and brown.)
• Even though the lines are presented together, obviously they can't all be built at once.  And with the exception of the Stockton-Fremont-Redwood City line, there's no point in upgrading existing lines for use by HSR trainsets until all of the dedicated lines are built.
• Since I have attempted to make a fairly realistic map, I have not included new SF Bay crossings.  For instance, a new SF-Oakland tunnel capable of supporting HSR trainsets would be a nice addition to the system.  But it would also be terribly expensive, and the money spent on it could be better used extending the reach of the rail system.  The same could be said about a Richmond-San Rafael crossing.
• There are a three areas with top 300 metropolitan areas that are not served: the North Bay, the Central Coast, and Northern Arizona.  All three areas have difficult geography that would make any lines to the area both circuitous and expensive.
• There are two major air routes that are not duplicated by an HSR line: San Diego-Phoenix, and and San Francisco-Phoenix.  The first route would has difficult geography and little population between the destinations.  The second is too long of a journey for HSR to be effective, even if a direct route could be built.
• All electrification would supply 25kV AC at 60Hz.  25kV is the de facto global standard, and 60Hz is the national standard.
• All dedicated lines would be double-tracked with in-cab signaling.
• Upgraded lines would be electrified, and double-tracked where necessary if they aren't already.
• While HSR trainsets can operate on upgraded lines, non-HSR trains can't operate on dedicated HSR tracks.

Comments on individual lines:

• San Francisco to San Jose - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 1) Bay Area governments already own this ROW
• San Jose to Chowchilla - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 1) parallel to UP in the Santa Clara Valley, then a new ROW with significant tunnelling to Chowchilla
• Chowchilla to Mojave - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 1) parallel to UP to Frenso, then BNSF to Bakersfield, and then a new ROW with major tunneling to Mojave
• Mohave to Los Angeles - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 1)  parallel to UP in the Antelope Valley, then a new ROW through Soledad Canyon, and parallel to Metrolink in the San Fernando Valley
• Sacramento to Chowchilla - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 2) parallel to UP
• Stockton to Redwood City - (under study by CHSRA for ... something, 110mph, Phase 2) parallel to UP, with a new bridge from Newark to East Palo Alto
• Los Angeles to Riverside - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 3) parallel to UP
• Riverside to San Diego - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 3) parallel to BNSF, then a new ROW from Perris to La Jolla, then parallel to the Surf line into San Diego
• Mojave to Las Vegas - (mine, 220mph, Phase 4) parallel to BNSF from Mojave to near Barstow, then parallel to I-15 to Enterprise, then parallel to UP into Las Vegas
• Riverside to Phoenix - (mine, 220mph, Phase 4) parallel to UP to Indio, then parallel to I-10 to Goodyear, then parallel to UP
• Phoenix to Tuscon - (mine, 220mph, Phase 5) parallel to up
• Los Angeles to Irvine - (CHSRA, 220mph, Phase 5) parallel to BNSF and Metrolink
• Los Angeles to LAX - (110mph, Phase 5) on UP and Metrolink
• Quartzite to Las Vegas - (mine, 220mph, Phase 5) entirely new alignment
• Barstow to Riverside - (mine, 220mph, when needed)
• Redding to Sacramento - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on UP
• Sacramento to Oakland - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on UP
• Gilroy to Salinas - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on UP
• Burbank to Goleta - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on Metrolink and UP
• San Diego to San Ysidro - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on SDIY
• Indio to Calexico - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on UP
• Tuscon to Nogales - (mine, 110mph, Phase 6) on UP
• Sacramento to Reno - (mine, 79mph, Phase 7) on UP
• Fullerton to Riverside - (mine, 79mph, Phase 7) on BNSF
• Placienta to Orange - (mine, 79mph, Phase 7) on BNSF
• Irvine to La Jolla - (79mph, Phase 7) on Metrolink and Coaster
• Tempe to Coolidge - (79mph, Phase 7) on UP

Comments on individual stations:

• Anaheim - (CHSRA, full-service, suburban, new) very close to Disneyland
• Auburn - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing) in the foothills northeast of Sacramento
• Avondale - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) western suburbs of Phoenix
• Bakersfield - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new)
• Barstow - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) outside of city because of space considerations
• Berkeley - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Blythe - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) only station on the 230 mile stretch between Indio and Avondale
• Burbank - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Calexico - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new) close to the border crossing to Mexicali
• Calipatria - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new) northernmost station in Imperial Valley
• Casa Grande - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) largest city between Phoenix and Tuscon
• Chico - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing) close to Cal State Chico
• Chula Vista - (mine, low-speed, suburban, new)  south of downtown San Diego
• Colton - (mine, full-service, greenfield, new) station at the junction of several lines to allow transfers
• Coolidge - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new)
• Corona - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Davis - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing) close to UC Davis
• Driftwood Ranch - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) southern suburbs of Phoenix
• East Sacramento - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new) adjacent to Cal State Sacramento
• El Centro - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new) largest city in Imperial Valley
• Elk Grove - (mine, limited-service, suburban, new) southern suburbs of Sacramento
• Encinitas - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Escondido - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Fairfield - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Fremont - (mine, full-service, suburban, new)
• Gilroy - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Goleta - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing) near UC Santa Barbara campus
• Green Valley - (mine, low-speed, suburban, new)
• Hayward - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Hanford-Visalia - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new) 
• Henderson - (mine, limited-service, suburban, new) southeastern suburbs of Las Vegas
• Higly - (mine, low-speed, suburban, new)  in suburban Phoenix
• Indio - (mine, low-speed, suburban, new) last station in Coacella Valley
• Irvine - (CHSRA, full-service, suburban, new) at end of high-speed segment
• La Jolla - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new) near UC San Diego
• La Puente - (CHSRA, limited-service, suburban, new)
• Lancaster - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new) downtown is more dense than the one in Palmdale
• Las Vegas - (mine, full-service, downtown, new)
• LAX - (mine, low-speed, airport, new) provides direct airplane-train transfers
• Livermore - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Los Angeles - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new)
• Madera - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Martinez - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Mesa - (mine, low-speed, suburban, new)
• Merced - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Millbrae - (CHSRA, full-service, suburban, existing) provides (almost) direct airplane-train transfers
• Modesto - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Murrieta - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Needles-Bullhead - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new
• Nogales - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new) close to border crossing to Heroica Nogales
• Northridge - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Oakland - (mine, full-service, downtown, new) probably underground
• Oceanside - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Ontario - (CHSRA, full-service, suburban, new) adjacent to airport
• Oxnard - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Palm Springs - (mine, limited-service, greenfield, new)
• Palmdale - (CHSRA, limited-service, suburban, new)
• Palo Alto - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new) one option for the CHSRA "mid-peninsula" station
• Phoenix - (mine, full-service, downtown, new)
• Pleasanton - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Red Bluff - (mine, low-speed, downtown, new)
• Redding - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Redwood City - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new) one option for the CHSRA "mid-peninsula" station
• Reno - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Richmond - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Riverside - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Roseville - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Sacramento - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new)
• Salinas - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• San Diego - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new)
• San Fernando - (CHSRA, limited-service, suburban, new)
• San Francisco - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new) end of the line, underground
• San Jose - (CHSRA, full-service, downtown, new) close to downtown
• San Juan Capistrano - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• San Ysidro - (mine, low-speed, greenfield, new) adjacent to border crossing to Tijuana
• Santa Barbara - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Simi Valley - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Sky Harbor - (mine, full-service, airport, new) in airport terminal
• Stockton - (CHSRA, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Strip-UNLV - (mine, full-service, suburban, new) towards the southern end of the Strip
• Sunnyvale - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new)
• Tempe - (mine, limited-service, downtown, new) adjacent to ASU
• Tracy - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Truckee - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Tuscon - (mine, full-service, downtown, new) close to UA
• University - (CHSRA, limited-service, suburban, new) adjacent to UC Riverside
• Ventura - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)
• Victorville - (mine, limited-service, suburban, ?)
• Watsonville - (mine, low-speed, greenfield, existing)
• Whittier - (CHSRA, limited-service, suburban, new)
• Yorba Linda - (mine, low-speed, suburban, existing)
• Yuba - (mine, low-speed, downtown, existing)

Golden State Spikes

I've been wasting a lot of time with GMaps, and the latest product is this map of railroads in California.  It's definitely the most extensive map online, and I hope people will find it informative.

A few comments are in order:

• The map is comprehensive but not complete.
• I've included the interurban lines of several systems, but not their local streetcar lines.  Additionally, no strictly urban streetcar systems are included.  This might seem like an arbitrary division, but interurbans often hauled freight (in small amounts) whereas streetcar systems almost never did.   Thus, the distinction.
• No modern transit systems are included.  Right-of-ways abandoned by their original operator and reused later by a transit system are shown as abandoned.
• Freight spurs are not included, unless they are a remnant of a longer line.
• Temporary logging spurs are not included.
• A number of abandoned lines are submerged in various reservoirs around the state.  I've drawn lines through the water, but they are not at all accurate.
• A few abandoned lines around Sacramento were torn up before 1880, and no drawings of their locations exist.
• Colors are as follows: green = BNSF; brown = UP; blue = everybody else; purple = operating narrow gauge; red = abandoned standard gauge; orange = abandoned narrow gauge.
• Because of the limitations of GMaps, the content is split over several pages.  I've arranged the lines from north to south, but I have no control over where the breaks occur.  If an area you would like to look at is on two different pages, try flipping back and forth.  The page breaks aren't fixed, so all of the lines you want to see may (or may not) end up on the same page.

Enjoy!

Approach Diverging

I'm well beyond the point of diminishing returns on my HSR mapping, so here's the last set of images I plan to make for a while.

I left out the long distance routes this time because they are pretty unimportant in the larger scheme.

No changes in the Northwest.

I fiddled with the East Bay lines a bit. What to do with Altamont Pass is a controversial subject in Cali.

I changed the St. Louis - Nashville - Memphis triangle to more direct lines.

I made lots of changes in the Midwest and Northeast, but none of them are all that significant.

I've moved my maps to GMaps for any future work. Unfortunately, there seems to be a limit to the number of points that the interface will display at one time, so I had to split the lines into several maps:

• Tier 1 lines (220 mph)
• Tier 2 lines (186 mph)
• Tier 3 lines (110 mph)
• Tier 4 lines (79 mph)
• Long-distance routes (79 mph)

And I did the same thing for the cities:

• Cities 1-60
• Cities 61-100
• Cities 101-200
• Cities 201-300
• Other factors

To see all of the maps at once, you will have to add them to your own maps collection (left pane when viewing GMaps) one at a time. Since that is a total pain, I'll probably create regional maps containing all of the "layers" at some point.

A big advantage in using GMaps is that it covers the globe. This allowed me to plan out an integrated North American passenger rail system. Obviously anything resembling my proposal won't be built for 40 or 50 years. But it's there nonetheless.

Bright Rails, Big City

I finally got around to filling a big gap in my high-speed rail analysis series. Examining the Hudson Valley turned out to be particularly unrewarding, as the solution would be very expensive to construct. Most of the expense would be in the southern half of the line, as the northern part runs through relatively rural and flat areas in Dutches, Columbia, and Rennselaer counties. However, the new line would provide significant time reduction. The current New York to Albany journey takes 2.5hrs to cover the @150 track-miles between the stations, which makes the average speed a leisurely 58mph. Raising the average to the still somewhat slow speed of 100mph would bring the time down to 1.5hrs, which would make a day trip from either end much more realistic.

Here some options for section through Westchester and Putnam counties:

• An entirely new surface right-of-way - building an entirely new ROW would be enormously expensive and disruptive.
• An improved Hudson Line - the existing line is curvy, busy, and subject to flooding. The slowest part of the current Hudson line is south of Beacon, and could be improved but so much.
• An improved Harlem Line - the existing line is curvy, busy, and the northern half or so runs directly through town centers. Because it runs a good way to the east of the Hudson, utilizing it would significantly increase the total distance between NYC and Albany.
• A revived Putnam Line - the abandoned Putnam Line is curvy, too narrow for two tracks, runs through through the center of various towns, and is currently a rail trail. Also, it doesn't go all the way through the Hudson Highlands.
• A new tunnel - tunneling is expensive and slow. Attempting to tunnel under large parts of Westchester would be foolish in the extreme.
• A hijacked highway - utilizing a part of an existing north-south highway would be probably be the cheapest way to build a new line. The ROW is already owned by state or local governments, cleared and graded, and separated from surface traffic. A pair of HSR tracks is about as wide as three lanes of traffic plus shoulders (45-50 feet). Of course, taking over half of a highway would be unpopular, and the ramps to local streets would have to be re-configured for 1/2 day directional traffic.
• A viaduct - building a viaduct above existing surface streets would be expensive and disruptive. Also, elevated subways - or roadways for that matter - have a bad reputation for a reason.

A modified version of the last option is what I settled on. A viaduct along a highway right-of-way would preserve the utility of the existing roadway without disrupting neighborhoods during the construction period. The only right-of-way that I found workable was a combination of the Saw Mill River Parkway and the Taconic Parkway. That means some people's commute would become a bit less visually pleasing, but oh well.

Oversubscribed and Undersupplied

High demand for an offer of free money is unsurprising, to say the least. And so it was for the "Track 2" funds authorized by EGTRAA, aka the stimulus bill. There have been two previous deadlines: one in July that was basically for anything that had been batted about in the various state transportation planning offices, and a second in August for small to medium "ready-to-go" projects, with some states using a pretty expansive definition of shovel-ready.

I haven't read all of the proposals for the third round, but as the TTP points out, giving most of the money to California makes a lot of sense. The $10B in bonds authorized by citizens of the Bear Republic is probably about $9.9B more than any other state has committed to high-speed rail. If I were made SecTrans for a day, I'd give CHSRA $4B, Maryland $1.5B for fast-tracking the Baltimore tunnel replacments, $1.5B towards the more cost-effective small projects, and the rest for planning the more plausible large projects. Not much can be done with $8B - it's only 1% of my estimate for a full HSR network build-out. So the current round of money should be concentrated where it can do the most good.

The Bottom Line

Eight hundred billion dollars.

That's my guestimate for building out America's passenger rail system for a high level of performance. The total breaks down like this:

• Core lines at HSR standards: $510B (8500 miles @ $60M per mile)
• National lines at HSR standards: $160B (4000 miles @ $40M per mile)
• Regional lines at MSR standards: $105B (5250 miles @ $20M per mile)*
• Infill lines at SSR standards: $25B (5000 miles @ $5M per mile)
* - Includes upgrading the NEC to 150mph operations.

Now, $800B sure is a lot of money, but over 30 years it's less than $27B per year. For comparison, we've been spending an average of $115B per year on two wars, one of which was entirely unnecessary.

Opportunity costs, baby.

Update 10/10: Heck, we could build out the system with this year's defense spending alone.

Cheese-Eating Railroad Junkies

Way back when, in the dark days of the last administration, before there was any indication that the US might get semi-serious about high-speed rail, I spent some time making a fantasy TGV network map for France. Why? Because.

The excellent base map I used came from Railways Through Europe. Existing Ligne à Grande Vitesse are solid red. Lines that RFF is considering are dashed red. My proposed lines (though I admit that I stole a number of them from LGV2030) are in dashed cyan. The little bits of dashed pink are lignes classiques that I think need to be electrified and/or double-tracked to support trains coming off the LGVs.

The main goal of my plan was to provide fast, direct inter-regional services. So far, the TGV network has been centered on Paris. This makes sense, of course, as the Paris aire urbaine contains about 19% of the country's population. But I think economic development away from the capital would be more vigorous if the TGV network was more of a mesh than a spoke-and-wheel arrangement.

On the Paris area map I added one new color: yellow for a cross-city tunnel linking the Gare Montparnasse with Gare du Nord and Gare de L'Est. As of now, there's no good way to run trains through or around Paris from the southwest to the north and east. Travelers going through Paris in those directions have to cross the city on the subway or otherwise to continue on their journey. Travelers going through Boston face similar difficulties. A tunnel would solve the problem in both cities, though at great expense.

How Fast is Fast?

In my first rail-related post I defined three different terms: high-speed rail (HSR), medium-speed rail (MSR), and standard-speed rail (SSR). I've been reviewing the Federal Railroad Administration's rules about train speeds, and I now see that I need to add another definition.

There are two criteria that the FRA uses to set limits: quality of the track, and type of signaling system. For the track, there are 10 classes each of which has increasingly strict tolerance, maintenance, and inspection requirements. For signaling, there are three levels. Below 60mph (49mph for freight), trains can operate in "dark territory." There are no signals on such lines, and train movements are authorized either by the almost obsolete method of pre-written train orders, or by track warrants received by radio from a dispatcher. For trains to operate above 60mph, a railway line must have some kind of electronic trackside signaling. This is usually some form of colored indicator lights, though in the past it also included mechanical semaphores. The signals can operate automatically based on how they are wired, or they can be controlled from a central location, or both. Above 80mph, the rail line and the trains operating on it above 80mph must have some kind of system that will automatically protect a train (usually by stopping it) under certain conditions. Unfortunately, how the protection is implemented and under what circumstances varies quite a bit between protection systems, of which there are several in the United States alone. But they usually combine in-cab signaling and a way of applying the train brakes without assistance from the train operator. In-cab signaling is present because the status of a signal becomes harder to determine at higher speeds, and even a brief moment of distraction can cause an engineer to miss a signal. In most instances the cab signaling is a supplement to trackside signals. However, on dedicated TGV lines SNCF has dispensed with all external indicators, as there is no need to support legacy locomotives without cab signaling.

Back to my definitions. My SSR standard would require Class 4 track and trackside signaling. Both are what can be found on most major rail lines, like BNSF's TransCon. Amtrak currently operates on some Class 3 and even Class 2 track, which is really somewhat pointless. The average speed for a train running on low-quality track is well below what can be achieved in a car, which most people would opt for. Even if all the bright new plans for HSR networks come to naught, Amtrak should make an effort to upgrade all of its routes to SSR standards.

The next level I defined was MSR, which topped out at 110mph. This corresponds to FRA Class 6 track equipped with automatic train protection. And 110mph just happens to be the maximum speed of Amtrak's two intercity diesel locomotives, the F59PHI and the P42DC. Various bits of track maintained and operated by Amtrak meet the Class 6 standards, as does a very limited amount of track owned by various state rail authorities. In the immediate future, most passenger rail projects will be building to MSR standards.

Finally, I defined HSR as trains operating over 150mph. That means I left a big gap between 110 and 150 mph. Amtrak's operations on Northeast Corridor fall right into that gap. I'm going to call a new standard for that range of speed ISR, where "I" stands for intermediate, or improved, or impressive, or maybe something else that sounds catchier. This standard corresponds to Class 8 track, again with automatic train protection. The reason the ISR standard is set at 10mph less than FRA allows on Class 8 track is because the lower speed is what Amtrak has determined as safe for its equipment and track. "True" HSR rail lines would have to conform to Class 9 standards. No track of this quality has been built in the US to date.

One more thing about the ISR standard: it is - or should be - irrelevant. Away from the Northeast Corridor and the Keystone Corridor, there aren't many existing right-of-ways where triple- or quadruple-tracking is possible. If a passenger-only right-of-way is being built out, it should be done to HSR standards so as to get maximum benefits. For track shared with freight traffic, upgrading beyond the MSR standard is pointless because the much heavier freight trains will throw the track too far out of alignment for higher speeds to be safe. Curve radii are likely to be too small for high speed operation on existing lines, as most were laid out by the 1890s, when expected speeds were much lower.

Goin' Down South

Despite the frustration I experience while planning a HSR line across the Bay State, I've attempted to tackle the Big Kahuna: the southern Northeast Corridor. This 225 mile line is the busiest in the country. Naturally, it has many important stations: New York (number 1 busiest in the country), Washington (2), Philadelphia (3), Baltimore (8), Wilmington (11), Newark (13), BWI Airport (15), and Trenton (24). Amtrak's Acela Express trains stop at each of those stations (though not all individual trains do) plus Metropark in New Jersey. Amtrak's Northeast Regional trains stop at an additional 8 stations, and the various commuter rail operations serve at least 40 more. The line has a very long history: part of the line runs over the oldest operating railroad bridge in the world, built in 1836. The most recent major change to the line is the electrification between Washington and Baltimore, which was completed in the late 1930's.

Theoretically, Acela trainsets can reach 165 miles per hour, but due to a number of constraints the average speed for a trip from DC to NYC is just 78mph. The trip currently takes 2hr 47min with 4 intermediate stops, and 2hr 52min with 6 intermediate stops. The magic number people want to achieve for DC-NYC travel time is 2hr 30min, which would mean an average speed of 90mph. To cut the journey by a further 30min to 2hr, the average speed would have to reach 112mph, a 40% increase over the current figure.

I experimented with a few sections of entirely new track, which turned out to be pointless. Building a 25 mile stretch of HSR track between Washington and Baltimore would cut travel time by only 10 minutes. That doesn't seem like a good way to spend $1.25B, which is what the new segment might cost. And trains would still have to crawl through the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel. Creating a new line east of the Delaware was the only way to lay new track north of Wilmington. It would be very expensive and somewhat useless because it would bypass so many busy stations. Elsewhere, sprawl made a new line completely impossible.

The inability to plan a new line meant that incremental improvements would have to be the means for reducing travel time. Amtrak and its supporters have been arguing for more capital investment in existing NEC infrastructure for decades, but the funds allocated by Congress have been minimal. Below are the improvements I would suggest, in rough priority, based on reading a number of reports, reviewing track diagrams, and eyeballing aerial photographs. The four cost levels correspond to guestimates of <250M, $250M-$1B, $1-3B, and >$3B;.

1. West Baltimore tunnels - The B&P Tunnel for passengers and the Howard Street Tunnel for freight are the biggest choke point in the entire corridor. They both need to be replaced for reasons that are very well explained here and here. Cost: high. Benefit: high.
2. Catenary - The power system south of NYC is unique, and not in a good way. It supplies 11kV, 25Hz AC electricity, which is used nowhere else in the world. The configuration of the wires themselves limits top speeds to 135mph. The entire system between NYC and DC needs to be replaced for those two reasons, and general age. Cost: moderate. Benefit: high.
3. Signaling - The current signaling system is sufficient, but higher densities (meaning shorter blocks) on the entire line would increase capacity. Cost: moderate. Benefit: moderate. Update 9/26: Amtrak has already installed a Positive Train Control system on its equipment, and plans to have all commuter and freight rail upgraded in the next few years.
4. New Jersey flyovers - Northbound commuter trains entering the corridor from two branch lines in central New Jersey (one is just a stub, really) have to cross the two southbound tracks and the northbound express track before continuing. This creates safety and scheduling issues that should be eliminated. Cost: low. Benefit: low.
5. Curve straightening - There are a number of areas where curves could be eliminated. In most locations, doing so would reduce travel time a small amount (15-30 seconds or so) and at the same time would increase passenger comfort and eliminate higher wear curved track. Cost: low (each). Benefit: low (each).
6. West Delaware track and curve - From Wilmington south to Newark there is a section of the line with only three tracks. Newark is the southern terminus of the SEPTA commuter rail system, so adding track would reduce scheduling conflicts. There is also a curve on the section that could be eliminated. This work could be done in conjunction with the bypass below. Cost: low. Benefit: low.
7. East Baltimore tunnels - The two relatively short bores of the Union Tunnel east of Baltimore's Penn Station have a total of only three tracks, and need to be rebuilt due to age and height issues. Cost: high. Benefit: low.
8. North New Jersey bridges - Two movable bridges just north of Newark need to replaced. Cost: high. Benefit: moderate.
9. Northern Maryland bridges and track - Between Baltimore and the Delaware state line there are three two-track bridges in an area with only three tracks. New bridges need to be added for capacity reasons, and the originals eventually replaced, and another track added to help fully utilize the new capacity. Cost: high. Benefit: moderate.
10. Central Maryland track additions - Most of the segment between Baltimore and DC has only three tracks. Another track would add capacity. Cost: moderate. Benefit: low.
11. Wilmington bypass - The Wilmington station is in a very constrained area, has only three tracks, and is bounded by sharp curves at both ends. The solution here would be to bypass downtown Wilmington with two high-speed tracks. The existing track would remain, but through traffic would zoom on by. Cost: high. Benefit: low.
12. North Jersey track additions - A short section of track from just south of Elizabeth north to Newark Airport narrows down from 6 tracks to 4. More tracks would help scheduling in a busy area, but the construction would be difficult due to the surrounding area of dense urban development. Two curves could be eliminated as well. Cost: moderate. Benefit: low.
13. Northern Jersey viaduct - This 10 mile long structure from south of the Newark airport to near the Hudson tunnels entrances would bypass three stations (Secaucus Junction, Newark Penn, and Newark Airport), two movable bridges, and a rail yard. Cost: extreme. Benefit: low.
14. 30th Street Station approaches - The track and switches on either side of the main Philadelphia station are a mess. Consensus opinion is that the situation needs to be addressed, but I have no idea about how large of an undertaking it would be. Cost: ? Benefit: ?

I think completing items 1, 2, 5, and 6 would shave 15 minutes off the trip. Items 3, 4, and 10 might save some time, but most likely they would just allow for more trains to be scheduled. But increased service frequency is a worthwhile goal, too, especially for the commuter rail systems. Items 8 and 9 might save 2 minute each, but the main purpose for undertaking them would be end-of-life replacement of the existing infrastructure. Item 7 is another project that is important due to age, though the time benefit would be negligible.

Completing tasks 1-10 would bring travel time to 2hr 25min. Not bad. Amtrak experimented with a limited service Acela train, which had only one intermediate stop at Philadelphia. The journey time on the offering was 10 minutes faster than regular Acela service. Completing item 11 would allow for another intermediate stop at Baltimore without changing the travel time. The rest of the projects - items 12, 13, and 14 - might wring a few more minutes out of the journey time, but 2hrs 15min for a limited service train would be pretty good. Northeast Regional trains would benefit, too, though the amount would be less because the catenary upgrades wouldn't change their top operating speed.

(Updated 9/28) How could I have not posted these links at the beginning?

I, For One, Will Welcome Our New French Overlords

According to the Transport Politic, SNCF has submitted proposals for several of the FRA designated HSR corridors. This is an interesting development because the French definitely know a thing or two about high-speed rail. However, even if the inevitable knee-jerk dismissals were surmounted and SNCF won a bid, cultural differences would make the implementation a disaster. Entirely stupid, but that's just the way things are. The French are more likely to win a contract in Canada, which is once again mulling HSR for the Windsor-Québec corridor.

Patterns on the Land

I've created two more maps of rail lines: one for New Hampshire and one for Southern Québec. I find it interesting how different the land-use patterns are between the two areas. Note that I'm working off a variety of old maps, some of which are merely diagrammatic. Thus the exact alignment of some abandoned lines is unknown, and I've certainly left out items.

As a side note, the mapping interface is pretty buggy (at least in my browser). When the number of items on the left side exceeds one page, the list starts doing weird things. The behavior makes sorting the items nicely a real pain in the arse. Hopefully Google will fix this soon.

Update 9/27: I found a very nice repository of old Canadian topo maps, so I'm now pretty confident the routes I've traced are accurate.

Baked Bean Breakdown

Another day, another high-speed rail analysis. Designing a line for Massachusetts was difficult for two reasons. In the eastern third of the state, sprawl is almost continuous. In the western half, there is again sprawl around Springfield, and then an area of very jumbled geography. None of the mountains are particularly high, but at the same time there are no large, level valleys that can be used to approach the highest peaks. Anyway, in the eastern half or so, the best solution was to parallel I-90. Following the current CSX alignment wasn't possible because it runs through the center of so many towns. In the west, because of the built environment west of downtown Springfield, a detour to the south was necessary. After that, it was a matter of finding the least bad route until the rail line could meet up with I-90 again. To keep speeds up, several tunnels and viaducts were needed.

I think the main takeaway from this exercise is how restrictive the sprawl around American cities can be on new transportation construction. Most existing rail lines were first laid out in the 1800s, and the Interstate Highway System was planned in the early 50s, when the population was half of what it is now, and much less suburban. Projects planned now, unlike those other two, have to deal with a built environment that is fully built up within a 20 mile radius of large city centers. And large city centers are where high speed rail lines need to go.