Keystone Corridor Upgrade

[eldondre]

Amtrak solves lockout dilemma, goes automatic - News

[raider.adam]

Amtrak solves lockout dilemma, goes automatic - News

Reading that article and the one linked in it, it sounds like it is blown out of proportion. They make it sound like Amtrak locked the station and personally told them to **** off.

Hell, it isn't even like they missed the train.

[eldondre]

How David Gunn Rebuilt Amtrak's Harrisburg Line - Keystone Politics

[raider.adam]

The Harrisburg line (the eastern half of Pennsylvania’s original Main Line) is the most important stretch of tracks that Amtrak actually owns after the Northeast Corridor, so I think there’s a lot to be learned

Interesting.

[five apples]

Interesting.

The article is interesting, and I will steal your point from elsewhere, but if we can make small, less costly fixes to the system that improves its efficiency and most importantly speed, than that should be what we are looking at as a Nation for awhile. We don't have the cash for massive long term projects that are going to have to go through years of political shifts, deal with local politicos and inevitable cost overruns. As a country we can not afford to ignore our infrastructure any longer, and it is smart expenditure that we should be looking at right now, because I don't see our fiscal picture improving any time soon.

[raider.adam]

The article is interesting, and I will steal your point from elsewhere, but if we can make small, less costly fixes to the system that improves its efficiency and most importantly speed, than that should be what we are looking at as a Nation for awhile. We don't have the cash for massive long term projects that are going to have to go through years of political shifts, deal with local politicos and inevitable cost overruns. As a country we can not afford to ignore our infrastructure any longer, and it is smart expenditure that we should be looking at right now, because I don't see our fiscal picture improving any time soon.

I agree. I don't think we need two decades of new grand public works. We need two decades of modernizing and bringing up to standards our existing public works.

[eldondre]

I have to say I miss Gunn. No press conferences, no planning studies, just pay engineering to do their job. Its a shame they only got half the project done before he got canned for not towing the line.

[concourse]

I agree. I don't think we need two decades of new grand public works. We need two decades of modernizing and bringing up to standards our existing public works.

The article is interesting, and I will steal your point from elsewhere, but if we can make small, less costly fixes to the system that improves its efficiency and most importantly speed, than that should be what we are looking at as a Nation for awhile. We don't have the cash for massive long term projects that are going to have to go through years of political shifts, deal with local politicos and inevitable cost overruns. As a country we can not afford to ignore our infrastructure any longer, and it is smart expenditure that we should be looking at right now, because I don't see our fiscal picture improving any time soon.

I'm really curious what you guys think Amtrak does. Read their vision. They have the NEC Upgrade Program which they hope to implement from 2012-2025 and then the NextGen HSR which eventually has a vision for a better station in Philly and two-track dedicated ROW that won't have to compete with freight/commuter at least between cities.

[raider.adam]

I'm really curious what you guys think Amtrak does. Read their vision. They have the NEC Upgrade Program which they hope to implement from 2012-2025 and then the NextGen HSR which eventually has a vision for a better station in Philly and two-track dedicated ROW that won't have to compete with freight/commuter at least between cities.

We are referring to the HSR plan in the NEC that seems to be a colossal and inefficient use of money for passenger rail.

[eldondre]

We are referring to the HSR plan in the NEC that seems to be a colossal and inefficient use of money for passenger rail.

Amtrak was criticized for not thinking big enough a few years ago when they proposed to fix up the corridor (in an admittedly LONG timeline). the point of the article is that when you involve planners and politicians nothing gets done, people argue endlessly and planners hire consultants...ultimately millions are wasted with zero result. Gunn is saying, come up with a plan with the engineering department, find the money (and he did that when Amtrak truly was broke), and move forward. on a smaller scale the company recently did that with its power system last fall that appears to have resulted improved reliability. they could have done that years ago. of course, in the long run, if this is how Amtrak acted, perhaps some of the bigger ideas would seem less outlandish.

concourse-if you phrase that, better located station sure. 30th itself is vastly under capacity (always has been) and well designed. interestingly even in the PRR days they never felt confident enough to force the ny-philly traffic into 30th st since their competing reading rr offered a downtown terminal

[MarketStEl]

How David Gunn Rebuilt Amtrak's Harrisburg Line - Keystone Politics

Credit Keystone Politics for casting a wide net for ideas. Imagine: Pennsylvania's leading liberal political blog citing approvingly a post on the best-known Libertarian urbanist blog.

[raider.adam]

Credit Keystone Politics for casting a wide net for ideas. Imagine: Pennsylvania's leading liberal political blog citing approvingly a post on the best-known Libertarian urbanist blog.

With a story involving how the Bush white house gave them money to fix a railroad.

[raider.adam]

Amtrak was criticized for not thinking big enough a few years ago when they proposed to fix up the corridor (in an admittedly LONG timeline). the point of the article is that when you involve planners and politicians nothing gets done, people argue endlessly and planners hire consultants...ultimately millions are wasted with zero result. Gunn is saying, come up with a plan with the engineering department, find the money (and he did that when Amtrak truly was broke), and move forward. on a smaller scale the company recently did that with its power system last fall that appears to have resulted improved reliability. they could have done that years ago. of course, in the long run, if this is how Amtrak acted, perhaps some of the bigger ideas would seem less outlandish.

Right, but I guess my point is, would railroad people and engineers have actually pushed the "tunnel through philly" HSR plan that got published if it wasn't a political agenda?

concourse-if you phrase that, better located station sure. 30th itself is vastly under capacity (always has been) and well designed. interestingly even in the PRR days they never felt confident enough to force the ny-philly traffic into 30th st since their competing reading rr offered a downtown terminal

Yeah, 30th St is a much more rider friendly station than Penn Station. I get anxiety every time I take the train back down from NY.

[palvar]

...planners hire consultants...ultimately millions are wasted with zero result. Gunn is saying, come up with a plan with the engineering department...

Planners and consultants are not needed if you don't reroute the lines.

[eldondre]

Planners and consultants are not needed if you don't reroute the lines.

right, but they wished to hire them anyway. in fact, they had planners and consultants for the SOGR plan a few years back. Gunn's point is that things actually get done when you just do them...he calls the current proposal a pipe dream. any time Amtrak publicly states something it gets political. just do it.

[concourse]

Planners and consultants are not needed if you don't reroute the lines.

I don't think you have any concept of Amtrak staff capacity. Yes, they can do regular replacement of rail and ties or restring catenary. They cannot just bring everything up to a state of good repair without consultants (engineers, outside construction, etc.) Replacing the Niantic bridge might seem like a small problem but it involves building a second bridge on a small man-made peninsula while keeping service running on the first. There isn't in-house expertise or on-hand labor to perform a number of large projects like that which are SOGR projects.

We are referring to the HSR plan in the NEC that seems to be a colossal and inefficient use of money for passenger rail.

That plan presupposing bring the NEC into a state of good repair and making the basic catenary upgrades first. You two were juxtaposing the two plans when one is a subset of the other. I guess your argument would be that we should make the fixes in the NEC Infrastructure Master Plan but not continue on to the additional investments in the Vision? The reason I think that's short-sighted is that while I'm in full agreement that it currently makes no sense to build a tunnel under Philadelphia or move the track alignment through Connecticut it will make a lot mores sense to do that once the NEC Infrastructure plan action items have been constructed.

[eldondre]

It will likely never make to build a tunnel under Philadelphia and amtraks staff is entirely capable of coming up with both the cost estimates and basic design for sogr and new row. You are correct they don't have the expertise to actually design and install movable bridges and contracting out such things is common place.I didn't mean to turn this thread into another hsr thread though. Gunn is correct as usual.

[eldondre]

from the first post

10-03-2005, 01:10 PM
...Ridership on the Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York Keystone Service has continued to grow in recent months. For the first 11 months of FY '05 (beginning Oct. 1, 2004), ridership is up 17%, or 142,000 passengers, (971,000 v. 829,000 for the same period one year ago.)

Ridership on the Keystone Service is up 5.8 percent to a new record of more than 1.43 million.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/636/294/...ATK-12-092.pdf

[mixiboi]

2 million by 2015? It can happen....

[eldondre]

2 million by 2015? It can happen....

it would have been a shoe in had they finished the upgrade which would have brought the trip to lancaster down to something like 50 minutes and harrisburg down to 80 minutes (at least on express rides). interestingly, the line now carries as many people as septa's fox chase and chestnut hill east/west lines (though obviously far more revenue).