Amtrak wants a train from NYC to Philly in 30 mins..but they need the $$$

[eldondre]

...Regarding Pittsburgh -- until traffic in Pgh and Allegheny county becomes unbearable (like it is along the NEC) or prices go WAY up on Philly to Pgh flights, you aren't going to get a lot of support for a Pittsburgh line. Maybe marginal improvements like you said...and I can see your big-picture thinking...but I just don't agree with the need right now for a major overhaul. It will require lots of tunneling and $$$.

traffic in allegheny county specifically isn't important since we're not talking about a commuter line (though thanks to their geography, it's worse tha it otherwise might be). Prices have already gone way up on the the Philly-Pittsburgh flights. You don't get support because people think it's more expensive than it is and they see 37 minutes to ny and not ask any questions yet when it comes to other routes, off the cuff, without any analysis whatsoever, say it isn't worth it.

Concept 4 - New passenger only high speed rail line between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh,
generally following the Pennsylvania Turnpike or other major transportation corridor. (Cost
$6.3B).

this is from last winter
Pennsylvania HSR

In 1986, the study made assumptions as to service levels basing their assumptions upon HSR speeds. The study estimated 6.2 to 7.1 million passengers per year Pittsburgh to Harrisburg to Philadelphia.

http://testplant.blogspot.com/2012/0...nd-public.html

[eldondre]

You've mentioned this 7 minute difference a few times. I won't pretend to have a handle on the railway right-of-ways, the obstacles to reducing HSR travel time, and the price tag of building a new right-of-way versus not doing so. You're much more the rail geek (that's a compliment) and you probably have a better grasp of these things. I have read, however, that one of the major causes of delays on the NEC has been the shared right-of-way between freight and commuter trains. In the real world, will 125MPH average speeds be achievable while keeping this arrangement? Or are slowdowns due to the shared right-of-way not so easily surmountable?

think about how much easier it is to put an addition onto your house when you don't have to buy and demolish your neighbors house. the reasons are really complicated (as is the nec itself). Think about it this way:
freight is slow, intercity is supposed to be fast. if you're driving fast and the person in front of you is driving slow, you will catch up to them so you have to pass them. in a railroad, you can only pass at designated points (like a road but more restrictive). still, if it's a busy two lane road, it may be hard to pass that person and you're stuck. of course, you don't need a new road, but a center lane would help, and four lanes would make it even easier since you can have slow in one lane and fast in the other (on a railroad, this can be enforced). the real culprit has been fra regs that have restricted speeds because of freight traffic. luckily, the busiest freight area is the area with the least commuter traffic (baltimore to perryville). njt is a whole other ball of wax but the capacity it eats up costs amtrak trip time (particularly in the tunnels). the nec will never be 220 mph without a new right of way. the problem is, what makes the nec slow isn't the lack of 220 mph, but the numerous places you aren't going 110 or 135. Amtrak can run 160 (and the nec can be made to accomodate it) meaning an average of 125 shouldn't be impossible to achieve without slow spots. raising the top speed by 80 mph doesn't raise the average speed by 80 mph...decreasing returns to scale. I go into the minutes here
http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/fo...tml#post511707

A second question that comes to my mind is where is the tipping point is for people with their commuting time. Obviously there are already people making long commutes, but I wonder at what point ridership would drop off, especially for the particular demographic we hope to attract. Psychologically, a real world commute closer to a half hour must be different than a commute closer to an hour. I don't know that either of us can predict where the pain threshold begins to occur.Finally, I recognize that HSR fares cannot be cheap but I do think that if HSR is designed and priced to appeal only to the well-heeled, then it will be a squandered opportunity and a very poor use of tax dollars.

as noted, new yorkers put up with brutal commutes. capn marko did it for a few years but amtrak's take was $1200/mo for the slower regional trains...it was enough that it offset the sky high north jersey taxes and by moving, his commute was cut. Philadelphia could attract more new yorkers today by offering a lower fare by train, and perhaps simply ordering faster trains for the keystone service. at every interval there will be more takers so it would be a curve rather than a step but I'd bet that getting it under an hour would probably be the most important milestone. note, it's already only 60 minutes between north philly and nyp although no train makes that run today.

finally, the nec is both the best and worst place for hsr. there are tons of people and lots of demand but because there are tons of people, costs are atronomical, and because everything is so close, the full affect of a "bullet train" isn't felt. whether, in practicality, the nec couldn't be straightened out enough to accomodate 186 (the fra would not allow it for now) I don't know. the point is, the first improvements are the cheapest, then the time savings increase exponentially. in routes that haven't been improved in decades, the minutes are much, much cheaper. the problem is nobody is paying attention to where the balance is.

[tsarstruck]

Prices have already gone way up on the the Philly-Pittsburgh flights.

Prices have gone up for one reason only: Southwest Airlines to drop Philadelphia-Pittsburgh service - Philly.com

If another airline besides USAirways started offered direct flights, prices would drop severely again.

[eldondre]

Prices have gone up for one reason only: Southwest Airlines to drop Philadelphia-Pittsburgh service - Philly.com

If another airline besides USAirways started offered direct flights, prices would drop severely again.

and southwest dropped flights because the economics of such a short flight didn't make sense. hsr would be just like another airline, except it could move far more people. I'm sure people in europe used the same argument yet in markets just like that one, the train generally dominates, taking about 70% of the market I believe (the remainder would probably be connecting traffic). couldn't someone just point out that you can fly from DC to boston so why bother with a train?

[thoth]

Regarding Pittsburgh -- until traffic in Pgh and Allegheny county becomes unbearable (like it is along the NEC) or prices go WAY up on Philly to Pgh flights, you aren't going to get a lot of support for a Pittsburgh line. Maybe marginal improvements like you said...and I can see your big-picture thinking...but I just don't agree with the need right now for a major overhaul. It will require lots of tunneling and $$$.

I've lived in PA just about all my life and I went to Pittsburgh for the first time only after MegaBus introduced service a year or two ago. Prior to that, it was prohibitively expensive to drive to the burgh without carpooling, and rail/airfare was also fairly high. All of those options take 4-6 hrs (counting airline hassles/waiting times etc) So it was, for a long time, a destination I could travel to if I had to, instead of if I wanted to.

Like most people that choose to live in a city, I'm curious about other cities. I've been to NYC and DC more times than I can count. It's not really that I particularly love those cities, they just have cheap and fast travel links. Boston has cheap travel links, but it takes forever to get there, so I and most people I know travel there less frequently. NYC has high speed service, but I've never taken it because it is unaffordable, others, beyond my pay grade, find the time more valuable. Time and cost are related.

Pittsburgh's problem now is time over cost. Sitting on the turnpike for 6hrs is the rationale for creating a high speed line, not traffic in the city/county itself. Pitt could definitely be a destination city if there were any convenient travel options for getting there. From a state perspective, you're looking at connecting your Second City to the larger NE megalopolis in a meaningful way, opening up new business connections and tourism. You're also providing a gateway to the midwest for us on the other side. Chicago is another city that is neither cheap nor quick to travel to. Imagining a high speed rail line there is pie in the sky to a certain degree, but a quicker connection to the burgh would make the marathon bus journey to Chicago at least slightly bearable.

[BarryG]

I've lived in PA just about all my life and I went to Pittsburgh for the first time only after MegaBus introduced service a year or two ago. Prior to that, it was prohibitively expensive to drive to the burgh without carpooling, and rail/airfare was also fairly high. All of those options take 4-6 hrs (counting airline hassles/waiting times etc) So it was, for a long time, a destination I could travel to if I had to, instead of if I wanted to.

Like most people that choose to live in a city, I'm curious about other cities. I've been to NYC and DC more times than I can count. It's not really that I particularly love those cities, they just have cheap and fast travel links. Boston has cheap travel links, but it takes forever to get there, so I and most people I know travel there less frequently. NYC has high speed service, but I've never taken it because it is unaffordable, others, beyond my pay grade, find the time more valuable. Time and cost are related.

Pittsburgh's problem now is time over cost. Sitting on the turnpike for 6hrs is the rationale for creating a high speed line, not traffic in the city/county itself. Pitt could definitely be a destination city if there were any convenient travel options for getting there. From a state perspective, you're looking at connecting your Second City to the larger NE megalopolis in a meaningful way, opening up new business connections and tourism. You're also providing a gateway to the midwest for us on the other side. Chicago is another city that is neither cheap nor quick to travel to. Imagining a high speed rail line there is pie in the sky to a certain degree, but a quicker connection to the burgh would make the marathon bus journey to Chicago at least slightly bearable.

High speed train to Chicago from philly, nyc, even Pittsburgh will not be a very attractive proposition in our lifetimes.

[raider.adam]

As much as the idea of 30 minute travel between Philly and NY I think is desirable (of course it will likely be out of the price range I would ever use personally), I think there is a valid defense of eldondre's view about building up the average of the whole system.

I was thinking about this today as I was taking the Metra from Joliet to Chicago. Sure it would be neat to have the trains able to go up to 150 mph, but I am thinking you'd accomplish a lot more by taking the stretches where they are going 15 mph and lower and getting them up to 50 mph.

And I think that is part of the issue with HSR. I always see talk about speeds "up to" a certain number, but it is really about average travel time. For eample, how much time could you shave off regular Amtrak service from NY to Philly if the train didn't have to crawl into 30th St Station?

[OffenseTaken]

High speed train to Chicago from philly, nyc, even Pittsburgh will not be a very attractive proposition in our lifetimes.

Nor anyone's. It takes 2 hours and change to fly between NY and Chicago; it takes the Paris-Lyon TGV the same time to travel half that distance, and it doesn't have to go through mountains.

Pittsburgh is in an interesting position, since it could potentially see HSR connections both to Chicago and to the East Coast. But since there are fewer and fewer Pittsburghers to take advantage of this, it's presumably not all that relevant.

As much as the idea of 30 minute travel between Philly and NY I think is desirable (of course it will likely be out of the price range I would ever use personally), I think there is a valid defense of eldondre's view about building up the average of the whole system.

I was thinking about this today as I was taking the Metra from Joliet to Chicago. Sure it would be neat to have the trains able to go up to 150 mph, but I am thinking you'd accomplish a lot more by taking the stretches where they are going 15 mph and lower and getting them up to 50 mph.

And I think that is part of the issue with HSR. I always see talk about speeds "up to" a certain number, but it is really about average travel time. For eample, how much time could you shave off regular Amtrak service from NY to Philly if the train didn't have to crawl into 30th St Station?

It seems like Amtrak's strategy is to go from strength to strength. They could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from DC to Baltimore from 240 km/h to 350 and reap enormous benefits. Or they could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from Indianapolis to Nashville from "crappy" to "good," and still nobody would ride it.

The biggest culprit for the gap between maximum and average speeds is probably freight trains. (Speaking from personal experience: it's usually a pretty glorious ride from Champaign into Chicago, but one obstinate freight train can make the difference between near-airline time into the Loop and slower-than-Greyhound time.) That problem's never going to be solved if Amtrak is forced to continue diverting its resources away from popular routes in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and California, toward long-distance routes that no one uses, in a vain hope that people will suddenly use them if they're just OK.

[eldondre]

High speed train to Chicago from philly, nyc, even Pittsburgh will not be a very attractive proposition in our lifetimes.

the nec doesn't simply carry people from washington to boston, likewise a ny-chicago train wouldn't simply carry people from ny to chicago. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh make up two of the top three markets from PIT, when it comes to population exchange, NY, PHilly, and DC make up the top three. NY-Philly-Pittsburgh is a good route. Cleveland also has strong ties with ny. It's a corridor with intermediate traffic, Cleveland-Chicago, etc.

As much as the idea of 30 minute travel between Philly and NY I think is desirable (of course it will likely be out of the price range I would ever use personally), I think there is a valid defense of eldondre's view about building up the average of the whole system.

I was thinking about this today as I was taking the Metra from Joliet to Chicago. Sure it would be neat to have the trains able to go up to 150 mph, but I am thinking you'd accomplish a lot more by taking the stretches where they are going 15 mph and lower and getting them up to 50 mph.

And I think that is part of the issue with HSR. I always see talk about speeds "up to" a certain number, but it is really about average travel time. For eample, how much time could you shave off regular Amtrak service from NY to Philly if the train didn't have to crawl into 30th St Station?

nailed it. if you can raise speeds from 15 to 80 mph you've increased your speed by a factor of over 5.

Nor anyone's. It takes 2 hours and change to fly between NY and Chicago; it takes the Paris-Lyon TGV the same time to travel half that distance, and it doesn't have to go through mountains.
Pittsburgh is in an interesting position, since it could potentially see HSR connections both to Chicago and to the East Coast. But since there are fewer and fewer Pittsburghers to take advantage of this, it's presumably not all that relevant.

mountains aren't a terribly difficult proposition for lightweight electric trains, many of europe's high speed lines traverse them. electrics can handle much higher grades than the steam locomotives for which the current line was built. It seems you are unphased by actual demand because there's an underlying assumption that western pa will always be losing population, but that is unfounded. the steel bust isn't going to happen again, and allegheny county has already posted its first gain in decades.

It seems like Amtrak's strategy is to go from strength to strength. They could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from DC to Baltimore from 240 mph to 350 and reap enormous benefits. Or they could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from Indianapolis to Nashville from "crappy" to "good," and still nobody would ride it. The biggest culprit for the gap between maximum and average speeds is probably freight trains. (Speaking from personal experience: it's usually a pretty glorious ride from Champaign into Chicago, but one obstinate freight train can make the difference between near-airline time into the Loop and slower-than-Greyhound time.) That problem's never going to be solved if Amtrak is forced to continue diverting its resources away from popular routes in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and California, toward long-distance routes that no one uses, in a vain hope that people will suddenly use them if they're just OK.

the biggest culprit is all the capacity that was removed from the system that allows for little flexibility. nobody is suggesting indy to nashville, but chicago to cincy via indy probably isn't a terrible idea. it current takes 9 hours. as for chicago, there is already a plan to improve things. Amtrak really just needs capacity (or dedicated tracks) from Port, IN to chicago..CREATE has set aside right of way into union station should amtrak want to build it (and they should). the fact is Amtrak is proposing $151 bn, not $3 bn. Perhaps they could spend $100 bn on the nec and $50bn on everyone else and come out ahead. creating a large network would go a long way to alleviating some of the pressures that are hurting the system. it shouldn't take 18 hours to get to chicago and if it took half that, amtrak would lose far less money on that route and offer more and better service. as far as anyone can tell, amtrak isn't proposing to stop diverting resources, just to increase the the size of the goose. with all the talk about hsr, it's the chicago-st louis and chicago-detroit routes that are going to be the first outside the northeast to travel 110 mph, many, many years before California.
eta: remember, there were once two four track routes from the east to chicago. the one that amtrak currently uses from cleveland is the ex-NYC. it's straight as an aorrw and still has right of way for two more tracks. you'd need extra capacity and upgraded grade crossings.

So who are the wusses keeping Pennsylvania from getting a high-speed, state-of-the-art bullet train between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia?
Virtually everybody in the Congress who are unwilling to spend money on our infrastructure. We have just gotten so far away from investing money in big, significant projects. You know, I have to laugh. The 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge [was] a couple of weeks ago. I watched one of the shows. It said when they decided to build it there were a lot of critics who said it was too hard structurally. It couldn't be done. It was going to be a failure. In fact, of course it turned out to not be true. The Golden Gate Bridge was a great triumph, both in architecture and in opening up economic development.
We have lost that spirit of adventure. We lost that spirit of doing tough things. I quote JFK when he said about going to the moon: "We do this not because it's easy. We do it because it's hard."
A train like that between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh would be a huge artery for commerce.
Awesome. It would do great things for the state. It would also do great things for the country because once you build the Pittsburgh to Philadelphia link, then the rest of it falls into place.
Wouldn't it be great if we were the state that did it.
Well, it would be awesome. For us to do it on our own it's just too much money. There is no way Pennsylvania by itself could pay for the development of that. Now what we could do is with the right incentives see if there are any private companies that are willing to do it.
How do we get that started?
You could put out something they call an RFI -- Request for Interest. Say what the project is and see if anybody would be interested in building it for us in return for development rights along the track, in return for some level of subsidy, etc. Of course they would keep all the fares, all the advertising, all the development rights from new stations or whatever, and see if we can make it work.
Did this ever come up while you were governor?
No, it didn't because we were fighting for some basics in transportation -- you know, repairing our bridges and repairing our roads -- before I thought I could do any new projects transportationwise. You know we had over 6,000 structurally deficient bridges, and I needed to seriously reduce that. We have. We've reduced it to under 5,300 structurally deficient bridges, and we are headed in the right direction. And we got a big boost from the stimulus money.
You

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...#ixzz20VP5GTuG

[tsarstruck]

and southwest dropped flights because the economics of such a short flight didn't make sense. hsr would be just like another airline, except it could move far more people. I'm sure people in europe used the same argument yet in markets just like that one, the train generally dominates, taking about 70% of the market I believe (the remainder would probably be connecting traffic). couldn't someone just point out that you can fly from DC to boston so why bother with a train?

They dropped the route because US Airways was willing to viciously undercut their prices in a successful attempt to get them to drop the route. And if rail became an attractive alternative, prices would drop. I just have a hard time believing that spending $ increasing rail to a city of 300,000 with limited traffic problems 300 miles from the nearest big city is going to be a winning proposition. Sure metro area of 1.5 million, but that's drivers...

[raider.adam]

It seems like Amtrak's strategy is to go from strength to strength. They could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from DC to Baltimore from 240 mph to 350 and reap enormous benefits. Or they could spend $3 billion upgrading the trackage from Indianapolis to Nashville from "crappy" to "good," and still nobody would ride it.

There are stretches where Amtrak goes 240 MPH?

The biggest culprit for the gap between maximum and average speeds is probably freight trains. (Speaking from personal experience: it's usually a pretty glorious ride from Champaign into Chicago, but one obstinate freight train can make the difference between near-airline time into the Loop and slower-than-Greyhound time.) That problem's never going to be solved if Amtrak is forced to continue diverting its resources away from popular routes in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and California, toward long-distance routes that no one uses, in a vain hope that people will suddenly use them if they're just OK.

Passing through Chicago is a different issue in of itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/us...pagewanted=all

[eldondre]

They dropped the route because US Airways was willing to viciously undercut their prices in a successful attempt to get them to drop the route. And if rail became an attractive alternative, prices would drop. I just have a hard time believing that spending $ increasing rail to a city of 300,000 with limited traffic problems 300 miles from the nearest big city is going to be a winning proposition. Sure metro area of 1.5 million, but that's drivers...

the metro area is 2.3-2.4 million. I'd also add the city is home to ~350k jobs and downtown, all of which is easily walkable from the city's major station, is home to ~100k jobs which makes it the fifth highest job density in the country. I the reality is every study they've ever conducted says you're wrong about this. the demand is there and the costs are not exorbitant. btw, 300 miles is the sweet spot for high speed rail. given that amtrak owns 100 of it already, it need only build the next 165-200 miles of it (or less, if you rejoin the existing corridor at latrobe). this is really only one example of what could be done for far less money, even while still improving conditions with the existing nec. I'm unconvinced that local traffic is that much of a factor, to the extent that it is, the tunnels that choke traffic in Pittsburgh are east-west which favor a project of this sort. PIT is also not particularly close to the city (it's about as far as paoli) and it's past tunnels so trip time at rush hour is longer than google maps says it is. I'd also point out that Philadelphia's worst traffic is also east-west.

Let’s look at the distances and running times of some successful High Speed Trains and their average speeds. Paris to Brussels is 194 miles in 90 minutes at an average speed of 129 mile per hour. It is 270 miles from Paris to Lyon and is now run in 2 hours for an average speed of 135 miles per hour. Paris to London is 310 miles and takes 2 hours and 15 minutes for an average speed of 138 miles per hour. Today Tokyo to Osaka at 322 miles takes 2 hours and 30 minutes for an average speed of 129 miles per hour. There is a rough rule of thumb that train travel between 250 and 350 miles can capture most of the air travel market between 2 cities at running times around 3 hours or less.

Rail Passenger Association of California & Nevada » Blog Archive » When Trains are Faster than Planes

Pittsburgh is only 133 miles from cleveland which, in turn, is 345 miles from chicago. Philadelphia is 90 miles from ny. When the distance is too long, the edge goes back to planes, when it's short, the full affect of the high speed is not appreciated.
Pittsburgh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[OffenseTaken]

the nec doesn't simply carry people from washington to boston, likewise a ny-chicago train wouldn't simply carry people from ny to chicago. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh make up two of the top three markets from PIT, when it comes to population exchange, NY, PHilly, and DC make up the top three. NY-Philly-Pittsburgh is a good route. Cleveland also has strong ties with ny. It's a corridor with intermediate traffic, Cleveland-Chicago, etc.

nailed it. if you can raise speeds from 15 to 80 mph you've increased your speed by a factor of over 5.

mountains aren't a terribly difficult proposition for lightweight electric trains, many of europe's high speed lines traverse them. electrics can handle much higher grades than the steam locomotives for which the current line was built. It seems you are unphased by actual demand because there's an underlying assumption that western pa will always be losing population, but that is unfounded. the steel bust isn't going to happen again, and allegheny county has already posted its first gain in decades.

It seems like HSR between the Great Lakes and the NEC, as Rendell describes it in his interview, is based on three premises—and all of them, I maintain, are shaky:

1. Pittsburgh will be a popular destination in itself. I hope you're right about Pittsburgh's fortunes in the coming decades; personally, I don't understand why such a fantastic city isn't booming right now. But not even local boosters are projecting population growth.

2. There will be lots of riders travelling through Pittsburgh, between other smallish intermediate cities in the Northeast/Great Lakes. Pittsburgh is booming of course, compared to northern Ohio and Indiana. And it's not just that the population in nearly every metro area between the Alleghenies and Lake Michigan is getting smaller, of course, but that it's getting older and poorer. Thus, ever more unlikely to buy high-speed rail tickets.

3. But then, there's Chicago, too. I really just don't see why people would start paying 2x to 3x more than a plane ride, for a train ride that takes 2x to 3x as long. Chicago should be the hub of an upgraded Midwest network, and it will be a blessing for St. Louis, Detroit et al. But, however strong the city's cultural and economic ties to the East Coast may be, air will be the undisputed first mode of travel between Chicago and NY/Philly/Boston/DC as long as we live.

All of this isn't to say that a "Western passage" across Pennsylvania wouldn't be nifty. I think it obviously would be, for the reasons you point out, but it also poses a risk that ought to be borne by the relevant state governments (whose job it is to boost local economies), rather than Amtrak or any federal body.

There are stretches where Amtrak goes 240 MPH?

Yeah, that would be km/h. Fixed it. Thx

[eldondre]

...
1. Pittsburgh will be a popular destination in itself. I hope you're right about Pittsburgh's fortunes in the coming decades; personally, I don't understand why such a fantastic city isn't booming right now. But not even local boosters are projecting population growth.

by and large, pittsburgh is too far away, yet you oppose changing that.

2. There will be lots of riders travelling through Pittsburgh, between other smallish intermediate cities in the Northeast/Great Lakes. Pittsburgh is booming, relatively speaking. And it's not just that the population in nearly every metro area between the Alleghenies and Lake Michigan is getting smaller, of course, but that it's getting older and poorer. Thus, ever more unlikely to buy high-speed rail tickets.

whI think, perhaps, you missed where I suggested 110 west of Pittsburgh would probably be good enough for the time being. I haven't yet committed to real hsr west of pittsburgh given the distance and the ease of which you can upgrade existing track for higher speed. Pittsburgh-Harrisburg, OTOH, is the bridge. Amtrak is already proposing "Keystone express" but it makes more sense to have Pittsburgh be the other end than harrisburg. and yes, you're right, it could be the collecting point for other points such as erie, morgantown, columbus, and cleveland.

3. But then, there's Chicago, too. I really just don't see why people would start paying 2x to 3x more than a plane ride, for a train ride that takes 2x to 3x as long. Chicago should be the hub of an upgraded Midwest network, and it will be a blessing for St. Louis, Detroit et al. But, however strong the city's cultural and economic ties to the East Coast may be, air will be the undisputed first mode of travel between Chicago and NY/Philly/Boston/DC as long as we live.

of course, there's no reason why they should cost 2-3 times as much as an airline. if they do, the economic impact on the northeast will be far less than you think. what exactly are you assuming I'm proposing and how much do you think it will cost?
you seem to be ascribing to the mentality billy ross suggested. when we built the interstate highway system did we put in a gravel road to pittsburgh and cleveland and on to chicago? that's ultimately what you are saying. "there's not enough demand for fast trains so let them average 42 mph" that is despite the fact that upgrading cleveland-chicago to 110 should be fairly easy (it's straight as an arrow already) and upgrading harrisburg pittsburgh is probably the cheapest REAL hsr project in the country that has any kind of ridership (again, in the past, it was estimated at 6-7 million annually..as opposed to 200k annually the current train carries.

All of this isn't to say that a "Western passage" across Pennsylvania wouldn't be nifty. I think it obviously would be, for the reasons you point out, but it also poses a risk that ought to be borne by the relevant state governments (whose job it is to boost local economies), rather than Amtrak or any federal body.

I disagree for two reason. first, if states should be responsible, then they should be responsible for the northeast. rendell has a solid grasp of the problems at hand and the suggestion that the state build it isn't really a suggestion at all

For us to do it on our own it's just too much money. There is no way Pennsylvania by itself could pay for the development of that.

the largest public project the state has ever undertaken was the $800 million convention center expansion. In fact, it makes a ton of sense for amtrak to pursue since amtrak OWNS 1/3 of the route as it is. the larger its network of high speed trains, the less reliance on high fares out of philadelphia. in fact, to turn it around, your entire argument is pedicated on the assumption that pittsburgh is in decline and on pace to become irrelevant and that hsr will do nothing to change that. the fact is, it's doing far better than hartford, ct.
you could even make the argument, hell, since we're spending money, make the budget $160 bn and include hsr to pittsburgh and upgrades west of.

[OffenseTaken]

what exactly are you assuming I'm proposing and how much do you think it will cost?

You had said something about halving the 18 hours it takes to get between NY and Chicago, so that Amtrak would "lose far less money on that route and offer more and better service."

As for the fares, I'm pulling it out of my ass, but no existing frame of reference you might care to use suggests that HSR can ever come close to airlines on cost, for a trip 1/3 of the way across the continent. It costs $220 to fly from JFK to O'Hare and back on JetBlue, and twice that to ride Acela between Boston and DC (which is also half the distance). Sure, routes that run comparable lengths are definitely cheaper in Europe (where HSR passengers don't have to pay extra to keep the Sunset Limited on life support): you can get from Paris to Barcelona (7.5 hours, 700-ish miles) and back for about $300. But the same trip on Ryanair takes less than two hours and costs less than $100. There would be ridership from NY to Chicago for sure, but it would be an older, well-heeled crowd (not unlike passengers on the longer routes of the TGV or the Thalys). And probably somewhat small.

Distances that would require more than half a day on a train, even after multibillion-dollar improvements, don't seem to figure hugely in Amtrak's long-term strategy, and I don't think they should. You've convinced me that Pittsburgh makes good sense as a western outpost of the NEC. And as an eastern outpost of the Midwest network, maybe as well. But these regions are going to remain discrete entities, no matter how good the service will be from one to the other.

[eldondre]

You had said something about halving the 18 hours it takes to get between NY and Chicago, so that Amtrak would "lose far less money on that route and offer more and better service."

I have said, probably in more than one post (though perhaps not in response to one of yours), that the line can be upgraded but sorry if there was any confusion. anyway, yes, hsr to pittsburgh, 110 to chicago would allow amtrak to do all of those things.

As for the fares, I'm pulling it out of my ass, but no existing frame of reference you might care to use suggests that HSR can ever come close to airlines on cost, for a trip 1/3 of the way across the continent. It costs $220 to fly from JFK to O'Hare and back on JetBlue, and twice that to ride Acela between Boston and DC (which is also half the distance). Sure, routes that run comparable lengths are definitely cheaper in Europe (where HSR passengers don't have to pay extra to keep the Sunset Limited on life support): you can get from Paris to Barcelona (7.5 hours, 700-ish miles) and back for about $300. But the same trip on Ryanair takes less than two hours and costs less than $100. There would be ridership from NY to Chicago for sure, but it would be an older, well-heeled crowd (not unlike passengers on the longer routes of the TGV or the Thalys). And probably somewhat small.

actually, they do use high speed lines to cross subsidize trains to smaller places but the balance is a lot different. as I pointed out, Amtrak has deliberately constrained seats on the acela to keep it exclusive, but no analysis was ever done to show that was the most profitable or best approach. acela trains could carry double the number of passengers if they had wanted. fwiw, european hsr is faster than the acela and cheaper to run. that said, it's not about chicago-ny. you can sell ny-philly, turn it, sell philly-pittsburgh, and turn it again cleveland chicago...something an airline can't do. an airline flies a plane, there are so many seats per plane, when you sell out, you don't add couple another plane to it and sell more seats (amtrak no longer does this but they could).

Distances that would require more than half a day on a train, even after multibillion-dollar improvements, don't seem to figure hugely in Amtrak's long-term strategy, and I don't think they should. You've convinced me that Pittsburgh makes good sense as a western outpost of the NEC. And as an eastern outpost of the Midwest network, maybe as well. But these regions are going to remain discrete entities, no matter how good the service will be from one to the other.

I can't predict the future, but I would proposes that yes, pittsburgh really is the westernmost outpost of the northeast (it's further east than miami). that yes, it should be part of the northeast high speed network, and that said network should offer better connections to VA and maybe even NH and ME. I'd also suggests that cleveland is the easternmost outpost of the midwest and the connection between the two is the bridge, but in reality, it's more of a fade anyway. yes, cleveland is midwestern, but also shares a lot in common with buffalo. Pittsburgh is not on a great lake and seems to be close enough to the east coast (it's an even shorter drive to DC and baltimore from pittsburgh than it is to philly, slighlty anyway) to be in its outer orbit...a lost child. it became wealthy because it was in between the east and midwest. I have suggested, and continue to do so, that west of pittsburgh, something akin to the keystone corridor would suffice, or the current corridor. remember, costs of doing this would be relatively low. yes, there's freight, but no freight runs as much service over a given area that njt and lirr run in/out of ny. anyway, I'm glad I got someone tothink somewhat differently. I'm going to celebrate.

[Skintreesnail]

Does anyone have any ideas regarding how Amtrak expects to connect into Market East station (meaning where do the expect to put their "tunnels"? Why not 30th street?

[raider.adam]

Does anyone have any ideas regarding how Amtrak expects to connect into Market East station (meaning where do the expect to put their "tunnels"? Why not 30th street?

I don't think Amtrak has any intention to connect to Market East Station.

[BarryG]

I don't think Amtrak has any intention to connect to Market East Station.

The whole high speed plan is based on using ME as the Amtrak station, and continuing to PHL.

[concourse]

I don't think Amtrak has any intention to connect to Market East Station.

The report mentions Market East once and that's on a map. I can't imagine them building a station in the area and not having it connect. In fact, it'd probably be difficult to build the train box underground in the market east area and not have them connect somewhere to some SEPTA/PATCO infrastructure be it the concourse or the station.