Passenger Trains > High Speed Rail - Locomotive Engineer's Perspective

Interesting insights from Railway Age magazine.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/william-vantuono/guest-editorial-high-speed-on-the-nec-an-engineers-perspective.html?channel=00&utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1-20-17+RGN+Group+A&utm_content=High+speed+on+the+NEC%2c+an+engineer%e2%80%99s+perspective+
 

I don't see what insight this offers at all.  Beyond that it makes little sense and makes assumptions that aren't really true.  For example, it suggests not buying the next gen high speed equipment and instead suggests using it to "upgrade" the existing equipment.  Most obvious problem with this is that the Acela trainsets have to be replaced and without their capacity or its replacement half the revenue produced on the NEC is gone.  He also appears to believe that Acela is a failure because it can't achieve its potential on the old infrastructure of the NEC.  Well, the fact that the ROW is old and goofy is hardly a new or interesting insight.  What he misses is that the Acela was a remarkable marketing success, it took business from airlines in huge chunks.  Metroliner never did.  He also thinks that speed doesn't matter much, well if that was the case why do the airlines have a much higher share of BOS-NYC than they do of NYC-WAS???  Could it be that the extra 40 minutes makes a difference?

I'm sure this guy was a great engineer, that he thinks the NEC can't really be replaced by a Japan-like high speed ROW is hardly new, its completely obvious.  Silly crap IMHO

I'd take issue on the dismissal of (presumably unfavourable) comparisons with Europe and Japan by claiming that their high speed rail is a product of immediate post war rebuilding. That is simply untrue. The first Shinkansen in Japan opened 20 years after the end of WW2, France's first LGV in 1981, 36 years after the war ended.

In terms of why the US didn't pursue similar objectives you would have to ask the public policy makers of the time, and I'm sure they would have a whole host of perfectly valid reasons.

I agree 100%!
Luke in California, where only the lawyers and consultants are benefiting from HSR

Interesting reading. Thanks for posting the link.

Comparisons to European and Japanese railway systems cannot be made. Europe and Japan were bombed into rubble during World War II. With nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers), with an eye on the future, rebuilt the European and Japanese railway systems as straight and modern as practicable.

For Japan, not quite. Their Marshall Plan/post-WWII rebuilding preserved most of the ROW, and if "straightening" occurred, it had little to do with the Shinkansen, which did not start construction until 1959.

In fact, the approval of the Shinkansen Project proposal in 1958 was motivated by the threat of automobile and airline travel, where the project leads successfully convinced the JNR (government-run Japan National Railways) that high speed rail was the key to survival of railroading in Japan. (Jury is NOT out on that argument - it's been proven to be more than true)

The first segment, Tokaido Shinkansen, has lots of curves, and even with tilt + active suspension technology for passenger comfort, top speed which was limited to 270 km/h for many years, has only increased to 285 km/h in 2015. It was built more-or-less along the super-congested Tokaido Corrior, which ran out of capacity to support increasing travel demand, so Shinkansen and the separate ROW was the next logical step to address that.

The newer Sanyo Shinkansen segment, where the first 180 km (~112 miles) extension west of Shin-Osaka was operational  8 years after the inaugural run of the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964, was much straighter than the Tokaido Shinkansen, and that's where Japan's first 300 km/h revenue service took effect in 1997. FYI, the entire 622 km (~390 mile) extension to Hakata was operational in 1975, so obviously, the construction work was not incremental, but worked on everywhere simultaneously - CA HSR should take note! The article I'm reading "complains" that Sanyo Shinkansen project was 3 months late.... boo hoo hoo.

The even newer Tohoku Shinkansen (going north from Tokyo) currently run their trains up to 320 km/h, starting in 2014. Lots of short tunnels (which might piss off the amateur accountants) along the ROW to preserve the straightness.

I'm drifting off topic now, but there's a reason why JNR decided to construct the Shin-Osaka Station (Japan's 2nd largest metropolitan area) outside downtown instead of inside it like Tokyo - they were already planning for westward expansion (Sanyo Shinkansen) and decided that there would be less hassles with real estate and geography (rivers) by not going downtown. Nice to have competent, dedicated professionals doing the planning.

Anyway, interesting comparisons of the Acela, Regional, and the Metroliner by the engineer in the article.

86235 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In terms of why the US didn't pursue similar
> objectives you would have to ask the public policy
> makers of the time, and I'm sure they would have a
> whole host of perfectly valid reasons.

And possibly a whole host of nefarious reasons which we won't know - I don't think many of those public policy makers are still around to speak out anyway, even if they wanted to.

I think I'll wear my tin hat and spin a little conspiracy here. Shinkansen Project applied for (and received) loans from the World Bank in 1961, $80 million is the number I found. Project was budgeted for $548 million. I'm confident some of the "public planners" had a good look at the Shinkansen Project proposal and examine the project's consequences after it was completed in 1964. I'll speculate that if the auto and airline industries had any influence on transportation policy, they would absolutely make sure high speed rail would not take traction in the U.S.

We have a problem, in that the proponents of high speed rail, think they have to construct a brand new, flashy, over the top train in order to grab the public's attention.
I guess they feel that is the only way to get people out of their cars or out the skies.  At least in the numbers to make high speed rail a success.

AMTRUK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree 100%!
> Luke in California, where only the lawyers and
> consultants are benefiting from HSR           And hundreds of construction workers who are currently on the job.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/17 08:53 by nedzarp.

nedzarp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> AMTRUK Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I agree 100%!
> > Luke in California, where only the lawyers and
> > consultants are benefiting from HSR        
> And hundreds of construction workers who are
> currently on the job.

Which isn't a bad thing. Nothing personal, but it's time to call out the current political culture which baits voters with talk of "jobs."

I'll speculate that majority of these construction workers were not "new", but were already in the profession, and CA HSR merely prevented them from going to the unemployment line. I put that in the context of unsolicited local radio ads in California ongoing for more than a year, brainwashing the public about the importance of highway construction. Why put out the ads, unless there's a threat in the profession?

So in my opinion, the number of jobs "created" is a "bad value" compared to the number of voters suckered during the election. CA HSR is supposed to solve a transportation problem in the state, regardless of "jobs."

cchan006 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Interesting reading. Thanks for posting the link.
>
> Comparisons to European and Japanese railway
> systems cannot be made. Europe and Japan were
> bombed into rubble during World War II. With
> nothing in the way, the Marshall Plan and SCAP
> (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers), with an
> eye on the future, rebuilt the European and
> Japanese railway systems as straight and modern as
> practicable.
>
> For Japan, not quite.

...or Germany, or other European countries for that matter, but I only have specific data for Germany.

In 2008, DB Netze was in the process of a system-wide modernization program. There were still close to 1700 towers with mechanical interlocking. Nobody, but absolutely nobody, was building mechanical interlocking plants after WWII. That pretty much means that the tracks and track configuration were pretty much the same in 2008 as they were in 1941. When I was there, the rebuilding/restoration of the main station in Dresden, destroyed in February 1945, had just been completed. It was in the same location, just restored. DB started an extensive modernization program in the late 60s that didn't involve any extensive relocations or straightening. It involved higher speeds and better service. The ICE service (I have ridden on them as they went through some of those mechanical interlockings) was a result of continual incremental improvement over about 30 years. The new ICE lines were a result of pushing what they already had as far as it could go.

TAW