RailVets INC’s Post

Thanks to Commonwealth Magazine for briefing its readers on where MassDOT Rail and Transit Division's Compass Rail/West-East Rail project stands and where it's headed! These are goals which we intend to achieve and WILL achieve through current strategic planning, coordination, and collaboration with our partners (such as Amtrak and CSX); subsequent implementation; and ongoing post-implementation evaluation, not through a "concept of a plan," as some may like to say... 🚄 🔑 Key Takeaways: ↙️ 📍"Before the end of the decade, commuters should be able to zip from Boston through Springfield and all the way up past Albany twice a day via rail." 📍West-East Rail's hub will be Springfield. 📍"Compass Rail will improve existing services, like the North-South routes in Western Massachusetts, and bind them to a new rail system connecting the east and west parts of the state." 📍"Over the past 15 years, MassDOT has bolstered what it calls the 'knowledge corridor' of North-South service through 'incremental infrastructure investments...'" 📍"This involved coordination between Amtrak, Massachusetts, and its counterparts in Connecticut [Connecticut Department of Transportation] and Vermont [Vermont Agency of Transportation] rail." 📍"The first real investment seen will be early work on the inland route, connecting Worcester and Springfield to Boston and New Haven. A $108 million award from the Federal Railroad Administration will fund track improvement between Worcester and Springfield to operate two daily passenger rail round trips..." 📍"The Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor ID program is designed to connect states through their major cities. It includes the Boston-Albany route as a corridor to be advanced and improved through a series of projects, guided by a service development plan..." 📍"This federal project is the first of its kind in the US..." 📍"Smaller infrastructure improvements, like eliminating bottlenecks in West Springfield, will smooth the larger project." 📍The assets that will be operated as a part of the revenue fleet will be Amtrak's new Airo trains. Check them out here! https://lnkd.in/ePPRW8xC 📍"Local communities and the federal delegation have pushed for more rail funding, and ridership has DOUBLED [emphasis mine] along the North-South corridor since coming out of the pandemic." #publictransit #publictransportation #fra #usdot #massdot #amtrak #csx #passengerrail #trains https://lnkd.in/eSZx6AR4

Why is There No Bullet Train in the USA?  The Dream of High-Speed Rail: An Unfulfilled Vision Imagine gliding effortlessly from New York to Los Angeles at speeds exceeding 200 mph, bypassing airport security hassles and highway traffic jams. This is the dream of a bullet train system in the USA, a vision that has captivated transportation enthusiasts for decades. Yet, despite its allure, the reality of high-speed rail remains elusive in America. Why is that? Let’s delve into the reasons behind the absence of a comprehensive bullet train network in the United States.   The Cost Conundrum  High Price Tag Building a high-speed rail network is no small feat—it demands a colossal investment. The initial costs of constructing dedicated tracks, acquiring land, and developing the necessary infrastructure are staggering. Unlike countries such as Japan and France, which have made high-speed rail a national priority, the US has struggled to muster the financial commitment needed for such a project.  Funding Challenges The US government's budget priorities have historically leaned towards road and air travel, leaving high-speed rail underfunded. Public and political support for the massive expenditure required is often lacking, making it difficult to secure the necessary funding.  Infrastructure Challenges  Geographic and Logistical Hurdles The sheer size and geographic diversity of the United States present significant challenges for high-speed rail development. Constructing tracks that span coast to coast, or even connect major cities, involves navigating through varied terrain, including mountains, rivers, and urban areas. The logistical complexity of such a project cannot be overstated.  Existing Rail Network Limitations America's current rail infrastructure is heavily skewed towards freight transportation. The rail lines crisscrossing the nation are optimized for moving goods rather than people at high speeds. Retrofitting or upgrading these lines to support bullet trains would be a monumental task, requiring extensive modifications and interruptions to existing services. Political and Bureaucratic Hurdles  Political Will and Support High-speed rail projects need strong political backing, which is often fragmented in the US. With federal, state, and local governments each having their own priorities and budgets, achieving consensus on high-speed rail initiatives is challenging. Political leaders may support the idea in principle but hesitate to back it with the necessary resources.  Regulatory and Bureaucratic Barriers The regulatory landscape in the US is complex, with numerous agencies involved in transportation planning and safety oversight. Navigating this bureaucratic maze adds another layer of difficulty to implementing high-speed rail projects. Delays in approvals and regulatory compliance can stall progress indefinitely.  

AMERICAN HIGH SPEED RAIL NETWORK - (3 Clips) - 1. US High-Speed Rail Maps Show 4 Proposed Phases - Maps produced by the U.S. High Speed Rail Association (USHSR) show how a new 17,000-mile-long high-speed rail network could be constructed across the United States in four separate stages. - The proposal would create a web of railway lines stretching from San Diego, California, to Vancouver in British Columbia, as well as from San Antonio, Texas, to Montreal, Quebec. - After decades of little activity, there has been an explosion in proposals for new high-speed rail lines (to be built in four stages) in the U.S. over the past few years, with two already under construction in California. The Brightline West high-speed railway is being built to connect Las Vegas, Nevada, to southern California, while the California High-Speed Rail will run between San Francisco and Los Angeles. - The fourth and final stage would finish linking the various lines already built to create a unified national high-speed rail network. This would include the construction of lines from Seattle and Sacramento to Salt Lake City, Denver to Minneapolis via Kansas City, and Dallas to St. Louis and Louisville. - https://lnkd.in/efbUGsvC 2. MOULTON, DELBENE INTRODUCE THE AMERICAN HIGH-SPEED RAIL ACT - LANDMARK BILL WOULD INVEST $205 BILLION INTO AMERICAN HIGH-SPEED RAIL AND CREATE OVER 2 MILLION JOBS OVER 5 YEARS WASHINGTON, D.C. — Representatives Seth Moulton (MA-06) and Suzan DelBene (WA-01) have introduced the American High-Speed Rail Act, which would invest $205 billion federal dollars into high-speed rail, create at least 2.6 million direct American jobs over five years, and provide Americans with a new travel option that’s safer than driving, cleaner than flying, and rarely delayed by weather.  - https://lnkd.in/e6U-Hq9F 3. U.S. High Speed Rail Coalition unveils roadmap with guidance on how to launch high-speed rail project - The first-of-its-kind action plan is intended to equip advocates with practical tips, realistic expectations and strategic support as they work to launch new high-speed train projects in their regions.The roadmap notes that a recent survey by Public Policy Polling for the Coalition found that 72 percent of U.S. registered voters support the creation of a nationwide high-speed rail network in the U.S. According to Ezra Silk, political director of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Coalition, a major goal of the report is to help build a grassroots movement for a national high-speed rail network.  - https://lnkd.in/edNYuree

1) California LA-SF high-speed rail project. Backed away from the aspiration of linking San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego, committing only to a smaller project in the state’s Central Valley. That’s where construction is underway now, between Bakersfield and Merced. In recent months, the California High-Speed Rail Authority received environmental clearance for the final segment of the LA-SF line and appointed a new CEO, but he admits there are still challenges ahead. Currently available, authorized and expected future funding totals $35.2 billion, enough to finish the first segment. But that leaves a $93 billion gap to meet the estimated cost for a line that runs all the way from #sanfrancisco to #losangeles. 2) Las Vegas line attracts private investors. While the California project has relied entirely on public funds to date, Brightline West Trains is investing its own capital into a $12 billion project between Las Vegas and California. The project has also been awarded up to $3 billion from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program and will have access to up to $3.5 billion in private activity bonds from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Brightline West Trains began construction in April. Its 218-mile line from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California, about 42 miles east of Los Angeles Union Station, will mainly run in the median of Interstate 15, with intermediate stops in Victor Valley and Hesperia, California. At Rancho Cucamonga, it will connect with commuter railroad Metrolink for those continuing on to other Los Angeles-area destinations. Constructing the line along an existing transportation corridor eased the permitting process and allowed the federal environmental review to speed through. Brightline West Trains aims to complete construction in 2028. 3) Texas may be next A project to connect #dallas and #houston with a #highspeed #rail line dates back at least 10 years. It saw little progress this decade until Amtrak got involved last year. Amtrak and Texas Central announced in August 2023 that they were evaluating a potential partnership to move the project forward. Amtrak has moved the project to the third and final step of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program. Step 3 enables the project to begin preliminary #engineering and environmental work, some of which has been done. #altavelocidad #california #chemindefer #eeuu #estadosunidos #ferrocarril #ferroviaire #ferroviario #grandevitesse #materialrodante #materielroulant #mobilite #mobilitedurable #mobility #movilidad #movilidadsostenible #nevada #publictransport #rails #railways #rollingstock #sustainablemobility #texas #train #transport #transporte #transportepublico #tren #unitedstates #usa https://lnkd.in/gYawwiis

Network Rail successfully completes four major projects across Kent, East Sussex and South London Rail passengers have been thanked for their patience while Network Rail completed major projects on the Isle of Sheppey, suburban south London, and in the countryside of Kent and East Sussex. After four years of preparation work, a new signalling system was brought into use in the Tulse Hill, Peckham Rye and Crystal Palace areas of south London to improve reliability for Southern, Thameslink and London Overground passengers. The new signalling system replaces the old equipment which had controlled the movement of trains in the areas since the early 1980s. Engineers installed 23 km of new signalling, power supply, and telecoms cables, 61 new signals, upgraded power supplies and removed the old system for recycling. David Davidson FCIRO, Network Rail’s Kent Route Director, said: “Our teams were extremely busy across Kent and East Sussex over the October half-term with three major projects successfully completed. “The work will keep the Kingsferry Bridge open for rail passengers, motorists and vital commercial shipping. Work in the Victorian era Ore tunnel will keep trains moving safely and reliably between Hastings and Ashford, while works to protect the railway from landslips will ensure safer and more reliable journeys for passengers using services between Paddock Wood and Strood.” Lucy McAuliffe, Network Rail’s Sussex Route Director, added: “It’s vital that we continue to invest to modernise our assets and give passengers the delay-free journeys they expect, and I want to thank our teams for the work they’ve carried out as well as passengers whose journeys were affected. “Signalling upgrades between East Croydon and London Victoria in 2022 saw delays cut by more than half and we’ve delivered this latest phase of signalling upgrades in the Crystal Palace, Tulse Hill and Peckham Rye areas will improve reliability and help contribute to improving the performance of this important stretch of railway.” Scott Brightwell, Operations and Safety Director, added: “We would like to thank our customers for their patience over half term, particularly those who were affected by the critical repairs to the Kingsferry Bridge. We know engineering work can be disruptive and change people’s plans but by working closely with Network Rail and planning these works well in advance we can help to make customers aware, provide alternative travel options and reduce the risk of unplanned and short notice disruption.” Christopher Fowler, Network Operations and Performance Director for Govia Thameslink Railway, said: “This work was essential to making our railway more reliable but I know it will have really affected some of our customers whose journeys would have been rerouted and extended. Thank you for your patience.” https://lnkd.in/e-TmMKyN

With President Biden's $1.2 trillion #infrastructure bill, there was $66 billion allotted towards passenger #rail infrastructure to be spent over a period of years and these investments have prompted the announcements for major rail advancements. There are high speed #train projects popping up around the country, and in the next few years there will be more ways to zip around in and across states. Most of them being constructed are through private ventures, not government investment. Here are some of the high speed #trains that are already here or are coming soon.

Doubling Down on Capacity: The Future of New York Penn Station   Amtrak, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and NJ TRANSIT released the engineering feasibility study on October 2, 2024, to double “Trans-Hudson Train Capacity at New York Penn Station", which is served by these three rail operators. The study aims to “double passenger train service between New York and New Jersey from 24 to 48 trains per hour, or more, during peak hours.”   Amtrak’s announcement of the study can be found here:   https://lnkd.in/eB2qxqi9   Petra Messick, senior program director with Amtrak, indicated:   “What we found is that we will need to expand beyond the boundaries of Penn to reach the 48 trains per hour trans-Hudson capacity.”   Mass Transit magazine reports:   “That 48 trains benchmark is the expected capacity of the Northeast Corridor line after the sweeping, $40 billion Gateway project is completed, removing bottlenecks across the New Jersey Meadowlands and building an additional tunnel under the Hudson River.”   Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) emphasizes the critical contributions of the Penn Station project as follows:   The 457-mile Northeast Corridor (NEC), which is "anchored by Washington, D.C.'s Union Station in the south, New York's Pennsylvania Station in the center, and Boston's South Station in the north, is one of the most heavily traveled rail corridors in the world. The NEC is shared by intercity, commuter, and freight operations, moving more than 365 million passengers and 14 million car-miles of freight per year."   FRA's announcement can be found here: https://lnkd.in/emwQA_DD   Amtrak, MTA, and NJ TRANSIT continue with their respective projects to upgrade their passenger rolling stock to deliver high levels of comfort while ultimately reaching these traffic goals in alignment with the Gateway project’s targets.   At Navus, Inc. our Chicago-based advisory firm whose business includes infrastructure finance, we will continue to monitor the progress of the Penn Station and Gateway projects.   In discussing the quality of the passenger rolling stock, we also want to take this opportunity to celebrate the legacy of Elsebeth van Blerkom, the Dutch industrial designer whose birthday anniversary preceded Amtrak’s announcement by a week.   Dame TEE, as van Blerkom was affectionately known, redesigned the Trans Europe Express (TEE) Edelweiss train sets during her thirties. The trains were launched in 1957. Edelweiss’ functional elegance has been ingrained in the designs of subsequent Dutch trains. A frontal view of Dame TEE’s design is in this post’s cover picture.   Hashtags   #Amtrak #MTA #NJTRANSIT #NewYorkPennStation #NortheastCorridor #Infrastructure   Cover copyright   Nederlands Transport Museum: https://lnkd.in/emQzmfHS

TRUEDOM: Good News Flash: Vancouver, BC, will finally be getting its new High-Speed Rail between Vancouver and Portland, Oregon. Map Shows Proposed Pacific Northwest High-Speed Rail Route Story by Khaleda Rahman •21h • 2 min read: A map from the Federal Railroad Administration shows the route for a proposed high-speed rail route in the Pacific Northwest. Advocates have long called for bullet trains in the region, which would slash commute times, create jobs, & reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The plan got a boost this past December when the Biden administration provided a $500,000 Corridor Identification & Development program grant to the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for the Cascadia High-Speed Rail project. The grant will support planning and viability assessment for the project, which proposes a high-speed rail corridor connecting Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver, British Columbia, via Seattle, with a possible extension south to Eugene, Oregon. According to The Seattle Times, the project intends to offer 30 round trips daily between Vancouver and Portland. The trains would get passengers from Seattle to Portland in less than an hour—the trip currently takes at least three or more. Newsweek has contacted Cascadia Rail via email to comment. Another $500,000 grant handed out in December was earmarked for a proposal to improve existing Amtrak Cascades services between Vancouver and Eugene. According to the WSDOT, the grants "provide funding to develop scopes, schedules, & cost estimates for preparing a service-development plan for each corridor." The department "is very pleased to receive federal support for both important passenger rail programs," Washington State Transportation Secretary Roger Millar said in a December statement. "These two complementary systems would connect with one another to transport people efficiently, reliably & in environmentally friendly ways. We're planning improvements for current rail passengers, as well as envisioning an even more robust system in the future." Funding, announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration in December, included more than $8 billion to improve rail services across the nation. Of that amount, more than $6 billion was announced for a pair of high-speed electric rail routes: one between Las Vegas & the Los Angeles area and another for an initial segment of California's publicly funded effort to eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to the Associated Press. Welcome to British Columbia, my home sweet home. Burnaby, BC, is my Destiny to be TRUE. British Columbia is the kingdom of abundance. Where glaciated mountains stand over an unruly Pacific. Rainforests wrap cities. Nature shapes culture. Wild breathes life back into the wild within. This is a game changer in uniting the West Coast from Happy Go Lucky Vancouver with a new, fun way to Hotel California when they finish the line to LA. truetrue.com Is Good for you.

Economic growth depends on efficient infrastructure to access supporting markets to enhance the integration of resources and expertise. Investing in important modes of transportation like HSR can better integrate economic clusters and improve mobility of talent and labor; thereby, supporting growth throughout the 21st Century. This particular HSR project has the potential to facilitate an economic powerhouse cluster between Dallas and Houston. #EconomicDevelopment #HighSpeedRail #Texas #DallasHouston

A very well researched and written story in today's Chicago Tribune by John Lippert and Sarah Freishtat describing the need and complexity to invest in Chicagoland's train infrastructure. The article focusses on the infrastructure constraints at the Belt Railway of Chicago, one of our region's most notorious rail bottleneck. A lot of different organizations and public entities, including Metra Commuter Rail, Amtrak have been working for more than 20 years to rebuilt Belt Junction. The ambition is to invest over $2.5 billion for new tracks, viaducts and flyovers to double the Belt Junction corridor’s annual capacity to 4 million rail cars. The Belt Junction is an essential building block in the ambitious plan to increase the rail capacity by nearly 80% in the Chicago region by 2052. The complexity of this plan is enormous, ranging from finding sufficient funding, listening to community concerns, balancing short-term versus long-term environmental benefits, align & coordinate with the different freight train corporations, and the need to include as many influential stakeholders as possible. I was glad to see Erin Aleman from Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) quoted in the article, since her organization has been an important voice and driver to solve complicated regional challenges. I strongly believe we need to continue to invest in our region's infrastructure to both drive economic growth and accelerate the transformation to cleaner and more efficient transportation solutions. The enormity and complexity of this ambition shouldn't deter us but inspire and motivate all of us.