The United States Already Tried High Speed Rail
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- Опубликовано: 22 ноя 2022
- Of course, the US's high speed trains of yesteryear could never have matched the networks of today. But there was once a time when all of the country's corners were closely held together by the fastest transportation over land, and with zero taxpayer involvement.
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As long as freight traffic shares the track with passenger trains, the speed will be limited by the freight trains. High speed rail needs to be passenger ONLY. Without that condition being met, the trains will not get any faster than they are presently.
100%
... and historically passenger trains are just _money pits_ instead of viable sources of income. The sad reality is that cargo rail is the only rail. Period.
@@TheTrueAdept And since when did highways generate money and were NOT money pits?
Passenger rail should be considered a public service, not expected to necessarily generate profit. This is true basically in every other country.
@@kelseyduerksen6404 you forget that to even make passenger rail viable, Europe literally has to pay around half the fair and literally run cargo off the rails.
@@TheTrueAdept and the feds highways don't even generate 1/4 of the revenue needed to pay the maintenance bill on the highway system, your point?
In 1967, U.S. Department of Transportation made a high speed rail test using a modified Silverliner commuter EMU running on NEC. This train reached top speed of 125 mph and there are a small footage of this test on RUclips.
This test was the basis for PRR Metroliner trainset project.
I seen that video, forgot the channel name, the other video, a GG1 being tested on the nec.
yeah but they failed to invest in proper track and other ROW infrastructure to safely maintain those speeds.
@@mtanyctrainatlantamartatra7164 No, you 'saw' that video. Work on your English, please.
@@danielcarlin7784 in the old days. The track was of great concern to the railroad maintained properly trained Engineers that did not run their engines at speeds that would damage the railroad track. That's why some steam engines were limited to drag service. With modern heavyweight steam locomotives the track has to be an excellent condition to support the weight of the locomotive. And we're talking a lot of weight on drivers. Engineers got paid by the weight on the drivers. Up until the interstate highways were built at government expense, and the airport Network was built at government's expense stealing both Freight and passenger traffic from the railroad. The New Haven lost a lot of Passenger traffic when they opened up the freeway next to it. They let the maintenance of the track get deferred until they had to lower the speed but even with inferior track they still manage to keep the trains on time even if they were three quarters empty. The old passenger trains of yesterday were plenty fast and states of the art and comfortable means of travel. It's a shame People of Our Generation will never know the pleasure that people used to know on an everyday basis in the old America when you had real passenger trains. The Santa Fe would generally run passenger trains around 90 miles an hour out in the desert. We're talking a 5000 horsepower state of the art steam locomotive as well as 10 or 12 heavyweight Passenger cars. Passenger cars generally weigh 100 tons. And that Steve engine would pull that train 90 miles an hour and it can go faster but then the engineer would be called on the carpet because the speed would be on the speed recorder in the locomotive cab. Plus the engineers of the Premier passenger trains in the old days where extremely competent and dedicated to their profession. They knew where they had to run fast and they knew where to run slow. They tested the daylight Northern steam locomotive out west it got up to 130 miles an hour and then they ran out of straight track. It ran like a sewing machine smooth as silk. Just think we only have one of those locomotives left what a shame.
Rode Metroliner at 110 mph. You needed to hang on to things as you walked through the train. Not exactly a smooth ride.
A key factor is that train service has to go where someone wants to go to. This is not the case presently. For example there is no Amtrak station in Las Vegas. Generally, the if one wants to travel somewhere by train, "you can't get there from here" is the general rule. Cheers.
That wasn't the case long ago when the only way to get somewhere in good time was by train. I once owned a few hardbound RR atlases that showed all of the passenger lines in each state, their stops, hotels near the stations and stage/motor coach lines that ran passengers out to the rural towns that didn't have rail service. Those also showed the roads between the towns as various types of lines to indicate if those were dirt, gravel or paved, if they had bridges or toll ferries to cross rivers.
There was an Amtrak station in Las Vegas not too long ago. There could be again if California wanted it but the last thing California wants is to make it easier to go to Las Vegas so people can leave their money there. Yes, Las Vegas wants it.
Man it makes me so sad...
I am a college student in New England. My house is in Massachusetts and I go to school at UNH. I can take an Amtrak train from a station 10 mins from my house to the campus stop and it is absolutely incredible.
I wish more people could see the value in getting the service quality up. Amtrak is frequently delayed, the trains break down, and cars are clearly being pressed on past their lifespans.
Just imagine east coast US bullet trains, that would be absolutely incredible.
Yeah, it would definitely be a sight to see. And with enough funding for HSR, we’ll get to see these high speed trains in action one day.
They keep saying there are too many problems for building train lines. What? There are fewer problems for building monstrous highway and interchanges and gutting the landscape and cities?
@@jameshitselberger5845 The construction projects on the highways are causing more delays than passenger trains. They’re nothing but cash grabs for the government.
I’d support it if it’s done privately
@@cargopilotguy305 Yes, it is the way highways should be and should have been built too...a terrible drain on the government budget and a great tax burden otherwise.
And may I add, travel by train is so comfortable. Room to move, spacious seats, often a buffet to buy food and drink, and frequently impressive views from the windows. It's also cheaper than most other forms of travel as well as being better for the environment. Only those in a hurry need fly or drive!
The only people who are not in a hurry are those who have time to spare. Retirees and workshy typically. Everyone else is not interested.
And they can do so faster, since air and road network becomes less congested.
Im never in a hurry, and by far prefer my car. I can stop when and where I want. Carry as much luggage as it will hold, and my pistol stays on my hip. And I dont have to risk getting Covid or some other infestation.
@@jailbird1133 If you have permit, rail operators may allow firearms. A lot of luggage can be loaded on trains; on long-distance trains (high-speed, regional, intercity), baggage racks are at the ends of each car, plus overhead storage.
Regarding infection, that isn't completely eliminated when all drivers meet at a common destination. Note that South Korea and Taiwan have low infection rate despite their extensive railway network.
Even sticking to the car, you should be an advocate of railway as this means less drivers on the road, and more pleasant journey for you.
@@dbclass4075 Exactly. Everyone wins with the introduction of more options.
As a railfan, my favourite type of rail is and was high speed rail. I was a fan of the UAC TurboTrain when it came out. I loved that sweet beauty.
A *fan*
I see what you did there ;)
An F-unit with two coacjes could match its time. UA Turbos were fuel hogs and by 1976 when I finally rode one Providence-Boston were NOT smooth riding.
@@thomasrengel5577 they would use more fuel if not at full speeds or loaded down and the max rail speed is about 50mph aka to slow for it to be efficient
I love using rail in my Cities:Skylines cities. All kinds of rail. But my game cities don't have crime, because I have fully funded police departments and courts.
@@Bishop_Heahmund hehehe😉the good ol days
There are many routes in USA that are well suited for high speed rail. For example Tampa - Orlando - Jacksonville - Savannah - Charlotte - Richmond - D.C - Philadelphia - NY - Newhaven - Providence - Boston. The biggest advantages of rail are that they go right into city centres and there is much less hassle with ticket purchase, security and boarding. New York to Washington might take more than an hour less than by air and is much more comfortable.
Much less hassle with driving a car, no ticket required and it is faster. If you want less hassle when travelling, lobby your Congressman to abolish the TSA.
What's the, "Bronson Trap," mentioned at 12:58? To lightly summarize, it was the Southern's way of dismembering an interstate train's route by cutting off service at a state line, made possible by a loophole in the ICC's rulings. If I do a video about the Southern, I will be going into more detail about how these traps unfolded, as administered by then president D.W. Bronson.
Why do you people keep trying to pretend like passenger rail was ever turning a profit? It is widely known that this was never the case. The railroads were given various tax and cash subsidies as well as literal free land in exchange for running passenger service. This is extremely widely documented, and no one ever said otherwise! Sure, there were shorter commuter and intercity routes that were actually profitable, but the bulk of passengers were traveling on subsidized routes. And again, this is no secret and was widely known at the time and is known now. The railroads were literally making public deals about this and everyone knew the terms. They agreed to provide passenger service in exchange for some benefit, like being able to traverse a town or getting "free" land.
I just don't understand why the rail community is so intent on pretending like rail ever existed in unsubsidized form. Modern transportation like "free" highways and government-sponsored airports can't exist unsubsidized either. This is just the cold hard reality of transportation infrastructure in general. It's function is to enable economic activity and we would literally lose massive chunks of our economies if we decided not to subsidize transportation. This is a very toxic attitude toward our infrastructure.
You are basically misleading the public. What happens the next time that we need to approve a new highway or rail line? Everyone will want it to "turn a profit" we'll forgo 100x the economic benefit by not building a key piece of infrastructure!
@@TohaBgood2 If your comment is full of bullshit, then why post it? How and why are you even on this video? You cost 0.5 elixir
@@TohaBgood2 Do interstates turn a profit?
@@qwrghfzpeyja-r93ic73 Lol, what are you even talking about, bud?
@@Nyannnnnnnn No. And the airlines would run at a loss too if they had to actually pay for airtraffic controllers and the actual cost to build all the airports. I'm not even going to mention the subsidized jet fuel. Or rather, the trucking and airline industries would simply not exist in their current form without the downright insane government subsidies that we graciously provide them with!
The reality is that transportation infrastructure is almost never independently profitable. Transportation infrastructure can only exist if it feeds off the economic gains that it creates in adjacent economies. That's why it's always governments that step up to subsidize these transportation networks into exitence.
But we still shouldn't pretend like transportation is anything but a government franchise that the government decides whether to expand or contract via policy. The only reason transportation companies of any kind ever make any money is because a government of some description had set up a system where that profitable activity is possible. Often this means that the government just east some initial investment cost or subsidizes some adjacent losses. And that is perfectly normal and overall beneficial for the economy!
Is it me, or does it seem that the ICC had a significant hand in many of the problems that RRs faced during the 60s and 70s? In short, the ICC did everything it could to prevent the RRs from adapting to the changing transportation envoronment and remain competative.
ICC literally ruined the railroads. Unfair amount of regulation.
Not really. They did try to force the railroads to continue their long distance passenger service when those were only profitable in certain regions with near zero ridership in between them. Southern Pacific made good money by running passengers from coast to coast then started to lose big money when ridership in the rural regions dramatically dropped. Their chairman Bronsan took advantage of an ICC loophole to stop their passenger service at the state lines of states that were still profitable to operate in to avoid going thru states where it operated at a loss. City bus lines do the same thing in areas where ridership has dwindled down to a few per run.
@@billwilson3609 At the same time, the ICC had rules on freight rates that hampered railroads until they were removed in the 1980s.
Absolutely, this is why overegulation is cancer.
Union Pacific and Southern Pacific should've never merged.
These trainz documentaries never disappoint.
Thank you for bringing up the cost overruns on the original Shinkansen line. Not a lot of people do that.
Because the economic benefits enormously outweigh the cost overruns
@@AdamFaruqi Exactly which is why the dipshits who criticize California High Speed Rail for cost overruns are misinformed and ignorant at best or dubious or bad actors.
That doesn’t even touch on the cost overruns of the interstate system and the subsidization for it.
Fantastic video on streamlined engine of the past! I didn’t even know about all the things about them, I hope that streamlined passenger services for the future of rail travel
Glad you enjoyed it!
For me as a German the perfect travel distance for high speed train travel is 300 to 400 km. This is often a 4 hour ride by car and only 2.5 hour by train. Sadly our high speed network is not as developed as in France.
Id still rather drive.
@@jailbird1133 thats plain stupidity mate
I've ridden the train system in France several times in the last few years: the RER system inside Paris and to and from various destinations on the TGV and Intercities trains. They are uniformly excellent - except when something goes wrong. The TGV, which I've ridden to and from Lyon to Paris, in particular is wonderful and will take you directly from the International Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle airport to Gare Part-Dieu in Lyon. It is fast, very quite, very smooth, and you can hardly feel the horizontal accelerations when going around curves, but those trains do have some shove when they pour on the coal. I've flown Paris to Lyon several times and much prefer the TGV if for no other reason than to avoid getting to and from airport to city at either end. It's wonderful, but can it be made to work in the US?
Problem is a European style national high speed train system just won't scale up to continental scale as a coherent, connected, national high speed rail system in my opinion. I've never done it, but I've heard that trying to take the train from one side of Europe to another is not the experience you might hope for.
Lyon to Paris by train It takes about two and a half hours to cover a distance of around 243 miles (391 km), that's roughly the same distance from Ft Worth to Dallas Texas. So, when you realize that France in almost every measure is the size of Texas, you begin to see the problem: vast distances to cross of relatively uninhabited countryside. A three to five hour trip that takes you six hundred to a thousand miles by train is a completely different ball of wax than one that takes you three thousand miles in a jet.
That's just problem one, problem two is the Metroliner Problem, France's pattern of urbanization is completely different than in the US, putting a genuine high speed rail system capable of 200+ mph between Boston and Washington, the US's best economic case, would almost impossible to push through the urban/suburbans sprawl, I don't see how you can do it. You could also make a case for New York to Chicago, (~600mi) might work, or even Dallas to Ft Worth, but that is just two routes under three hours to five hours.
I'm certainly not an expert, but when I try to think about the hard cold facts of distances and ridership and dollars, they all begin to break down into a series of disconnected special cases rather than a coherent national high speed rail system. And I really wish that was different.
@@jailbird1133 Good for you. That’s your own personal preference. However, many people simply want the quickest and safest options to be available. While you might prefer to drive interstate, many more people would prefer to fly. Similarly, many more people would prefer to take rail. The problem is that due to an incredible volume of lobbyism and corruption in favor of auto and petrochemical corporations rail was sidelined and underfunded.
The worst of German passenger rail is still better than most rail travel in the US. One can get almost anywhere in Germany and the greater EU with rail, not to be said in the US. Getting between states is sometimes hard.
Always funny to see engines like 611 pulling 20 passenger cars and Amtrak needing two engines to pull half or a quarter of that.
2nd unit on Amtrak trains provide HEP (head end power) they usually don’t provide motive power
best way to start the day is a coffee, a cigarette and a brand spanking new High iron video. always love your work chief, thank you
Thanks, glad to be a part of the daily routine!
This documentary is so good. Wow.
Sure wish those people who make the choices for the country out east would share the higher speed rail beyond it.
There are talks in the Georgia DOT about a possible HST route between Louisville, KY and Savannah, GA via Nashville and Chattanooga as well as a route between Birmingham, AL and Charlotte NC. Honestly, if it gets off the ground and gets its speed high speeds I can see this working easily, all it needs to do is outrun the interstates and outprice the airliners, those southern cities are close enough to where it can be done with great effect.
If you could cut out having to fly to ATL, the train could make a killing. And going to Savannah would be even better. People here in Tenn, and KY, could take the train when going on vacation.
Another enjoyable, creative, and informative video. I love the work that you do. Can't wait for the next one!
Thank you very much!
7:36
I was working on my custom PRR 7002 model when you brought up PRR 7002. Thanks for shedding light on this event, as I plan on making a video on the event where it happened myself.
Actually one of my friends is making a custom 7002 model that was actually the same version when she broke the speed record
And I was going to recreate the event but then you posted this so you kinda stole my idea
@@kadenrobinson7067 do it, make the video, I don't mind, we need more 7002 content
It seems like the common thread holding back high speed rail in the USA is the lack of track routes that can support high speed operation throughout their course.
This just makes me wish we had more trains pulled by streamlined hudsons like the New York central, they understood style.
Amazing video guys! I love the rail history videos that are being put out by High Iron. Keep it up!
Thank you!
Yooo, UTA's Frontrunner in Utah mentioned, lets go!
There's a ton I am not a fan of about Utah, but surprisingly their transit in the Wasatch corridor is one of the highlights, especially considering that a ton of it has been done within the past 20-30 years, with lots of expansions in progress and being planned each year.
Frontrunner is an awesome service, Wish there were more options on the west side of the valley though.
I miss living in Ogden. Only lived there a couple years spent most my life all over Texas and Texas has by far one of if not the worst passenger services. We lag behind in excursion services as well. A ton of steam is being “restored” throughout the state but it’s taking decades. From my understanding they’ve not even been running the eagle anymore
The effects of Streamlining is actually very well documented the world over. They did 2 things for Steam locomotives... 1. they provided the locomotive with wind breaking designs, 2. the added metal to make steam lining look good added weight on the drivers giving Streamliners added tractive effort making them able to pull more than their traditional designed counter parts, every single one was like that.
Talking about Mallard for a minute it really shouldn’t have gone 126 mph because it was going down a hill, a very steep one at that
The fastest steam locomotive if we dont count the Mallard would be germany's DRG 05 which clocked out at 124 MPH
@@ivangenov6782 I thought the A4 “Sir Nigel Gresley” actually went 125 on flat ground
@@IGuessIDoThings Idk where you heard that from, but you are hella wrong, also, its Gresley, not Greeley
The fastest Diesel engine we’ve got today is the HST Class 43
Oh shut up you German degenerate
CASHR and brightline west would give the US a Euro/Asia Style HSR.
Both combined more investment into local service and in region transport could give California a world class system. If we are willing to fund it which so far has been a fun game of the state wanting the feds to and the feds not putting much money up for rail.
I really think rail is gonna become very important again, especially once we figure out superconductors and maglev. There are currently plans for a high speed rail line between Dallas and Houston that can transport commuters between the cities in 90 minutes. Texas is currently in land disputes along the proposed path so it may take a long time, but I think it has potential. Once economical maglev comes into the picture, electric trains will become insanely efficient
That project will end up cancelled. Investors have been pulling out and officers leaving since it's dead in the water going nowhere. The state may take it over for an intermodal freight line to get trucks off the interstates.
@@billwilson3609this aged poorly
Great Job, you guys never cease to amaze me. Looking forward to the next one!
There is tilting technology - the brits, germans and italians each have tilting trains - that would be one way to be able to take tighter curves
Got here as fast as possible! Great job!
Thanks, it only took four years to get this right! :P
The Santa Fe had seasons in the year where their passenger trains were full to capacity and they would have more than one section of a train to accommodate the extra people. And other times of the year they're trained would be virtually empty.
"Building an all new right-of-way that can handle those high speeds"
Which is exactly what CHSRA, Texas Central and Brightline are doing. Brightline's building all new infrastructure from Cocoa Beach to Orlando, and both CHSRA and Texas Central are fully dedicated rail lines.
The Texas Central hasn't done anything so far. They have plans to build but have yet to raise the capital they need.
Cali HSR isn't going to connected LA + San for another 47 years.
@@AllenGraetz
"Cali HSR isn't going to connected LA + San for another 47 years."
Yeah, no. Allan Fisher has done two videos about the Cali HSR network that debunks a lot of the doomerism-based criticism of that project. I might also want to note that they're making quicker progress than the construction of I-69, despite having similar initial issues.
As for the Texas Central, I'll concede with that, but it's not just funding that's the problem. They're also having trouble with the state government. Still, the critical thing here is that the company hasn't given up on the project. They're still pushing to clear up the red tape and to find investors (although personally I think they're going to want to look into a partnership like what Brightline did for a while).
@@VestedUTuber 47 years is not doomeris,. Leave it to a zealot like Fisher to deny reality. They don't have the funds. At their current pace, they won't connnected LA + SF with HSR until afteron 2050, probably not until after 2100. 47 years is _optomistic_.
@@AllenGraetz
The moment you attack someone's character in a debate is the moment you lose that debate. You obviously didn't even bother to watch the videos, they contain video proof of construction progress. You're the one denying reality.
@@AllenGraetz Texas Central probably will be taken over by the state to use the ROW as an intermodal freight line between yards in Houston and DFW since there's a greater need for that than a HSR few will use.
I just got back from a short vacation in Miami and used Brightline. It was fantastic. It saved me money and time to visit family up the Florida cost. The train ride and stops were first class. I
All I can say it that we need to follow this model.
New subscriber here: this documentary was very well put together. My son and I really enjoyed it, keep up the great work! 😊👍
Great job, Brian. Lots of really neat facts throughout this one.
Good videos and thanks for not having " Raid Shadow Legends" 3 minute ads on a non-gaming channel lol.....
Good piece, man. Thanks for this!
Great body of work Brian. Thanks.
Great video! A joy to watch. Good work.
Awesome, thank you!
You make such great videos about Rail history I hope that you make more videos to come, and that you get more views and subscribers
I hope so too
Great video as always, Brian. Hopefully we’ll be seeing plenty of HSR trains in the near future once there’s enough funding for a project like this. And like you said, the national passenger rail network we have is not perfect, but there’s always room for improvement. And I hope the network will improve for the US for the better.
19:07 On that map, just below the Philadelphia dot in northern Delaware, Amtrak runs over 100 mph for a stretch where the NE Corridor parallels I-495 around Wilmington. I personally clocked it there one day and was surprised at how fast they run through there. Also rode that train many times and it gets you from DC to Philly or NYC way faster than I'd ever want to risk driving. Counting the trip to the airport and the security hassle, it even beats airline travel by a bit, despite jets being five times faster.
Fantastic video!
The Mallard is a heck of a train, great content, cheers!
Sailed on her many times out of Long Beach as a Sea Cadet. Strange to see her getting sunk.
Nicely done video despite the uncertainty about future high speed lines.
Great video really enjoyed it
A travelled aboard the inaugural CN Turbo ex Toronto to Montreal, followed a few weeks later on by the inaugural PC Metroliner ex New York Penn Station to Washington DC. These were attempts, albeit short-lived, by Canada and the USA to introduce passenger services operating at speeds well in excess of 79mph.
Great vid once again!
Thanks again!
Thank you for this video! It felt far more informative, balanced, and reasonable than the dozens of other amateur train obsessed channels that all cater to the same relatively small (and annoying) 20 to early 30s something audience. Loved this!
There is an interesting video by Peter Dibble about Amtrak high speed railtours. Great visuals, music, and overall, a great video. This just came close.
Yeah, that one I've seen before. Peter's content is some of the best I've ever watched.
@@HighIron Glad to hear! I subscribed.
I almost felt sad for this one but then you gave that sentiment of passenger trains always have a place here saved it😊
11 minutes in awesome way to sneak in a model train. Very slick. I also love your use of 611 pulling a Strasburg short line freight. Just watched the one about the duplex locomotives and seen Strasburg 89. I rode that train actually all of them 90 475 611. All the RBMTN except 2102 they just finished restoring her this year. Sweet.
If Amtrak ran a passenger train to New York via Harrisburg from New Orleans, would it he able to run much)any faster than it did in the steam locomotive era?
Great Job
You forgot to mention the first non-experimental Bullet Train ever made, the Philadelphia & Western "Bullet" third rail electric MU cars. These were truly the world's first high-speed Bullet Trains, beating the M-10000 by 3 years.
Don't forget the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee. It had the electrified "Electroliners", which were considered high speed rail for their time.
The electroliners topped out at 90 mph which was the top end for interurbans but not for trains.
With onboard satellite internet service, rail travel could be a appealing thing. Each passenger could choose his own entertainment, or even do office work.
i am 20 minutes away from college by bus and i absolutely love my time on public transportation. i haven't read so much in like 4 years, most buses have wi-fi and it's so interesting to see people coming and going, living their lives. definitely feels a lot more social and refreshing than 10 minutes stuck in a car.
i secretly wish i had went to college in another city so i could catch the train everyday (about 1 hour trip), no matter how tiring it might have been
You forgot about the 150mph stretch in Massachusetts.
Great video.
Thanks!
I’ve wished *Avelia Liberty* 🗽 could be here.
Great video. I’m glad that I’m not the only one who realises any train is better than no train at all, and the only reason cities like Shanghai are able to support maglevs is because they have a robust network of local trains. That’s where America needs to start.
@alexandermartino1863
I haven't seen any video reports on how much electricity maglev trains use. It must be huge, I'm sure.
I've watched a lot of your Videos and I gotta say, you're genuinely one of the best and informative out there, great Video!
Awesome! Thank you!
Vehicles are more efficient and faster for trips in the 200 to 300 miles range, airplanes better for longer distances.
Excellent graphics.
to people who say we don’t have enough money for high speed rail, the war on terror is enough to pay for the entire chinese high speed rail system three times over. so think about that.
Awesome video very cool and interesting
If I could hop on a train here in Dayton and go to Cleveland or Indianapolis, or even Pittsburgh, I'd do that on the weekend for sure
Error @ 13:40: the Metroliner went up to 120 frequently, not just 100. I know, I rode it in the cab. The speedometer never lies.
Awesome trains 👍
An excellent video!
Many thanks!
We had a streamline in New England that hit 105 to 110mph regularly, a lot of people don't know about that. It was basically the same model as the Burlington Zephyr and went from Boston To Bangor ME originally and then later operated internally in New Hampshire from the the southern portion to the mountains.
Flying Yankee?
Flying Yankee, run out of Boston. After the Boston-Bangor sprint for a few years (the B&M and Maine Central had a joint operation--long story) to the White Mountains I think up the Eastern (Portsmouth Great Falls & Conway! What a great name for a railroad line to Conway and beyond). Then routed out the Fitchburg up through Keene and Bellows Falls and White River Jct., and Finally Boston-Troy NY via the Hoosac Tunnel ending in 1956. Got 22 years use out of that beast!
I always saw WW2 as a war that began when Britain broke the speed record held by Germany in regards to the fastest steam train in the world. Germany got angry that their "superace" supposed to be the best, were beaten
Birghtline needs quad-gates with sensor AND overpasses to do the high speed. BTW, a lot of European high speed is only 111mph. 100mph is doable system wide with Amtrak without a lot of high tech upgrades. Going from Chicago to San Francisco with stops in between should be 21 hours. Louisville to Chicago should be 2.5 to 3 hours.
fed just needs to enforce signal priority to amtrack basically.
"a lot of European high speed is only 111mph. ".. 111mph speed aint classified as "high speed" in Europe. The right statement should be: "a lot of European TRAIN speed is only 111mph." In Europe HS train speed is 300-320 kph (186-200mph). Example: Paris-Bordeaux 630km 2h05mn (25 euros)
In Europe commuter trains go 160km/h (almost all of them), which is 100 MPH, and some of them 200km/h (125 MPH). in the US, only MARC goes to 125MPH and NJT to 100MPH, most of them do 90 or less.
East Broadtop has a doodlebug in their round house.
It wasn't running when I was there though. /sadface
14:03
The station you see there is the Broad Street station in Richmond, Virginia. Today, it’s the main building for the Science Museum of Virginia, though it still has vintage equipment used by the RF&P on display along several of the platforms.
Amtrak now carries a majority of non auto traffic on the NEC, Brightline is doing VERY well even though it is less than 4 years old
They lost a court case to Branson, ridership is down 40% and forecasts are anything but profitable. Exactly how are they doing "very well"? For a dumpster fire yes!
@@cmkeelDIMridership is far from the only metric to measure wellness bud
24:28 That's my hometown!
Alan Fisher AKA the armchair urbanist made a video about this recently
This is the second of your videos I’ve watched. While I’ve never been a mainline big railroad fan I found it interesting thus I subscribed…
It’s sad that the US railroad industry is so misunderstood as well as not willing to put money back into itself. They’d rather sit back and let the infrastructure deteriorate while making profits. Sooner or later it’ll come back and bite them.
or they could be "too big to collapse" remember that
i think they are playing poker with uncle sam for that sweet sweet tax money
The 400, The Hiawatha's and the Zephyrs were only slowed down by 15 to 20 minutes, which still made them Chicago to St Paul for less than 6 hrs and 30 minutes
Nice to see the 611!
Ive fouded it extreamly funny that there are old cars in the backround 10:38
People nowadays have no idea what it was like to try to drive across America back in the old days before the highway system. Things like the Lincoln Highway were constructed because the road system was so poor. Of course it was built at government expense. An Alco PA diesel or a GM C or F unit could go $120 miles an hour all day and that's high speed rail mixed in with freight trains and everything else.
4:44 Ah yes.
The ole Nebraska Zephyr
I live along a potential HSR rail line from Chicago to NYC, as cool as it would be to have that done, it would hurt Frieght traffic, and its so expensive to upgrade those lines to HSR, not to mention Electrification of that stretch of track. Billions or trillions of dollars
Nice to see 261 and Milwaukee varnish.
Excellent overview, and historical lookback. One thing that's fascinated me is Amtrak's history, or rathe the fact that Amtrak has survived long enough to truly *have* a history, in spite of being caught in the middle of the country's ever-ossifying political standoffs, and hamstrung by budgets that would (mostly) shrink and (occasionally) expand at the whim of administrations and committees. Aside from Amtrak's current bullishness on expanding service, one ray of hope for me is seeing which states are currently at work on their own high(er) speed systems; politically, they run across the board, which tells me that we might be approaching a point where (call me crazy on this) having fast, reliable, frequent passenger rail service is desirable from both sides of the aisle, and maybe most places in-between.
So I actually wrote on the Acela Express from Rhode Island to the Big Apple and that was the longest train ride I had ever been on
With the M-10000, one of my uncles has a lionel standard gauge model of that streamliner.
More Midwest states should start using passenger trains more as the flat land means you can go very fast
The double deck coaches appeared first pre WWII in Germany with the LBE (Lübeck Büchener Eisenbahn) trains between Hambug and Lübeck, a private railway company.
That Train At 17:34 is from my club.
High speed rail is the talk of the town here in the DFW Metroplex. Japan Rail wants to sell us Shinkansen equipment to run between Dallas and Houston. Everything is still not certain and there has been pushback from landowners along the proposed ROW. Fort Worth wants to be included in the plans, but that's not a guarantee that we'll see HSR in Fort Worth.
One key feature missing from this video: electrification, electrification, electrification! Proper overhead catenary is a requirement for ANY adequate rail service (it’s the bare minimum standard in most of the world). The CSX acquisition in Virginia is a MASSIVE missed opportunity since it does not include an extension of the electrified Northeast Corridor to Richmond- it is merely trying to further extend the “status quo” of antiquated diesel push pull operations that stem from the early 20th century. America will never have proper passenger rail if it doesn’t electrify its lines! Also, the cost to electrify our current rail lines is nothing compared to the EGREGIOUS costs we shovel out for our highways.
How did CSX get the RF&P? Then Governor Wilder apparently sucked up to billionaire Jack Kent Cooke. He packed the Virginia Supplemental Retirement System board with cronies.The VSRS owned a substantial amount of RF&P stock. With a packed board, the VSRS tendered its RF&P stock to CSX. I read that he knew the CSX would abandon Potomac Yard. Wilder allegedly wanted to use the abandoned yard to build Jack Kent Cooke Stadium.Wilder reputedly sucked up to the super rich. I don't think he cared what CSX would do with the rest of the RF&P.
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Proper overhead catenary is a requirement for ANY adequate rail service (
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Except for in your mind, it is clearly not.
But why should we electrify our lines? This country is massive and makes little economic sense to do so given how bad our Economy is right now. plus we're having problems with our power grid right now, so what's the real benefit in it?
Other countries: We have high speed rail...
United States: We had it 90 years ago!
Nowsy glad I clicked on this video
No! The problem isn’t American high-speed rail sucking, it’s people just refusing to use Amtrak in favor of metal boxes because they want to.
Just an example, the Texas Star goes from Chicago to Austin to San Antonio, the Dallas to Austin run only taking around six hours, which is *really* impressive considering Amtrak uses primarily freight lines on this leg as well as making several stops along the way.
I know because I’ve been on the Texas Star from Dallas-Fort Worth-McArthur-Austin and it’s a very pleasing trip.
(if only roomettes weren’t so expensive, around $300. Even then, coach seems really nice although during the pandemic you couldn’t take your mask off if you were in coach.)
i agree
Or we live in an area without passenger service. I've lived in the OKC metro. If I were going to go to Texas, I would take AMTRAK. However, most of my trips followed I-44, where there is no passenger service. What I wouldn't do to be able to take a train for that drive instead.
@@karlrovey or that, of course. I’m just talking about all the people who are in areas which do have other forms of public transportation which they think sucks only because they would like to be efficient and use their car instead of commute to station/airport, get on plane/train, exit to other station/airport the commute to point b. It sound hard but when you plan ahead some (like you may do on a long trip by car) it isn’t much of a hassle.
@@karlrovey IH-40 which goes north and south along the mideastern part of Texas is way to busy and is full of morons who only just know how to drive so alternate methods of transportation seem kind of logical to me at least.
@@RailsofForney I've been stuck on the turtle race that is I-35 construction in TX. Taking the Prairie Flyer would definitely be preferable.
Ever heard of the Chicago strike?
I'm scares its coming
What is it?
11:19 one of my favorite pacifics😁
Trains are awesome to travel on, where I live inter city air travel for business is a horror show of wasted time whereas I can get a sleeper at 8pm and arrive at 8am after a shower for around 30% more than a mainstream plane.