No brainer except for the billions of dollars (and probably double that) to build it. I live in upstate NY between Syracuse and Rome and our worthless governor spends taxpayer money on frivolous items while our roads are in terrible shape. A lot of dreamers are on here. Tell me how the shared trackage for CSX and AMTRAK would support high speed? Easy to put imaginary lines on the map without consideration of all the variables it would have to contend with.
There is another benefit you didn't mention. Massachusetts is currently working on expanding rail from Boston to Western Massachusetts. This would leader to faster speeds to Albany and points West of Albany as well which would be a huge benefit for upstate NY as they'd have faster access to another major economic center.
I briefly talked about the Northern New England HSR Corridor near the end of the video. I think generally conditions would be reassessed as the systems get built out. Any connection to Albany would likely to increase demand, I agree.
You could also link this up to the Hartford corridor at Springfield that opens up a lot of route potential deep into New England from NYC while bypassing Boston.
Thanks for the comprehensive video. As eluded to, keeping to 125 mph but eliminating conflicts with freight would please most New Yorkers. Penn to Stuart Airport would be a game changer. Going East of Penn Station routing to Jamaica via LIRR right of way brings close to JFK and there is serious talk of a train station on the NEC near LGA airport
Yeah, this is in isolation, but of course if other connecting or connected routes improve, this changes the case. New York Stewart is a convenience of the I-87 option, but that option is quite expensive considering only the airport connection. I think HSR on Empire looks a lot more attractive if the route could go west on NEC at Penn as well as east.
@@LucidStew the port authority's airports are are some of their most profitable assets. If you're able to make the only airport that doesn't interfere with the other new York airports the most accessable to Manhattan with a rail service they don't have to operate, the port authority might be willing to cough tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
LGA doesn't even have a connection to the subway or LIRR and every proposal to extend LIRR or subway there gets NIMBYd to death. LGA and JFK should've had subway and LIRR connections 40 years ago. EWR is more accessible by rail and isn't even in New York state.
Not sure if Vancouver is any different, but at Niagara Falls they have to do a crew change at the border, apparently because VIA doesn't want Amtrak engineers running the trains and vice versa. They then also do customs and immigration, and this can delay trains up to 2 hours. This, of course, would defeat the purpose of high speed rail. It needs to be able to cross the border at speed with any checks at whatever terminal.
@@LucidStewI’ve done the Cascades trip. The train goes past the Blaine/White Rock border and keeps going to the Vancouver station, where customs happens. Customs for US bound trains also happens in the Vancouver station, like how the Canadian airports process customs for US bound flights. It also helps that Vancouver is very close to the border, about 22 miles, so stopping the train at the border to swap out passengers isn’t worthwhile.
The 125mph electric proposal shaved 3.5hrs off the current times and came in at around 12 billion...it called for upgrading the existing tracks to 110mph south of Albany and building a double tracked line west of Albany along the existing line...it was sadly rejected for a slow diesel 90mph train which will take 15 yrs to fully build out... The 125mph option had a yearly ridership project of 6.5 million passengers. The New route you propose skips over the large towns and small cities that drive the upstate usage.
I could see a mid-speed system working, and that's basically what I'm advocating. I just don't think a true high speed system would work in the corridor for many reasons. Among them is the relatively poor connectivity west of Syracuse you point out that would result from a necessarily faster and straighter route.
From an European point of view is astonishing the fear to electrificate railway lines in USA: in Europe a similar line was electrified and upgraded to 125 mph from many years and maybe we have built yet an high speed international line to Toronto. Another things that we stop to use on railway lines is third rail electrification: why do you continue to have third rail electrified lines and not convert to faster and safer overhead catenary? You are the richest and powerful nation of the world, why have you trouble to build necessary high speed lines?
@@d1234as it's not a fear. For the most part the freight rail companies control the rail rights of way. Freight is generally uninterested in higher speeds. They also double stack modular cargo, which is incompatible with overhead electrification for passenger vehicles. This and our extensive system of motor vehicle freeways makes new hsr rights of way difficult. This is part of the purpose of this series: to point out some of the real difficulties involved in going beyond simply saying or thinking it should be built.
@@LucidStew India is doing double stacked cargo hauled by electric trains. The pantographs look pretty ridiculous because of their height, but it works, somehow
One quibble I have - you don't have to use a dual mode train for Amtrak or convert electrification at all right away. Already on Metro North along the NEC there are sections of dual electrification, you could just continue using third rail where it's placed and Metro North could switch to overhead once they reach the end of the third rail. For the section from Penn, you can build overhead lines for Amtrak to use, and then at some point remove the third rail when Metro North no longer requires it. They already have dual mode trains so being able to use either mode wouldn't be an issue. Either way, you can have two systems on the same track, it's just not ideal.
Well Metro North locomotive hauled trains don’t even use the 3rd rail outside of the tunnels, only the EMUs. The reason is because they can’t get enough power from the rail with just one or two points of contact and therefore it hinders performance dramatically. It works for 10 car emu trains when you have 10 or 20 shoes touching the rail, but DC power is really limited when you have one or two shoes making contact.
There are only two short sections of dual electrification tracks in the NYC area. Sunnyside yard to Penn where LIRR briefly rides on NEC track, and the changeover section on the MNR New Haven line where the M8s transition from 3rd rail to OHLE and that section is like less than 1 mile. Empire corridor out of Penn only has 3rd rail to 47th St, but in practice Amtrak fires up the diesel as soon as they clear the platform at Penn since the P32DM is dog slow on 3rd rail. MNR does the same with theirs, they fire up the diesel as soon as they're clear of the platform at GCT. LIRR switches on and off 3rd rail with their dual modes at Woodside, but they have to run 2 locomotives to be able to climb the grade to get into and out of Penn.
I live in Philadelphia and am from Syracuse originally so my family is there and I don't have a car, so I take either the Northeast line or the Keystone line to NYC and then the Empire line to Syracuse. Having high-speed rail for the Empire line would be a dream-come-true for me Alas, I don't think it would ever happen because, like you pointed out, ridership falls off a cliff after Albany and the federal government would probably see the project as a big waste of money
The ridership falls off a cliff in a self fulfilling prophecy. The cities of upstate NY have abysmal transit and the train takes twice the time vs driving on the thruway. (Per google maps station to station data to eliminate the impact of local transit on the city to city time) This means the fix is to improve the local transit of these cities and upgrade the intercity trains to average atleast 65mph. (Minimum expected speed of the highway, 80 would be ideal for the train as that's about as fast as you can go reliably without getting a ticket) NY is theoretically an ideal state for HSR because its cities are functionally in a line since all the big ones were made by the Erie Canal. The rest of the cities could then be covered by slower regional rail that would ideally target 60mph or more to match the speed limit of the "low roads". (Meaning not interstate standard highways)
@jasonreed7522 There are parts of the ROW that could be rather fast, but getting to those parts(Syracuse and west) is about $40 billion in my estimation. But ultimately, I think if a diesel-electric train optimized for 110mph(and the situation is currently 65mph) that changes things as well, and that can be done for much less $.
@@LucidStew i have to fix my mental image of the current state of our trains then. The last time i checked was about a year ago when a station to station "race" from Springfield Mass to Syracuse NY was 8hrs but only 4 by car. (Cities chosen as a single leg of a longer route, values taken at face value from google maps) Redoing the race tonight with the same standard that heavily favors the train, the Springfield to Albany route nolong has a train and instead detours to NYC. So just checking Albany to Syracuse and adjusting the departure time to match a train's, the train is 2hr45min vs 2hr20min by car, which is alot better than being litterally double. (I don't know if NY has managed some upgrades or if my last check was affected by either construction or lingering covid budget cuts) Unfortunately station to station travel time isn't the only statistic that matters, its just the easiest to look up. (Although NY weather should be a big boon to the train, lake effect regularly causes whiteout conditions that shut down the highways, if you can still run during that you will collect a bunch of travelers in the winter.)
@jasonreed7522 Absolutely, although I do want to note that Buffalo's Exchange Street station is actually in a great location within walking distance from downtown (too bad it's mostly empty) and Canalside. Rochester and Syracuse's stations are in horrible locations, and none of the three cities have any appetite for better transit. This is one of the major reasons why I moved to Philly.
@@jacobwood1707 its really a shame that these cities don't invest in transit when they are so well suited to it. Old AF cores from the days of the Erie Canal combined with airports, major Universities, and popular tourist attractions (malls, fair grounds, theme parks, sports teams), ect. They all even have a history of transit. (Admittedly Syracuse tried it for like 2 decades before bad management destroyed it) These cites were practically created by the Erie Canal, you would think they would know the value of having a world class transportation system and the benefits it brings to your economy. (Especially compared to expensive roads and elevated highways) Probably the place to start in these cities is either a single "airport connector" type line, or with a strong bus fleet that supports venues on event days/nights. (After having driven out of a concert before, and taken a short bus ride from the venue to an impromptu park-in-ride at a strip mall parking lot, i can't overstate how much i prefered the bus bypassing all of that concert parking lot jam. The more people experience this the more they will start to like transit as a thing they need in their city.)
I remember talk of this corridor back when I was shopping for colleges in the early 2000s (I ended up going to RPI near Albany) and getting excited to see initial capital investments with attempts to refurb old Amtrak Turboliners that ultimately went nowhere. There's a decently compelling interstate and international case for HSR in this corridor that you do a very good job discussing at the end. Truthfully, the corridor could benefit significantly more with strategic investments to get more of the line up to 110mph and with at least hourly service daily from NYC to Niagara.
The final EIS is referenced in the description. They studied this for a long time and ended up going with a 90mph alternative implemented over 25 years. Anything beyond that might be a long time coming. There's definitely room for improvement between Albany and Buffalo.
There is an easy way (or easier certainly) of connecting the main line at Syracuse to get a station right in the middle of town, mostly at-grade with some cut-and-cover. It's also miles shorter than anything else under consideration, and of course one wonders why.
@@LucidStew I can't remember how it goes now exactly, but it didn't seem especially complicated. I'd have to load it in Google Earth + look. There was one desirable newer building that it would be better to take out - though one could say it's discretionary, and just leave it that way for 100 years. Better to make an equitable deal with them to "build back better" - as long as you're building a railroad.
My ideal HSR system for New York State would be a NYC-Montreal line with 5 stops (Poughkeepsie and Plattsburgh) and a Buffalo-Boston line with 7 stops (all obvious) with provisions to extend from Buffalo towards Toronto and Cleveland, amd a schedule to make transfers at Albany as convenient as possible. (Each city would also need to fix its local & regional transit networks) Realistically the Empire corridor as described is much more likely, if only because its entirely within New York State and connects NY's main population corridor (the former Erie Canal). Although the easiest thing to do would be to push for more incremental improvements to get the existing services to be atleast competitive with the thruway. (Although you may have to build new tracks for Amtrak, or eminent domain to steal them from the frieght companies which would be unpopular.)
The connection to Montreal is on the Northern New England corridor, so I'll get to it eventually, but it runs through New Hampshire and Vermont. However, I'm in favor of HSR everywhere it makes sense.
The railroads have the right of eminent domain. Their property cannot be taken by public entities. There are many court cases where various governments sought to condemn. railroad property and failed.
@@michaeljones7927 "right of eminent domain" means the right to eminent domain stuff, i think you mean "right from" or "immunity from" since eminent domain is the power to legally steal property in the name of the public good.
@@LucidStew although that routing links Montreal to Boston, resulting in a significant detour for anyone looking to go between Ottawa & Montreal, and NYC & DC. (A theoretically high travel demand "corridor" of 4 cities) When you cover the new England corridor, please provide travel time estimates between NYC and Montreal with a direct routing and a new England routing. (The direct routing is practically as the crow flys distance, even if you were to hit Burlington instead of Plattsburgh)
@@jasonreed7522 The freight railroads have the right under state law to condemn private property for transportation purposes because they are common carriers. Because they are common carriers, their right-of-way cannot be taken by public entities. Their right-of-way is further protected by the federal courts because railroads are INTERSTATE common carriers. Put simply, neither Amtrak nor New York State can take the property of CSX or Norfolk Southern.
Would it be an option to serve Buffalo Central Terminal, do a Tunnel below Larkinville, then cross the border at Fort Erie and following the Queen Elizabeth Way. Then putting the Niagara Falls Station on the Canadian side (with regional rail connecting the right side of the Niagara River from Buffalo) and onwards to St. Catharines, Hamilton and Toronto? Would love to see the old and marvelous Buffalo Central Terminal be in use again.
I WANTED to cross further south in Buffalo rather than do cross-country to Niagara Falls. I just couldn't find a route that works. A tunnel to the lake is an interesting idea, but getting across to Canada seems difficult.
Bypassing Rochester seems like a poor idea considering the fact that they just built a new train station and have a relatively straight ROW that could be upgraded. Additionally many of the crossings in the area are not at-grade and if they are it wouldn't be difficult to re-align them.
The main principles I base that on are that freight will not relinquish right of way if it means altering their current operations and that passenger service over 110mph will have to achieve physical separation with freight due to the incompatibility of double-stacked freight with overhead catenary systems. The main problem with Rochester is that the ROW is currently full through the area and can't really be expanded without significant destruction. A further assumption is that ROW shared with freight will necessarily run at 110mph or less. In this case, a Rochester detour would cause an HSR route to slow to 110mph or lower for 40-60 miles even if the freight companies allowed it.
@@LucidStew You bring up a good point, but it just doesn't seem like the NYS Legislature would pass a high speed rail system that bypasses the 3rd largest city in NY. You mention that the ROW cant be expanded, but CSX may be willing to sell the ROW through Rochester and use the West Shore Subdivision instead, which is single track, but used to be double track, and still has room for double track in many spots.
@@evanharkin Possible. These videos are essentially politics-free. When you start adding politics, I think a route changes quite a bit. Someone else may consider the cost in funding and speed for downtown Rochester to be worthwhile, or even demand it, as you say.
Have you considered doing a video on high speed rail on the lackawanna cutoff. Connecting Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Scranton PA., terminating in New York.
There should be a spur connection from Amtrak to the Albany Airport. The actual current rail line is only about 3 miles from the airport itself. So adding a spur-line off the mainline shouldn't be that difficult. And it wouldn't need a humongous, grandiose railroad station either. Just a simple platform with access to the parking lots, shuttle bus service, and the airport terminal, and the passenger rail connector service could easily allow 5,000 more people per day to make trips to and from the Albany Airport. And finally, we need to bring back passenger rail service to the West of the Hudson River! There is no passenger rail service from Newburgh to Albany, the most crucial section of the route! Diesel-Multiple-Units could be timed to run in-between freight trains, and would allow an alternative to the slow East-Shore lines that currently run between Poughkeepsie and Rensselaer!
Given the amount of airports west of there and the main point of the entire line being Albany to NYC travel, I don't see the utility in connecting the Albany International. It would probably be far more productive for Albany to handle that themselves with light rail.
This one seems to be very complicated and expensive, I think if the federal government would have to pick one project to support, it should probably be the Chicago - Indianapolis route that you looked at in the previous video. But this corridor could be interesting if the state of New York can fund it on it's own to take some stress of the airports.
I really do think a 110 max train would be fine in this case. If they could get NYC to Albany below 2 hours it would remove most incentive to do something like true hsr
If there is one project that the federal government should support, it's the California HSR development. And I say that as a Texan who wants to see HSR in the Texas Triangle. The population of Buffalo, NY and the cities between it and Albany is totally inadequate to justify spending twenty billion, much less 50 to 80 billion. If there is that much money available for more rail infrastructure in the Northeast, it should go to the NEC between NYC and DC, where there is real population density. California first, NEC second, Texas Triangle third. That should be the order of priorities for federal HSR funding.
@michaeljones7927 you do know the feds are supporting both projects right? There's 22b for rail upgrades in the infrastructure bill and another 20b for provisional grants for high speed
@@htown148 The problem is that there are no high speed rail projects in the development phase, except for California and the NEC. Other than those two projects, there is nothing else that might use some of the federal money to make meaningful incremental improvements, except for Chicago-Detroit and Chicago-St. Louis, but they'll never become true HSR lines unless they first shed the freight trains. Illinois might be able buy the Chicago-St. Louis line from UP, and then request federal funding for major track, signal, bridge, and crossing upgrades, including high-speed by-passes around some of the small towns. Other than California HSR, the wisest choice might be funding Brightline West because it's close to project commencement, and it's going to be true HSR.
@michaeljones7927 high speed can't happen until we truly being more electrification to the grid which the energy department is doing. They just closed on a huge transmission deal to connect Canada and NE usa which is needed if we wanna bring more HSR. We need to build the infrastructure first.
I think the international connection New York - Montreal is very intriguing. In terms of distance, it would smoke the cars and be competitive with planes. You already covered the southern part up to Albany, so that part could be used for the Empire Corridor. With a connection to Boston, the northern part could serve Montreal too. New York and Montreal are big, all three can put in enough political weight to get this done
Great video. I live along the Empire Corridor in the Hudson Valley and I agree that topping off at 125mph makes the most sense. The dedicated tracks west of Schenectady and electrification along the whole route are no-brainers. Modern European-standard EMU trains would be great because their rapid-acceleration would help you recover from curves with speed restrictions better. Maybe something like a customized Stadler Giruno that could handle high platforms. Also adopting the UIC vs FRA standards for superelevation, or at least what's used on the NEC would help improve average speeds. I'd think redoing the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge/CP 12 to eliminate conflicting moves and bridge openings is key to both speed and reliability. and I'd increase the MAS on the third-rail stretch to Croton-Harmon to 90mph where possible. Farther north trains can actually reach 110mph now on a few stretches between Hudson and Schenectady. How about shooting for an 80 mph average speed across the corridor with stops, allowing for an approximately 5.5 hour trip from NYP to Downtown Buffalo.? Like the Swiss, I'd emphasize reliablity and frequency on clock-face schedules 7-days a week over eye-watering top speeds. Then feed that with quality TOD and quality connecting bus or even some BRT service depending on the size of the city and also great bike/ped infrastructure to link in. The cores of the cities in the Hudson Valley and Upstate were built around the rail corridors and canals and have good bones. I really believe what I bill 125-rail could really make these cities shine and done right it could make the train a popular choice for intemediate city pairs on top of travel to and from New York City. How about a Toronto to NYC night train that'd also provide later evening or early morning service to intermediate stations to complement corridor service and the Leaf?
I think 5 1/2 hours NYC-Buffalo is doable without breaking the bank. There are a lot of little things, as you mention to overcome or improve to get there. The studied 125mph alternative features a new dedicated ROW west of Albany. I think the key is getting away from the freight ROWs. Once you have it built, you a whole new tool to utilize.
@@LucidStew So true getting away from the freights and all the cans of worms they bring is key. So much potential on this route. Would you not have all the trains continue from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, at least initially? What would be the best Albany-NYC time with 125 mph MAS and making the current station stops 2-hours or about 71 mph average speed?. Redoing the antiquated Hudson station with very tight curve and low-level platform that requires a hold out rule that only allows one train to serve the station at a time would be another big one I see.
@@brianhubert8418 I think for this line to be most successful it should end in Toronto and get there as quickly as possible. It's good to connect all the ~1 million pop NY state metros, but bookending NYC with a 6 million metro would really aid throughput, I think. It needs to be able to cross the border at speed. Even 125mph all the way to Toronto would provide a lot of interesting city pair connections.
@@LucidStew I agree. adding Toronto and its metro area would make it much more compelling and they seem to be on track to some great stuff with G) electrification setting the infrastructure there to get the trains right downtown with multi-track routes that avoiding freight-clogged ROWs. It'd be great to bookend the system with two masive metro areas both with strong transit ridership. It looks like Toronto and Buffalo are about a 100 miles apart. So even if you say an 80 mph average on BUF-TOR you could still do NYC to Toronto in about 6hr and 50 minutes even with a five minute or so stop in Buffalo.
I like your thoughts about utilizing power line right of way. After Gateway is completed what about routing trains up NJ Transit Mainline/Bergen County line past Suffern, Harrimen then following I-87 past Stewart Airport and up to Albany. Running next to highways is something Brightline is doing, SoCal to Vegas via I-15 and Orlando to Cocoa via FL toll 528.
With Niagara Falls being what it is to power generation, there they were! At first I was thinking they were a pain to work around, but for certain parts I concluded the interstate or the freight ROW just weren't suitable. So you have to go cross-country, but one my guiding principles is to minimize that to keep costs and litigation down. Now what? Zoom out a few miles, those lines pop right off the map. Using the interstate has its own challenges. A lot of the curves are designed for cars and most of those ROWs are only 200ft wide. If you have more than 3 lanes in each direction, you have a problem. Kind of the same idea as power, though: land acquisition next to an existing ROW is probably easier.
I’ve always liked the idea of running a high speed line up the I-87 right of way to Albany. Currently the Port Jervis line (maintained by Metro north, and operated by Jersey Transit) runs right along I - 87 from Suffern to near Mountainville NY (7 miles south of Stewart Airport), where it turns left and uses the Moodna viaduct, which is a 115 year old, single track trestle where speeds are limited to 30 miles per hour, and seems to be closed almost every weekend for maintenance. Running High speed tracks from Suffern to Stewart would be an easy solution that Metro North could use and that stretch could be built now. The Port Authority, which operates Stewart airport could build a station in airport property which is adjacent to I-87. From there High Speed could continue up I - 87 to Albany with a stop in Kingston and Metro North could go north to New Paltz on the same line. From Stewart Airports new Station, High speed tracks could head west on I-84 right of way to Scranton PA. Metro North could use this route to continue train service to Middletown and Port Jervis, thus avoiding the slow tracks it currently uses after running alongside I-87. High Speed trains could run from Suffern to Albany with stops at Stewart and Kingston. At Suffern riders could connect to NJ Transit to either Penn Station or Hoboken. This could be started sooner, would take less time to build, and could be in service in less than 10 years. Eventually a bridge could be built over the Hudson at the Tappan Zee bridge and run up I-87 and connect with the now existing tracks at Suffern for a one seat ride from Penn Station to Albany.
I doubt it will cost 50 billion for 500 miles of track. I know that they will share the track, but there will certainly be long tunnels and viaducts, which drive up costs. I think the correct estimate is 80 billion. $50 billion is half of CAHSR's costs despite them having roughly the same distance.
Keep in mind I'm not going into Syracuse, Rochester, or Buffalo, so that entire section is really cheap. Also NYC to Peekskill would stay more or less as is. My route has 1/3 of cahsr's tunnels.
So many decades American and Canadian Governments talk about an high speed rail line from New York City to Albany and finally Montreal, QC, Canada through Adirondack's State Park. But the problem is that the current railroad line of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City formerly of the D&H between Whitehall and Plattsburgh, NY has several curves which the railroad track crisscrosses Lake Champlain extending Amtrak's Adirondack travel time by ten hours from Montreal to NYC and the opposite compare flight time between both cities in 1 hour and a half and compare to a six-hour drive from Montreal to NYC and from NYC to Montreal in 5 hours 56 drive. And finally 7 hours and 35 minutes reaching NYC from Montreal by bus and 8 hours and 35 minutes by bus. So my point is that a new high speed rail line must be built from Saratoga Springs to Tahawus, NY to Lake Placid and Plattsburgh, NY via the former D&H track which is rails has removed since long time ago in Peru not far away from I-87 Adirondack Northway to reach Plattsburgh International Airport which I will see a train station for this one plus the current Plattsburgh Downtown Station connecting the CPKC track to Canadian Border at Rouses Point, NY to Montreal bypassing towns of Napierville, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu reaching Delson, Brossard to St-Lambert and crossing St. Lawrence River to Montreal's Central Station.
You would never get approval for a travel corridor through the middle of the High Peaks in the Adirondack Park - it would take a NY Constitutional Amendment which would surely fail. It barely passed when I-87 was proposed. The D&H line does NOT cross Lake Champlain, just a couple of bays. We need to compromise by making a higher (than present) speed outside the Park and improve the border crossing in Montreal.
The Windsor-Québec corridor should be beefed up so that the Empire Corridor can truly run (and by run, I mean skip going to Toronto but go to Chicago, passing by London, Windsor, and Detroit)
Still think the best route uses Buffalo Central, approached over the disused Lehigh Valley Line (upgraded of course) then a stop at "Actual Central" in Downtown Buffalo, by means of building a street aligned tunnel reaching under the Niagara River and connecting to the disused Niagara Railroad Line, which would enable an underground station in central Niagara Falls as well, then a connection to the old CN route through Hamilton - which offers a lot of potential for high speed but currently has a grade crossing about every 50' - to continue on towards Detroit and/or Toronto. This should be our first NY-Chicago trans-con I believe, as getting to Cleveland has a lot of intractable property issues and circuitousness involved going out of Buffalo. I should also add that Amtrak, et al (referring to what I call the Freight Carrier Railroad Engineering FRA Revolving Door Cabal) have constructed a very slow and constrained passage through Buffalo with their recent station "Upgrade" - playing upon alleged political incentives of gullible politicians and so on - and as a practical matter that route can no longer be used for through-running on a schedule that's anything like speedy. That was deliberate, and it will stay that way.
That's an interesting take. Looking at various routes one could certainly get the impression that Amtrak isn't in much of a hurry. The politics of rail is very interesting. I had considered tunnelling under Buffalo in an attempt to reach the border. Everything I came up with seemed quite difficult. What I've realized making these videos is that I have to limit my options fairly quickly in order to explore any given route in detail. In doing so, I may miss things that work better.
@@LucidStew Thanks for responding, Lucid. Yup I understand about budgeting your time, but find RRs are different from planning other things like architecture. They're tricky, and find you gotta wait a year or two to be sure anything's right. (I mean conceptually, such as a routing. That's another one of my theories - in this work I think its black+white, right or wrong, + won't delve into supporting that now.) I think clearly you have a good instinct for it, but then I think I 'm the foremost rail transp. planner of my generation, by DEFAULT - so I should know, Right? Right now I'm in the place of waiting for a lot of projects to get to start phase so I can sue them, while knowing there's no chance of winning - just to have it in the record. It's sort of a form of self-directed destruction, but then they may never break ground. EVERY one of 'em, seems on some level deliberately compromised.
@@brucehain Thanks. I like hearing other peoples ideas because I'm pretty new to really digging in and figuring out what works. As I hear from other people I can see my biases and how they're sometimes working against me. The tendency to avoid destruction. I think it's good to avoid the pushback you'd get, but at the same time am seeing that sometimes it's pull the trigger or simply don't get it done. That's really the heart of these series, trying to taking a step beyond saying it should be done and seeing the positives and negatives of what that means.
@@LucidStew Right. Well, that's a more practical approach than what I find myself taking now. It might be good for you to try drawing in Google Earth, which has elevations that are pretty detailed and can be corroborated with the USGS topo map. (google topo map to get the free KML file) Most people who draw linear infra use fancy computer programs which I'm sure take time to learn, and they have to buy their suvey data, so it's very costly. Google Earth is laborious though, but if you use feet (not meters) you have a fairly accurate idea of actual elevations. To draw a curve you use the line tool - which is good down to two past the decimal - to draw your tangents, then find the center and use the circle tool to draw the curve. If you measure curves you'll find many have no spirals at all. To get a decent looking curve on any over a 500' radius it's necessary to superimpose four circle tool circles. And if you think about it you'll figure out how to space them, cause they only have 72 nodes, every 5 degrees. Everything, including switch and crossing angles is in decimal degrees. Though you'll see engineers describe things in degrees-minutes-seconds (or I have) but they don't add up. (i shit you not, see Amtrak's Engineering's 2003 "Track Design Specifications" - and if you add up their degrees on the double slip switch and you'll see it's wrong. It's actually 7.4 degrees. (that's the cabal, alright) So instead you have to lay the picture file out in Google Earth and measure the angle. Headings either end on zero or 5 at the 2nd decimal place. I got part-way though a video on how the sausage is made but had more urgent things. Anyway, being able to draw like that, as laborious as it is, will get it so you can conceptualize in real terms. Sorry I go on so much; there's a website: rail-nyc-access.com all the Best, b.
Oh, and I forgot: you gotta have a computer with six navigation keys. (Last I looked some Thinkpads and Dell laptops still have them) Without six navigation keys you could alternately use three hands.
Super late to the party here, but I wondered if you had looked into circumventing the Hudson Highlands/lower Hudson Valley altogether? Do you think it would be possible to instead go *east* from Penn Station on the current NEC route, then transition northward at either Rye (I-287 > I-684) or Larchmont/Mamaroneck (I-95 > convert redundant N/S on-ramp at Saxon Drive > Mamaroneck Avenue > Hutchinson River Pkwy > I-684), and then from there use the I-684 and I-84 rights-of-way to Newburgh/Stewart Int'l Airport before linking up with your I-87 alternative? It's a little more roundabout, but it seems better to avoid the topographic challenges and slower speeds of the Hudson Valley/Highlands Gorge if we're not even going to stop at any of the towns there. And if people are looking for a scenic Hudson Valley train ride, the more moderate speeds of the current Metro North route give riders more time to take in the scenery anyway Beyond Albany I don't know, but I'm definitely wishing for Toronto service - NYC to Toronto in 4 hours via rail would be amazing Thanks, always enjoy your videos, keep 'em coming
Yes, in fact I did look at that. Production of one of these videos often involves snap decisions with a 10,000 mile view in order to get them done in any reasonable time frame. I don't recall why I decided against it, but the freeways are not the straightest.
5:51 Ahh the Freedom Tunnel, I have a lot of memories there painting graffiti and watching trains fly by, there is actually a lot of interesting history behind this tunnel, it used to occupy plenty of homeless when Conrail came to an end and the tunnel was abandoned. The empty walls became a canvas for writers and the tunnel was taken over by graffiti, it still has a lot of amazing pieces to this day.
I am, of course, late to this video but I still want to comment on it. I think that the HSR corridor should cross the Hudson at the Tappan-Zee and stop at Stewart Airport following the NYS thruway. At the same time, Stewart should be upgraded and revamped into a proper international airport, given an additional long runway and the station for Newburgh should become a transit center. From Newburgh, trains should extend west first into Scranton then up into Binghamton following the Susquehanna River all the way to Rochester. This will enable reliable connectivity for the people in the Rust Belt part of NYS to be able to access more travel options and tap into the Scranton metro area through Port Jarvis. In addition, this can make Binghampton into a transfer junction where a line can head up I-81 to connect it with Syracuse and link up the vast majority of the states upstate population with its downstate population and connect all of them to major transit centers. To handle the inevitable complaints from upstate residents on the east side of the river I believe that a light rail line should be constructed underneath the Hudson linking Newburgh with Poughkeepsie, this will make it more affordable for sure. I do believe these projects should be separated and not part of a single package so that they can all be built simultaneously but are not 100% dependent on each other. Once this project is constructed, a branch line should run from the newly completed train bridge over the Hudson across westchester, if possible, to connect New Rochelle and Rye. This creates a separate terminus to run trains from and also provides for more connectivity to these residents at Stewart airport. Another package here could be a mass transit system for Westchester county, given how large the county is and how far north it extends, around these newly constructed transit centers. Extending out from here, Albany’s station should be moved from its current place, which is way too far outside the city center, and a new transit hub should be built near the downtown area. Albany already had a small transit system, it should be built out, and Albany airport should be upgraded. The East-West Albany to Buffalo project should be a separate independent project. For Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, the stations should be built as straight and aligned with the Right of Way as possible and the cities should be given their own transit systems to move people into and out of Downtown. These options should be undertaken by these respective cities and the Buffalo airport should be expanded as a result of the train terminus being moved there. Extending the line from Buffalo to Niagara would make sense in order to connect it up with Canada but that backtracking out of Buffalo area isn’t the best move. Perhaps snaking the line up following the highways right next to the Buffalo airport so as to not backtrack and make Niagara a branch line instead of being on the mainline. For these alternate branches, while it would be great to electrify them, they don’t HAVE to be electrified, especially if we are going to be using the Siemens charger locomotives. This will help keep costs down. But, the mainline route, at least when the train gets across the Hudson, should be looking at using overhead power for speeds above 125mph. And the entire upstate section; Albany-Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo-Niagara should be electrified via overhead wires. Towns built near or along the new right of way can bid for their own stations to be constructed after the line has been built, and the new line should consider this as part of its original construction, with plots of land set aside for future possible stations in places like Schenectady, Kingston, etc where the train will switch onto the platform tracks off the mainline and then return back once passengers are boarded. Most importantly, because New York State can never do anything properly, the entire completed line should be run by an independent state owned corporation who is subsidized by public funds, creating an Amtrak for New York State. Eventually, connections can be made out of Albany to Boston, Vermont, and Montreal but at a future time.
You are better off extending this in two directions on the Western end international towards Toronto Union Station the under one is towards Cleveland Ohio via Erie Pennsylvania from Buffalo, NY. You can also extend the HSR on to Boston South Station from Albany by following Interstate 90
I brushed it off a little because these videos are about the American HSR corridors, but a connection to Toronto without the current nonsense at the border would change this proposal quite a bit.
Building a full HSR corridor there might pushing what is viable there. HSR is an order of magnitude more expensive than regular rail. Getting the existing Empire corridor up to 125mph line speed and working towards electrification is much more attainable in a realistic timeframe.
Let the tourists take the slow train; more time to look at the scenery. Why not a New York to Montreal high speed rail, following corridors like I-87? Maybe someday later a Boston to Toronto HSR could become viable, and provide correcting service between all 4 major cities. If doing HSR, and spending so much on land and grade separation, why not use the fastest current tech, at a more compelling 400-500km/h?
I'd not considered both because one or the other is expensive, but simply electrifying the Hudson River route and going with a full-speed I-87 route is an interesting idea. There are several reasons not to go even faster. The land and grading for 200mph doesn't cover what you'd need for a 250mph train. Curve radius gets pretty large beyond 200mph(which is already about 3 miles). Maintenance and energy costs rise dramatically with speed, such that most operators don't find it profitable to run beyond 350kph/210mph in service. The sweet spot for electric is closer to 125mph. As a result, ticket prices go up. 200mph HSR service is about competitive with air fare. Above that, HSR loses advantage and won't be outrunning a jet.
I'll always fight for high speed rail in New York, but I have one major problem with this proposal. The stations NEED to be in the downtown areas. The tract for instance you suggested for Rochester is in the middle of suburb hell. Think NIMBY x10. Also, it's nowhere near actual Rochester. All it would become would be a tiny station surrounded by a SEA of parking. That, and the station platforms in the existing downtown station were designed with high speed in mind. The trains have to slow down anyways to stop in these cities too. The trains aren't going to barrel through here at 150mph. The best bet would to be to straighten out all the curves like you suggested, but maintain the current route. We also can't just skip Utica, as it is a stop on the Empire Corridor.
Well, see this is the problem because you can't have it all. If it remains the same basic route, you will get more or less what you already have. This is essentially what they're doing right now, only at a 90mph standard instead of 110. The official study that preferred the current 90mph alternative estimated that would result in a 7 1/2 hour NYC to Niagara trip. This video is not about shaving off minutes, it's about eliminating multiple HOURS and making it as, if not more, competitive than other modes of transportation. If they were to build true high speed rail, they could also electrify lines into the various upstate New York cities for connectivity downtown, but that's more money. The need to bypass those metros, for the most part is not really avoidable. It's not like I set out to do that. That is the conclusion I came to after staring at maps for 3 days straight.
I hope you do a video on the infrastructure bill and the billions that amtrak is spending it on. Its interesting watching amtrak priorities now that they finally have $$
I'll be covering that off an on as it relates to Acela and the NEC in my Stew's News series. There will also be a dedicated NEC video, similar to this one, eventually.
The Pennsylvania route for Chicago to NYC is never going to be faster than the Empire Corridor, because the long straight section of the route you drew is actually going right through the Appalachian Mountains, and thus couldn’t ever be straight without being at least 50% tunnel. Since building 80 miles of high speed tunnel would be ruinously expensive, that route would have to be much slower and more curvy.
As long as you could beat the car for both speed and comfort. I'd say it will be a victory. It doesn't have to be 150-186mph. The speed should be a means to that end alone imo. Look at the Vegas to LA route. If I am not wrong 80 percent of the trips are car based. Beating the car should be the priority.
I've only skimmed the existing Washington D.C.-Richmond Tier II EIS, but it looks like they're going to have a lot of trouble even getting to 90mph on the preferred alternative. I think rather than bother with trying to get that to 110, which would require substantial work, they'd be better off leap-frogging straight to dedicated ROW electrified HSR.(theme of the channel, basically)
for tourism purposes I think the current empire corridor services would be sufficient. You'd want a slower train to appreciate the river anyways, right? A route that's 3 billion cheaper and 10 minutes faster to albany seems like it would be a god send for this type of project. Although overall I do agree that considering the geography it seems pretty difficult and probably not worth it for anything above 110
I-95 is becoming more and more congested as time goes on. But I-95 covers the entire United States Eastern seaboard. To make a powerful impact against this chaos and a catastrophe waiting to happen along with offering relieve to many who sit stranded at airports due to cancellations and delays during the holidays and travel seasons and to improve infrastructure and economic growth, Amtrak needs to do it right. How? Build the United States Atlantic Bullet Line. Amtrak, (you already have the bullets)! Now build a new line from Boston Massachusetts to Jacksonville Florida stopping in New York city, New York, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Baltimore Maryland, Washington DC, Richmond Virginia, Charlotte North Carolina, Charleston south Carolina, Atlanta Georgia and ending up in Jacksonville Florida. From there passengers can pickup Brightline to continue onward to other destinations throughout the state of Florida. The Atlantic bullet line would move millions of americans up and down the entire United States Eastern seaboard with great comfort and at bullet speeds of up to 200 to 225 plus mph. This is a system that the so called mighty United States of America should of had decades ago and today's american generation is lazy and not as ambitious as our american fore fathers were, even with all the technological advancements we have today to help in an endeavor such as this. Americans just don't see because they can't see the great benefits these modern marvels of transportation would provide. The ability to reach Jacksonville Florida in about 4 to 6 hours from Philadelphia Pennsylvania instead of 11.5 to 12.5 hours by car or 14 to 15 hours by EV. When it comes to flight, not everyone flyies and prices for flights continues to give rise. This project would cost an estimated 200 to 400 billion dollars and many americans would protest these costs but you never hear anyone protests the times when billions are given away to the Ukraine so they can fight their war. Remember all the money the United States government gave away in stimulus packages during the pandemic? The cost came to over 7 trillion dollars, 7 TRILLION dollars!!! America would rather spend 500 plus billion dollars to put some fool on mars which would benefit absolutely no one except for the fool going there and that is if they even make it back alive from a planet that doesn't even belong to man to possess. But building this line would not only benefit all but would cause a great american economic boom, just like in the far more advanced countries of the far east. I could board the bullet in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and be in New York city in under an hour or less and go to work, make that big New York paycheck and still be home in time for supper!!! Do you see? Hey America! Can you see? Naaaa i guess not or yous would have been done this a long time ago.. But i do give a hats off to the state of California who is currently working on the California highspeed rail project. Also hats off to the far more advanced countries of the far east and Europe their achievements in these great modern marvels of transportation. With Amtrak still kicking around the idea of their 100 to 120 mph trains which is still slow and lethargic compared to trains that reach speeds of 190 to 200 plus mph and now at the next level of highspeed train travel, Japan and China are now working on maglev super train technology. These are trains that reach speeds of up to 375mph and also far about the understanding of the primitive american people. For now, highspeed bullet trains and maglev super train technology is still the new american dream.....
My one nitpick of this video is that using power line corridors will not work. Some of those go straight up and down hills. You are talking about grades of 20-30 percent, it won't work for rail. That's why the current rail is right by the rail.
I hadn't inspected it very closely at this level, but on looking at the proposed route, it does appear to require about a 4 mile tunnel at one point. The rest appears to be within the scope of earthworks and viaducts. Any route can be made to work. The point is really that existing rail and the interstate aren't straight enough there and an alternative would be necessary to travel at high speed.
Keep in mind Acela averages 67mph between DC and Boston. And the Thruway/highways in New York have a reasonable max speed of 80mph, any more and you will start getting tickets. 110 may not be true highspeed, but it is faster than any existing alternatives and plans for faster could be made so that provisions for future work could be incorporated to lower the costs of incremental improvements to true high speed.
I think a competent 110mph system could do NYC-Albany in 2 hours flat and NYC-Niagara in about 6. There isn't a lot of room to improve beyond that between NYC and Syracuse and it would be very expensive for the improvement you get.
In today's HSR, 110 mph (176 kph) is not ever a true HSR. An HSR needs a minimum speed of 125 mph (200 kph). Our country is testing an HSR and now has surpassed 218 mph (350 kph) and will be operating from 18 August 2023.
Are you suggesting that I run through New Jersey in a New York HSR video, my friend? I just barely made it out alive for referring to the Tappan Zee Bridge as the Mario Cuomo Bridge!
It can be done, its just more expensive, limits speed, and really the biggest issue is that MTA owns the right of way, so its ultimately up to them what would happen.
The National Environmental Policy Act would squash this in a NY minute let alone groups like Scenic Hudson. First of all, CSX is not going to allow any interuptions in their service. Back in the day, NYCRR could hit 100 mph but you also had 4 tracks and you can't do that in Syracuse because the old right of way is now I 690 and any work on the existing one around the newer station to State Fair is built on old Solvay Waste which is like caustic toothpaste.
The Thruway ROW is not that wide in some areas and unless you plan to destroy the city of Little Falls, trying to get a train over the Summit between Dolgeville and Herkimer is impossible. In Syracuse, there would be pressure to bring the route downtown and not go to the airport because that is the politics of the area. The airport is built on a swamp and groundwater, hazardous waste and caustic toothpaste like Solvay waste would be an issue as well. The Thruway West of Syracuse cuts through a 3 mile long Montezuma wildlife refuge so that is another issue. Skipping downtown Rochester would also be political suicide and no support would be given.
I'll still be doing the city pair style that is more map heavy, but this is a different approach for a different audience, so turning it into the city pair series is counterproductive.
This would be more than likely a Brightline project if something like this would ever come to fruition. Amtrak would love to try but they don't have the resources to even try at the moment, and the freight railroads will NOT cooperate. This would involve track leasing with Amtrak in NYC Metro area and the rest at all new track by a private venture, being Brightline. Amtrak wouldn't be able to get the funds to do it.
@@LucidStew yes. If a private company were to do this as proposed they'd only be able to lease the land from the state government and depending on who's in power they may not get even an audience to propose anything. Rail fans and opponents on both sides poison the well...
@@kietero Yeah, its difficult even if you ARE doing something like an interstate right of way because access to that can sway with the political wind as well. One thing I'm seeing that seems to have been a wasted opportunity is Amtrak not acquiring old rights of way as they were abandoned. A lot of the time these end up being turned into nature trails or even streets, like in Buffalo. More than once I've lost a perfectly reasonable routing solution this way.
So overall good video. I feel if you're going to build HSR In America it should just go for max speed at 250mph. Reason being your not building for just for Newyork state. So firstly upgrade the current route to high frequency, better grade separation etc as you pointed out in this video. However I would go further: Albany original station is better located. So rebuild the bad highway and regenerate the town for a riverside developments (with station high speed + freight bypass) Rochdale again the high speed stuff doesn't have to stop at the town bit you give the high speed trains access to jump of the high speed line. Then back onto it. Again bing on my phone reinstating the old station would be a good idea. With buffalo. I would think a triangular station would be better suited for the city.. use someone where that is cental, make it underground. But able to handle trains from new york to buffalo and Canada New York to buffalo and onward to chicargo And Chicargo to buffalo and Canada. Mad idea: the above ground is either the old union station taken down brick brick and relocated, or build a building that can have the old fassard bolted onto the outside. Also for hsr you can have a station bypass to take you to chicargo direct of Canada.
I like that you're thinking big. I wanted there to be some movement on removing I-787 in Albany so I could work in a riverfront station on the west bank. I don't live there, so I'm not sure how it works out, but I wasn't a fan of where the current station is in relation to where people live. It also seemed to be dependent on the I-787 interchange to convey road traffic to there. Those two combined are why I went with the UAlbany idea. On the speed, I'm working from a couple of principles. 1 is that its preferrable not to cut new rights of way due to extra cost and litigation. Because of that interstate ROWs offer a nice alternative between metros. 200mph is fairly difficult to maintain within an interstate ROW. That's not just a theory, that's experience from me trying to make it work over the course of several videos. 250 would be that much more difficult. Not to say its impossible! If you had an inordinately straight interstate, then why not? 2nd principle is that building to a slightly lower standard makes it more likely to actually be built. As stated, not always the case. If you have a nice, straight flat route, it probably doesn't cost that much more to go for it. I don't think that was the case with New York though.
@LucidStew unfortunately all new high-speed cut new RoW. Where they can use the same Row as current infrastructure, then do so. Also, don't be scared to put tunnels in. Like the Penn to water level route connection, going under that river connection is probably less work than a flyover. Ships are taller above than below. I feel high-speed platforms at Penn would probable need new designated platforms of 400m length so I've always thought an underground box below the current set maybe preferable. Then you can get both lines the southern section of the NEC and waterlevel route to link up.
@@qjtvaddict While making this I was wondering how tenable that was. Out here we have some really broad power paths with lots of room between tower rows. That didn't seem to be the case with the ones in upstate New York. I also ran across a gas pipeline, but that seemed like a really bad idea. 😅
Half the time to get to Buffalo compared to the present sound awesome! Still, 110mpg isn't 'high speed'; trains have been going that speed since the 1930s.
I would say one objective of this series is to expose the fact that "hsr" in these corridors for the most part means 110mph in anything but the longest term. I think that's ok some places. I think its the better option in the Empire Corridor. I think some places, like Chicago Hub could do a lot better.
@@LucidStew BTW I did some reading about Buffalo Central station after thes video which was quite interesting but tinged with he usual tragedy as for so many stories of old stations.
@@SirKenchalot I very nearly missed it as I did not previously have any familiarity with the Buffalo area. That part of the rights of way and the surround area give very little indication its there until zooming in.
Solution: Bring in Train-experts from Europe and Japan to advise and bite bottom lip when the adice is given that won't be popular; especially with the freight companies.
Difficult to see how you figure the 2 are equivalent. One of Stewart's issues is that it is poorly connected. HSR would plug directly into Manhattan. Not sure where you're saying air doesn't work. The other NYC area airports are some of the busiest in the country.
You don’t sound too positive knowing america today it won’t be done by the next century along with the California hsr before it is possible is infrastructure that is lacking in the whole country not just New York 😊
I'm so happy you created this video. It's a no brainer for high speed rail in upstate NY.
No brainer except for the billions of dollars (and probably double that) to build it.
I live in upstate NY between Syracuse and Rome and our worthless governor spends taxpayer money on frivolous items while our roads are in terrible shape. A lot of dreamers are on here. Tell me how the shared trackage for CSX and AMTRAK would support high speed? Easy to put imaginary lines on the map without consideration of all the variables it would have to contend with.
There is another benefit you didn't mention. Massachusetts is currently working on expanding rail from Boston to Western Massachusetts. This would leader to faster speeds to Albany and points West of Albany as well which would be a huge benefit for upstate NY as they'd have faster access to another major economic center.
I briefly talked about the Northern New England HSR Corridor near the end of the video. I think generally conditions would be reassessed as the systems get built out. Any connection to Albany would likely to increase demand, I agree.
You could also link this up to the Hartford corridor at Springfield that opens up a lot of route potential deep into New England from NYC while bypassing Boston.
Thanks for the comprehensive video.
As eluded to, keeping to 125 mph but eliminating conflicts with freight would please most New Yorkers. Penn to Stuart Airport would be a game changer. Going East of Penn Station routing to Jamaica via LIRR right of way brings close to JFK and there is serious talk of a train station on the NEC near LGA airport
Yeah, this is in isolation, but of course if other connecting or connected routes improve, this changes the case. New York Stewart is a convenience of the I-87 option, but that option is quite expensive considering only the airport connection. I think HSR on Empire looks a lot more attractive if the route could go west on NEC at Penn as well as east.
@@LucidStew the port authority's airports are are some of their most profitable assets. If you're able to make the only airport that doesn't interfere with the other new York airports the most accessable to Manhattan with a rail service they don't have to operate, the port authority might be willing to cough tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
LGA doesn't even have a connection to the subway or LIRR and every proposal to extend LIRR or subway there gets NIMBYd to death. LGA and JFK should've had subway and LIRR connections 40 years ago. EWR is more accessible by rail and isn't even in New York state.
Well made. Although you probably triggered some people by referring to the Tappan Zee as the Mario M. Cuomo bridge.
I figured by shortening it to just "Mario cuomo" enough people might feel like I disrespected it to even things out.
@@LucidStew 🤣 Fair enough.
He did trigger me lol
For the purposes of accuracy, the Mario Cuomo Bridge is correct. The recently constructed bridge replaces the old Tappan Zee Bridge.
@@martincruz8319not in our hearts.
Amtrak's Cascade's line crosses the Canadian boarder into Vancouver. So there is a precedent for international train travel.
Not sure if Vancouver is any different, but at Niagara Falls they have to do a crew change at the border, apparently because VIA doesn't want Amtrak engineers running the trains and vice versa. They then also do customs and immigration, and this can delay trains up to 2 hours. This, of course, would defeat the purpose of high speed rail. It needs to be able to cross the border at speed with any checks at whatever terminal.
@@LucidStewI’ve done the Cascades trip. The train goes past the Blaine/White Rock border and keeps going to the Vancouver station, where customs happens. Customs for US bound trains also happens in the Vancouver station, like how the Canadian airports process customs for US bound flights.
It also helps that Vancouver is very close to the border, about 22 miles, so stopping the train at the border to swap out passengers isn’t worthwhile.
Two home runs....for sure. Two out of two is damn good. Can't wait for the next video. I'm sure we won't be disappointed.
The 125mph electric proposal shaved 3.5hrs off the current times and came in at around 12 billion...it called for upgrading the existing tracks to 110mph south of Albany and building a double tracked line west of Albany along the existing line...it was sadly rejected for a slow diesel 90mph train which will take 15 yrs to fully build out... The 125mph option had a yearly ridership project of 6.5 million passengers. The New route you propose skips over the large towns and small cities that drive the upstate usage.
I could see a mid-speed system working, and that's basically what I'm advocating. I just don't think a true high speed system would work in the corridor for many reasons. Among them is the relatively poor connectivity west of Syracuse you point out that would result from a necessarily faster and straighter route.
From an European point of view is astonishing the fear to electrificate railway lines in USA: in Europe a similar line was electrified and upgraded to 125 mph from many years and maybe we have built yet an high speed international line to Toronto. Another things that we stop to use on railway lines is third rail electrification: why do you continue to have third rail electrified lines and not convert to faster and safer overhead catenary? You are the richest and powerful nation of the world, why have you trouble to build necessary high speed lines?
@@d1234as it's not a fear. For the most part the freight rail companies control the rail rights of way. Freight is generally uninterested in higher speeds. They also double stack modular cargo, which is incompatible with overhead electrification for passenger vehicles. This and our extensive system of motor vehicle freeways makes new hsr rights of way difficult. This is part of the purpose of this series: to point out some of the real difficulties involved in going beyond simply saying or thinking it should be built.
@@LucidStew India is doing double stacked cargo hauled by electric trains. The pantographs look pretty ridiculous because of their height, but it works, somehow
@@counterfit5 my understanding is that those are dedicated freight rights of way.
One quibble I have - you don't have to use a dual mode train for Amtrak or convert electrification at all right away. Already on Metro North along the NEC there are sections of dual electrification, you could just continue using third rail where it's placed and Metro North could switch to overhead once they reach the end of the third rail. For the section from Penn, you can build overhead lines for Amtrak to use, and then at some point remove the third rail when Metro North no longer requires it. They already have dual mode trains so being able to use either mode wouldn't be an issue. Either way, you can have two systems on the same track, it's just not ideal.
Well Metro North locomotive hauled trains don’t even use the 3rd rail outside of the tunnels, only the EMUs. The reason is because they can’t get enough power from the rail with just one or two points of contact and therefore it hinders performance dramatically. It works for 10 car emu trains when you have 10 or 20 shoes touching the rail, but DC power is really limited when you have one or two shoes making contact.
There are only two short sections of dual electrification tracks in the NYC area. Sunnyside yard to Penn where LIRR briefly rides on NEC track, and the changeover section on the MNR New Haven line where the M8s transition from 3rd rail to OHLE and that section is like less than 1 mile. Empire corridor out of Penn only has 3rd rail to 47th St, but in practice Amtrak fires up the diesel as soon as they clear the platform at Penn since the P32DM is dog slow on 3rd rail. MNR does the same with theirs, they fire up the diesel as soon as they're clear of the platform at GCT. LIRR switches on and off 3rd rail with their dual modes at Woodside, but they have to run 2 locomotives to be able to climb the grade to get into and out of Penn.
A high speed rail across NY state makes so much sense and would benefit upstate New Yorkers greatly
Absolutely.
I live in Philadelphia and am from Syracuse originally so my family is there and I don't have a car, so I take either the Northeast line or the Keystone line to NYC and then the Empire line to Syracuse. Having high-speed rail for the Empire line would be a dream-come-true for me
Alas, I don't think it would ever happen because, like you pointed out, ridership falls off a cliff after Albany and the federal government would probably see the project as a big waste of money
The ridership falls off a cliff in a self fulfilling prophecy. The cities of upstate NY have abysmal transit and the train takes twice the time vs driving on the thruway. (Per google maps station to station data to eliminate the impact of local transit on the city to city time)
This means the fix is to improve the local transit of these cities and upgrade the intercity trains to average atleast 65mph. (Minimum expected speed of the highway, 80 would be ideal for the train as that's about as fast as you can go reliably without getting a ticket)
NY is theoretically an ideal state for HSR because its cities are functionally in a line since all the big ones were made by the Erie Canal. The rest of the cities could then be covered by slower regional rail that would ideally target 60mph or more to match the speed limit of the "low roads". (Meaning not interstate standard highways)
@jasonreed7522 There are parts of the ROW that could be rather fast, but getting to those parts(Syracuse and west) is about $40 billion in my estimation. But ultimately, I think if a diesel-electric train optimized for 110mph(and the situation is currently 65mph) that changes things as well, and that can be done for much less $.
@@LucidStew i have to fix my mental image of the current state of our trains then. The last time i checked was about a year ago when a station to station "race" from Springfield Mass to Syracuse NY was 8hrs but only 4 by car. (Cities chosen as a single leg of a longer route, values taken at face value from google maps)
Redoing the race tonight with the same standard that heavily favors the train, the Springfield to Albany route nolong has a train and instead detours to NYC. So just checking Albany to Syracuse and adjusting the departure time to match a train's, the train is 2hr45min vs 2hr20min by car, which is alot better than being litterally double. (I don't know if NY has managed some upgrades or if my last check was affected by either construction or lingering covid budget cuts)
Unfortunately station to station travel time isn't the only statistic that matters, its just the easiest to look up. (Although NY weather should be a big boon to the train, lake effect regularly causes whiteout conditions that shut down the highways, if you can still run during that you will collect a bunch of travelers in the winter.)
@jasonreed7522 Absolutely, although I do want to note that Buffalo's Exchange Street station is actually in a great location within walking distance from downtown (too bad it's mostly empty) and Canalside. Rochester and Syracuse's stations are in horrible locations, and none of the three cities have any appetite for better transit. This is one of the major reasons why I moved to Philly.
@@jacobwood1707 its really a shame that these cities don't invest in transit when they are so well suited to it. Old AF cores from the days of the Erie Canal combined with airports, major Universities, and popular tourist attractions (malls, fair grounds, theme parks, sports teams), ect. They all even have a history of transit. (Admittedly Syracuse tried it for like 2 decades before bad management destroyed it)
These cites were practically created by the Erie Canal, you would think they would know the value of having a world class transportation system and the benefits it brings to your economy. (Especially compared to expensive roads and elevated highways)
Probably the place to start in these cities is either a single "airport connector" type line, or with a strong bus fleet that supports venues on event days/nights. (After having driven out of a concert before, and taken a short bus ride from the venue to an impromptu park-in-ride at a strip mall parking lot, i can't overstate how much i prefered the bus bypassing all of that concert parking lot jam. The more people experience this the more they will start to like transit as a thing they need in their city.)
I remember talk of this corridor back when I was shopping for colleges in the early 2000s (I ended up going to RPI near Albany) and getting excited to see initial capital investments with attempts to refurb old Amtrak Turboliners that ultimately went nowhere.
There's a decently compelling interstate and international case for HSR in this corridor that you do a very good job discussing at the end. Truthfully, the corridor could benefit significantly more with strategic investments to get more of the line up to 110mph and with at least hourly service daily from NYC to Niagara.
The final EIS is referenced in the description. They studied this for a long time and ended up going with a 90mph alternative implemented over 25 years. Anything beyond that might be a long time coming. There's definitely room for improvement between Albany and Buffalo.
Has the cost of electrification been addressed? And how much will it drain the state's power grid with 3rd rails or catenary overheads?
There is an easy way (or easier certainly) of connecting the main line at Syracuse to get a station right in the middle of town, mostly at-grade with some cut-and-cover. It's also miles shorter than anything else under consideration, and of course one wonders why.
It's an option. I tended to go with less pain. The only issue I see is the CSX yard, but you could probably negotiate flying over that.
@@LucidStew I can't remember how it goes now exactly, but it didn't seem especially complicated. I'd have to load it in Google Earth + look. There was one desirable newer building that it would be better to take out - though one could say it's discretionary, and just leave it that way for 100 years. Better to make an equitable deal with them to "build back better" - as long as you're building a railroad.
My ideal HSR system for New York State would be a NYC-Montreal line with 5 stops (Poughkeepsie and Plattsburgh) and a Buffalo-Boston line with 7 stops (all obvious) with provisions to extend from Buffalo towards Toronto and Cleveland, amd a schedule to make transfers at Albany as convenient as possible. (Each city would also need to fix its local & regional transit networks)
Realistically the Empire corridor as described is much more likely, if only because its entirely within New York State and connects NY's main population corridor (the former Erie Canal).
Although the easiest thing to do would be to push for more incremental improvements to get the existing services to be atleast competitive with the thruway. (Although you may have to build new tracks for Amtrak, or eminent domain to steal them from the frieght companies which would be unpopular.)
The connection to Montreal is on the Northern New England corridor, so I'll get to it eventually, but it runs through New Hampshire and Vermont. However, I'm in favor of HSR everywhere it makes sense.
The railroads have the right of eminent domain. Their property cannot be taken by public entities. There are many court cases where various governments sought to condemn. railroad property and failed.
@@michaeljones7927 "right of eminent domain" means the right to eminent domain stuff, i think you mean "right from" or "immunity from" since eminent domain is the power to legally steal property in the name of the public good.
@@LucidStew although that routing links Montreal to Boston, resulting in a significant detour for anyone looking to go between Ottawa & Montreal, and NYC & DC. (A theoretically high travel demand "corridor" of 4 cities)
When you cover the new England corridor, please provide travel time estimates between NYC and Montreal with a direct routing and a new England routing. (The direct routing is practically as the crow flys distance, even if you were to hit Burlington instead of Plattsburgh)
@@jasonreed7522 The freight railroads have the right under state law to condemn private property for transportation purposes because they are common carriers. Because they are common carriers, their right-of-way cannot be taken by public entities. Their right-of-way is further protected by the federal courts because railroads are INTERSTATE common carriers. Put simply, neither Amtrak nor New York State can take the property of CSX or Norfolk Southern.
Would it be an option to serve Buffalo Central Terminal, do a Tunnel below Larkinville, then cross the border at Fort Erie and following the Queen Elizabeth Way. Then putting the Niagara Falls Station on the Canadian side (with regional rail connecting the right side of the Niagara River from Buffalo) and onwards to St. Catharines, Hamilton and Toronto? Would love to see the old and marvelous Buffalo Central Terminal be in use again.
I WANTED to cross further south in Buffalo rather than do cross-country to Niagara Falls. I just couldn't find a route that works. A tunnel to the lake is an interesting idea, but getting across to Canada seems difficult.
Bypassing Rochester seems like a poor idea considering the fact that they just built a new train station and have a relatively straight ROW that could be upgraded. Additionally many of the crossings in the area are not at-grade and if they are it wouldn't be difficult to re-align them.
The main principles I base that on are that freight will not relinquish right of way if it means altering their current operations and that passenger service over 110mph will have to achieve physical separation with freight due to the incompatibility of double-stacked freight with overhead catenary systems. The main problem with Rochester is that the ROW is currently full through the area and can't really be expanded without significant destruction. A further assumption is that ROW shared with freight will necessarily run at 110mph or less. In this case, a Rochester detour would cause an HSR route to slow to 110mph or lower for 40-60 miles even if the freight companies allowed it.
@@LucidStew You bring up a good point, but it just doesn't seem like the NYS Legislature would pass a high speed rail system that bypasses the 3rd largest city in NY. You mention that the ROW cant be expanded, but CSX may be willing to sell the ROW through Rochester and use the West Shore Subdivision instead, which is single track, but used to be double track, and still has room for double track in many spots.
@@evanharkin Possible. These videos are essentially politics-free. When you start adding politics, I think a route changes quite a bit. Someone else may consider the cost in funding and speed for downtown Rochester to be worthwhile, or even demand it, as you say.
Have you considered doing a video on high speed rail on the lackawanna cutoff. Connecting Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Scranton PA., terminating in New York.
it's not off the table. Doesnt look easy, though
There should be a spur connection from Amtrak to the Albany Airport. The actual current rail line is only about 3 miles from the airport itself. So adding a spur-line off the mainline shouldn't be that difficult. And it wouldn't need a humongous, grandiose railroad station either. Just a simple platform with access to the parking lots, shuttle bus service, and the airport terminal, and the passenger rail connector service could easily allow 5,000 more people per day to make trips to and from the Albany Airport. And finally, we need to bring back passenger rail service to the West of the Hudson River! There is no passenger rail service from Newburgh to Albany, the most crucial section of the route! Diesel-Multiple-Units could be timed to run in-between freight trains, and would allow an alternative to the slow East-Shore lines that currently run between Poughkeepsie and Rensselaer!
Given the amount of airports west of there and the main point of the entire line being Albany to NYC travel, I don't see the utility in connecting the Albany International. It would probably be far more productive for Albany to handle that themselves with light rail.
This one seems to be very complicated and expensive, I think if the federal government would have to pick one project to support, it should probably be the Chicago - Indianapolis route that you looked at in the previous video. But this corridor could be interesting if the state of New York can fund it on it's own to take some stress of the airports.
I really do think a 110 max train would be fine in this case. If they could get NYC to Albany below 2 hours it would remove most incentive to do something like true hsr
If there is one project that the federal government should support, it's the California HSR development. And I say that as a Texan who wants to see HSR in the Texas Triangle. The population of Buffalo, NY and the cities between it and Albany is totally inadequate to justify spending twenty billion, much less 50 to 80 billion. If there is that much money available for more rail infrastructure in the Northeast, it should go to the NEC between NYC and DC, where there is real population density. California first, NEC second, Texas Triangle third. That should be the order of priorities for federal HSR funding.
@michaeljones7927 you do know the feds are supporting both projects right? There's 22b for rail upgrades in the infrastructure bill and another 20b for provisional grants for high speed
@@htown148 The problem is that there are no high speed rail projects in the development phase, except for California and the NEC. Other than those two projects, there is nothing else that might use some of the federal money to make meaningful incremental improvements, except for Chicago-Detroit and Chicago-St. Louis, but they'll never become true HSR lines unless they first shed the freight trains. Illinois might be able buy the Chicago-St. Louis line from UP, and then request federal funding for major track, signal, bridge, and crossing upgrades, including high-speed by-passes around some of the small towns. Other than California HSR, the wisest choice might be funding Brightline West because it's close to project commencement, and it's going to be true HSR.
@michaeljones7927 high speed can't happen until we truly being more electrification to the grid which the energy department is doing. They just closed on a huge transmission deal to connect Canada and NE usa which is needed if we wanna bring more HSR. We need to build the infrastructure first.
This is very impressive! Keep up the great work!
I think the international connection New York - Montreal is very intriguing. In terms of distance, it would smoke the cars and be competitive with planes. You already covered the southern part up to Albany, so that part could be used for the Empire Corridor. With a connection to Boston, the northern part could serve Montreal too. New York and Montreal are big, all three can put in enough political weight to get this done
OOoh I love that transmission line idea!
You guys have high speed rail? Cool!
Great video. I live along the Empire Corridor in the Hudson Valley and I agree that topping off at 125mph makes the most sense. The dedicated tracks west of Schenectady and electrification along the whole route are no-brainers. Modern European-standard EMU trains would be great because their rapid-acceleration would help you recover from curves with speed restrictions better. Maybe something like a customized Stadler Giruno that could handle high platforms. Also adopting the UIC vs FRA standards for superelevation, or at least what's used on the NEC would help improve average speeds.
I'd think redoing the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge/CP 12 to eliminate conflicting moves and bridge openings is key to both speed and reliability. and I'd increase the MAS on the third-rail stretch to Croton-Harmon to 90mph where possible.
Farther north trains can actually reach 110mph now on a few stretches between Hudson and Schenectady.
How about shooting for an 80 mph average speed across the corridor with stops, allowing for an approximately 5.5 hour trip from NYP to Downtown Buffalo.? Like the Swiss, I'd emphasize reliablity and frequency on clock-face schedules 7-days a week over eye-watering top speeds.
Then feed that with quality TOD and quality connecting bus or even some BRT service depending on the size of the city and also great bike/ped infrastructure to link in. The cores of the cities in the Hudson Valley and Upstate were built around the rail corridors and canals and have good bones. I really believe what I bill 125-rail could really make these cities shine and done right it could make the train a popular choice for intemediate city pairs on top of travel to and from New York City.
How about a Toronto to NYC night train that'd also provide later evening or early morning service to intermediate stations to complement corridor service and the Leaf?
I think 5 1/2 hours NYC-Buffalo is doable without breaking the bank. There are a lot of little things, as you mention to overcome or improve to get there. The studied 125mph alternative features a new dedicated ROW west of Albany. I think the key is getting away from the freight ROWs. Once you have it built, you a whole new tool to utilize.
@@LucidStew So true getting away from the freights and all the cans of worms they bring is key. So much potential on this route. Would you not have all the trains continue from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, at least initially?
What would be the best Albany-NYC time with 125 mph MAS and making the current station stops 2-hours or about 71 mph average speed?. Redoing the antiquated Hudson station with very tight curve and low-level platform that requires a hold out rule that only allows one train to serve the station at a time would be another big one I see.
@@brianhubert8418 I think for this line to be most successful it should end in Toronto and get there as quickly as possible. It's good to connect all the ~1 million pop NY state metros, but bookending NYC with a 6 million metro would really aid throughput, I think. It needs to be able to cross the border at speed. Even 125mph all the way to Toronto would provide a lot of interesting city pair connections.
@@LucidStew I agree. adding Toronto and its metro area would make it much more compelling and they seem to be on track to some great stuff with G) electrification setting the infrastructure there to get the trains right downtown with multi-track routes that avoiding freight-clogged ROWs. It'd be great to bookend the system with two masive metro areas both with strong transit ridership. It looks like Toronto and Buffalo are about a 100 miles apart. So even if you say an 80 mph average on BUF-TOR you could still do NYC to Toronto in about 6hr and 50 minutes even with a five minute or so stop in Buffalo.
I like your thoughts about utilizing power line right of way. After Gateway is completed what about routing trains up NJ Transit Mainline/Bergen County line past Suffern, Harrimen then following I-87 past Stewart Airport and up to Albany. Running next to highways is something Brightline is doing, SoCal to Vegas via I-15 and Orlando to Cocoa via FL toll 528.
With Niagara Falls being what it is to power generation, there they were! At first I was thinking they were a pain to work around, but for certain parts I concluded the interstate or the freight ROW just weren't suitable. So you have to go cross-country, but one my guiding principles is to minimize that to keep costs and litigation down. Now what? Zoom out a few miles, those lines pop right off the map. Using the interstate has its own challenges. A lot of the curves are designed for cars and most of those ROWs are only 200ft wide. If you have more than 3 lanes in each direction, you have a problem. Kind of the same idea as power, though: land acquisition next to an existing ROW is probably easier.
I’ve always liked the idea of running a high speed line up the I-87 right of way to Albany. Currently the Port Jervis line (maintained by Metro north, and operated by Jersey Transit) runs right along I - 87 from Suffern to near Mountainville NY (7 miles south of Stewart Airport), where it turns left and uses the Moodna viaduct, which is a 115 year old, single track trestle where speeds are limited to 30 miles per hour, and seems to be closed almost every weekend for maintenance. Running High speed tracks from Suffern to Stewart would be an easy solution that Metro North could use and that stretch could be built now. The Port Authority, which operates Stewart airport could build a station in airport property which is adjacent to I-87. From there High Speed could continue up I - 87 to Albany with a stop in Kingston and Metro North could go north to New Paltz on the same line. From Stewart Airports new Station, High speed tracks could head west on I-84 right of way to Scranton PA. Metro North could use this route to continue train service to Middletown and Port Jervis, thus avoiding the slow tracks it currently uses after running alongside I-87. High Speed trains could run from Suffern to Albany with stops at Stewart and Kingston. At Suffern riders could connect to NJ Transit to either Penn Station or Hoboken. This could be started sooner, would take less time to build, and could be in service in less than 10 years. Eventually a bridge could be built over the Hudson at the Tappan Zee bridge and run up I-87 and connect with the now existing tracks at Suffern for a one seat ride from Penn Station to Albany.
I doubt it will cost 50 billion for 500 miles of track. I know that they will share the track, but there will certainly be long tunnels and viaducts, which drive up costs. I think the correct estimate is 80 billion. $50 billion is half of CAHSR's costs despite them having roughly the same distance.
Keep in mind I'm not going into Syracuse, Rochester, or Buffalo, so that entire section is really cheap. Also NYC to Peekskill would stay more or less as is. My route has 1/3 of cahsr's tunnels.
😊👍Great Video! Best Greetings
So many decades American and Canadian Governments talk about an high speed rail line from New York City to Albany and finally Montreal, QC, Canada through Adirondack's State Park. But the problem is that the current railroad line of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City formerly of the D&H between Whitehall and Plattsburgh, NY has several curves which the railroad track crisscrosses Lake Champlain extending Amtrak's Adirondack travel time by ten hours from Montreal to NYC and the opposite compare flight time between both cities in 1 hour and a half and compare to a six-hour drive from Montreal to NYC and from NYC to Montreal in 5 hours 56 drive.
And finally 7 hours and 35 minutes reaching NYC from Montreal by bus and 8 hours and 35 minutes by bus. So my point is that a new high speed rail line must be built from Saratoga Springs to Tahawus, NY to Lake Placid and Plattsburgh, NY via the former D&H track which is rails has removed since long time ago in Peru not far away from I-87 Adirondack Northway to reach Plattsburgh International Airport which I will see a train station for this one plus the current Plattsburgh Downtown Station connecting the CPKC track to Canadian Border at Rouses Point, NY to Montreal bypassing towns of Napierville, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu reaching Delson, Brossard to St-Lambert and crossing St. Lawrence River to Montreal's Central Station.
You would never get approval for a travel corridor through the middle of the High Peaks in the Adirondack Park - it would take a NY Constitutional Amendment which would surely fail. It barely passed when I-87 was proposed. The D&H line does NOT cross Lake Champlain, just a couple of bays. We need to compromise by making a higher (than present) speed outside the Park and improve the border crossing in Montreal.
The Windsor-Québec corridor should be beefed up so that the Empire Corridor can truly run (and by run, I mean skip going to Toronto but go to Chicago, passing by London, Windsor, and Detroit)
Still think the best route uses Buffalo Central, approached over the disused Lehigh Valley Line (upgraded of course) then a stop at "Actual Central" in Downtown Buffalo, by means of building a street aligned tunnel reaching under the Niagara River and connecting to the disused Niagara Railroad Line, which would enable an underground station in central Niagara Falls as well, then a connection to the old CN route through Hamilton - which offers a lot of potential for high speed but currently has a grade crossing about every 50' - to continue on towards Detroit and/or Toronto. This should be our first NY-Chicago trans-con I believe, as getting to Cleveland has a lot of intractable property issues and circuitousness involved going out of Buffalo.
I should also add that Amtrak, et al (referring to what I call the Freight Carrier Railroad Engineering FRA Revolving Door Cabal) have constructed a very slow and constrained passage through Buffalo with their recent station "Upgrade" - playing upon alleged political incentives of gullible politicians and so on - and as a practical matter that route can no longer be used for through-running on a schedule that's anything like speedy. That was deliberate, and it will stay that way.
That's an interesting take. Looking at various routes one could certainly get the impression that Amtrak isn't in much of a hurry. The politics of rail is very interesting. I had considered tunnelling under Buffalo in an attempt to reach the border. Everything I came up with seemed quite difficult. What I've realized making these videos is that I have to limit my options fairly quickly in order to explore any given route in detail. In doing so, I may miss things that work better.
@@LucidStew Thanks for responding, Lucid. Yup I understand about budgeting your time, but find RRs are different from planning other things like architecture. They're tricky, and find you gotta wait a year or two to be sure anything's right. (I mean conceptually, such as a routing. That's another one of my theories - in this work I think its black+white, right or wrong, + won't delve into supporting that now.) I think clearly you have a good instinct for it, but then I think I 'm the foremost rail transp. planner of my generation, by DEFAULT - so I should know, Right? Right now I'm in the place of waiting for a lot of projects to get to start phase so I can sue them, while knowing there's no chance of winning - just to have it in the record. It's sort of a form of self-directed destruction, but then they may never break ground. EVERY one of 'em, seems on some level deliberately compromised.
@@brucehain Thanks. I like hearing other peoples ideas because I'm pretty new to really digging in and figuring out what works. As I hear from other people I can see my biases and how they're sometimes working against me. The tendency to avoid destruction. I think it's good to avoid the pushback you'd get, but at the same time am seeing that sometimes it's pull the trigger or simply don't get it done. That's really the heart of these series, trying to taking a step beyond saying it should be done and seeing the positives and negatives of what that means.
@@LucidStew Right. Well, that's a more practical approach than what I find myself taking now. It might be good for you to try drawing in Google Earth, which has elevations that are pretty detailed and can be corroborated with the USGS topo map. (google topo map to get the free KML file) Most people who draw linear infra use fancy computer programs which I'm sure take time to learn, and they have to buy their suvey data, so it's very costly. Google Earth is laborious though, but if you use feet (not meters) you have a fairly accurate idea of actual elevations. To draw a curve you use the line tool - which is good down to two past the decimal - to draw your tangents, then find the center and use the circle tool to draw the curve. If you measure curves you'll find many have no spirals at all. To get a decent looking curve on any over a 500' radius it's necessary to superimpose four circle tool circles. And if you think about it you'll figure out how to space them, cause they only have 72 nodes, every 5 degrees. Everything, including switch and crossing angles is in decimal degrees. Though you'll see engineers describe things in degrees-minutes-seconds (or I have) but they don't add up. (i shit you not, see Amtrak's Engineering's 2003 "Track Design Specifications" - and if you add up their degrees on the double slip switch and you'll see it's wrong. It's actually 7.4 degrees. (that's the cabal, alright) So instead you have to lay the picture file out in Google Earth and measure the angle. Headings either end on zero or 5 at the 2nd decimal place. I got part-way though a video on how the sausage is made but had more urgent things. Anyway, being able to draw like that, as laborious as it is, will get it so you can conceptualize in real terms. Sorry I go on so much; there's a website: rail-nyc-access.com all the Best, b.
Oh, and I forgot: you gotta have a computer with six navigation keys. (Last I looked some Thinkpads and Dell laptops still have them) Without six navigation keys you could alternately use three hands.
Super late to the party here, but I wondered if you had looked into circumventing the Hudson Highlands/lower Hudson Valley altogether? Do you think it would be possible to instead go *east* from Penn Station on the current NEC route, then transition northward at either Rye (I-287 > I-684) or Larchmont/Mamaroneck (I-95 > convert redundant N/S on-ramp at Saxon Drive > Mamaroneck Avenue > Hutchinson River Pkwy > I-684), and then from there use the I-684 and I-84 rights-of-way to Newburgh/Stewart Int'l Airport before linking up with your I-87 alternative? It's a little more roundabout, but it seems better to avoid the topographic challenges and slower speeds of the Hudson Valley/Highlands Gorge if we're not even going to stop at any of the towns there. And if people are looking for a scenic Hudson Valley train ride, the more moderate speeds of the current Metro North route give riders more time to take in the scenery anyway
Beyond Albany I don't know, but I'm definitely wishing for Toronto service - NYC to Toronto in 4 hours via rail would be amazing
Thanks, always enjoy your videos, keep 'em coming
Yes, in fact I did look at that. Production of one of these videos often involves snap decisions with a 10,000 mile view in order to get them done in any reasonable time frame. I don't recall why I decided against it, but the freeways are not the straightest.
Wonderful
Dual electrification of track (third rail and overhead wires) is a possibility, but does increase costs.
Awesome video, keep 'em coming!
5:51 Ahh the Freedom Tunnel, I have a lot of memories there painting graffiti and watching trains fly by, there is actually a lot of interesting history behind this tunnel, it used to occupy plenty of homeless when Conrail came to an end and the tunnel was abandoned. The empty walls became a canvas for writers and the tunnel was taken over by graffiti, it still has a lot of amazing pieces to this day.
I am, of course, late to this video but I still want to comment on it. I think that the HSR corridor should cross the Hudson at the Tappan-Zee and stop at Stewart Airport following the NYS thruway. At the same time, Stewart should be upgraded and revamped into a proper international airport, given an additional long runway and the station for Newburgh should become a transit center. From Newburgh, trains should extend west first into Scranton then up into Binghamton following the Susquehanna River all the way to Rochester. This will enable reliable connectivity for the people in the Rust Belt part of NYS to be able to access more travel options and tap into the Scranton metro area through Port Jarvis. In addition, this can make Binghampton into a transfer junction where a line can head up I-81 to connect it with Syracuse and link up the vast majority of the states upstate population with its downstate population and connect all of them to major transit centers. To handle the inevitable complaints from upstate residents on the east side of the river I believe that a light rail line should be constructed underneath the Hudson linking Newburgh with Poughkeepsie, this will make it more affordable for sure. I do believe these projects should be separated and not part of a single package so that they can all be built simultaneously but are not 100% dependent on each other. Once this project is constructed, a branch line should run from the newly completed train bridge over the Hudson across westchester, if possible, to connect New Rochelle and Rye. This creates a separate terminus to run trains from and also provides for more connectivity to these residents at Stewart airport. Another package here could be a mass transit system for Westchester county, given how large the county is and how far north it extends, around these newly constructed transit centers. Extending out from here, Albany’s station should be moved from its current place, which is way too far outside the city center, and a new transit hub should be built near the downtown area. Albany already had a small transit system, it should be built out, and Albany airport should be upgraded. The East-West Albany to Buffalo project should be a separate independent project. For Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, the stations should be built as straight and aligned with the Right of Way as possible and the cities should be given their own transit systems to move people into and out of Downtown. These options should be undertaken by these respective cities and the Buffalo airport should be expanded as a result of the train terminus being moved there. Extending the line from Buffalo to Niagara would make sense in order to connect it up with Canada but that backtracking out of Buffalo area isn’t the best move. Perhaps snaking the line up following the highways right next to the Buffalo airport so as to not backtrack and make Niagara a branch line instead of being on the mainline. For these alternate branches, while it would be great to electrify them, they don’t HAVE to be electrified, especially if we are going to be using the Siemens charger locomotives. This will help keep costs down. But, the mainline route, at least when the train gets across the Hudson, should be looking at using overhead power for speeds above 125mph. And the entire upstate section; Albany-Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo-Niagara should be electrified via overhead wires. Towns built near or along the new right of way can bid for their own stations to be constructed after the line has been built, and the new line should consider this as part of its original construction, with plots of land set aside for future possible stations in places like Schenectady, Kingston, etc where the train will switch onto the platform tracks off the mainline and then return back once passengers are boarded. Most importantly, because New York State can never do anything properly, the entire completed line should be run by an independent state owned corporation who is subsidized by public funds, creating an Amtrak for New York State. Eventually, connections can be made out of Albany to Boston, Vermont, and Montreal but at a future time.
You are better off extending this in two directions on the Western end international towards Toronto Union Station the under one is towards Cleveland Ohio via Erie Pennsylvania from Buffalo, NY. You can also extend the HSR on to Boston South Station from Albany by following Interstate 90
I brushed it off a little because these videos are about the American HSR corridors, but a connection to Toronto without the current nonsense at the border would change this proposal quite a bit.
Building a full HSR corridor there might pushing what is viable there. HSR is an order of magnitude more expensive than regular rail. Getting the existing Empire corridor up to 125mph line speed and working towards electrification is much more attainable in a realistic timeframe.
A 90mph plan was just recently approved with a 25-year implementation timeline. 125mph and electrification could be a VERY long way off...
Let the tourists take the slow train; more time to look at the scenery. Why not a New York to Montreal high speed rail, following corridors like I-87? Maybe someday later a Boston to Toronto HSR could become viable, and provide correcting service between all 4 major cities. If doing HSR, and spending so much on land and grade separation, why not use the fastest current tech, at a more compelling 400-500km/h?
I'd not considered both because one or the other is expensive, but simply electrifying the Hudson River route and going with a full-speed I-87 route is an interesting idea.
There are several reasons not to go even faster. The land and grading for 200mph doesn't cover what you'd need for a 250mph train. Curve radius gets pretty large beyond 200mph(which is already about 3 miles). Maintenance and energy costs rise dramatically with speed, such that most operators don't find it profitable to run beyond 350kph/210mph in service. The sweet spot for electric is closer to 125mph. As a result, ticket prices go up. 200mph HSR service is about competitive with air fare. Above that, HSR loses advantage and won't be outrunning a jet.
I'll always fight for high speed rail in New York, but I have one major problem with this proposal. The stations NEED to be in the downtown areas. The tract for instance you suggested for Rochester is in the middle of suburb hell. Think NIMBY x10. Also, it's nowhere near actual Rochester. All it would become would be a tiny station surrounded by a SEA of parking. That, and the station platforms in the existing downtown station were designed with high speed in mind. The trains have to slow down anyways to stop in these cities too. The trains aren't going to barrel through here at 150mph. The best bet would to be to straighten out all the curves like you suggested, but maintain the current route. We also can't just skip Utica, as it is a stop on the Empire Corridor.
Well, see this is the problem because you can't have it all. If it remains the same basic route, you will get more or less what you already have. This is essentially what they're doing right now, only at a 90mph standard instead of 110. The official study that preferred the current 90mph alternative estimated that would result in a 7 1/2 hour NYC to Niagara trip. This video is not about shaving off minutes, it's about eliminating multiple HOURS and making it as, if not more, competitive than other modes of transportation. If they were to build true high speed rail, they could also electrify lines into the various upstate New York cities for connectivity downtown, but that's more money. The need to bypass those metros, for the most part is not really avoidable. It's not like I set out to do that. That is the conclusion I came to after staring at maps for 3 days straight.
Sorry but NO they don’t they need to be accessible by transit it doesn’t need to be in downtown. You can transfer
I'll take the Thruway ... forevah. 🤠
I hope you do a video on the infrastructure bill and the billions that amtrak is spending it on. Its interesting watching amtrak priorities now that they finally have $$
I'll be covering that off an on as it relates to Acela and the NEC in my Stew's News series. There will also be a dedicated NEC video, similar to this one, eventually.
The Pennsylvania route for Chicago to NYC is never going to be faster than the Empire Corridor, because the long straight section of the route you drew is actually going right through the Appalachian Mountains, and thus couldn’t ever be straight without being at least 50% tunnel. Since building 80 miles of high speed tunnel would be ruinously expensive, that route would have to be much slower and more curvy.
Possibly. I haven't studied the Keystone Corridor closely enough yet to determine how straight it can reasonably become.
As long as you could beat the car for both speed and comfort. I'd say it will be a victory. It doesn't have to be 150-186mph. The speed should be a means to that end alone imo.
Look at the Vegas to LA route. If I am not wrong 80 percent of the trips are car based. Beating the car should be the priority.
what do you think about speeding up to 110 between WDC and Richmond VA ?
I've only skimmed the existing Washington D.C.-Richmond Tier II EIS, but it looks like they're going to have a lot of trouble even getting to 90mph on the preferred alternative. I think rather than bother with trying to get that to 110, which would require substantial work, they'd be better off leap-frogging straight to dedicated ROW electrified HSR.(theme of the channel, basically)
for tourism purposes I think the current empire corridor services would be sufficient. You'd want a slower train to appreciate the river anyways, right? A route that's 3 billion cheaper and 10 minutes faster to albany seems like it would be a god send for this type of project.
Although overall I do agree that considering the geography it seems pretty difficult and probably not worth it for anything above 110
I-95 is becoming more and more congested as time goes on. But I-95 covers the entire United States Eastern seaboard. To make a powerful impact against this chaos and a catastrophe waiting to happen along with offering relieve to many who sit stranded at airports due to cancellations and delays during the holidays and travel seasons and to improve infrastructure and economic growth, Amtrak needs to do it right. How? Build the United States Atlantic Bullet Line. Amtrak, (you already have the bullets)! Now build a new line from Boston Massachusetts to Jacksonville Florida stopping in New York city, New York, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Baltimore Maryland, Washington DC, Richmond Virginia, Charlotte North Carolina, Charleston south Carolina, Atlanta Georgia and ending up in Jacksonville Florida. From there passengers can pickup Brightline to continue onward to other destinations throughout the state of Florida. The Atlantic bullet line would move millions of americans up and down the entire United States Eastern seaboard with great comfort and at bullet speeds of up to 200 to 225 plus mph. This is a system that the so called mighty United States of America should of had decades ago and today's american generation is lazy and not as ambitious as our american fore fathers were, even with all the technological advancements we have today to help in an endeavor such as this. Americans just don't see because they can't see the great benefits these modern marvels of transportation would provide. The ability to reach Jacksonville Florida in about 4 to 6 hours from Philadelphia Pennsylvania instead of 11.5 to 12.5 hours by car or 14 to 15 hours by EV. When it comes to flight, not everyone flyies and prices for flights continues to give rise. This project would cost an estimated 200 to 400 billion dollars and many americans would protest these costs but you never hear anyone protests the times when billions are given away to the Ukraine so they can fight their war. Remember all the money the United States government gave away in stimulus packages during the pandemic? The cost came to over 7 trillion dollars, 7 TRILLION dollars!!! America would rather spend 500 plus billion dollars to put some fool on mars which would benefit absolutely no one except for the fool going there and that is if they even make it back alive from a planet that doesn't even belong to man to possess. But building this line would not only benefit all but would cause a great american economic boom, just like in the far more advanced countries of the far east. I could board the bullet in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and be in New York city in under an hour or less and go to work, make that big New York paycheck and still be home in time for supper!!! Do you see? Hey America! Can you see? Naaaa i guess not or yous would have been done this a long time ago.. But i do give a hats off to the state of California who is currently working on the California highspeed rail project. Also hats off to the far more advanced countries of the far east and Europe their achievements in these great modern marvels of transportation. With Amtrak still kicking around the idea of their 100 to 120 mph trains which is still slow and lethargic compared to trains that reach speeds of 190 to 200 plus mph and now at the next level of highspeed train travel, Japan and China are now working on maglev super train technology. These are trains that reach speeds of up to 375mph and also far about the understanding of the primitive american people. For now, highspeed bullet trains and maglev super train technology is still the new american dream.....
There might be some complications from Utica to Syracuse because the Onieda indian nation has a lot of patchwork territory in that region
Hell yeah
My one nitpick of this video is that using power line corridors will not work. Some of those go straight up and down hills. You are talking about grades of 20-30 percent, it won't work for rail. That's why the current rail is right by the rail.
I hadn't inspected it very closely at this level, but on looking at the proposed route, it does appear to require about a 4 mile tunnel at one point. The rest appears to be within the scope of earthworks and viaducts. Any route can be made to work. The point is really that existing rail and the interstate aren't straight enough there and an alternative would be necessary to travel at high speed.
Be aware that the CaHSR Authority meeting isn't until the 29, i don't know if you want to wait for that or not
Even though its the biggest part of the video, the f&a meeting is the easiest part to produce.
They can build it in the medium of the I-90 on an elevated platforms.
110mph is not enough
In the country I live, the fastest trains go 65mph 😅
Keep in mind Acela averages 67mph between DC and Boston. And the Thruway/highways in New York have a reasonable max speed of 80mph, any more and you will start getting tickets.
110 may not be true highspeed, but it is faster than any existing alternatives and plans for faster could be made so that provisions for future work could be incorporated to lower the costs of incremental improvements to true high speed.
I think a competent 110mph system could do NYC-Albany in 2 hours flat and NYC-Niagara in about 6. There isn't a lot of room to improve beyond that between NYC and Syracuse and it would be very expensive for the improvement you get.
In today's HSR, 110 mph (176 kph) is not ever a true HSR. An HSR needs a minimum speed of 125 mph (200 kph). Our country is testing an HSR and now has surpassed 218 mph (350 kph) and will be operating from 18 August 2023.
What about just using Hoboken so you don't have to cross the Hudson?
Are you suggesting that I run through New Jersey in a New York HSR video, my friend? I just barely made it out alive for referring to the Tappan Zee Bridge as the Mario Cuomo Bridge!
Why not use both third rail and catenary on the same section?
It can be done, its just more expensive, limits speed, and really the biggest issue is that MTA owns the right of way, so its ultimately up to them what would happen.
@@LucidStewThere is only two third rail powered trains in the world both in the UK.
I want to hear about the I-87 route so bad! 🤕
What about Albany Union Station?
The National Environmental Policy Act would squash this in a NY minute let alone groups like Scenic Hudson. First of all, CSX is not going to allow any interuptions in their service. Back in the day, NYCRR could hit 100 mph but you also had 4 tracks and you can't do that in Syracuse because the old right of way is now I 690 and any work on the existing one around the newer station to State Fair is built on old Solvay Waste which is like caustic toothpaste.
The Thruway ROW is not that wide in some areas and unless you plan to destroy the city of Little Falls, trying to get a train over the Summit between Dolgeville and Herkimer is impossible. In Syracuse, there would be pressure to bring the route downtown and not go to the airport because that is the politics of the area. The airport is built on a swamp and groundwater, hazardous waste and caustic toothpaste like Solvay waste would be an issue as well. The Thruway West of Syracuse cuts through a 3 mile long Montezuma wildlife refuge so that is another issue. Skipping downtown Rochester would also be political suicide and no support would be given.
I'll still be doing the city pair style that is more map heavy, but this is a different approach for a different audience, so turning it into the city pair series is counterproductive.
If the man who built the Erie canal was able to convince the state to build the canal they can do this
This would be more than likely a Brightline project if something like this would ever come to fruition. Amtrak would love to try but they don't have the resources to even try at the moment, and the freight railroads will NOT cooperate. This would involve track leasing with Amtrak in NYC Metro area and the rest at all new track by a private venture, being Brightline. Amtrak wouldn't be able to get the funds to do it.
In most of these corridors the freight companies and finding ways around them is the main stumbling block to true high speed.
@@LucidStew yes.
If a private company were to do this as proposed they'd only be able to lease the land from the state government and depending on who's in power they may not get even an audience to propose anything. Rail fans and opponents on both sides poison the well...
@@kietero Yeah, its difficult even if you ARE doing something like an interstate right of way because access to that can sway with the political wind as well.
One thing I'm seeing that seems to have been a wasted opportunity is Amtrak not acquiring old rights of way as they were abandoned. A lot of the time these end up being turned into nature trails or even streets, like in Buffalo. More than once I've lost a perfectly reasonable routing solution this way.
Damn awesome. You might beat us in California. Ours is being built but slowwww.
I'm from California and you sound more optimistic about our chances than I do.
So overall good video. I feel if you're going to build HSR In America it should just go for max speed at 250mph. Reason being your not building for just for Newyork state.
So firstly upgrade the current route to high frequency, better grade separation etc as you pointed out in this video.
However I would go further:
Albany original station is better located. So rebuild the bad highway and regenerate the town for a riverside developments (with station high speed + freight bypass)
Rochdale again the high speed stuff doesn't have to stop at the town bit you give the high speed trains access to jump of the high speed line. Then back onto it.
Again bing on my phone reinstating the old station would be a good idea.
With buffalo. I would think a triangular station would be better suited for the city.. use someone where that is cental, make it underground. But able to handle trains from
new york to buffalo and Canada
New York to buffalo and onward to chicargo
And
Chicargo to buffalo and Canada.
Mad idea: the above ground is either the old union station taken down brick brick and relocated, or build a building that can have the old fassard bolted onto the outside.
Also for hsr you can have a station bypass to take you to chicargo direct of Canada.
I like that you're thinking big. I wanted there to be some movement on removing I-787 in Albany so I could work in a riverfront station on the west bank. I don't live there, so I'm not sure how it works out, but I wasn't a fan of where the current station is in relation to where people live. It also seemed to be dependent on the I-787 interchange to convey road traffic to there. Those two combined are why I went with the UAlbany idea.
On the speed, I'm working from a couple of principles. 1 is that its preferrable not to cut new rights of way due to extra cost and litigation. Because of that interstate ROWs offer a nice alternative between metros. 200mph is fairly difficult to maintain within an interstate ROW. That's not just a theory, that's experience from me trying to make it work over the course of several videos. 250 would be that much more difficult. Not to say its impossible! If you had an inordinately straight interstate, then why not? 2nd principle is that building to a slightly lower standard makes it more likely to actually be built. As stated, not always the case. If you have a nice, straight flat route, it probably doesn't cost that much more to go for it. I don't think that was the case with New York though.
@LucidStew unfortunately all new high-speed cut new RoW. Where they can use the same Row as current infrastructure, then do so.
Also, don't be scared to put tunnels in.
Like the Penn to water level route connection, going under that river connection is probably less work than a flyover. Ships are taller above than below.
I feel high-speed platforms at Penn would probable need new designated platforms of 400m length so I've always thought an underground box below the current set maybe preferable. Then you can get both lines the southern section of the NEC and waterlevel route to link up.
No train on earth reaches 250 mph dude. Only maglev hits that speed
@@LucidStewcombine with utility corridors
@@qjtvaddict While making this I was wondering how tenable that was. Out here we have some really broad power paths with lots of room between tower rows. That didn't seem to be the case with the ones in upstate New York. I also ran across a gas pipeline, but that seemed like a really bad idea. 😅
Half the time to get to Buffalo compared to the present sound awesome! Still, 110mpg isn't 'high speed'; trains have been going that speed since the 1930s.
Not only that, back then the trip to NYC to Buffalo was faster.
I would say one objective of this series is to expose the fact that "hsr" in these corridors for the most part means 110mph in anything but the longest term. I think that's ok some places. I think its the better option in the Empire Corridor. I think some places, like Chicago Hub could do a lot better.
@@LucidStew BTW I did some reading about Buffalo Central station after thes video which was quite interesting but tinged with he usual tragedy as for so many stories of old stations.
@@SirKenchalot I very nearly missed it as I did not previously have any familiarity with the Buffalo area. That part of the rights of way and the surround area give very little indication its there until zooming in.
The Mordor Corridor to New Englanders
Solution: Bring in Train-experts from Europe and Japan to advise and bite bottom lip when the adice is given that won't be popular; especially with the freight companies.
Europe and Japan have signifgantly more government power. Japan is basically a one party state
Half the stations you are proposing are just park and rides lol. You need to tangibly serve the CBD's
Thanks to Alstom, many of these problems will be solved easily and cheaply with the arrival of their hydrogen trains.
Newburgh Stewart literally is an abandoned airport. Why make high speed rail when air doesnt work? 😂
Difficult to see how you figure the 2 are equivalent. One of Stewart's issues is that it is poorly connected. HSR would plug directly into Manhattan. Not sure where you're saying air doesn't work. The other NYC area airports are some of the busiest in the country.
@@LucidStew Newark robs unfair amounts of traffic from Stewart. I flew to Stewart once and stopped because Newark was cheaper.
It's heartbreaking that the planned rail was not included on the Cuomo bridge as originally intended. Ugh...
You don’t sound too positive knowing america today it won’t be done by the next century along with the California hsr before it is possible is infrastructure that is lacking in the whole country not just New York 😊
Anything resembling true HSR is a long time off in this corridor. The current implementation is aiming at 90mph and will take about 25 years.
2:16 aids for tourists or tourists bring aids?
in hindsight that could have been better worded... I fell into the South Park Jared episode trap.
Unless they hire the Chinese.
Nation just needs to get this done and connect all major cities. It's a joke we don't have now...
Fun little feasability studies for me to watch while eating my lunch. I am effectively having lucid stew for lunch 🥣
will have to see if I can come up with a series for that...🤔😁