Rural Passenger Rail is something we NEED. Out here in Utah we need to connect our smaller towns to the megaregion in Salt Lake City. I personally believe that all starts with the Rio Grande Plan and then the Link Utah Plan after that. Who wouldnt want to take a train from SLC downtown's (the Rio Grande Depot) to Moab to look at the beautiful red cliffs or go down to Vegas connecting to our small towns of Cedar City, Beaver, and St. George. Way better than a freeway. Also we need more steamtrains! I am heading up to the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad they just got a steam engine, DM&IR 348. I cannot wait to go around their yards and see some trains in rural Northern Wisconsin.
St. George, UT has never had direct railroad service by my knowledge. Most of their population growth has only been in recent decades (though they’ve grown massively in that time). The rail line the _Desert Wind_ bypassed it about sixty miles to the north-northwest, and I doubt the prospect of driving seventy minutes to middle-of-nowhere Modena would be appealing to anyone in St. George. In fact, that whole I-15 corridor would require a whole new right of way to be built.
I’ve always really liked the idea of rural passenger rail. Many people who think that such services are unnecessary because folks would just drive might not realize that a significant portion of our population, including rural residents, do not have a car at hand or otherwise cannot drive, and the older rail infrastructure often includes stations at the heart of those smaller towns (many of which the railroads helped build), which along with speed could make rural trains more convenient to passengers than coach buses, which are left to the mercy of traffic and in many places stop at out-of-the-way stations. If one is concerned that such services provided would yield little financial return, so does the Interstate Highway System (and at a much greater degree), and we rely on it all the same. Even then rural passenger rail is the one of few applications where I would think battery-powered locomotives or one or two DMUs would work well, as an alternative to locomotive-hauled trains which might be too inefficient. Maybe wires could be put up and the train becomes an interurban, however. If the United States had a system of rural passenger trains connecting small towns and parklands, I’d certainly use it over my car, even if it was a little slower.
Honestly I think the best way to start would be to start creating larger and more frequent through running regional rail systems that extend out from cities to the country side also with circumferential connections. Start making these systems for smaller cities and also in smaller states start state wide, poly centric, systems. All the New England states could easily be covered in passenger service as it was in the past. I live in upstate NY in a town of about 5k people, most of the stuff I need is out of town and I have to drive as there is 0 public transportation. In the past everyplace I go to was not far from a train station with regular service that I could’ve gotten to with 1 transfer or no transfer at all. The regions population was less back then and the specific village I live in only had about 400 people (it’s like 800 today) but the station saw 40 people getting on a day. That’s better than some Amtrak stations!
@@leek6927 One idea for regional rail I’ve started thinking of is this: where two or more smaller branches converge into a trunk line, run one or two MU units on each of the branches, and for inbound trains they converge into one train into the urban core, and for outbound trains they split off. Each unit will have different lettering to distinguish each branch, and auditory announcements will alert passengers when the train approaches the point of divergence. Barring any issues with punctuality or coupling reliability, this could be a useful way of reducing transfers and allowing one-seat tickets from the core to anywhere in the peripheral suburbs or towns, with railcars ordered in the consist based on when the branch diverges. When it comes to crosstown trains, passengers may need to move to a different car based on the specific destination, but the process should be made easy and convenient for the passenger, with timely auditory announcements and destinations on the car’s exterior alongside the origin, as well as diagrams of the train’s interior if applicable (which with modern electronic technology should be). For branches with significant passenger traffic (such as to airports) that might require their own full-length trains, separate trains could be run for them.
In addition to the points you made, from what I heard many people onboard this train were not there for the steam or views but for the destination. Many of these people rode in deluxe seating cars, of which some have already been added to the "commuter" Pittston-Jim Thorpe service by demand from passengers. Perhaps adding incentives like this to regular rail travel again could be beneficial in ridership growth...
Jim Thorpe is a fantastic place to visit, but parking is a nightmare. Here's how I would help fix it along with helping the rest of the region build. New rail service on Amtrak: Harrisburg - Hershey - Reading - Lehigh Valley - New Jersey - NYC Philadelphia - Norristown - Allentown - Scranton this rout would likely go east towards the Delaware water gap not over R&N's main line. R&N could run trains starting in Allentown to Jim Thorpe and other stops in the rest of North Eastern PA and towards Reading. The idea of coming to see these eastern Pay towns and riding the train to do it could have a self reinforcing effect. If nothing else, it might help get some of the weekend day tripper cars off the road and out of street parking.
I live in Pottsville would love to take a train out of the renovated train station. They did spend millions of dollars tho fix it up. Reading & Northern just does holiday special out of there but it would be cool to actually take a train to then hope on Amtrak. Every time I want to go visit my friends in Philly I need to drive and when I go to visit my friend in NYC I drive to Elizabeth town to then take the train to Philly then up to New York it’s rather a pain because it adds an hour plus onto my trip. I refuse to drive in NYC it’s too much to park and to drive. Also it is rather easy with the subway to get around. I being extremely wishful with the train service out of Pottsville but let a man dream.
As soon as the _North Coast Hiawatha_ gets reinstated, there should be coordination with Yellowstone National Park to provide connecting bus service from Bozeman or Livingston, MT to the park, or maybe a rail spur for the more ambitious planners. I doubt Yellowstone would have even been our first national park if not for the Northern Pacific seeing the area as an opportunity for tourism in the 1870s in the first place.
I got to experience a steam locomotive up close and person when I was hiking the Oregon Coast Trail last summer. There's a section near Tillamook where hiking on the RR tracks is vastly preferred over the other possible route (the narrow shoulder of US-101), and when I was doing so an Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad train pulled by a steam locomotive came by! It was so cool.
Reminds me a bit of the Class III INER in OH, IN, and MI. They host two steam programs and have started restoring another depot along the line to host bike and train excursions with NKP 765. RN is definitely on my list next time I'm in PA!
Seeing the 2102 for the first time in October 2022 was a life-changing experience for me. I loved trains as a kid and I love transit as an adult but that locomotive is damn near a religious experience and I chase it every single time I get the opportunity now and had the privilege of riding an Iron Horse Ramble excursion from Reading to Jim Thorpe back in May. I've seen about ten different steam engines run and nothing comes close. Also the RBMN is head and shoulders above any other railroad I've ever dealt with, I can't say enough positive things about them.
come to the UK! we have mainline steam coming out of our ears! theres even the £15 shakespeare express! also as someone that uses our rural rail network (trains are usually every hour) a fair bit, there's nothing quite like combining bike & train. (also we need the tourism money desperately)
Older relatives corrected my pronunciation before I even learned that was an actual railroad. My father was born in Pennsylvania and grew up much of his childhood near Lancaster, so I guess that’s part of it.
Philly once had a relatively good regional rail service with local services provided by the Reading and Pennsylvania railroads. In the early 80's it was decided to tie the two separate systems together with the Center City Tunnel Connection. This allowed through running between the former Readings lines and those of the former Pennsy. It was a commendable plan, but with one one very unfortunate consequence. Being in a tunnel, the connection was not able to be used by diesel powered trains. Rather than run diesel shuttle trains to connect with trains on the electrified lines SEPTA eliminated all service outside the electric zone. This major retrenchment happened almost 40 years ago and ended service to Reading and Pottsville, among other places. Today, if there were any will to do so, through diesel/electric trains with battery back up should be able to use the tunnel without a problem. It would be nice if at least a pilot project could be started without the need for endless studies. One can dream I suppose.
Amtrak should conect the planned Allentown line to Reading then to Harrisburg, linking it with NYC and creating another connection to Philly in Reading. Possibly even a special express SEPTA line from Philly to Allentown? I really think the transit density from the NJ/NEC could continue into PA The infrastructure and the density of towns is really good.
The problem in the center of this entire issue is Norfolk Southern Corp. and that is something you can’t ignore. While on the excursion even the conductors who were chatting with my mother had said NS is deathly afraid of Andy Mueller and his Reading & Northern because unlike Norfolk Southern’s “Scorch and Burn” business model that is Precision Scheduled Railroading; Mueller and the Reading & Northern have refused to adopt that model and have brought back a lot of customers that NS usually would drive away! R&N gets their goods to their customers on time and with a reasonable rate. It is why Norfolk Southern should just give up the Lehigh Line to R&N and if possible snatch the Sunbury Branch from Sunbury, PA to Binghamton, NY (and even the conductors echoed what everyone is saying about those two lines how NS is basically killing both lines).
Totally agree with what you're saying about rural places only being accessible by car anymore, like just put a few request stops on these countryside lines or something! ha Cool video thanks for sharing though :]
I've been saying this a lot but I really think that the US should get a successor to the Budd RDC. Cheap, reliable service for rural/less busy lines. See Victoria (Australia)'s V/Line system for example
Imagine if 2012 was your pleasure AND your commute. What a life! But steam was always being attacked not because it was messy but because it was beautiful. The decision to convert 2100 to oil was an act of hatred made by people who have too illegitimate money.
Oh fun fact not that you care but last year I was it last year not it was the last Christmas event for last year's Christmas event that I rode behind a Blue mountain riding a Northern passenger excursion not the one in Jim thorp but the other one they have the journals and some of the cars still that I spoke to some of the guys up there they state that there are five pieces of coaches that potentially still have journals but the rest of the equipment has been timkened which means most of the equipment is timken and not journal boxes there's your pointless fact
I'm writing my MA thesis on passenger services for rural rail, studying the french context. It really does work if the station is connected to the town here. The ridership numbers would be a dream for American planners. And its something that should be done everywhere.
I don‘t know about France as a representative of rural rail service. France has pretty bad service for Western and Central European standards. Germany, more specifically northeastern Germany would‘ve been a better choice I think. It‘s quite sparsely populated overall, quite car-dependent as a result and yet it still has regional trains every hour on many lines, operated by small, inexpensive railcars.
I lived in a town of 15k that would get swamped with traffic because their main street was turned into a highway. They desperately needed commuter rail.
Every little town the size of parkesburg, Elizabethtown, etc deserves the service that those two just happen to get from being between Harrisburg and Philly
That is a great idea about such a a rural passenger rail service. I've thought that myself when taking their highly popular RDC service from Reading North Station to Jim Thorpe on a few family vacations. My experience is they always provided excellent customer service such as when we were delayed by an hour by a tree on the track they let everybody have a free soft drink and snack from the cafe and comp tickets for the Lehigh Gorge that let me just by luck ride behind 425 in the semi-open air car. I think the demand for this is really there and Penn DOT already gives them grants in the millions to fix the track for freight a little more and you could have regular rural rail passenger service. It would do so much for these old towns that have such good bones with the kind of walkeable downtowns yet access to nature and open space that so many desire.
According to his former Vice President, the late Jerry Jacobson, former owner of the Ohio Central RR, was all set to start commuter train service between Newark and Columbus, Ohio. Then the bureaucrats at ODOT said whoa, we've got to do studies and put out requests for proposals and other nonsense. Jerry literally had equipment lined up to start service in a couple of months. I think a lot of good ideas and proposals die in the red tape. I was on that trip Saturday. The crew was outstanding. The best thing they did was have unlimited water on hand for anyone who wanted it for the entire trip, given the scorching temperatures that day. If Mr. Muller did want to run regular service, I think he has an operation capable of making it work, although speeds would have to be increased to make it competitive. I'm pretty sure we never got over 30-35 mph at any point, and that engine is capable of 70 mph.
They generally keep the Rambles at 30-35 mph max, so that passengers feel as if they got their money's worth. Several stretches of the railroad are Class III (60P 40F)
@@liammcgrath3114 Amtrak runs under those conditions in Vermont on the "Vermonter". A possible reason R&N might not want to do regular passenger service is that it would subject them to having to install PTC on those routes.
The intro nails it. Riding behind that thing while it fought up the hill from Jim Thorpe to Nesquehoning was the closest to a spiritual experience I've ever had.
Awesome footage - my hometown neck of the woods! This video reminded me how much I take for granted how beautiful it can be. As a New Yorker now, I would do almost anything to be able to take a train back to the Poconos to visit family and friends rather than do the forsaken drive. As for steam engines, you truly haven't lived until you've experienced an "Appalachian facial" 😜
It all comes down to one simple thing. Taxes. And Americans constantly complain about them even though they are taxed much less than other OECD citizens.
PTC is another hurdle for mainline steam. Some organizations are installing/fundraising for it, but it is an additional major expense. (ATSF #'s 2926 and 3751 are two mainline engines currently getting PTC)
The biggest problem that I can see is that R&N doesn't have any downtown trackage in Reading, and Amtrak will presumably use the long proposed combination of Franklin Street in downtown and Wyomissing on the west side (for the outlet shops there), which is nowhere close to any R&N trackage. The R&N's "Outer Station" is 3.81 track miles (roughly) from Franklin Street and about 4 miles from the probable site of the Wyomissing stop. The latter has the advantage of using (I think) lower-priority traffic, but misses out on the critical point of serving DOWNTOWN Reading. Here's hoping for some serious strong-arming on the part of Amtrak.
I was thinking exactly this about the Alaska Railroad. They have stations and serve a lot of places but outside of freight are set up almost exclusively for serving excursions and cruise ships. We wanted to book them once to travel between towns but the schedule and pricing because of that made it not really an option.
The thing is, subsidies mean it isn't self supporting, that means it isnt economical and tour taking someone else tax dollar to pay for another person's ticket.... That being said, we waste so many tax dollars, I'd rather see us develop passenger rail again and turn it over time to private companies. Any subsidies would need to scale so that it pushes companies to find a balance where a line could be independent. Secondly, Private Companies are better than public companies, because you can reason with a single owner and develop a long term plan, where stock owners and board members have to focus on profitablity. Id love more train service, maybe we would have ore today if the government had deregulated the railroads after WW2 rather than in the 80s.
Subsidies means that it isn't self-supporting DIRECTLY. The benefits go out to the larger economy as a whole. If I told you I had an investment with a 300% rate of return and a consistent 50-year track record, you would throw every penny you had at it, right? Well, according to a non-partisan report, that's NASA. Every dollar put into NASA puts three dollars into the national economy. (certain NASA advocates had claimed a 1700% rate of return, and opponents said it was a money-hole, so that's why the report was made) The same holds true for public transportation. We don't expect roads to turn a profit, so why expect the same for passenger trains? The benefits come in the form of increased mobility, decreased wear and tear on the roads, more job opportunities, higher real estate values, etc. A positive return from the farebox is nice, of course, but airlines wouldn't make money without massive amounts of direct and indirect subsidies either.
A family friend of ours is the owner of the R&N, yep, I know him. Next time I see him I can ask about the logistics of such a thing.
I wish you luck!
@@Ostermond thank you!
get me in contact obviously, I'll set a deal up haha
Keep us posted on what he says somehow. Maybe the discord?
Yes, please ask Andy Muller.
Rural Passenger Rail is something we NEED. Out here in Utah we need to connect our smaller towns to the megaregion in Salt Lake City. I personally believe that all starts with the Rio Grande Plan and then the Link Utah Plan after that. Who wouldnt want to take a train from SLC downtown's (the Rio Grande Depot) to Moab to look at the beautiful red cliffs or go down to Vegas connecting to our small towns of Cedar City, Beaver, and St. George. Way better than a freeway.
Also we need more steamtrains! I am heading up to the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad they just got a steam engine, DM&IR 348. I cannot wait to go around their yards and see some trains in rural Northern Wisconsin.
There's stuff outside of the Wasatch Valley?
St. George, UT has never had direct railroad service by my knowledge. Most of their population growth has only been in recent decades (though they’ve grown massively in that time). The rail line the _Desert Wind_ bypassed it about sixty miles to the north-northwest, and I doubt the prospect of driving seventy minutes to middle-of-nowhere Modena would be appealing to anyone in St. George.
In fact, that whole I-15 corridor would require a whole new right of way to be built.
@@DiamondKingStudios Cedar City at least has a branchline that used to be used for seasonal extras to the National Parks.
I’ve always really liked the idea of rural passenger rail. Many people who think that such services are unnecessary because folks would just drive might not realize that a significant portion of our population, including rural residents, do not have a car at hand or otherwise cannot drive, and the older rail infrastructure often includes stations at the heart of those smaller towns (many of which the railroads helped build), which along with speed could make rural trains more convenient to passengers than coach buses, which are left to the mercy of traffic and in many places stop at out-of-the-way stations.
If one is concerned that such services provided would yield little financial return, so does the Interstate Highway System (and at a much greater degree), and we rely on it all the same. Even then rural passenger rail is the one of few applications where I would think battery-powered locomotives or one or two DMUs would work well, as an alternative to locomotive-hauled trains which might be too inefficient. Maybe wires could be put up and the train becomes an interurban, however.
If the United States had a system of rural passenger trains connecting small towns and parklands, I’d certainly use it over my car, even if it was a little slower.
Honestly I think the best way to start would be to start creating larger and more frequent through running regional rail systems that extend out from cities to the country side also with circumferential connections.
Start making these systems for smaller cities and also in smaller states start state wide, poly centric, systems. All the New England states could easily be covered in passenger service as it was in the past.
I live in upstate NY in a town of about 5k people, most of the stuff I need is out of town and I have to drive as there is 0 public transportation. In the past everyplace I go to was not far from a train station with regular service that I could’ve gotten to with 1 transfer or no transfer at all. The regions population was less back then and the specific village I live in only had about 400 people (it’s like 800 today) but the station saw 40 people getting on a day. That’s better than some Amtrak stations!
@@leek6927 One idea for regional rail I’ve started thinking of is this: where two or more smaller branches converge into a trunk line, run one or two MU units on each of the branches, and for inbound trains they converge into one train into the urban core, and for outbound trains they split off. Each unit will have different lettering to distinguish each branch, and auditory announcements will alert passengers when the train approaches the point of divergence. Barring any issues with punctuality or coupling reliability, this could be a useful way of reducing transfers and allowing one-seat tickets from the core to anywhere in the peripheral suburbs or towns, with railcars ordered in the consist based on when the branch diverges.
When it comes to crosstown trains, passengers may need to move to a different car based on the specific destination, but the process should be made easy and convenient for the passenger, with timely auditory announcements and destinations on the car’s exterior alongside the origin, as well as diagrams of the train’s interior if applicable (which with modern electronic technology should be).
For branches with significant passenger traffic (such as to airports) that might require their own full-length trains, separate trains could be run for them.
In addition to the points you made, from what I heard many people onboard this train were not there for the steam or views but for the destination. Many of these people rode in deluxe seating cars, of which some have already been added to the "commuter" Pittston-Jim Thorpe service by demand from passengers. Perhaps adding incentives like this to regular rail travel again could be beneficial in ridership growth...
Lost in yesterday for sure. It’s a shame we can’t travel our beautiful country without a car
Congratulations for chasing this steam loco! Rail chases are fun indeed! 😊
Jim Thorpe is a fantastic place to visit, but parking is a nightmare. Here's how I would help fix it along with helping the rest of the region build.
New rail service on Amtrak: Harrisburg - Hershey - Reading - Lehigh Valley - New Jersey - NYC
Philadelphia - Norristown - Allentown - Scranton this rout would likely go east towards the Delaware water gap not over R&N's main line.
R&N could run trains starting in Allentown to Jim Thorpe and other stops in the rest of North Eastern PA and towards Reading. The idea of coming to see these eastern Pay towns and riding the train to do it could have a self reinforcing effect. If nothing else, it might help get some of the weekend day tripper cars off the road and out of street parking.
I live in Pottsville would love to take a train out of the renovated train station. They did spend millions of dollars tho fix it up. Reading & Northern just does holiday special out of there but it would be cool to actually take a train to then hope on Amtrak.
Every time I want to go visit my friends in Philly I need to drive and when I go to visit my friend in NYC I drive to Elizabeth town to then take the train to Philly then up to New York it’s rather a pain because it adds an hour plus onto my trip.
I refuse to drive in NYC it’s too much to park and to drive. Also it is rather easy with the subway to get around.
I being extremely wishful with the train service out of Pottsville but let a man dream.
We definitely need more transit accessible nature. Beautiful mountains and trails and things shouldn’t be gate kept behind access to a car
As soon as the _North Coast Hiawatha_ gets reinstated, there should be coordination with Yellowstone National Park to provide connecting bus service from Bozeman or Livingston, MT to the park, or maybe a rail spur for the more ambitious planners.
I doubt Yellowstone would have even been our first national park if not for the Northern Pacific seeing the area as an opportunity for tourism in the 1870s in the first place.
I got to experience a steam locomotive up close and person when I was hiking the Oregon Coast Trail last summer. There's a section near Tillamook where hiking on the RR tracks is vastly preferred over the other possible route (the narrow shoulder of US-101), and when I was doing so an Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad train pulled by a steam locomotive came by! It was so cool.
Reminds me a bit of the Class III INER in OH, IN, and MI. They host two steam programs and have started restoring another depot along the line to host bike and train excursions with NKP 765. RN is definitely on my list next time I'm in PA!
Small reminder that there are generally two trains on hour between Wiesbaden and Koblenz. And yes, it's below wires.
Seeing the 2102 for the first time in October 2022 was a life-changing experience for me. I loved trains as a kid and I love transit as an adult but that locomotive is damn near a religious experience and I chase it every single time I get the opportunity now and had the privilege of riding an Iron Horse Ramble excursion from Reading to Jim Thorpe back in May. I've seen about ten different steam engines run and nothing comes close. Also the RBMN is head and shoulders above any other railroad I've ever dealt with, I can't say enough positive things about them.
In Maine, I hope that when the MEC 470 gets restored, they run it on mainline in Mains
come to the UK! we have mainline steam coming out of our ears!
theres even the £15 shakespeare express!
also as someone that uses our rural rail network (trains are usually every hour) a fair bit, there's nothing quite like combining bike & train.
(also we need the tourism money desperately)
Great video man! Hopefully someday I'll be running out to Scranton to take a break from the corridor lol
Next time I play Monopoly, I'm putting on my monocle and correcting people's pronunciation of Reading Railroad.
Older relatives corrected my pronunciation before I even learned that was an actual railroad.
My father was born in Pennsylvania and grew up much of his childhood near Lancaster, so I guess that’s part of it.
UP's steam program is one of their biggest PR assets, CPKS came close to match it with the Empress tour but Mexico accidents happened
Great shots, I’ve been meaning to take a trip out to Pennsylvania and see 2102
Philly once had a relatively good regional rail service with local services provided by the Reading and Pennsylvania railroads. In the early 80's it was decided to tie the two separate systems together with the Center City Tunnel Connection. This allowed through running between the former Readings lines and those of the former Pennsy. It was a commendable plan, but with one one very unfortunate consequence. Being in a tunnel, the connection was not able to be used by diesel powered trains. Rather than run diesel shuttle trains to connect with trains on the electrified lines SEPTA eliminated all service outside the electric zone. This major retrenchment happened almost 40 years ago and ended service to Reading and Pottsville, among other places. Today, if there were any will to do so, through diesel/electric trains with battery back up should be able to use the tunnel without a problem. It would be nice if at least a pilot project could be started without the need for endless studies. One can dream I suppose.
I've seen N&W 611 for 4 times and reading 2102 once.
Was that the unedited audio from the gorge shot!?!?! That thing was **BOOMING**!!!
The 2102 is so loud that she often drowns out her own Reading 6-chime whistle, one of the loudest steam whistles on the rails.
I still have yet to see Reading 2102, although I have seen NKP 765, and Pere Marquette 1225
Amtrak should conect the planned Allentown line to Reading then to Harrisburg, linking it with NYC and creating another connection to Philly in Reading. Possibly even a special express SEPTA line from Philly to Allentown? I really think the transit density from the NJ/NEC could continue into PA The infrastructure and the density of towns is really good.
One Problem with that: Norfolk Southern Corp.
The problem in the center of this entire issue is Norfolk Southern Corp. and that is something you can’t ignore. While on the excursion even the conductors who were chatting with my mother had said NS is deathly afraid of Andy Mueller and his Reading & Northern because unlike Norfolk Southern’s “Scorch and Burn” business model that is Precision Scheduled Railroading; Mueller and the Reading & Northern have refused to adopt that model and have brought back a lot of customers that NS usually would drive away! R&N gets their goods to their customers on time and with a reasonable rate. It is why Norfolk Southern should just give up the Lehigh Line to R&N and if possible snatch the Sunbury Branch from Sunbury, PA to Binghamton, NY (and even the conductors echoed what everyone is saying about those two lines how NS is basically killing both lines).
Totally agree with what you're saying about rural places only being accessible by car anymore, like just put a few request stops on these countryside lines or something! ha Cool video thanks for sharing though :]
I've been saying this a lot but I really think that the US should get a successor to the Budd RDC. Cheap, reliable service for rural/less busy lines. See Victoria (Australia)'s V/Line system for example
Only DMUs you can get Stadler Flirts
Imagine if 2012 was your pleasure AND your commute. What a life! But steam was always being attacked not because it was messy but because it was beautiful. The decision to convert 2100 to oil was an act of hatred made by people who have too illegitimate money.
I heard the reason most freight railroads don't sllow steam is due to insurance reasons
And that one Amtrak policy the in-famous Richard Anderson put up in 2018.
Outro song ? ^^
Tame Impala - Lost in the Yesterday
yay liam
Owning and driving a car is becoming too costly for a greater and greater number of people. Public transportation might make a return.
Oh fun fact not that you care but last year I was it last year not it was the last Christmas event for last year's Christmas event that I rode behind a Blue mountain riding a Northern passenger excursion not the one in Jim thorp but the other one they have the journals and some of the cars still that I spoke to some of the guys up there they state that there are five pieces of coaches that potentially still have journals but the rest of the equipment has been timkened which means most of the equipment is timken and not journal boxes there's your pointless fact
Hi
I'm writing my MA thesis on passenger services for rural rail, studying the french context. It really does work if the station is connected to the town here. The ridership numbers would be a dream for American planners. And its something that should be done everywhere.
I don‘t know about France as a representative of rural rail service. France has pretty bad service for Western and Central European standards. Germany, more specifically northeastern Germany would‘ve been a better choice I think. It‘s quite sparsely populated overall, quite car-dependent as a result and yet it still has regional trains every hour on many lines, operated by small, inexpensive railcars.
Check out Switzerland, they have great rural passenger rail.
after going to France I think uk has arguably better service in certain rural areas.
Same for me. We need to talk about this
I lived in a town of 15k that would get swamped with traffic because their main street was turned into a highway. They desperately needed commuter rail.
Every little town the size of parkesburg, Elizabethtown, etc deserves the service that those two just happen to get from being between Harrisburg and Philly
Hell yeah back to intercity steam baby
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That is a great idea about such a a rural passenger rail service. I've thought that myself when taking their highly popular RDC service from Reading North Station to Jim Thorpe on a few family vacations. My experience is they always provided excellent customer service such as when we were delayed by an hour by a tree on the track they let everybody have a free soft drink and snack from the cafe and comp tickets for the Lehigh Gorge that let me just by luck ride behind 425 in the semi-open air car. I think the demand for this is really there and Penn DOT already gives them grants in the millions to fix the track for freight a little more and you could have regular rural rail passenger service. It would do so much for these old towns that have such good bones with the kind of walkeable downtowns yet access to nature and open space that so many desire.
I am SUPER excited to see big boy, twice, as it comes through utah on the 4th of july and thr 20-21st
According to his former Vice President, the late Jerry Jacobson, former owner of the Ohio Central RR, was all set to start commuter train service between Newark and Columbus, Ohio. Then the bureaucrats at ODOT said whoa, we've got to do studies and put out requests for proposals and other nonsense. Jerry literally had equipment lined up to start service in a couple of months. I think a lot of good ideas and proposals die in the red tape.
I was on that trip Saturday. The crew was outstanding. The best thing they did was have unlimited water on hand for anyone who wanted it for the entire trip, given the scorching temperatures that day. If Mr. Muller did want to run regular service, I think he has an operation capable of making it work, although speeds would have to be increased to make it competitive. I'm pretty sure we never got over 30-35 mph at any point, and that engine is capable of 70 mph.
They generally keep the Rambles at 30-35 mph max, so that passengers feel as if they got their money's worth. Several stretches of the railroad are Class III (60P 40F)
@@liammcgrath3114 Amtrak runs under those conditions in Vermont on the "Vermonter". A possible reason R&N might not want to do regular passenger service is that it would subject them to having to install PTC on those routes.
I’ve had similar thinking that R&N should run more passenger service. I’m with you Alan!
The intro nails it. Riding behind that thing while it fought up the hill from Jim Thorpe to Nesquehoning was the closest to a spiritual experience I've ever had.
I forever love the fact that US steam locmotives (even smaller ones) dwarf the UK ones...
Hi from the wet rock that is the UK!
Awesome footage - my hometown neck of the woods! This video reminded me how much I take for granted how beautiful it can be. As a New Yorker now, I would do almost anything to be able to take a train back to the Poconos to visit family and friends rather than do the forsaken drive.
As for steam engines, you truly haven't lived until you've experienced an "Appalachian facial" 😜
It all comes down to one simple thing. Taxes. And Americans constantly complain about them even though they are taxed much less than other OECD citizens.
Sounds like a great day of railfaning!!
Just go to Germany and tell pendot to buy some second hand bonbardier talents
PTC is another hurdle for mainline steam. Some organizations are installing/fundraising for it, but it is an additional major expense.
(ATSF #'s 2926 and 3751 are two mainline engines currently getting PTC)
The biggest problem that I can see is that R&N doesn't have any downtown trackage in Reading, and Amtrak will presumably use the long proposed combination of Franklin Street in downtown and Wyomissing on the west side (for the outlet shops there), which is nowhere close to any R&N trackage. The R&N's "Outer Station" is 3.81 track miles (roughly) from Franklin Street and about 4 miles from the probable site of the Wyomissing stop. The latter has the advantage of using (I think) lower-priority traffic, but misses out on the critical point of serving DOWNTOWN Reading. Here's hoping for some serious strong-arming on the part of Amtrak.
Great footage! It was worth the effort.
I had the pleasure of riding this excursion, agree with you that the rdc's would be a great way of introducing daily passenger commutes
This is a primary a freight railroad with weekend trips to Jim Thorpe
Tame impala slowed and reverb? I see you Alan fisher..... lovely railfanning tho
Scranton to Buffalo to the lake shore can be rerouted earlier to make Chicago to NYC quicker
Thankfully not being a class 1 they should be able to run upto 12 passenger trains (in total so 6RT) on a route before they need PTC.
I was thinking exactly this about the Alaska Railroad. They have stations and serve a lot of places but outside of freight are set up almost exclusively for serving excursions and cruise ships. We wanted to book them once to travel between towns but the schedule and pricing because of that made it not really an option.
RUclips getting foamy
A cool little rail line
Never thought that Fisher would upload a video relating to Reading 2102
Pural Rassenger Pail
The thing is, subsidies mean it isn't self supporting, that means it isnt economical and tour taking someone else tax dollar to pay for another person's ticket.... That being said, we waste so many tax dollars, I'd rather see us develop passenger rail again and turn it over time to private companies. Any subsidies would need to scale so that it pushes companies to find a balance where a line could be independent.
Secondly, Private Companies are better than public companies, because you can reason with a single owner and develop a long term plan, where stock owners and board members have to focus on profitablity.
Id love more train service, maybe we would have ore today if the government had deregulated the railroads after WW2 rather than in the 80s.
Subsidies means that it isn't self-supporting DIRECTLY. The benefits go out to the larger economy as a whole.
If I told you I had an investment with a 300% rate of return and a consistent 50-year track record, you would throw every penny you had at it, right?
Well, according to a non-partisan report, that's NASA. Every dollar put into NASA puts three dollars into the national economy. (certain NASA advocates had claimed a 1700% rate of return, and opponents said it was a money-hole, so that's why the report was made)
The same holds true for public transportation. We don't expect roads to turn a profit, so why expect the same for passenger trains? The benefits come in the form of increased mobility, decreased wear and tear on the roads, more job opportunities, higher real estate values, etc. A positive return from the farebox is nice, of course, but airlines wouldn't make money without massive amounts of direct and indirect subsidies either.