| High-Speed Rail in New York State and Along the NorthEast Corridor See these great topics: Ridership on New York State's high-speed rail system will continue to rise even if no improvements are made. An attempt to match or better a bus trip from Delaware to Old Saybrook which appeared in the NY TIMES. Travel over Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between New Haven and Washington. Electrified railroads. |
|
|
Welcome to our High Speed Rail WebSite
Here's a preview of some of the exciting projects we have put together for you: A feature article: High Speed Rail in New York State. The woes of the New Haven Railroad. An attempt to match or better a bus trip from Delaware to Old Saybrookwhich appeared in the NY TIMES. Update on commuter rail between Delaware & Old Saybrook. Yet another attempt to travel the Northeast Corridor BUT not on Amtrak. Read about Electrification and high speed rail. Story of the Turbo Trains. Take a ride on the North East Corridor. See the full facts on New York State's high speed rail programs. Including Senator Bruno's ambitious plans. What the speed limits are for trains. Lots of reference material , high speed initiatives in other stares, and passenger interface with freight railroads. High-Speed Rail Corridors and John R. Stilgoe We have "must see" WebSites on The Northeast Corridor, and the New York City transit planning A National High Speed Network? We have some history for you on a high-speed trolley line and an upcoming high-speed rail development in the southeastern US. Could and should high-speed rail have included mail and express? Take a quiz on Which One of These People Hurt New York City the Worst? We hope you enjoy your visit to our WebSite. We offer a wide range of great sites. We have a great "Portal to the World", excellent weather, reference, golf and tourist sites. As well as great WebSites on trains run for the President of the United States (and for Royalty too). We are not "FLASHy" like many WebSites, but we offer you, among other things authentic railroad history material. Much of this material is not available elsewhere on the Internet. It was painstakingly collected over many years from such sources as Yale University. We never knowingly link you to any WebSites that contain a virus, collect your personal information, or are those machine-generated sites rampant with "Ads by Google". For some of our material, there is a small nominal charge. You can talk back to us on our BLOG and see our eBay Store too. |
||
| There are many different vacation possibilities from camping to going on a cruise or even touring Europe. Bed & Breakfast are very enjoyable to stay in no matter what vacation you are experiencing. In many cases you can find Bed & breakfast for sale in many places. |
| Interesting Stuff - Ecology and railroads | January 7, 1929 The New York Central Railroad's "20th Century Limited" runs a record seven identical sections. Eight hundred twenty two people pay the extra $10 fare to ride The Century. An automobile show in New York City gets the credit for this sudden increase in traffic. Combined with other special trains arriving for the show, a record 266 sleeping cars arrive at Grand Central Terminal between 5:00 am and 9:50 am. This is very interesting. It was a harbinger of things to come: the impact of the auto on passenger train travel. I bet Al Gore understands what a high speed rail system (plus good commuter rail systems) would do for the "fuel bill"! DO YOU? |
Make your Reservations!
|
Visit our Travel Reservations & Information Center |
See Our Partners |
|
|
Ask K.C. your railroad questions Click on a question to answer; or ask your own, then hit "ASK K.C." 
|
Other Sites You Might Like: * BART and California * NorthEast Corridor * Electric Railroads * Commuters * Long Island Railroad * Railroading Changes since 1950 * Commuter Trains * Complete Railroad Index * Travel Reservations |
| Not only can you search hotels by city, but you can search by your favorite chain of hotels. Find a hotel room in Nice, Orlando Philadelphia New York City. Cannes, or Monaco,. |
|
|
|
- Many rental locations in the France, and lots more worldwide
- a wide range of products and services to meet your needs - a choice of cars from different models |
|
|
|
|
|
| VISIT OUR TICKET BOOTH We can find you tickets for all the great music, sports and cultural events. We have the best prices and most availability of any ticket seller> |
|
|
Ridership on New York State's high-speed rail system will continue to rise even if no improvements are made. This will be due to the growth in population as well as the concentration of this population in the urban areas of the State. As urban congestion increases, rail travel will become the best alternative available for travel in more and more cases.
The first step in planning for the future has been taken by defining high-speed corridors. The Albany-New York corridor is the most highly developed and mature route. Frequency of service and speed are adequate and a definite need exists because of the extreme difficulty in entering New York City by other means. The Albany-Buffalo corridor is less well developed. Neither frequency of service nor speed are adequate to attract a large number of riders. The issue of speed represents a conflict with Conrail, a highly successful freight railroad. This conflict should be immediately resolved and train speeds increased to at least 90 M.P.H. Frequency must be increased to provide the traveler with an adequate and acceptable choice of travel times. Current problem areas are weekend peaks and lack of a westbound train early in the day. The Albany-Montreal route cannot really be considered a high-speed rail corridor at this point in time. It really represents a continuation of the local type of passenger service which was very much more widespread fifty years ago. Future track improvements and other changes could affect this. In addition, there may be a place in the future for additional corridors. The most logical extension would be a southern-tier route through Binghamton. Thought should also be directed to the Fort Drum (Watertown) area. REGISTER to see full story. |
|
|
The Global Highway: Interchange to Everywhere A portal to the World. The Global Highway leads everywhere! Follow it to wherever you might want to go. We have something for everyone! |
|
||||||||
| Federal Railroad Administration Speed Limits | ||
| Miles per Hour | Freight | Passenger |
| Excepted track | 10 | N/A |
| Class 1 track | 10 | 15 |
| Class 2 track | 25 | 30 |
| Class 3 track | 40 | 60 |
| Class 4 track | 60 | 80 |
| Class 5 track | 80 | 90 |
| Class 6 track | N/A | 110 |
| Class 7 track | N/A | 125 |
| Class 8 track | N/A | 160 |
| Class 9 track | N/A | 200 |
|
Much of the Northeast Corridor is Class 7. Albany to New York has some
Class 6. Watch this site for current and continuing stories on high speed rail. |
||
Cheese Pound Cake Bread Pudding Cake |
|
About Our President About Our Company About Small Business |
|
Shipping Information Terms of Sale |
|
|
RailwayStation.com has provided a
1942 Quiz Book on Railroads and Railroading. Here's some interesting questions and answers: |
|
Have passenger-train speeds been increased in recent years? In 1930 there were only a few passenger-train runs in the United States with schedules calling for a mile-a-minute or faster, start to stop. These runs covered 1,100 route-miles. In 1936, there were 644 passenger-train runs of a mile-a-minute or faster, covering 40,205 route-miles, of which 29,301 route-miles were on a daily schedule basis. By 1942, the number of mile-a-minute runs had increased to 1,529, with 85,872 route-miles, of which 77,045 were on a daily schedule basis. |
| New York State Senate Majority Leader announced a new high-speed rail plan on March 17, 2005. See details. |
|
Transportation Research Board |
| Delaware to Old Saybrook |
|
|
In 1993, Jon Melnick, a transportation planner with the
New York City Transit Authority,
published an article in the NEW YORK TIMES
about travel from Delaware to Connecticut. He took two days and 22 buses to travel from Newark, Delaware to Old Saybrook,
Connecticut. My memories of bus trips were not that great (unshaven men holding paper bags shaped like bottles and rest
stops serving hockey pucks for hamburgers). Just for the fun of it, I decided to give Mr. Melnick, and anybody else, an
alternative to flying, Amtrak or driving. The alternative: regional rail systems!
REGISTER to see full story. |
|
Please register to see the full-length story
It is available as both "html" and Microsoft WORD |
||
|
|
||||||||
|
|||||||
|
Google Earth© Consultants Google Earth© streams the world over wired and wireless networks enabling users to virtually go anywhere on the planet and see places in photographic detail. This is not like any map you have ever seen. This is a 3D model of the real world, based on real satellite images combined with maps, guides to restaurants, hotels, entertainment, businesses and more. You can zoom from space to street level instantly and then pan or jump from place to place, city to city, even country to country. Google Earth© is a tool that could be useful in your business. If you have a travel agency or real estate business, there are many applications. Google Earth© presentations can be done on your computer or be sent to a prospective client. U Buy Vacations can help you prepare presentations in Google Earth©. We offer professional consulting in creating Google Earth© applications. Contact us today! See some examples of our work If you have "GOOGLE EARTH©" installed on your computer, you can "fly" these routes with these "PLACEMARKs" |
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
A recent business trip required me to go to
Philadelphia from New York City. What better way to go than Amtrak. Not normally going to Philadelphia, nor ever having been a Pennsylvania Railroad fan, my experience on the Northeast Corridor through New Jersey was limited.
Arriving at Penn Station, I can't help but feel a little sorry for those railfans who are supporters of the formerly self-proclaimed Standard Railroad of the World. That efficient, dirty launching pad for Amtrak is a far cry from the four square block monster that was once on that spot. Nobody could dispute that the deposed Penn Station was an impressive rail terminal. It lasted from 1910 to 1965 when Manhattan real estate values priced it into oblivion. Its ceiling was as high as a fifteen-story building and it had 490,000 cubic feet of Massachusetts granite held together by 26,000 tons of steel. The 21 platform tracks served the Pennsylvania, New Haven and Long Island Railroads. The "new" Penn Station exists in the basement of Madison Square Garden and is notable only by the fact that it is Amtrak's busiest. REGISTER to see full story. |
|
|
When Amtrak re-routed the Washington section of the Broadway Limited, it ran the train up the northeast corridor to Philadelphia and then west to Harrisburg where it was combined with the New York section of the Broadway. During this time the New York section of the Broadway did not stop at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Later, when the sections were combined at Philadelphia, passengers "rode backwards" from New York City to Philadelphia so that power could be moved to the other end, trains hooked up and the whole entity moved westward out of the station. With the advent of the "Capitol", this became superfluous, and the "B-way" certainly rides "forwards" the whole way now.
This points out why engineers' plans should be implemented as originally specified. 30th St. was "supposed" to have a loop track on its southern end for just this purpose: so that a train could pull in south-bound (RR-west-bound) from New York City, pull out of 30th St. south-bound into the loop, loop around to north-bound, continue north-bound (RR-west-bound) to Zoo Interlocking (the major interlocking plant between 30th Street and North Philadelphia), then continue north-west on the line to Harrisburg. This loop was never put in, resulting in many Limiteds stopping only at North Philadelphia station, then taking the "NY-Pittsburgh subway" (wye track) at "Zoo" directly to the Harrisburg main. It would also make sense that the trains would combine in Harrisburg instead of Philadelphia for another reason. Until relatively recent times, trains changed power at Harrisburg. Amtrak moved the power swap to Philadelphia in the mid-to-late-80s. Although electric units power most of the Harrisburg-Philadelphia trains, the Broadway Limited and the Pennsylvanian operate with diesel power to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station where they pick up electric units for the trip to New York. REGISTER to see full story. |
|
| Story of the Turbos |
|
RTG was the original turbos that went into service in Chicago-St. Louis
service. An old Trains article described the abbrevation as "Gas Turbine" in French.
They looked very similar to the French sets, with the rounded cabs.
There were six sets, the first and second one were imported from France, the
others were built here.
This was about the 1974 timeframe.
The units also were in Chicago-Detroit service, and may have been in other
Chicago hub service.
The RTL sets were were the same, built by Rohr, and having third-rail capability to operate in the Park Avenue tunnels. (hence the "L" in RTL). There were seven sets, delivered in 77-78. They also had a different face on the cabs, having an angled front end. By the early 1980s, the RTG sets were benched. They sat for some years. In the mid-1980s the turbos dominated the NY-Albany runs and were in regular service on the Niagara Rainbow. That was the era when F40s broke down or FL9s caught fire. The RTG/RTL sets could top out at 112MPH. In the late 1980s, there was an RTG set that was rebuilt. It was called the RTG-II. It looked very NICE compared to the RTLs, that always seemed to get sooty with service. It had a new fiberglass nose that matched the RTLs. I believe there were two, possibly three RTG-II sets. At one time there had been plans to rebuild all five, but this never happened. By 1993/1994, there were lots of problems with the Turbos -- a seized turbo caused a bad fire in a remote area near Schenectady, and a BAD fire in Penn Station resulted in the wheels being fused to the tracks. FDNY had to standby and watch the thing burn while they waited for power to be cut. By then it was pretty badly damaged. By 1995, there were no more turbos left in service on the Empire Corridor, as Amtrak made a decision to take them out of service. THEN -- in April 1996, the RTL-II run for the first time. It was capable of operating at 125 MPH. The RTL-II managed to operate for well over five years before it had an engine failure in the early 21st century. Amtrak lacked the funds (or interest?) to fix it, and it sat sidelined for some time. BUT -- it was sighted several times being pulled by a Genny when Amtrak was short on Amfleet coaches and needed the Turbo for the seats. FINALLY, the RTL-III train arrived. It was rebuilt by Super Steel and painted in the New York State colors. It was an updated version of the RTL-II. Amtrak was reluctant to run it, and eventually it DID go into service and typically made two round trips per day (one had a deadhead one way). But often it had Amleet equipment substituted. Soon, there was a second set ... and it too went into limited service on the Corridor. In theory, the RTL-II set was to go to Super Steel for rebuilding into another RTL-III set, and eventually there would be a total of five RTL-III sets. But none of this ever happened... The last straw came in the summer of 2004 when the air conditioning was called "inadequate" and the two sets were pulled from service. What followed was the famous dispute when all three sets were towed to Delaware, where they have sat in storage ever since. |
| State to pay $1.2 million to fuel future rail plans |
|
August 23, 2005
More than a dozen high-powered engineering firms, including contributors to the construction Chunnel linking England and France and the New York City subway system, want to help get the Empire State's stalled high-speed rail plans back on track. Advertisement "They're heavy hitters. They're all big in the industry," John Egan, director of a state task force on high-speed rail, said of the standing-room-only crowd of consultants who turned out for an informational meeting at the Rensselaer Rail Station last week. Representatives of companies with experience with transportation projects around the globe met for a briefing on what will be expected of bidders on a $1.2 million study charting New York's passenger rail future. The money on the table, a tight timeline, and the range of expertise needed to address the issues to be studied combined to draw the interest of so many large firms with international reputations. Once a proposal is selected, the firm or firms picked will have just over three months to do a soup-to-nuts analysis of what should be done to improve rail service in New York. "It's the kind of project, because of the short-term duration, that's going to require a firm with a wide range of skills that can be brought to bear quickly," said Michael Cuddy, manager of the New York office for Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas, a company with more than 9,000 employees globally. "It can be difficult for a firm that has a limited number of people to do 20 things at once." Recent projects in which Parsons Brinkerhoff has played a part include an ongoing 20,000-mile Railtrack modernization and construction program throughout England and Scotland; the metro rail network in Delhi, India; and Boston's Big Dig. Company founder William Barclay Parsons designed the first line in the New York City subway system. |
| Amtrak's Secret Business |
|
|
The article on high-speed rail in New York State was a report given in 1989
in an open hearing to the New York State
Legislative Committee on High Speed Rail. The article on the trip from Delaware to Old Saybrook was published in April 1993 in the BRIDGE LINE BULLETIN of the Bridge Line Historical Society. The article on electrified railroads appeared in the May 1995 BRIDGE LINE BULLETIN The article on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor was published in June, 1988 in the CALLBOARD of the Mohawk and Hudson Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. |
|
|
|
Senator Bruno's Plan for New York State announced 1/6/2006
Based on story from the January 6, 2006 Albany TIMES-UNION Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Thursday that it's time to start making it happen. At the top of Bruno's to-do list with his Senate High Speed Rail Task Force in the next six months: get the pieces in place for a $22 million program of track and signal work, consolidated rail corridor management and new express trains that will cut the trip to New York City to just over two hours and ensure that trains arrive consistently on time. "You didn't get here by train," Bruno wise-cracked to a crowd gathered at the Rensselaer Rail Station. "If you had taken the train, we would be guessing what time you'd get here." Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican, pledged to make funding of the first two-year phase of his ambitious passenger rail plan a high priority in state budget negotiations this year. The release of a Senate task force study piloted by former Albany International Airport CEO John Egan set out a series of short-range, mid-range and long-range goals that Bruno said will require the sustained commitment of state and federal money and interest to become reality. Over the next 10 to 12 years, the task force recommends some $1.8 billion worth of improvements between New York City and Buffalo, including tracks and sidings to eliminate bottlenecks and conflicts with freight traffic and additional trains to provide more frequent service. With more frequent and reliable trains traveling between New York City and upstate New York, Bruno predicted "the economic impact, job creation and the effect on the economy is just going to be tremendous." Ultimately, the task force envisions a system of super-fast trains, perhaps using electrically powered magnetic levitation -- or "maglev" -- technology along the Thruway, traveling as fast as 200 to 300 mph between New York City and Buffalo. Such a system would be two decades away and would cost $10 billion to $20 billion to build, the task force and its consultants estimate. With more than 160 pages of charts, analysis and recommendations, the task force report caps three months of intensive work by the task force and a team of consultants headed by Parsons Brinckerhoff under a $1.2 million contract. While Bruno initially launched the high-speed rail initiative in March with talk of European-style "bullet trains" zooming across New York, the task force's approach evolved to include an early emphasis on incremental changes Egan and Bruno said are necessary to improve rail service far sooner. While the initial phase should shave 20 minutes off the travel time between Rensselaer and Manhattan, Bruno said an even more important goal is reducing delays. An average of 70 percent of Amtrak trains now are on time between Rensselaer and Penn Station. Only half of trains traveling west of Albany arrive on time at their final stops. A critical early step -- and perhaps one of the most difficult -- will be to achieve agreement among Amtrak, Metro-North and CSX freight railroad to unify control of operations between New York City and Rensselaer, the task force's experts said. All three railroads own portions of the tracks and ground equipment and manage operations of their own trains running on the line. "With all the players that interface, it's a wonder that trains run at all and get there," Bruno said. |
|
Comments on New York State High Speed Rail As well as Senator Bruno's plan (see above), NY State DOT is suggesting improvements as well. Passengers wanting high speed service between New York and Buffalo already have a viable option: go to the airport and get on a plane. Airplane times between NYC and Albany aren't going to improve much if any, and will likely decrease slightly as air traffic increases. Moreover, rail transit times between these two cities is already roughly comparable, especially when final destinations for many passengers of midtown Manhattan is considered. Therefore, sustaining current service levels is the least to be expected, and improving rail transit times and reliability between these two cities could provide some benefit. The real benefit of the Empire corridor west of Albany is to passengers in the intermediate cities it serves. Many passengers board and detrain at Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica, traveling to Albany, the hudson valley and NYC, and with connections in NYC to all manner of destinations across the NYC metro region. Speeding up and making these trains more reliable is also a worthy goal, and one of the biggest bottlenecks in this corridor is the single track line between Hoffmans and Albany. Double track it, and better yet, add a third track as far as possible from Hoffmans along the former 4 track main westbound towards Amsterdam, where right of way restrictions create problems. The 95-99mph top speed obtained between Schenectady and Hoffmans does almost nothing to overall schedule time along this route since it is such a short distance, but if that kind of speed were allowed on the 3rd track most of the way to Amsterdam, the time saved might just begin to be noticeable, ranging into the multiple minutes category. As it is, trains take just 17-20 minutes to travel between the two points. But it'd also provide more opportunities for Amtrak to get out of the way of freights on the busy mainline and vise versa, reducing delays to both. Then move the Guy Park defect detector to a location where, when trains activate it, they'll be able to stop along this 3 track section, leaving two available tracks instead of just one, as is currently the case. There are, I'm sure, other areas where a 3rd track could be restored further to the west and trains run at better than 80mph and largely out of the way of passing freights, saving precious minutes, reducing freight interference, and increasing overall reliability. Perhaps all these relatively inexpensive ideas and many more have already been thought of, and if so, great. But I would encourage their implementation and a reassessment for the need of a multi billion dollar true high speed rail or maglev before such a costly system is seriously considered, and in the meantime let the already existing airlines handle those passengers with a true need for speed. |
| REFERENCE |
|
List of Connecticut Railroads List of Delaware Railroads List of Maryland Railroads List of New Jersey Railroads List of New York Railroads List of Pennsylvania Railroads Amtrak's Northeast Corridor |
| Friends of Amtrak |
| Amtrak Locomotive and Car Notes |
| Electric Boxcab Survivors |
|
Tramway de Nice: New for 2007
The Tramway de Nice was designed to serve most of the population of Nice, France, as the vity of over 900,000 people is situated along a seaside, the line does not have to traverse it. Instead it was drawn as a U shape, passing through the centre. The tramcars of the Tramway de Nice are unique and have been specially designed to blend in with the Niçois architecture. A standard 5 car 1435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) standard gauge tram measures 35 m but extra carriages may be added, bringing the length to 45 m. The tram is 2.65 m wide and may carry 200 passengers at 18 km/h compared to 11 km/h by bus. Are the trams noisy? No. Noise created is maximum 70 decibels at 40km/h. This is much quieter than any large vehicle such as a bus. Find out more on public transportation in Nice and the French Riviera. |
|
Now you can see the entire NICE, FRANCE TRAMWAY in GOOGLE EARTH!!!! | Yes! Open in Google Earth and follow the path of the Tramway station-by station. |
|
|
|
|
Not New York State or Northeast Corridor, but Michigan had an attempt several years ago. On April 29, 1956 New York Central's high speed "Aerotrain" began service between Detroit and Chicago. The train was withdrawn later in the summer after many passengers complained of nausea on the lightweight cars. On April 29, 2001 Amtrak reduced time for its Detroit-Chicago trains by 11 minutes on average, touted as the first step in a proposed Midwest Corridor high-speed rail project. The April 19, 1956 New York Central passenger timetable shows the Great Lakes Aerotrain covering the 283 miles between Chicago and Detroit in 4 hours and 20 minutes. By contrast, the fastest train operated by Amtrak between these points today takes 5 hours and 24 minutes. Even the conventional-equipment Wolverine and Twilight Limited took only 5 hours and 10 minutes to cover the same distance in 1956. The Aerotrain was designed and built by General Motors and the design of the cab reflected something of contemporary automotive design. The coaches were modeled off of GM's current (1956) bus model. |
|
Railroads haul more freight tonnage TODAY than they ever did in their
history, including WWII, so obsolete they are not. UP and BNSF are spending
billions double and triple tracking their main east-west lines. Today
railroads still haul 40 percent of all freight tonnage nationwide, which is
still growing, mainly because of coal and chemicals. Railroads are not the
only form of transportation overly regulated by the US government - ask a
truck driver about that when he fills out the logbook.
Trucks and cars use heavily subsidized roads to run on and are basically getting a cheap ride. Fuel taxes have not risen with inflation for decades and today only cover about 30 to 35 percent of the costs of interstates and other federal and state highways - the rest comes from general revenue, some from car tags, sales taxes. If fuel taxes were to be brought up to snuff and were high enough, they'd have to raise that tax by an average of $3.80 a gallon. (A Brookings Institute study last year). Meanwhile, railroads continue to pay property taxes to help subsidize highways, as they always have. I say, let's really level the playing field with all forms of transportation paying their own way and see what shakes out. Bet they'd be re-laying a lot of the abandoned tracks the railroads have taken up over the years. |
|
|
There is no "brrreeeport" in Connecticut, but there are plenty of towns
that are served by freight railroads. Search them out! |
|
|
| SEARCH THIS SITE |
| Rail Site Crossreference |
| Vacation French Riviera operates in France and United States. You may contact us for French Riviera Vacations at info@ubuyvacations.com. All Web design is done by our staff. |
| Why choose us? Because we have the best prices available anywhere. Be sure to check out our SPECIALS! |
| Advertise with us for as little as $50/year |