WASHINGTON — Twenty-four Democratic members of the House of Representatives have called for inclusion of the North Atlantic Rail Corp., a $105 billion plan for widespread rail improvements in the northeast, in the surface transportation bill introduced last week by House Democrats. North Atlantic Rail would create a new high-speed replacement for much of the Northeast Corridor between New York and Boston, as well as connecting higher-speed intercity service and regional rail improvements.
The Providence Journal reports the seven-state plan includes $23.4 billion in “early action” projects, a group of 10 local commuter and regional passenger upgrades or start-ups that could help build political support — which could be important in light of a history of local opposition to large infrastructure projects.
The high speed rail portion of the plan has a goal of 100-minute service between New York and Boston (the current fastest time between the two offered by Amtrak’s Acela is 3 hours, 40 minutes. It envisions a route crossing under Long Island Sound between Port Jefferson, N.Y., to Milford, Conn., and would join the existing NEC at Providence, R.I. The North Atlantic Rail website outlines more details.
In their letter to Rep. Peter DeFazio, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the 24 legislators supporting the plan write that North Atlantic Rail would coordinate its activities with Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the many other state and regional agencies involved in rail operations in the region, and would hand the completed projects over to those agencies upon completion, then cease operation. “This is the moment,” they write, “so make investments that will result in transformative change for generations to come.”
The transportation bill introduced Friday by DeFazio and his committee included $109 billion for transit and $95 billion for rail, including high speed projects [see “House Democrats support transportation bill …,” Trains News Wire, June 7, 2021].
I don’t know what universe these Congress critters inhabit but it’s not in the one that I and most of the commenters on this thread live in. Charles points out for example the densely populated and developed counties on Long Island through which some of the proposed lines are proposed be they on new rights of way or existing LIRR to be upgraded. The public/political pushback is going to be massive. And so it will be in other areas. Look at that line South Norwalk up through western CT and southern Berkshire County in MA to Pittsfield. (As a matter of full disclosure, that would run approx 2 miles from my house in central Berkshire.) The extremely wealthy residents of western CT will go nuts at the prospect of multi-frequency passenger trains on a greatly upgraded ROW running through their towns even though those trains might greatly enhance their travel options. Someone needs to put in the faces of these politicians what happened a few years ago to the FRA-blessed New London bypass. That had the potential to knock almost if not actually an hour off the running time between New Haven and Boston. And East Lyme and a few other small towns with wealthy populations went nuts and not only then-Governor Dannell Malloy put up opposition but other CT local Democrats and, most notably, so did U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal. In fact Blumenthal, account his vigorous and unyielding opposition, has gotten the most credit for killing the initiative. And then there’s that “High Performance Intercity” line Springfield-Worcester-Boston. On whose railroad may I ask? They gonna build a brand new ROW Springfield-Worcester? Or do they plan to take the existing twisty-curvy line from its private owners? Hey I want to see more and better passenger service all over our nation. But this obsession with HSR while Amtrak cannot reliably operate on time at the conventional 79mph is just nuts. Let’s forget about what other nations have achieved. They did by working gradually up to HSR or just HrSR. We need to crawl before we can walk and walk before we can jog and jog before we can sprint. For a start let’s get done Gateway and the replacement of all the ancient river bridges like the Susquehanna and Portal west of NY and the four ConnDOT river on MNR’s New Haven Line, the Conn River at Old Saybrook, all with slow orders. Then let’s talk.
I’m sure there will be plenty of highway “pork” in any infrastructure funding that survives. Building new & expanding roads that that will be/are obsolete with the new work environment that has come as a result of Covid, the changing habits of the next generations, the population decreases & the passing of the baby boomers. We have reached the point the RR’s did when they had overbuilt & started to abandon lightly used routes, we too need to pause & rethink before throwing money at any any venture rail or road.
Hmmm. The route via Long Island bypasses the multiple curves on the NH Shore Line which severely limit Acela speed. Of course the tunnel under LI Sound will be spectacularly expensive.
Metropark NJ and Capitol Beltway MD were built by Penn Central for the same reason as Rte 128 MA: proximity to a suburban highway. Beltway was replaced by New Carrollton MD, which has DC Metro service as well. All are now major commuter stops.
Everyone, thankx for the comments and the replies to my first post above. Let me throw something on the table: Route 128 Station in Westwood, Massachusetts, built by the New Haven Railroad and ever since a major stop for the NEC trains and commuter trains. (I will always say “Providence Local”, as it was called way back when I grew up in SE Massachusetts.) For that matter thrown in that downtown Boston itself has sort of a “suburban” stop at Back Bay. Now every big city has its suburban stops. A recent example is MKA Milwaukee Airport on the Hiawatha. It’s not really an airport station. It’s a south suburban park-ride.
Why significant? Because people don’t go end to end. They go middle to end or sometimes middle to middle. That’s why shaving that last sixty or ninety minutes off the schedule doesn’t matter. Nor is it even possible with intermediate stops. In passenger rail, nothing says flop as much as a nonstop Acela only serving the end points.
Most of the previous comments are true. The legislators fall in love with high cost proposals that most likely will go nowhere. Just look at California’s high speed project for proof. I live in the Philadelphia, PA area and would rather see any money to improve the northeast part of Amtrak’s line. As mentioned earlier true high speed service is not necessarily wanted or needed. Eliminating the slow areas on the existing line would be the most efficient use of this kind of money. Lets fix the tunnel problem through Baltimore, a new upgraded tunnel between New Jersey and Penn station and upgrading and replacing the existing bridges north of Penn station to Boston. They could keep the old bridges for freight trains but build new higher clearance bridges that are higher and has enough clearance so it would not have to open for ship traffic would allow Amtrak’s high speed service to reach true higher speed service. Running at an approximate 100 mph average speed would go a long way to growing more users. Most people are comparing train service to airline service. In my opinion the real market is to get the automobile user to change to train riding. Traffic and toll’s are a real hassle anywhere in the northeast. These improvements are more practice and most likely can be built sooner and at lower cost than what this plan proposes.
This is a superb initiative, long overdue to bring modern rail passenger service to this densely populated and congested region. It is a proper use of government and its duty to provide interstate commerce.
No. The proper use of government is to allow business to find the best way. IF this had ever been a viable proposal, a businessman somewhere would have found the money to build it. Throwing funding into a proven money pit does no one, except crooked politicians and their crooked friends, any good.
I think every European country(and Australia) would tend to disagree with you…yes, most of the lines were built with private money…but at one time or another all have been nationalized and only recently have some countries allowed contract carriers to operate over those same lines while retaining government ownership of the track and right-of-way itself. It is exactly the purpose of the central government…see the Interstate Highway System as a prime example.
I want to draw a parallel from history. In the last half of the 19th century, every county and state was granting charters for rail lines built for no reason other than they could get public money for schemes that had no sound economic purpose. Those that were built, did not last. Seems like the same is going on here. Free money, no sound economic business plan, championed by unreasoned local politicians. The language of tyrants likes to say: “In the best interest of the people.” Cheers.
If an private entity like Brightline doesn’t want to do it, then you know its not viable. Put the routes up for bid and see if there are any takers. If private capital can’t find a way to price it, then maybe its not a good idea. Every little passenger rail entity is popping their heads up from the sand because our Congress keeps throwing money around in the name of “infrastructure”.
While it makes sense in the short run to fix what can be fixed south of NYC, it is only a partial improvement. We are 40 years late on a true high speed rail, but if we are to do anything to ween ourselves from air and auto transport then we need to start. No urban area will be easy to build through anywhere in the country, but a straight shot through Long Island perhaps on an elevated line would eliminate the constant river crossing in Southern Connecticut. It is interesting that 3 or 4 counties in Europe can get together to build a connected high speed system and we have a hart time tying the sam number of states.
Anyone call draw a line on a map and call it High Speed Rail. Or North Atlantic Rail. Or anything else anyone wants to call it. I’d love to see a serious discussion of what it would take to get any one segment going, let alone the entire scheme. Take for example what may be one of the easier segments, Providence to Hartford. The New Haven Railroad started to abandon parts of that route by, I don’t know, maybe 1962. What are the chances of it be resurrected? I can tell you this, I’ll walk from Wisconsin to the moon without a space suit before there are trains between Providence and Hartford.
Then there are the other questions. Like what would it take to turn Hartford into a high-speed rail hub? Take a map of Hartford and start sketching.
The proposed tunnel under Long Island Sound would be less distance that Dover to Calais, though not greatly less. How long did it take to get that tunnel built? And BTW, what does that tunnel get you? Who in their right mind thinks that building High Speed Rail through congested Nassau and Queens Counties (Long Island) would be any easier than improving the exist route through Fairfield County (Connecticut) and Westchester and Bronx Counties (New York). Actually either alternative would be impossible. Technically impossible, politically impossible, and economically impossible, all three. Three strikes and you’re out.
Let’s concentrate on what’s doable – the New Jersey – Penn Station Gateway, and the Baltimore Tunnels.
Hartford-Providence abandonment 1969 or 70, the White Train’s Air Line route first abandonment just west of Putnam CT 1955 after hurricane floods to out the NY&NE’s bridge just west of town. Willimantic to Portland abandoned 1967. Route took 5 hours 40 minutes ca. 1893 and was 213 very curvy miles with grades. Problem was it lacked on-line traffic and once the New London-Groton bridge was allowed 1889 the Shore Line became the Way to Go.. Not many minutes spent with Google Earth or Equivalent will show what we’re Up Against and why doing a “Steam Road” Connector from Penn Sta to Grand Central would be the way to go. 20-25 minutes are lost going around over Hell Gate. Whether the LI RR could take the extra traffic to get to a Sound tunnel is questionable; see the Solent (non) Tunnel in Britain. The legend that AMTK lost 30 minutes of timing when the Acela was made 4 inches wider at a scretary’s behest to her AMTK boss is NOT TRUE–there were other difficulties with MNCR New-Rochelle-New Haven that stood in the way of 3-hour service NYP-BosSSta that would’ve killed the air shuttles better than wings’ falling off or even starlings!
I agree with a lot of this Charles. I’d also add that 100 minutes NYC-BOS seems like an arbitrary number. Does that trip even need to be 100 minutes? If it was 180 minutes would you retain most of the ridership potential with much less cost? To me there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that super fast speed is not a critical factor. If it were the Eastern Airlines Shuttle would have been flying Concordes 40 years ago. Instead you have Megabus which seems to hold their own running buses against Amtrak.