“Abundance Denied”

Building and investment is stifled by the current regulatory regimes. Hence abundance denied. Of course, to gain some of the abundance Sam Walker discusses need investments newer infrastructure to support faster trains. he system is lacking the funding.

Sam Walker . . .

My following the railroad industry comes from growing up at Hollidaysburg, PA. It is near Altoona where the Pennsylvania RR had its manufacturing and repair shops for locomotives and rolling stock once was. My interest came from being in proximity of PRR employees from workers to executives. I am now 78.

Along the way the National Railroad Historical Society published my article in 1968 about the events in July of 1877 that happened at Altoona when rioters destroyed PRR property at Pittsburgh. Rioters and Militia members both lost  lives. I was surprised to see that the article became a footnote in Dr. Al Churella’s first volume of his three volume history of the PRR.

The railroad industry and how it creates time and place utility for product and people has been a lifelong interest.

“Abundance Denied.” Sam Walker

The new Acela trains and those that preceded them in 2000 have short bursts of over 150 mile per hour speeds on the Northeast Corridor. They operate on the only railroad passenger line in the world that also has regional urban commuter trains as well as freight trains operating on the same railroad right-of-way. The Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington is for much of its route  the product of mid-nineteenth century civil engineering. The Northeast Corridor is owned by Amtrak as a result of the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad. Even if the merger between the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central had not happened in 1968; their economic collapse was assured singly. The machinations of the creation of Amtrak in 1971 and later Conrail caused Amtrak to gain ownership and control of the Northeast Corridor.

The Northeast Corridor could be an actual High-Speed Railroad for passenger service as it exists else- where in other countries. It likely it would be able to operate without operating subsidies from fares alone as is the case for the core Japan National Railways. Tokyo – Osaka line and the TGV Paris to Lyon line.

A blueprint for a 220 mile per hour High Speed Rail system was created in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design Department of City and Regional Planning Spring 2012 Studio Final Report entitled Early Actions for High Speed Rail. Following it would be the needed High Speed Rail line built from Boston to Washington. No metro commuter trains, No freight trains.

It would be a railroad fit for full operation of the new and previous Acela equipment.  “Early Actions for High-Speed Rail for America Northeast Report“

Building the new Northeast corridor would require investment for such abundance.

As Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue in the book Abundance, building and investment is stifled by the current regulatory regimes. It interferes with government investment. 

The example of unexamined regulation is the Federal regulation for passenger equipment in the USA to with-stand 800,000 pounds of buff pressure. It originated from the days when most intercity mail was moved in trains by the Post Office. Its purpose was to protect mail carried in mail cars attached to passenger trains. Nowhere else in the world is there such a standard. The standard applied to passenger equipment as well as mail cars.

When on May 15, 2015 a northbound Amtrak 188 trains derailed at a curve at Frankford Juncton is cause was excessive speed through a 50 mile per hour curve. The passenger cars being pulled met the 800,000 pound buff regulation. Such a rule was useless the first passenger car behind the locomotive hit a line side support post and was fragmented. The remains seemed to indicate that the car hit the pole by the center of the car and folded. Well, so much for 800,000-pound standard.

That 50 mile per hour curve is an example of a design flaw so egregious that it was a trap set to entrap an engineer who became “situationally unaware.” That 50 mile per hour curve is there because of decisions made by the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1862 and 1867 as it made decisions as to how to inter-connect with railroads to the east to the Port of New York. Amtrak should reduce the curvature from 4 degrees to 2 degrees to allow for 80 mile per hour operation.

Maybe the new Acela train sets will last more than 25 years? Maybe the new Acela train sets will have sufficient design hardiness to avoid structural failures and costly repairs and lost service? Either way their potential for more than few miles of 150 mile per hour operation on the historic Northeast Corridor is not possible.

High speed rail benefits are denied to Americans in the Northeast Corridor relying upon patchwork
decsions. High speed rail benefits are denied to Americans in California significantly due to unexamined regulations.

As for the rest of the country, rebuilding the freight railroad system to be 110 miles per hour capable would create a cost-effective freight service that does not exist. It would compete with trucks and air fright in many instances. 110 mile per hour freight trains would not be interfere with passenger trains. Amtrak trains now interfere with freight operations as mixing high speed trains into the mix invariably delays freight trains. Build the Higher Speed Rail system for both freight and passenger and the passenger service will grow to meet demand. It would compete with the private automobile and the airlines.

Such “abundance” is not foreseeable.

Sam Walker