Amtrak train hits 111 mph in test run

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It's cool. The sheer size of the USA and our spread-out population compared to Japan and Europe, and therefore the cost and practicality, are big reasons why we don't have the bullet trains.
 
look at jerry brown and his proposed $68 billion train - insanity, it will push california into a fiscal abyss if it goes forward - realistically it will never be more than chopped up indirect segments in the central valley - if it ever gets that far.
 
goldfish65 said:
It's cool. The sheer size of the USA and our spread-out population compared to Japan and Europe, and therefore the cost and practicality, are big reasons why we don't have the bullet trains.
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Yeah true, just it be so nice to travel quickly...I could get to Chicago or Toronto under 2 hours

Maybe Obama is wasting money-well he is, ha ha but heck I rather fund Amtrak vs NATO or NASA

.............

If you read the story it was only for 10 mins and likely will not be happening anytime soon...least gas prices are finally dropping, now if gas could only get under $3..$2.50 would be so nice
 
dodge freak said:
Is this long overdue or what.. in Japan and Europe they have bullet trains that go 150, pretty cool and sure beats driving, lol
Not to be sour puss on the matter, but that speed has been obtained over 80 years ago and has been a possible speed to be obtained and held for long distances since the 1930's.

The ability to travel that fast has been done with Desiel locomotives and Electric powered cars and MU's. case in point as a reff could be the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) having electric powered single cars in the '30's working alongside Steam powered engines.

Today, Amtrak has the Accela which is capable well beyond that speed and routinely makes commuter trips between NYC & Washington D.C.
The train has a awesome feature, it tilts/leans in on curves while at (high) speed in order to maintain speed. This train can be researched.

The problem with these trains are there revenue worth.
One last thing. There is not one single non freight rail road that is profitable. Period!
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The trains can go that fast, its the tracks that can not support it and rail crossings...people right now drive around rail gates cause they see no train coming at 70 mph and get hit, if you double the train speed, more drivers would look both ways-see no train coming and wham

What likely is needed is gates you can not drive around and do not malfunction
 
Well......... I don't mean to sound crass but if someone is dumb enough to go around the rail crossing warning, one tends to get what one deserves.
 
I agree with the two of you above.

The sheer expense of dumb *** proof gates would be millions spent on defeating the Darwin idea.
 
Badsport said:
Well......... I don't mean to sound crass but if someone is dumb enough to go around the rail crossing warning, one tends to get what one deserves.
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True but if the train derails because of it then innocent people die.
 
OwdKasd said:
True but if the train derails because of it then innocent people die.
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I agree wholeheartedly. My mom was on a train in Michigan back in February, and some dumbass in a semi decided his flatbed would make it over the inclined tracks. He high-centered his trailer right as my mom's train was coming through and derailed it. Luckily nobody was killed or seriously injured.

Personally, I think that they need to spend money over a length of time and upgrade the crossings so that they are dumb-*** proof. Then, and only then, when the infrastructure is in place should they look at putting in the high-speed trains.

Of course, speaking of infrastructure, one could make the argument that the money would be better spent improving the highways and bridges across America that are crumbling because nobody has done any maintenance on them in the last 50 years or so.
 
As a railroader by trade this thread scares me. I've hit several idiots, livestock, wildlife etc. there is no possible way to effectively improve the safety of every grade crossing in America. Right now we being the railroad are 50 years behind on crossing updates. Most AC powered locomotives are capable of speeds well over 100 mph. I've ran intermodals at 75 mph through west Texas, and that was fast enough for me. Amtrak has several trains that run about 85 mph and I can't tell you the destruction that would cause in a serious accident. Food for thought the next time you see a freight train barreling down on you at any speed imagine the sheer tonnage. The train I was running last night was 15,587 TONS not something I want to dance with, even locomotives running light power tip the scales at 415,000 lbs each. Oh and Obama's point of view on railroads is "let the computers run them". Which brings me to "positive train control" one of the greatest things to ever come out of Washington DC. In the next 5 years it will be in full effect and all trains will be driving themselves, the Obama admin wants to create jobs, but then they turn around and cut millions in favor of a computer. So look twice at every crossing there might not even be a human on that train. I'll get off my soap box now, remember, "look, listen, live" and teach your kids to stay away from the tracks.
 
Computers will be driving cars one day too IF it can be done safety...its a big IF

We aren't going to see it in our lifetimes-unless you are in your 20's right now, IMO

Would be neat thou, to crash and wake up and be some place 400 miles away. The hotels will hate it, ha ha. Spend the day in the city and let the car drive you back home while you sleep in the car.
 
65DartGTConv said:
Why do we need government run trains?
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Because the Obama administration wants to suck all the money out of railroad retirement to balance the national deficate, and there's enough there to do it. If there's no humans on the trains until they get to the classification facility where they are run by remote control, there is nobody to pay said retirement to.
 
Government run trains? Much of what is now NS and CSX was until a few years ago Conrail, a government bailout. Several class I railroads failed in the 70's for various reasons and the government rolled them into one corporation, returned them to profitability, and then sold them off again (as should have been done). Amtrak is still quasi government owned and is unlikely to be financially independent anytime soon due to many reasons, right-of-way being one of them. Unlike highways or airways, rail ROW is typically privately owned in this country. So a passenger operator like Amtrak must pay the track owner a fee to operate on their rails. Also for high speed rail to be truly effective, it must run on a dedicated set of tracks which cost money to build.

It's not that light rail won't work in the US. The I-95 corridor on the east coast, the I-5 corridor on the west, a central line between Minneapolis, Chicago and St Louis with a KC and Denver spur. All of these would make a lot of sense for a 150+ MPH train, but it would require dedicated infrastructure. As long as we continue the taxpayer subsidy to air travel, passenger rail will never happen.
 
dodge freak said:
The trains can go that fast, its the tracks that can not support it and rail crossings...people right now drive around rail gates cause they see no train coming at 70 mph and get hit, if you double the train speed, more drivers would look both ways-see no train coming and wham

What likely is needed is gates you can not drive around and do not malfunction
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But if those idiots keep going around gates and getting hit by trains, they are eliminated from the gene pool. Therefore increasing the intelligence of the ones left behind who actually waited for the gates to open....

The Darwin theory
 
I have loved trains most of my life. I recently took Amtrak from North Dakota to NY and the romance was gone in the first couple of hours. I will NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. Amtrak is a joke unless (maybe) you live in a large metropolitan area, and then only for short trips. They SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL. They are old and dirty, and they make terrible time, stopping for freight trains, sitting on sidings waiting for freight trains to pass, slowing down or stopping for construction etc., etc. The infrastructure in this country is pathetic and nobody seems serious about upgrading it. Shovel ready jobs? Yeah, maybe to fix an occasional pot hole. Next trip? I will take my comfortable and clean car, and make it in half the time? There, that's my first rant on FABO, and not about A-bodies :)
](*,)
 
cross_thread72 said:
As a railroader by trade this thread scares me. I've hit several idiots, livestock, wildlife etc. there is no possible way to effectively improve the safety of every grade crossing in America. Right now we being the railroad are 50 years behind on crossing updates. Most AC powered locomotives are capable of speeds well over 100 mph. I've ran intermodals at 75 mph through west Texas, and that was fast enough for me. Amtrak has several trains that run about 85 mph and I can't tell you the destruction that would cause in a serious accident. Food for thought the next time you see a freight train barreling down on you at any speed imagine the sheer tonnage. The train I was running last night was 15,587 TONS not something I want to dance with, even locomotives running light power tip the scales at 415,000 lbs each. Oh and Obama's point of view on railroads is "let the computers run them". Which brings me to "positive train control" one of the greatest things to ever come out of Washington DC. In the next 5 years it will be in full effect and all trains will be driving themselves, the Obama admin wants to create jobs, but then they turn around and cut millions in favor of a computer. So look twice at every crossing there might not even be a human on that train. I'll get off my soap box now, remember, "look, listen, live" and teach your kids to stay away from the tracks.
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I admire your passion on the subject. As a railroader myself, I know what you're talking about here.

I am a signal supervisor and I must correct your statement about being 50 years behind on crossing upgrades. I still have some of the old technology crossings on branch lines which are perfectly safe. They are designed for specific speeds and your timetables will specify that speed and as an operating employee, you know you must follow your rules. That is what keeps the public safe. My new crossings are Invensys/Safetran GCP4000 and they can easily predict speeds up to 100 mph and maintain the minimum 20 seconds warning time required by regulation. Warning devices such as lights, bells and gates are very reliable. My biggest problems with them are motorists who ignore them. An activated crossing is a warning that a train is approaching. Crossings are designed to "fail safe", i.e. they will activate if anything goes wrong with their detection circuits.

PCT will be one of the biggest improvements in railway safety in years. Remember that Amtrak disaster a few years back on the west coast? Cause was a conductor who was busy texting on his phone and did not see the red signal. Think about that when you say that humans aboard trains are the only way to keep the rail service safe. PCT would not have allowed the train past the red signal. Like crossings, if PCT fails, it is designed to fail safe. The train will stop. Physics will dictate how long it takes to bring all that tonnage to a stop. No human aboard a train will be able to overcome the dynamics of all that tonnage and given sufficient speed, all you will be able to do is watch as your train destroys that vehicle and it's occupants that chose to ignore the warning devices in place at the crossing. Obama really has nothing to do with it. PCT was in development long before he was elected.

I am retiring in a few short months. I will not see a fully automated railroad and I have just as hard a time as anyone with adjusting to the technology. I have seen huge derailments, dealt with fatalities, walked miles of ballast and taken my fair share of lumps for bad decisions I have made. The game is changing rapidly and I feel it is a younger man's game than I am capable of managing, but I have confidence in the direction it is going. Don't get blindsided by the potential loss of the job to the running trades. The support of the network still requires many jobs and many new positions are being created. I was in the electronic repair trade before I became a railroader. My old profession has gone the way of the blacksmith. When was the last time you met a TV serviceman? They no longer exist, yet my father was one and 50 years ago, he made a very good living at it. Times they are a-changing.

End rant, exit soapbox.
 
cross_thread72 said:
Because the Obama administration wants to suck all the money out of railroad retirement to balance the national deficate, and there's enough there to do it. If there's no humans on the trains until they get to the classification facility where they are run by remote control, there is nobody to pay said retirement to.
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Wasn't that Reagan who said the problem is too much government. He was the one who started the ball rolling on eliminating workers, he was the one who fired the air traffic controllers and thought the airports could be run by GED graduates. Then one day we had 4 planes hijack at the same time, ugh

Then the government finally step up and spent billions on airport security-improvements. Now its overkill at the airports and Obama uses this plastic explosives BS to illegally search everybody for any contraband...have they ever found any plastic explosives in any US airports, not that I am aware of..they do find drugs and or large amounts of cash all the time thou
 
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