Thursday, June 01, 2023

I just learned there is a high speed rail project from Washington DC to Boston... but they haven't replaced the old freight tracks yet, and high speed trains aren't going to work well at high speed on crappy old tracks, and for 2 billion dollars, they saved one hour travel time

Amtrak’s $2 billion effort to replace its fleet of Acela express trains on the Washington-to-Boston corridor has hit a foreseeable snag: The new trains have to run on an old railroad.

Boston New Haven New York Philadelphia Wilmington Washington is the route

The new trains are capable of traveling up to 160 miles an hour. But unlike their factual high speed rail European and Asian trains, they must cope with century-old infrastructure, bridges, tunnels, and roadbeds with numerous curves.

“Alstom, the builder of the Acela trainsets has confirmed the delays are due to difficulties in replicating certain movements of the trainsets and requires further refinement to receive the FRA’s (Federal Railroad Administration) approval to conduct qualification testing on the Northeast Corridor, which is necessary to achieve compliance to launch revenue service,” Amtrak stated.

Amtrak cannot operate them for passenger service until Alstom has completed testing and met all safety requirements.
https://delawarebusinessnow.com/2023/05/new-amtrak-acela-train-service-delayed-until-2024
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2 comments:

  1. Shas12:19 AM

    It's like you create a super fast race car but your roads are still Belgian block style.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown6:52 AM

    Even when they upgrade the track, some of the curves are still too tight to allow full speed.

    ReplyDelete