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DFW: IH-30 alignment recommended for possible future rail line

Started by MaxConcrete, April 23, 2021, 08:36:06 PM

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Bobby5280

Quote from: Plutonic PandaAgreed, but it's not just about new urbanism or whether people can live without a car but rather offering an alternative for those that want it. And to me that's very important that we do so.

Passenger rail is a niche alternative serving a niche need. It only works in the right locations, where population density and potential ridership is high enough to justify the cost of building the lines and operating them. And even in the few areas of the US where such conditions exists much of the rail corridors being used have existed for many decades, some dating back to the 1800's. If something new has to be built in a densely populated area the project can turn into a cost boondoggle. The 2nd Avenue Subway line project in Manhattan is a good example. The high speed line in California is another key example. So much of it has to be built on a brand new path due to the design speeds. A Dallas-Houston rail line wouldn't be any different. If the train has to use existing track to save money then it won't be high speed rail.

Quote from: Plutonic PandaThere aren't very many places in the country either that I can honestly tell you that would justify spending billions on a train but Dallas to Houston is one of them in my opinion.

Unless there are major breakthroughs in construction and engineering to dramatically lower the costs of building things like high speed rail lines the cost just isn't going to be worth it. City to city rail doesn't just compete with automobiles; it also has to compete with airlines. Driving your own vehicle from Dallas to Houston is slower, but it's relatively easy, less expensive and will get you to the door step of almost anywhere you need to go. Air travel is faster, but there's all the crap you have to go through at the terminals, plus the hassles of getting to/from the airports. Going to a train station isn't much different than going to an airport. But trains aren't as fast as planes. Depending on the route design a train may not be much faster than a car either. This is essentially why passenger train travel died out in the mid-late 1900's.

The high costs of downtown housing as well as the high costs of downtown office space are going to be negative drags on further growth of city centers where glitzy new high speed rail stations would preferably be built. The covid pandemic opened a lot of eyes to virtual work environments and also got people asking, "do we really need an office downtown?" As much as New Urbanism fans want city centers packed and booming the pressures of both housing/office cost and technology improvement may add more pressure to de-centralize things. I don't foresee many millions of Americans rushing off to live in the boonies or tiny towns. The rising cost of basic infrastructure and city services is killing small towns. The happy medium is going to be more in the way of spread out, suburban like environments. Those layouts aren't friendly to rail network design


The Ghostbuster

The only place passenger rail might make sense is in the northeastern part of the country. Anywhere else it would be a hard sell, since unlike in Europe, American cities are too far apart for passenger rail to be as effective. It is more effective (though perhaps not less stressful) to fly between American cities.

Bobby5280

I think passenger rail works better in Europe for multiple reasons. I've said this before, many European cities were already big and densely built before the advent of the automobile. These cities were expanding based on rail infrastructure. Many of those established rail routes have been built and re-built over the same space. The true high speed lines have required new rights of way, but those lines represent a small amount of the overall network. Also, many of those high speed lines were established 30+ years ago when getting stuff like that built was easier and cheaper. Japan's "bullet train" (Shinkansen) was introduced over 50 years ago.

We can't leave out government funding as a factor in this stuff. High speed rail efforts in the US have mostly been some mix of public-private partnerships or mostly plans in search of investors. European and Asian governments spend pretty big on their rail infrastructure systems.


Cerlin

There's also just the consistency and stress benefits of high speed rail. With driving, you are having to focus on that the entire time and there's also inevitable traffic delays (not to mention how frequent car accidents occur comparatively). With flying, it's usually the most expensive and there's a lot of downtime just waiting around (and little time for productivity on the plane). High speed rail fits that niche where you are able to work on things and be productive (like using a laptop), while also not having the stress of driving yourself or the delays that are frequent with those other mediums of transportation. This is what makes Amtrak so unsuccessful in this country, because the delays make it the least useful form of transportation between cities, in addition to its slow and often more expensive tendencies compared to driving. But, with the car-centric development of America, it does make it difficult to get projects like Texas Central off the ground because you have to not only overcome the biases of traditionalists, but there's all the land acquisition that must be done too.
Hypocritical Leftist who loves driving/highways and all modes of transportation.

ethanhopkin14

One of the other issues with rail travel, particularly in states like Texas is excessive heat.  If you are in a climate that has excessive heat for long periods of time, delays are normal because of rail expansion.  Yes, there are ways around it, like extra reinforcement with concrete ties, but like everything else, that's $$.  So the train can't travel on existing rails because they are not designed for high speeds, so you have to buy new right-of-way over new terrain to smooth out hills and flatten curves, but then you have to actually build the rail road to accommodate high speeds, because even if the current rails were straight and had no grades, the track itself can't handle that high of a speed or handle that type of speed with track expansion.   

bwana39

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on June 15, 2022, 04:22:33 PM
One of the other issues with rail travel, particularly in states like Texas is excessive heat.  If you are in a climate that has excessive heat for long periods of time, delays are normal because of rail expansion.  Yes, there are ways around it, like extra reinforcement with concrete ties, but like everything else, that's $$.  So the train can't travel on existing rails because they are not designed for high speeds, so you have to buy new right-of-way over new terrain to smooth out hills and flatten curves, but then you have to actually build the rail road to accommodate high speeds, because even if the current rails were straight and had no grades, the track itself can't handle that high of a speed or handle that type of speed with track expansion.   

The bullet train from DFW to Houston is proposed to be on a new alignment on a totally new facility
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

ethanhopkin14

Quote from: bwana39 on June 15, 2022, 08:11:35 PM
Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on June 15, 2022, 04:22:33 PM
One of the other issues with rail travel, particularly in states like Texas is excessive heat.  If you are in a climate that has excessive heat for long periods of time, delays are normal because of rail expansion.  Yes, there are ways around it, like extra reinforcement with concrete ties, but like everything else, that's $$.  So the train can't travel on existing rails because they are not designed for high speeds, so you have to buy new right-of-way over new terrain to smooth out hills and flatten curves, but then you have to actually build the rail road to accommodate high speeds, because even if the current rails were straight and had no grades, the track itself can't handle that high of a speed or handle that type of speed with track expansion.   

The bullet train from DFW to Houston is proposed to be on a new alignment on a totally new facility

I know it is.  My point is most, if not 99% of the knuckleheads in the world don't realize that a high speed train HAS to be on a new alignment.  They think, its a train, we have rail road tracks, slap it on that and call it a day. 

kernals12

Airplanes go faster than trains and don't require any dedicated right of way.


Bobby5280

Quote from: CerlinThere's also just the consistency and stress benefits of high speed rail. With driving, you are having to focus on that the entire time and there's also inevitable traffic delays (not to mention how frequent car accidents occur comparatively). With flying, it's usually the most expensive and there's a lot of downtime just waiting around (and little time for productivity on the plane). High speed rail fits that niche where you are able to work on things and be productive (like using a laptop), while also not having the stress of driving yourself or the delays that are frequent with those other mediums of transportation.

Taking a longer distance train trip is not much less complicated than taking a plane flight. You have to travel to the train station, deal with parking hassles, go through the check-in/security process, etc. In the best case scenario a true high speed rail station would be conveniently located in a city center within close walking distance of slower commuter rail lines and other modes of transportation. Big airports are often on the outer fringes of a city. Unfortunately big train stations require pretty big footprints of their own. Any new railroad tracks will often have to be built on elevated bridges or put in tunnels deep underground. Obviously both of those options are really expensive. That situation may force the primary train stations for American high speed rail lines to be built on the outer edges of cities, just like airports.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14I know it is. My point is most, if not 99% of the knuckleheads in the world don't realize that a high speed train HAS to be on a new alignment. They think, its a train, we have rail road tracks, slap it on that and call it a day.

True high speed rail has to be on dedicated alignments engineered specifically for speeds greater than 150mph. No railroad crossings can be allowed. The alignment also has to be secured to keep pedestrians and large animals from trying to cross the tracks. The closest thing the US has to anything like this is the electrified rail lines from Washington, DC to Boston.

Too often attempts to do high speed rail in the US end up being some kind of dopey compromise. There will be segments of true high speed rail. But some of the route (or a lot of it) has to end up using existing general-purpose rail corridors where passenger and freight service share the same rails.

The HSR project in California (if it ever gets fully built out) will end up being a mix of real high speed rail and conventional rail, particularly as the trains get into suburban and urban areas. It's not going to be an Asian or European style implementation where the high speed line is 100% isolated from other trains and isolated from any at-grade crossings. I'm afraid the Texas HSR project will end up being affected by the same compromises.

Quote from: kernals12Airplanes go faster than trains and don't require any dedicated right of way.

Airplanes in the air don't need any physical right of way other than the flight path they follow when allowed to proceed by the control tower. On the other hand, airports need a hell of a lot of physical space. Depending on the size of the airport the various modes of transportation going in and out of the airport may require a giant amount of space as well. Home owners living near the site of a proposed airport may raise all sorts of hell if their properties are under take-off and landing paths.

bwana39

Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2022, 07:47:52 AM
Airplanes go faster than trains and don't require any dedicated right of way.

Yes, but trains tend to start closer to the city centers. A dedicated bullet train would make the time from city center to city center a wash or more less.

From the Hyatt to the Hyatt via car is less than 3.5 hours.

Via taxi and plane from Love and Hobby, it is 1 hr 19 min flight time. 15 minutes to Love and 25 minutes  from Hobby.  Let's keep it skinny and lets say 45 minutes in the two terminals. That is 2 hours and 40 minutes.

A BULLET train would probably be around an hour and a half terminal to terminal. Let's say 30 minutes in the terminals and 15 minutes each on both ends of the downtowns. Around an hour and a half. Trains are cancelled far less than planes and the inherent delays in trains on multiuser tracks are not in place with the dedicated tracks for a bullet train.

Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

Bobby5280

Quote from: bwana39Yes, but trains tend to start closer to the city centers. A dedicated bullet train would make the time from city center to city center a wash or more less.

The hardest part of the equation is building a real high speed rail station in a city center and having isolated high speed rail tracks reach that city center station in that form.

High cost, battles over ROW acquisition and general NIMBY opposition may force American implementations of high speed rail to have the trains operate on shared, conventional speed tracks within urban/suburban zones and only operate at high speed in rural areas. That will dramatically increase travel times and lessen the appeal of that kind of train service.

kernals12

A train station that moved as many people as DFW airport, and provided parking and car rentals, would be absolutely enormous.

ethanhopkin14

So basically, a "high speed" rail line with extreme compromises will feel exactly like that.  People will realize it's exactly that after the chrome starts to dirty up.  It will fail. 

skluth

I rode the high speed train from Madrid to Malaga pre-pandemic. There were a couple sections where the AVE train traveled on a regular rail line, either approaching and leaving stations along the route and once through a tunnel. We also had to wait about five minutes at the tunnel entrance for the tunnel to clear. It didn't seriously slow down the train as it was only for those short segments. It's not like high speed rail can't use regular rail; they can as long as the gauge doesn't change. The only thing is the trains can't run at max speed. Obviously, you don't want high speed rail to use much regular rail like Acela does. HSR can also use the same ROW for new tracks as rural interstates as long as it's not too hilly.

Let's not forget airports also need a lot of dedicated infrastructure and land. Urban airports require several square miles of FLAT land not to mention buffers for approaches, often taking prime land that could be used for housing; DFW is a prime example. Other airports (e.g., JFK) are built in wetlands causing a lot of environmental destruction. I'm not saying HSR doesn't also use land; just saying all transportation infrastructure uses a lot of land.

Bobby5280

Quote from: skluthHSR can also use the same ROW for new tracks as rural interstates as long as it's not too hilly.

At best, high speed rail could follow alongside or within the median of Interstate highways for only short distances.

Interstate highways, regardless if they're urban or rural, are not designed with the kind of geometry required by high speed rail. The hills are allowed to be built too steep, with grades as much as 6%. The roadway curves and bends are too tight for speeds over 100mph; some rural Interstate curves can drop below 70mph rated speeds and require warning signs. A train running at 150mph-200mph speeds can't operate parallel to that.

In a scenario of a hybrid transportation corridor where a freeway/turnpike shared the same ROW with a high speed rail line the corridor's path would have to be defined by the high speed rail line.

Quote from: skluthLet's not forget airports also need a lot of dedicated infrastructure and land.

One of the newer trends with airports is building them on artificial islands. Of course that's not a cheap thing to do at all. But in some locations, such as Hong Kong, there is no other choice.

Railroad stations don't have to be nearly as big as airports, but the passenger terminals can still end up eating a lot of space. Within downtown districts the cost of space runs at a high cost premium. Older American cities in the Northeast have been getting by with updating big old historic stations. But any true high speed rail connections to them would probably have to be built as very expensive deep bore tunnels farther below those stations. Newer American cities that were built up around the automobile don't have passenger rail terminals like Grand Central in Manhattan or Union Station in DC. A lot of new terminal construction would have to take place. Choosing the right locations would be very tricky.

skluth

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 21, 2022, 02:42:44 PM
Quote from: skluthHSR can also use the same ROW for new tracks as rural interstates as long as it's not too hilly.

At best, high speed rail could follow alongside or within the median of Interstate highways for only short distances.

Interstate highways, regardless if they're urban or rural, are not designed with the kind of geometry required by high speed rail. The hills are allowed to be built too steep, with grades at much as 6%. The roadway curves and bends are too tight for speeds over 100mph; some rural Interstate curves can drop below 70mph rated speeds and require warning signs. A train running at 150mph-200mph speeds can't operate parallel to that.

In a scenario of a hybrid transportation corridor where a freeway/turnpike shared the same ROW with a high speed rail line the corridor's path would have to be defined by the high speed rail line.

I didn't say along every rural interstate. I added the caveat about being too hilly, yet you're saying HSR can't deal with 6% grades to dismiss my statement. If you've ever been on I-5 in the Central Valley, I-80 from Cheyenne to Cleveland, I-20 through West Texas, I-10 along the Gulf, and plenty of other places, you find most of these stretches almost entirely <1% grade with few steep grades. This doesn't mean steep grades don't exist there nor do I mean every interstate. But just claiming you know it often can't be done everywhere doesn't dismiss my case when I already said it can't be too hilly. I wouldn't attempt HSR along I-80 through Pennsylvania or along I-44 through Missouri.

I don't like the I-30 corridor for any Dallas-Ft Worth line as it's far too urban though it's flat enough. But HSR could run parallel to the Indiana Toll Road and Ohio Turnpike from Chicago to Cleveland. It could run along I-55 most of the way from Joliet to East St Louis. I've thought about HSR running down the middle of I-55 several times when I drove between St Louis and Chicago. There's more than enough room and it's mostly flat. It would be difficult to go around Springfield and Bloomington, but the rail would probably need to go into those cities anyway.
[/quote]

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 21, 2022, 02:42:44 PM
Quote from: skluthLet's not forget airports also need a lot of dedicated infrastructure and land.

Railroad stations don't have to be nearly as big as airports, but the passenger terminals can still end up eating a lot of space. Within downtown districts the cost of space runs at a high cost premium. Older American cities in the Northeast have been getting by with updating big old historic stations. But any true high speed rail connections to them would probably have to be built as very expensive deep bore tunnels farther below those stations. Newer American cities that were built up around the automobile don't have passenger rail terminals like Grand Central in Manhattan or Union Station in DC. A lot of new terminal construction would have to take place. Choosing the right locations would be very tricky.

Rail stations are significantly smaller than any urban airport and smaller cities can fit their stations on less than an acre. It's not unusual to have stations in industrial park-like buildings or even doublewide trailers after cities lose use of their old terminal for other purposes; St Louis had what was sarcastically known as Amshack for a couple decades before their new intermodal terminal was built. Rail stations are also usually on the edge of downtown adjacent to a much larger commercial railyards making the land worth significantly less than other downtown properties. Yes, a deep bore tunnel will probably be needed for NYC, but that's the exception and not the rule. HSR can enter current stations on the same rail as current passenger rail does now; it just needs to switch to its own track within a short distance to run at full speed. The train I mentioned used the regular tracks for a short distance before switching to the HSR line in Madrid and switched back to the regular lines as it approached Malaga. Nobody had a problem with that.

It would also be simple to build new terminals for intermediate stops rather than running them into town. A new South Bend terminal for HSR along the Indiana Toll Road near an interchange would be more useable to the autocentric population of North Central Indiana than the current station which in the city but on the edge of an industrial park. Many cities like Phoenix no longer even have a train station as Amtrak does not run to their cities so new stations will be needed. It wouldn't surprise me to see private/public partnerships with some new stations where a hotel is built above the station essentially sharing the footprint and taking up no more land than a new station alone.

Rothman

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 21, 2022, 10:38:08 AM
Quote from: CerlinThere's also just the consistency and stress benefits of high speed rail. With driving, you are having to focus on that the entire time and there's also inevitable traffic delays (not to mention how frequent car accidents occur comparatively). With flying, it's usually the most expensive and there's a lot of downtime just waiting around (and little time for productivity on the plane). High speed rail fits that niche where you are able to work on things and be productive (like using a laptop), while also not having the stress of driving yourself or the delays that are frequent with those other mediums of transportation.

Taking a longer distance train trip is not much less complicated than taking a plane flight. You have to travel to the train station, deal with parking hassles, go through the check-in/security process, etc. In the best case scenario a true high speed rail station would be conveniently located in a city center within close walking distance of slower commuter rail lines and other modes of transportation. Big airports are often on the outer fringes of a city. Unfortunately big train stations require pretty big footprints of their own. Any new railroad tracks will often have to be built on elevated bridges or put in tunnels deep underground. Obviously both of those options are really expensive. That situation may force the primary train stations for American high speed rail lines to be built on the outer edges of cities, just like airports.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14I know it is. My point is most, if not 99% of the knuckleheads in the world don't realize that a high speed train HAS to be on a new alignment. They think, its a train, we have rail road tracks, slap it on that and call it a day.

True high speed rail has to be on dedicated alignments engineered specifically for speeds greater than 150mph. No railroad crossings can be allowed. The alignment also has to be secured to keep pedestrians and large animals from trying to cross the tracks. The closest thing the US has to anything like this is the electrified rail lines from Washington, DC to Boston.

Too often attempts to do high speed rail in the US end up being some kind of dopey compromise. There will be segments of true high speed rail. But some of the route (or a lot of it) has to end up using existing general-purpose rail corridors where passenger and freight service share the same rails.

The HSR project in California (if it ever gets fully built out) will end up being a mix of real high speed rail and conventional rail, particularly as the trains get into suburban and urban areas. It's not going to be an Asian or European style implementation where the high speed line is 100% isolated from other trains and isolated from any at-grade crossings. I'm afraid the Texas HSR project will end up being affected by the same compromises.

Quote from: kernals12Airplanes go faster than trains and don't require any dedicated right of way.

Airplanes in the air don't need any physical right of way other than the flight path they follow when allowed to proceed by the control tower. On the other hand, airports need a hell of a lot of physical space. Depending on the size of the airport the various modes of transportation going in and out of the airport may require a giant amount of space as well. Home owners living near the site of a proposed airport may raise all sorts of hell if their properties are under take-off and landing paths.
Flight paths are less restrictive than you think.  It's just like planning a route along highways.  There's less hand-holding mid-route than media portrays.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

kphoger

Quote from: skluth on June 21, 2022, 04:43:40 PM
St Louis had what was sarcastically known as Amshack for a couple decades before their new intermodal terminal was built.

Iteration #1:


Iteration #2:
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

bwana39

QuoteFlight paths are less restrictive than you think.  It's just like planning a route along highways.  There's less hand-holding mid-route than media portrays.

Yeah,
that is why I have flown from Shreveport to Houston over Possum Kingdom Reservoir  and over Mexico going from Dallas to Houston. (Sarcasm intended)
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

Bobby5280

Quote from: skluthI didn't say along every rural interstate. I added the caveat about being too hilly, yet you're saying HSR can't deal with 6% grades to dismiss my statement. If you've ever been on I-5 in the Central Valley, I-80 from Cheyenne to Cleveland, I-20 through West Texas, I-10 along the Gulf, and plenty of other places, you find most of these stretches almost entirely <1% grade with few steep grades. This doesn't mean steep grades don't exist there nor do I mean every interstate. But just claiming you know it often can't be done everywhere doesn't dismiss my case when I already said it can't be too hilly. I wouldn't attempt HSR along I-80 through Pennsylvania or along I-44 through Missouri.

Look closely at I-5 in California's Central Valley within Google Maps/Earth. Then look closely at some of the in-progress imagery of the high speed rail project there. While I-5 might seem as if it runs a very straight path through that region it does not run a path straight enough to hold something like a high speed rail line within its median or parallel to it. The I-5 path has a lot of minor angles to it. Those angles are nothing for vehicles going 80mph. But those angles are too sudden for a train going 150mph.

Even in a flat state like Kansas a corridor like I-70 has all sorts of little shifts in its path. It's not perfectly straight.

skluth

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 22, 2022, 12:48:40 AM
Quote from: skluthI didn't say along every rural interstate. I added the caveat about being too hilly, yet you're saying HSR can't deal with 6% grades to dismiss my statement. If you've ever been on I-5 in the Central Valley, I-80 from Cheyenne to Cleveland, I-20 through West Texas, I-10 along the Gulf, and plenty of other places, you find most of these stretches almost entirely <1% grade with few steep grades. This doesn't mean steep grades don't exist there nor do I mean every interstate. But just claiming you know it often can't be done everywhere doesn't dismiss my case when I already said it can't be too hilly. I wouldn't attempt HSR along I-80 through Pennsylvania or along I-44 through Missouri.

Look closely at I-5 in California's Central Valley within Google Maps/Earth. Then look closely at some of the in-progress imagery of the high speed rail project there. While I-5 might seem as if it runs a very straight path through that region it does not run a path straight enough to hold something like a high speed rail line within its median or parallel to it. The I-5 path has a lot of minor angles to it. Those angles are nothing for vehicles going 80mph. But those angles are too sudden for a train going 150mph.

Even in a flat state like Kansas a corridor like I-70 has all sorts of little shifts in its path. It's not perfectly straight.

How tragic. A few curves may need to be rebuilt in the middle of nowhere. I guess that's definitive then. No building HSR where any minor reconstruction may need to be done.

Bobby5280

I'm not making up this shit. The math is the math. No one is sticking a 200mph high speed rail line in the median of an existing freeway designed for 70mph automobile speeds.

The only examples I see of railroads being incorporated in the medians of freeways are railroads that operate at conventional "slow" speeds (freight rail, subways/light rail and regular speed passenger rail). And even those railroads don't follow in the median or alongside an Interstate for any more than just a short distance.

sprjus4

Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 22, 2022, 10:51:03 PM
I'm not making up this shit. The math is the math. No one is sticking a 200mph high speed rail line in the median of an existing freeway designed for 70mph automobile speeds.
He didn't dispute that... in those cases, realign the curves where necessary to accommodate those faster speeds.

I-55

Quote from: sprjus4 on June 23, 2022, 04:00:51 AM
Quote from: Bobby5280 on June 22, 2022, 10:51:03 PM
I'm not making up this shit. The math is the math. No one is sticking a 200mph high speed rail line in the median of an existing freeway designed for 70mph automobile speeds.
He didn't dispute that... in those cases, realign the curves where necessary to accommodate those faster speeds.

Which (depending on the road and how close some of these curves are to each other) could mean full reconstructions on long stretches of highway, which would almost be like rebuilding the interstate system from scratch.
Let's Go Purdue Basketball Whoosh



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