Rethinking High-Speed Rail to Make It Work

So,  yet another group is looking at a high-speed rail system,  this time for Texas and Oklahoma as a region.  I like the basic idea,  but I do not like any of the proposals I have seen,  not since passenger train service mostly went away decades ago.

Nearly all of these proposals involve train speeds of 150 to 250 mph,  which in turn requires all-new equipment,  and also requires all-new right-of-way with high-tech track.  So,  nearly all of these proposals run in the very unaffordable 10’s of billions of today’s dollars. 

And here’s the real “rub”:  none of these proposals has ever effectively addressed how to get people out of their cars and onto the train for intercity travel!  Just shooting from the hip,  I can tell you that a ticket price 80% that of the equivalent airline ticket will not do that trick. 

The real rail system (that we actually do need!) should maximize use of existing assets to reduce cost,  and effectively address the “draw” that will get folks out of their cars on the interstates.  As it turns out,  there are pre-existing concepts for both of these very serious issues,  I just have never seen them proposed. 

Existing Assets

The allure of using existing assets is quite obvious:  to avoid spending 10’s of billions of dollars for this.  What we already have today is 80 mph capable,  for that is the typical cruise speed of an Amtrak train between stops in Texas. 

Improve track maintenance but slightly,  and you could raise that to 100 mph capable,  just as it was decades ago for steam express trains.  There’s just not a lot of expense involved to upgrade or adapt existing equipment for 100+ mph speeds,  not compared to the 10’s of billions of dollars for “all new everything”. 

The “Draw” Out of the Cars

The fundamental problem has been to get people out of their cars on the interstates,  because personal auto travel is just so bloody convenient.  Why?  Because the car expense doesn’t change when you get to destination (no rental required). 

If you have to rent a car at destination,  then there is no effective difference between train travel and air travel.   Air travel with car rental is such a royal pain in the rear that people simply prefer to drive hundreds of miles to avoid the hassle. 

In the process,  we waste millions of barrels of oil,  because mass transit is just far more efficient than cars.  People trying to address this with their mass transit plans always forget that the hassle factor has a high price to the passenger,  just like the oil. 

So,  why not do a sort of mixed freight and passenger train,  where a part of the freight is the cars of the passengers?  It’s a drive on,  get out and spend the trip in the dining car,  and then drive off without rental hassle when you get there.  This sort of thing has already been shown to work on the East Coast and in Europe!

Doing It A Bit Differently

So,  my proposal would be threefold:  (1) upgrade track maintenance to support 100 mph travel,  (2) upgrade or adapt engines and rolling stock for 100 mph travel,  and (3) put together trains that are mixed freight and passenger as well as the all-freight trains we already have. 

Just run everything nearer 100 mph than the current 70 mph freight,  to relieve scheduling problems.  The passenger-carrying portion could be added to any mixed freight.  Just add the dining car and some flat cars with the autos chained down on them.  Simple as that. 

Suggestions for Operations

I suggest that the auto-bearing flat cars be sorted by city,  according to the stops the train will make.  When you stop,  you uncouple that city’s auto-carrying flat car for arriving passengers,  and couple-up the auto-carrying flat car for those passengers getting on. 

That way,  auto load/unload times need not impact the time of the station stop.  You can just keep the same dining car,  with passengers coming and going as the stops are made.  Do the auto load/unload operations on a siding,  before/after the train stop.  

Why This Will Work

Trains are so much more efficient than any imaginable road vehicle that we would still save lots of fuel,  even hauling passengers’ autos on the train.  The passenger has a car at destination without a rental hassle.  And travel times at 100 mph are still shorter than anything achievable on the interstates,  even with a 75 mph speed limit. 

Folks that’s a win-win situation for everybody.  All it takes to “solve” this is reusing existing assets in a slightly-different way that addresses attractiveness of mass transit. 

Longer term,  we can look at what it would take to use those same existing assets at 120 mph.  Maybe even 130 mph.  But,  the 200 mph that requires “all-new everything” is just not necessary. 

Addressing Track Issues

I rode the Amtrak from McGregor to Chicago a few years ago.  I timed the speed at near-80 mph between stops in Texas,  and near-90 mph in Illinois.  But in Arkansas and Missouri,  we had to crawl at no more than 20-30 mph,  because the track was in such poor shape.

This state-by-state variation in track maintenance is what could be fixed by a federal standard for all lines to be used for high-speed passenger service.  As for correcting the problems,  there’s a shovel-ready infrastructure project,  if ever there was one. 

What I Saw in Japan

Last year my family went to Japan to visit friends and relatives.  The whole time we were there,  we used narrow-gauge light rail for almost all shorter trips,  and full-gauge rail for longer-range intercity travel.  It was really convenient.

All of these traveled faster than the corresponding auto traffic on the freeway system,  so people used them preferentially.  The same would be true here,  which is why 100+mph is “good enough”.  

On the Train Wreck in Quebec

News reports on this are still quite confusing,  but here is what I have been able to determine as pretty much the facts:

The train was parked and "secured" near Nantes (uphill and 7 miles away from Lac-Megantic),  and the driver went to a hotel for the night.  In this instance,  "secured" seems to mean a running diesel engine powering the air brake system,  I'd guess by the two-pipe system,  such that the air brakes were set in the locomotive and all train cars. 

Then there was some sort of fire in the parked locomotive,  to which the Nantes fire department and a railroad engineering division person responded.  They put out that fire,  which seems to have been fairly minor,  and shut down the running engine.  They had a procedure to follow,  and they followed it.  Everybody went home.

About an hour later,  the entire train rolled away,  picking up speed gravitationally,  and entering Lac Megantic fast enough to derail and cause the disaster. 

This is my suspicion,  based on what I have read about train air brakes: 

When they shut down the locomotive,  they killed the air compressor.  Train car second pipe pressures then fell due to air leakage,  which is inevitable.  Reduced train line pressures would act to apply car brakes,  but not with leak-drained reservoirs!  The second line that keeps the reservoirs filled would have been off,  too,  with the locomotive shut down. 

The locomotive air brake would also have been disabled by bleed-down with the compressor off.  I'm not sure about sequence,  but sooner or later,  all of the air brakes would have failed from bleed-down.  Apparently this took about an hour. 

Apparently,  nobody thought to set at least one car's handbrake,  and this must not have been in the locomotive fire procedure that they were following in Nantes.  One or two cars' handbrakes could have secured the train,  even without any compressed air at all in the air brake system.  That could have prevented this disaster.

As for the tank cars themselves,  these were unpressurized-liquid cars,  and reported to be DOT-111 designs,  which are well-known to be thin-skinned and easily punctured.  They were hauling a light crude that comes from fracking operations in North Dakota.  It would have flammability characteristics closer to diesel than heavy fuel oil. 

The problem with closed flammable liquid tanks is overpressurization explosions when exposed to fire.  Those are not detonations like high explosives,  but they are still extremely violent.  Once the cars are thrown together in a wreck and some torn open,  the fire starts.  Explosions become inevitable. 

The disaster is better and easier to prevent,  than to fight after-the-fact.

Recommendation:  set some handbrakes if you shut off the locomotive on a parked train.  Leave a note to that effect in the cab before you go. 

GW

Second thoughts (later,  same day):

Being a freight,  this was most likely a one-pipe air brake system,  not a two-pipe.  It doesn’t matter to the outcome.  Turn off the air compressor (and they did),  and after a while,  every brake component bleeds to zero.  Once that happens,  brakes release. 

When the last brake releases (car or engine,  doesn’t matter),  the train is free to roll,  unless some mechanical handbrakes somewhere were set.  Once free to roll,  if parked on any sensible slope at all,  the train will roll away under gravity.  That is inevitable. 

One pipe system or two,  same outcome as already described.

Same preventative as already described:  set a handbrake or two,  more of them on a steep slope.  There’s plenty of time to release them while the cars’ air brake components “charge up”,  with the (running) locomotive brake set to hold the train. 

 Update 7-19-13:

It is now my understanding that the engineer was supposed to have set 10 or 11 of the handbrakes on this train.  Obviously,  this didn't work. 

There are then only 3 possibilities:  (1) he did not set them,  (2) he did set them,  but they were ineffective (for a reason of considerable interest),  or (3) somebody else released the handbrakes. 

I think the authorities have their work cut out for them,  finding out which of these three possibilities caused the disaster.  It is easy enough to blame the engineer,  but there are two other possibilities that must be eliminated before that is a credible action for anyone to take.

Neither of the other two possibilities is a very comfortable thought.  Yet,  they MUST be dealt with.  If they are not,  then any "final report" on this disaster is neither credible nor useful. 

The Old Train Still Runs!

For the first time in a few years, I set up my old electric train in the shop. I got this train as a very young boy, Christmas of 1952. My dad and his next door neighbor built the train board layout in 1954. Some of the items, including two more freight cars, were added between then and about 1960.

The engine and tender is a 4-6-4 coal-fired steam locomotive of the type that was used to pull passenger trains on the old New York Central railway. Lionel called this particular engine 2046, and used it in more than one of their train sets. My original set included a silver tank car, silver box car, black gondola car, and a caboose. The yellow barrel car and the red explosives box car got added later.

The first image shows a good close-up of the engine and tender:



The second image shows the whole train board layout. The inner (third) loop of track is something I added about a decade or so ago. The original setup had two concentric loops connected by 4 switches, all 1954-ish vintage track and switches.

Along the way, the two extra freight cars, the crossing equipment, the water tower, and the beacon got added, as Christmas presents, if I remember correctly. My paternal grandmother gave me the gantry crane, which still works. It rotates, moves up and down, and the electromagnet still picks up iron things.

I put some miscellaneous small toy cars into this set-up. I also built the loading ramps out of scrap wood from an old VW bus wooden headliner. My painted-paper landscape simulation from over 20 years ago has deteriorated past repair. I need to replace it, and add some more hand-made buildings. I'll do it, once I retire.



The third image is my finger pointing at the entry in an original 1953 Lionel catalog for the exact set that is my original train: 1505WS, which was $49.95 in 1952-dollars, and still the same price in 1953. My good friend Harry Petersen in Minnesota found that catalog and sent it to me. He, too, is a model railroad enthusiast.




Below I have embedded a video clip taken with my wife's camera of this train running on that train board. It no longer smokes, but the whistle still blows. This thing is 59 years old this year, and it still runs! In spite of all the mistreatment I gave it as a child. Lionel certainly made a good product.

This posting is just for fun. Hope you enjoyed looking at it.

GW