Take a look at the timetable for Amtrak's Vermonter. From White River Junction, VT to New Haven, CT, the rail line pretty much parallels I-91 and US-5. By rail, that is a distance of 196 miles. It takes Amtrak 5 hours and 20 minutes to travel that distance.
That's an average speed of 36.7mph. It probably would be faster to drive Route 5 the entire length of the trip. By car, you'd make it in three hours and that's if you obeyed the speed limits.
I'll bet that 100 years ago, it took less than 5:20 to ride the steam trans from White River Jct. to New Haven.
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
5 comments:
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ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of this nation's railroads were built for freight at 50mph, not for passenger service at faster speeds. Short lines were built to 25mph standard. Most urban sections of mainlines are built to 30mph standard. All of this is just fine for freight, where you mind more how much it costs than how long it takes, but of course is ridiculous for passenger service, which is why railroad passenger service was dying before the Interstate Highway System killed it completely except for AMTRAK and certain urban systems.
ReplyDeleteNow, one thing is that the U.S. Mail, which funded passenger service back in the day (passenger service has *never* been a priority for the railroads, *never*, they have always made their money on freight, not passengers) had strict performance requirements and thus back in the day passenger service got priority over freight trains. Today it's different -- often passenger trains get shunted to sidings and sit there for hours waiting for freight trains to come by. So real-world passenger service *is* slower today -- but not because trains were ever faster, it's just a matter of priorities on the part of the railroad owners.
I'll note that in areas where AMTRAK owns the rails itself, trains go significantly faster. The Baby Bullet runs from San Jose to San Francisco in 50 minutes, for example, or an average of roughly 55mph, about 5mph better than you'd average if driving that distance due to congestion on US101, and the trains reach around 65mph between stations. But in most places AMTRAK runs, they're at the mercy of the freights, who route their own freight trains priority over passenger rail and don't care to maintain their rails to greater than 50mph speed. So it goes.
- Badtux the Rail Penguin
And what BadTux said *is* what happens on the Vermonter. I've ridden it. It pulls off onto a siding and sits for, as I recall, several hours doing absolutely nothing. Infuriating.
ReplyDeleteMeh! On the train I don't drive. I can stretch my legs and take a walk. Get a snack or a drink or take a pee when I want to. It takes a little longer so what's my hurry?
ReplyDeleteHuh. Way back when I took the old Montréaler, I remember that the train sat on that stretch for a while at some weird hour in the morning. Not any five hours, though.
ReplyDeleteBack then the major delay was Customs.