My Pennsylvania Intercity & Regional Rail Proposal

Submitted by Nexis4Jersey t3_10ika8k in Pennsylvania

Last week I posted to various NY subreddits & on here with my proposal for Intercity & Regional Rail. My proposals are largely taken from the Amtrak 2035 Connects US : page 56 & 2009 PA State Rail plan with a New infill networks like the Susquehanna network. I used the Open railway map to look up potential routes and poured through the list of former PA train routes. I did post a few years ago a more detailed post on r/philly about Regional Rail & Urban Rail Proposals. My Delaware and Maryland proposals are next.

Eastern Ohio – Pennsylvania – Connecting NY State - Intercity & Regional Rail Proposals

  • Upgrade the Keystone line to 125mph
  • Restore SEPTA Service to Pottsville/Reading , Stony Creek Branch (Norristown-Lansdale), Allentown & West Chester
  • Extend the Warminster Branch to New Hope
  • Extend 2x daily Port Jervis Line trains to Honesdale
  • Build a NEPA/Southern Tier Rail Network , upgrade the tracks to 80-110mph
  • Amtrak Lackawanna Service : Hoboken to Scranton – 6x daily :→ Binghamton - 5x daily : → Buffalo – 3x daily :-> Syracuse – 2x daily , NJT service : East Stroudsburg - Hoboken
  • Build the Susquehanna Intercity Rail Network , re-electrified from Middletown to Perryville,MD
  • Amtrak Susquehanna Service : Richmond to Harrisburg – 6x daily :→ State College/Williamsport – 2x daily :→ Scranton – 3x daily : State College – Philly – 2x daily
  • Build a dedicated Passenger Rail line along the NS Lehigh Line : Harrisburg – Reading – Allentown - NY – 5x daily , NJT service : Allentown – New York : Hourly Service
  • Amtrak Pennsylvanian : NY to Pittsburgh – 1x daily & Cleveland – Pittsburgh – Philly – 2x daily
  • New Service Amtrak Scrantonian : Pittsburgh - State College - Williamsport - Scranton – 2x daily
  • Restore the Broadway Limited : Chicago – Fort Wayne – Youngstown – Pittsburgh – Harrisburg - Reading - Allentown - NY – 1x daily
  • Restore and Extend the [Amtrak Blue Ridge Service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_(train) : Pittsburgh – DC – 2x daily
  • New Service : Amtrak Allegheny Service : Cincinnati – Columbus – Pittsburgh – 3x daily
  • Amtrak Empire Service : Cleveland – Erie – Buffalo – Albany – NY – 1x daily
  • Move Amtrak Services back to Cleveland Union Station
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Comments

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StatisticianSure2349 t1_j5fbcvx wrote

Why did the state give 65 million to freight rail when they are a for profit entaty for infrasture repairs

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5fc7ff wrote

Its fairly common and a lot of states do it...and then turn around and say they have no money for passenger rail projects. It's hard to justify it when the big companies let their lines deteriorate so badly , yet bring in billions in profits each year.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j5g0p07 wrote

Southwest Airlines spent billions of dollars on stock buybacks instead of repairing their shitty scheduling software, and were just flat out given around $9b in pandemic "relief."

 
These companies exist as vampires on society.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5g18tn wrote

Southwest Airlines also lobbied several states in the 90s to make it illegal to use public funds for high speed rail or let private companies build it. They were afraid of the competition like what happened in Europe and parts of Asia.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j5g1ip2 wrote

You can also find an open letter from the CEO of Exxon to Joe Biden basically saying that they're never expanding refinery capacity unless the federal government pays to build it for them.

 
The company that owns Eggland's Best, Land o' Lakes, and a bunch of other companies is jacking up egg prices despite not being affected by avian flu, because they can.

 

It really isn't good that we have companies that can essentially punish the electorate for voting in politicians they don't like. Someone should really do something about that.

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upghr5187 t1_j5gc3gf wrote

One of the many problems of allowing corporations to own critical infrastructure. They know the government will never let them fail completely. They can focus on short term profits and neglect long term commitments knowing the bailout is coming. Same way they were able to get congress to step in on their behalf in a labor dispute.

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31spiders t1_j5fl72q wrote

Theoretically if people utilized privately owned public transportation, the lesser people on the roads. That translates to less money spent on upkeep for those roads. Less police/ems presence for accidents (etc) needed. All of that IS taxpayer funded.

I’m pretty conservative but public transportation in the states is an absolute joke compared to Europe.

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Advanced-Guard-4468 t1_j5jbvxp wrote

With EV there is already reduced money going towards road infrastructure. They pay no gas tax for road usage.

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kormer t1_j5fsp8f wrote

Giving this an 'A' for effort, but most of this is not going to work for a lot of reasons.

I don't want to get into it too deeply, but I did want to call attention to one curious item...

> Amtrak Empire Service : Cleveland – Erie – Buffalo – Albany – NY – 1x daily

If you ever wanted to see a bullet train from NYC to Chicago, Erie would likely be the only stop in PA. Going this route, you have a net elevation change of 500', a maximum gain of 1,000', and even then the grade is virtually nil spreading it out of hundreds of miles. Additionally, You can take advantage of some very long, very straight stretches along the lakeshore segment.

Going across PA means tunnels, bridges, elevation gain, and lots of curves. All of which will quickly remove the bullet speed from your bullet train.

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[deleted] t1_j5g1gfm wrote

[deleted]

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kormer t1_j5gf25s wrote

From a purely engineering standpoint, yes, it could be done, that's not the problem. The problem is you're either going to balloon the cost to a level where aviation fuel would need to hit $1000/gal before taking the train is more economical, or you're going to be adding so many curves that you'll never hit bullet train speeds.

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culhanetyl t1_j5mlbwk wrote

tunnels are absurdly expensive to maintain , the turnpike keeps getting rid of them due to the cost associated with them

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5fw74a wrote

That day service train to NY is planned under both the NY and PA state rail plans It's to fill in the service gap. I'm not proposing high speed rail but corridor service with dedicated passenger tracks alongside existing freight rail lines with increased speeds up to 110mph. The Amtrak 2035 Plan and most state plans do not have high speed rail in them at least not above 125mph. The focus is on improving and expand corridor services which are more popular and easier to build. Under the 125mph upstate ny empire upgrade you would see end to end travel times be reduced by 4hrs down to 5hrs from NY to Niagara Falls and 6hrs to Erie,PA. There's also a separate study underway for the southern tier region of NY so Erie might a few more trains from NY by 2035. Most of the Main Lines in PA were built for speed so re-installing a second track and upgrading it wouldn't be hard. You wouldn't need to take land or do any serious infrastructure work in most cases.

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blue5801 t1_j5evu84 wrote

Whose going to pay to restore the tracks north of Quakertown and add the cost of stringing catenary wire to a lot of these places?

Septa will never get diesel locomotives for anything other than work trains and will never buy dual mode locomotives

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5f0rvz wrote

Maybe they could be convinced to buy Hydrogen powered MU trains , a few systems out west bought them. The recent proposals call for service to be restored back to Quakertown and then see if there's even more demand to justify restoring all the way to Allentown.

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blue5801 t1_j5f2gfx wrote

Septa can't get the junkies off the El and you want them to buy hydrogen powered MU trains... That's laughable. Septa isn't going north of Lansdale for rail service on the old Bethlehem line as much as people want it. They would probably have an easier time getting a bus to go from the Lansdale station to Quakertown via 309 with stops in Perkasie and Sellersville (along with the Montgomery Mall) and then work out something with LANTA for service to Allentown and Bethlehem. Even service from Doylestown to Allentown would probably be better especially in the summer with folks wanting to go to Dorney Park.

I do like the fact that the Berks-Chester-Montgomery county rail authority is looking to contract with Amtrak for service on the 422 corridor. However septa will probably charge them an arm and a leg to run trains from the NE Corridor connection to Norristown. Also that service could be increased with a stop in Lebanon and seasonal travel to Hershey Park which would get a lot of patronage in the summer.

Personally I would prefer Septa to run hourly Sunday service to/from Trenton so you're not stuck waiting hours on end.

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Allemaengel t1_j5eya9p wrote

Bethlehem line just ain't happening.

  1. Perkasie Tunnel represents one big problem.
  2. The popular Saucony and Upper Bucks rail trails now occupy a lot of it.

Plus the already-mentioned usual electrification, missing stations, and major track upgrade issues, etc.

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blue5801 t1_j5f3k9s wrote

Unless septa somehow gets a huge property for parking in West Chester, I doubt they will restart train service to there. Considering Exton is right down the road and has both Amtrak and Septa service, service to Exton might be a better ride with more frequent service on the Keystone corridor. Even putting a park and ride at the Exton Mall (which is pretty dead) and a shuttle bus might work even better.

Septa no longer owns the track north of the Warminster station and is under the ownership of the New Hope and Ivyland railroad. The area just north of Street Rd is a pretty big freight transfer station so I doubt they will string wire all the way to New Hope.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5f486f wrote

I don't think a huge parking lot is planned for West Chester it's considered a city stop and SEPTA seems to want to trend away from large parking lots in favor of TOD stations. The City and County are actively pushing for service to restart so it's more or less a funding issue. I am somewhat hopefully that the new Governor gives more funding to agency along with getting the feds to fund the backlog of large projects.

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blue5801 t1_j5f66e9 wrote

They can actively push all they want but unless they're going to pay to restring the catenary wire, rebuild several bridges and track, it's not happening. A look at the 104 bus shows that septa service to West Chester isn't particularly busy once you go past 476 on West Chester Pike.

There's a lot more pressing issues that the governor can fix in the Commonwealth that should probably come before we start looking at increased rail service on a system that needs to have it's board and management team axed... I personally would like to see more money funneled into repairing the bridges and roads over train service.

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courageous_liquid t1_j5fl2hb wrote

> A look at the 104 bus shows that septa service to West Chester isn't particularly busy once you go past 476 on West Chester Pike.

Because it blows. From my house in south philly it would take me 2 hours to get to west chester via the 104. It's easier to just get a zipcar and deal with 95/476 or the schuylkill/202 or take the regional rail and picked up at wawa.

I'd love the west chester line as it's one of the major places in the philly burbs where there's just no good way to get to. I realize there are significant setbacks and it'll be a decade before it runs again even if the political stuff gets ironed out quickly, but judging by the traffic I've seen getting off at wawa, it might have some legs. Before wawa opened, that line would have like 3-4 people still on the train getting off at elwyn off-peak, the last train I took out there on the weekend, both cars were about half full and getting off at wawa.

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blue5801 t1_j5fmbas wrote

The problem with Elwyn is that it's in the middle of nowhere on the school grounds. Media probably got the most passengers on the line (those who don't want to take the trolley or 110 bus from 69th st).

Unfortunately past Wawa before Glen Mills, a lot of the line has issues. I believe there's several bridges that are falling apart which are the biggest projects and would cost the most to replace.

I'm not saying the service isn't there, but if they were to merge Cheyney into West Chester university and use it as an overflow school and them picking up some of the fare costs, for students, it might make Septa want to increase train service to West Chester. Until that time, increased service to Exton is probably going to be the best bet.

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courageous_liquid t1_j5fnzei wrote

Even media is basically dead outbound off-peak, in my experience. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) swarthmore seems like it's the stop on the line with the most traffic off-peak.

Elwyn is crazy busy on-peak, people park dangerously on the street and you can't get a spot unless you're there by like 7am in the morning. It's a huge collector for that side of delco.

But yes, the infrastructure issues are a huge hurdle, which is why I don't actually see anything practical happening in the next decade, even if that other agency that wants to buy the trainset gets fully funded.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5f7m35 wrote

The estimated cost is around 300 million for new tracks , small yard , 4 new/rebuilt stations , and catenary. The 104 bus is a different service corridor and a slower one. I would replace it will a Suburban Trolley service from 69th Street to 476 and the 103 as well... The remaining underused portion could be cut completed or reduced. The State has a backlog of Critical rail projects that need to be funded so those will likely go first along with the various bridge and road rebuilds...

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HeyImGilly t1_j5fphtq wrote

The Chestnut Street garage is close enough that I don’t think parking would be that much of an issue.

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PatientNice t1_j5giso2 wrote

Some really cool thoughts and comments here. I love the original proposal and hope some of it happens.

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LOERMaster t1_j5gkh18 wrote

But if people have all these public transport options it’ll hurt the car and oil industry.

So what I’m saying is there isn’t a chance in hell any of this will happen in our lifetimes.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5gsl0t wrote

At least with Intercity, it's the Airlines and the long distance bus services that would lose the most. Regional Rail / Public Transit its the auto industry, but that impact isn't as strong or damaging. I wish PA was like Virginia which just recently bought up most of the busy freight corridors for 5 billion and plans on expanding Amtrak services along with speeding up the lines... North Carolina and Maryland might do something similar in the not to distant future along with Massachusetts and Maine...

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natevince t1_j5ga5t8 wrote

Would love to see a passenger rail from Harrisburg to NYC

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Newt451 t1_j5gk6dq wrote

They already have it. It's called Keystone Service and runs 6 times a day.

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natevince t1_j5glztd wrote

Ah, I should've specified. One that goes from Harrisburg to Allentown to NY

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ask_the_fisherman t1_j5igsc2 wrote

Environmental and unions would make this cost prohibative as soon as it was proposed by anyone. The legal fees would be in the high 100s of millions. Then the unions would demand labor cost of 125 per hour or more. You have to add in all the perks with the wages. You are likely talking 5-7 million per mile at a minimum.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5ilrkt wrote

The Keystone Corridor is already 110mph so upgrading it to 125mph wouldn't be that hard , you just need to smooth out some curves. The rest of the network would be 80-110mph and if we go by proposed or plans underway in nearby states it would cost around 300-400 million for the Susquehanna Network , slightly less for the Lackawanna, although it would be around a billion if you included the Southern Tier and all the SEPTA proposals combined are around 2.5 billion...spread that out over 10yrs and its pretty reasonable.

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boredoflife96 t1_j5krfoq wrote

Considering they are blowing $1.9 billion on the southern beltway roads outside of Pittsburgh, 2.5 billion sounds inexpensive.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5kyd7e wrote

Most States are very similar , I believe the Full build for New York State which involves building at least 700 miles of dedicated passenger tracks , electrification , new bridges and upgraded stations + 300 miles of secondary track upgrades comes in at 15 billion. But is a drop in the bucket compared to the close to 30 billion in statewide highway and road projects.. Massachusetts has a 10 billion statewide Intercity rail plan but again its less then half of what the road projects cost..

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