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To expand this with more detail, NYC-Chicago is between 900 and 1000 miles on existing railroad tracks, depending on which way you go: ~910 miles through Phila

To expand this with more detail, NYC-Chicago is between 900 and 1000 miles on existing railroad tracks, depending on which way you go: ~910 miles through Philadelphia -> Harrisburg -> Pittsburgh -> Cleveland; ~960 miles through Albany -> Buffalo -> Cleveland; ~1000 miles through Philadelphia -> Baltimore -> DC -> Pittsburgh -> Cleveland. The route that touches DC is the one that passes through the most valuable intermediate stops, but most of that demand is intra-corridor and doesn't concern Chicago. Furthermore, DC is a logical place to serve as a hub to connect the two corridors: one a high-demand DC-NYC, and one a long-distance Chicago-DC. Since to go into Union Station, you have to double-back, this could be a two-segment train where you'd have one-seat travel between Chicago and NYC, but there would be a mandatory stop in DC. This all sounds good, but the segment between DC and Pittsburgh is awful: it's crowded with CSX freight trains, it's either hemmed in by populated areas or follows river valleys or narrow ravines, and there's much work to be done to bring it up to a state that can host High Speed Rail. Between DC and Pittsburgh, one would basically have to build a dedicated line for High Speed passenger rail. The route through Albany and Buffalo avoids the Appalachians but is forced into the busy Hudson Valley. Route improvements here are expensive. East of Cleveland, the Upstate New York cities along the route simply don't generate enough Chicago-bound demand, nor enough connecting opportunities to make routing this way worthwhile. The route of the old Pennsylvanian Railway through Philly, Harrisburg, Altoona, Pittsburgh is indeed the most logical 'direct' route, both in terms of macro and micro; most of the right-of-way is multi-tracked so even with the heavy Norfolk Southern freight traffic, it'd be competitive; and the route touches Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, all of which can generate local and connecting passengers. But even this route is substandard for High Speed Rail: most of it is in river valleys, where there isn't space for the overly broad, sweeping curves with large radii that are needed for high speed travel. The gist is, between Pittsburgh and the Appalachian Great Valley -- home to Harrisburg and Hagerstown, on the routes going towards Philadelphia and DC respectively -- significant engineering effort (that I wrote about previously [1]) would be needed to cut down on travel time on what would become one of the most profitable segments of the route: between Western PA and the rest of the Northeast Corridor. As for the Midwest, there are no convenient cities west of Cleveland to chain onto the route. Toledo or Fort Wayne are the most logical choices, but Toledo lacks north-south connections currently, while Fort Wayne is out of the way of the direct route and also lacks connections. Chaining them both along with South Bend would be best, but that's a complicated route that adds travel time. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13414587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13414587

jcranmer 9y ago
On point, but some addendums: Chicago/NEC isn't viable for HSR until 200mph at least, which means dedicated passenger rails, which means a new corridor anyways. The CSX route from DC to Pittsburgh isn't particularly great from this purpose. Of course, one of the issues with the Keystone to Harrisburg is that the wye is just north of Philly's station, so either you have to run the locomotive around in Philly or you bypass the stop entirely on the way to NYC. In terms of engineering, the worst part is going to be the Ridge and Valley section of the Appalachians, roughly Blue Mountain to Bedford if you're following the PA Turnpike. The problem is that you have steep ridges very perpendicular to your direction of travel, which requires either detouring to find a water gap or tunneling through the base. Once you're on the plateau proper, passenger rail can easily handle the grades. As for your final point: that's the big problem with the Midwest: pretty much nothing's colinear. In contrast, a straight line from from DC to Boston literally passes right through NYC [1] and very near Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, Trenton, and New Haven, with Hartford, Springfield, and Providence a bit further off. [1] When I drew it from the Capitol to Boston City Hall, the path over Manhattan was from roughly the northwestern corner of Lower Manhattan to the southeastern corner of Midtown Manhattan.

jcranmer 9y ago

On point, but some addendums: Chicago/NEC isn't viable for HSR until 200mph at least, which means dedicated passenger rails, which means a new corridor anyways. The CSX route from DC to Pittsburgh isn't particularly great from this purpose. Of course, one of the issues with the Keystone to Harrisburg is that the wye is just north of Philly's station, so either you have to run the locomotive around in Philly or you bypass the stop entirely on the way to NYC. In terms of engineering, the worst part is going to be the Ridge and Valley section of the Appalachians, roughly Blue Mountain to Bedford if you're following the PA Turnpike. The problem is that you have steep ridges very perpendicular to your direction of travel, which requires either detouring to find a water gap or tunneling through the base. Once you're on the plateau proper, passenger rail can easily handle the grades. As for your final point: that's the big problem with the Midwest: pretty much nothing's colinear. In contrast, a straight line from from DC to Boston literally passes right through NYC [1] and very near Baltimore, Wilmington, Philly, Trenton, and New Haven, with Hartford, Springfield, and Providence a bit further off. [1] When I drew it from the Capitol to Boston City Hall, the path over Manhattan was from roughly the northwestern corner of Lower Manhattan to the southeastern corner of Midtown Manhattan.