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Well the commuter trains don't run at the Acela speeds, and even if they did they stop and go more often. If you were to run the Acelas even faster that would m

Well the commuter trains don't run at the Acela speeds, and even if they did they stop and go more often. If you were to run the Acelas even faster that would mostly have the effect of bumping into the commuter trains in front more often. The only way to do this would be to run less commuter trains, but those trains are fairly busy, and also run by the actual owner of the tracks. Amtrak's various unfunded fantasies for upgrading the corridor have usually included a dedicated pair of tracks for Amtrak for a reason. (I say fantasy because the proposals are always in the $115B+ range and every time I blink the number is probably going up, and that is an order of magnitude more money than Amtrak has ever had in its life.)

mst 5y ago
"Not having a system where trains can pass each other usefully" is, from a european perspective, exceedingly strange.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  There are four tracks, but they are shared by local commuter services, rapid commuter services, intercity regional services, and the actual high speed trains. To put this in context, by the time suburban development started in earnest in the US, the private railroads were in free-fall after the war. It took until the '70s for Amtrak to put the (passenger) divisions of said railroads out of their misery, and Nixon did not anticipate Amtrak surviving the decade; Amtrak was supposed to decline out of existence. It never quite did that, but it also never quite got back on its feet, and so now the passenger rails are quite lacking.
Tsiklon 5y ago
In London on the main lines out of the main termini it's usually 4 tracks abreast with commuter services + stopping services taking one pair of tracks and express + intercity services taking the other pair for in and outbound services. High speed railways (greater than 250 km/h (155 mph)) are a different story usually running on bespoke track. Is that not the case in the Northeast Corridor?
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  There are two tracks leading from Manhattan to the west and south of the country. These tracks are shared between both commuter trains from the New Jersey suburbs (population 4.5 million) and Amtrak. Elsewhere, there are still two tracks in places. The particular problem segment being discussed here does have four tracks, but it has commuter, regional, and intercity services. This is causing congestion problems; IIRC UK HS2 is being built because of a similar problem where they need to get the intercity trains out of the way of fast regional services.
jcranmer 5y ago
The New Haven-New Rochelle stretch of track is a 4 track corridor. You'd run the intercity trains on the inner tracks and the regional trains on the outer tracks. However, I don't think Metro North has ever successfully had all 4 tracks in operation at the same time...
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  part of it is also that MetroNorth runs a very complicated schedule of zoned stopping (one train A, B, C then express to Manhattan, another train D, E, F then express to Manhattan). With the amount of padding in the schedule required to run this effectively, it's possible that running an all stops service might actually be faster because it wouldn't require as much coordination.

mst 5y ago

"Not having a system where trains can pass each other usefully" is, from a european perspective, exceedingly strange.

bobthepanda 5y ago
There are four tracks, but they are shared by local commuter services, rapid commuter services, intercity regional services, and the actual high speed trains. To put this in context, by the time suburban development started in earnest in the US, the private railroads were in free-fall after the war. It took until the '70s for Amtrak to put the (passenger) divisions of said railroads out of their misery, and Nixon did not anticipate Amtrak surviving the decade; Amtrak was supposed to decline out of existence. It never quite did that, but it also never quite got back on its feet, and so now the passenger rails are quite lacking.

Tsiklon 5y ago

In London on the main lines out of the main termini it's usually 4 tracks abreast with commuter services + stopping services taking one pair of tracks and express + intercity services taking the other pair for in and outbound services. High speed railways (greater than 250 km/h (155 mph)) are a different story usually running on bespoke track. Is that not the case in the Northeast Corridor?

bobthepanda 5y ago
There are two tracks leading from Manhattan to the west and south of the country. These tracks are shared between both commuter trains from the New Jersey suburbs (population 4.5 million) and Amtrak. Elsewhere, there are still two tracks in places. The particular problem segment being discussed here does have four tracks, but it has commuter, regional, and intercity services. This is causing congestion problems; IIRC UK HS2 is being built because of a similar problem where they need to get the intercity trains out of the way of fast regional services.

jcranmer 5y ago

The New Haven-New Rochelle stretch of track is a 4 track corridor. You'd run the intercity trains on the inner tracks and the regional trains on the outer tracks. However, I don't think Metro North has ever successfully had all 4 tracks in operation at the same time...

bobthepanda 5y ago
part of it is also that MetroNorth runs a very complicated schedule of zoned stopping (one train A, B, C then express to Manhattan, another train D, E, F then express to Manhattan). With the amount of padding in the schedule required to run this effectively, it's possible that running an all stops service might actually be faster because it wouldn't require as much coordination.