It carries more passenger trains than any other railroad bridge in the Western Hemisphere, yet few people beyond those who rely on it have heard of it. It goes largely unnoticed, unless something goes wrong, which happens with irritating frequency. After all, the bridge is 104 years old.
Every time it swings open to let a boat pass is a test of early-20th-century technology that can snarl train travel from Boston to Washington, the nation’s busiest rail corridor. And over the years, because it is partially made out of wood, it also has proved to be quite flammable.
A new report, “The Northeast Corridor and the American Economy,” produced by the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission (NEC Commission) details how the Northeast Corridor (NEC), carrying 750,000 daily Amtrak and commuter/regional rail passengers, “is a critical national asset, an economic engine for the U.S., and contributes about $50 billion a year to the national economy.”
The report, accessible by clicking here, also calculates that a loss of the NEC for a single day would cost nearly $100 million in transportation-related impacts and productivity losses.
WASHINGTON – The reduced level of federal investment in Northeast Corridor (NEC) infrastructure has resulted in a cumulative degradation of its components, nearing the loss of asset functionality and decreased reliability of the system that threatens the successful continuity of passenger rail operations, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman told a Congressional committee June 7.
“There is insufficient NEC infrastructure investment to meet both the on-going normalized replacement and the backlog capital requirements. And that means we are eating our assets alive,” he explained.
Boardman said this de-capitalization of NEC assets leads to rapidly increasing degradation of ride quality, reliability, and the ability to support major improvement projects.
He urged the federal government to act now and use the opportunity of rail reauthorization legislation to take the lead in funding a major program to build out the NEC infrastructure needed for the coming century. Amtrak shares the NEC with eight commuter railroads and its infrastructure supports the movement of 260 million intercity and commuter rail passengers each year. Several of the most important segments, such as the New York tunnels, are at capacity with ridership demand at record levels and growing.
Boardman noted Amtrak needs $782 million every year for the next 15 years just for the costs of NEC normalized replacement ($386 million) and the backlog of infrastructure work ($396 million). That level of funding will allow Amtrak to run a safe railroad at maximum allowed track speed, maintain an excellent on-time performance and meet the basic needs of those who want to develop real estate along the NEC and fill their development with the people who they expect to come by train. However, it will not address needed capacity improvements, trip-time reductions or other new initiatives.
He reminded committee members that after Amtrak was given control of the NEC in 1976 during the Conrail process, it was followed by several significant, federally-funded repair and improvement programs which transformed the dilapidated mid-century rail operation it inherited into the successful high-rail speed rail route it is today.
A copy of Boardman’s full written testimony can be found here.
WASHINGTON — Amtrak rolled out three new locomotives on Monday, the first step in the railroad’s plan to modernize its aging fleet of trains.
The three are the first of 70 new locomotives the railroad is buying to operate on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. Amtrak said they would operate at speeds up to 125 miles per hour on the Northeast route, matching the top speed of its current regional trains.
The Federal Railroad Administration is currently managing a comprehensive planning effort to define, evaluate and prioritize future levels of investment in the Northeast Corridor (NEC) through 2040.
This effort, launched in February 2012 and called NEC FUTURE, will produce a Service Development Plan that articulates the overall scope, alternatives and approach for proposed improvements, and a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement that evaluates and identifies ways to address broad, corridor-wide environmental impacts due to these improvements.
This process is a federally-required step before major construction to overhaul the corridor’s aging, unreliable, and congested infrastructure can begin.
WASHINGTON – Some $745 million of the $2 billion in federal stimulus money Florida Gov. Rick Scott rejected for a high-speed rail line linking Tampa and Orlando is now headed to Amtrak for improvements along the 456-mile-long Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor connecting Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
The Department of Transportation grant will be used by Amtrak to improve track, signals and overhead catenary, allowing an increase of top speed from 135 mph to 160 mph for Acela Express trains over a 24-mile segment in New Jersey. The grant, which includes a “buy America” provision, will also go toward eliminating congestion at a choke point east of New York City.
Amtrak has a 30-year vision to accelerate speed along the entire length of the Northeast Corridor, with maximum speed of 220-mph over a new two-track route that would supplement existing service and create capacity for 80 million passengers annually by 2040.
The project would require some 420 miles of mostly dedicated high-speed track and a $4.7 billion annual investment for at least 25 years. Amtrak President Joseph Boardman says the plan is feasible as a public-private partnership involving 11 Northeast states plus Virginia and the District of Columbia, privately owned freight railroads, and the private sector.
By 2040, Amtrak would offer passengers travel times of 38-minutes between New York and Philadelphia; 84 minutes between New York and Boston; and 96 minutes between New York and Washington.
Facts about the Northeast Corridor:
* On 65 percent of Northeast Corridor track, Amtrak trains can operate at speeds between 110 mph and 150 mph – and is the only rail passenger operator in the United States maintaining track for speeds in excess of 100 mph.
* Between Washington, D.C., and New York, Amtrak has 69 percent of the air-rail market share – up from 37 percent in 2000 when Acela service was introduced. And between New York and Boston, Amtrak has 52 percent of the air-rail market share – up from 20 percent in 2000 when Acela service was introduced
* The Northeast Corridor hosts almost one million intercity and commuter passengers daily on more than 2,000 trains – some 75,000 passengers riding Amtrak daily and more than 850,000 riding commuter trains operated by 18 publicly controlled commuter agencies, making Amtrak a minority user of the Northeast Corridor.
* Amtrak is the only railroad that uses the entire length of the Northeast Corridor.
WASHINGTON — An assault on the future of Amtrak and its employees was launched June 15 by the chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), and the chairman of the House Rail Subcommittee, Bill Shuster (R-Pa.)
The UTU and other rail labor organizations are gearing to fight this effort to privatize the Northeast Corridor, which would be the first step toward eliminating Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor as well as its long-distance passenger trains outside the Northeast Corridor. The proposal likely would destroy America’s national rail passenger network.
Mica and Shuster said they will introduce legislation to strip from Amtrak its ownership of the Northeast Corridor – linking Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston – and look to unnamed private operators to bid on operating high-speed passenger trains on the 437-mile long corridor.
Destruction of Amtrak could cause a crushing financial blow to the Railroad Retirement system if private operators were permitted to place their employees under coverage of Social Security rather than Railroad Retirement.
“I think we can make the service even better and reduce subsidization,” Mica said. “The whole concept of this is attracting private capital.” He opposes an Amtrak plan to operate 220-mph trains over the corridor in the future, saying so-far unnamed private operators could provide better service at a much reduced cost to taxpayers.
Amtrak President Joseph Boardman responded, “The Mica/Shuster proposal takes Amtrak apart only to put something in its place that looks quite similar.
“The Northeast Corridor is not just a piece of real estate,” Boardman said. “It is a major transportation artery and a vital component of the regional economy, carrying more than 250,000 intercity and commuter passengers every day. Amtrak provides the region the best opportunity to achieve the needed improvements. The Northeast Corridor is a success under Amtrak stewardship and many components of our next-generation high-speed rail vision plan are already moving forward.
“We don’t want to run the risk of adopting something that won’t work, that compromises safety, or that simply costs more than we can afford,” Boardman said. “The last thing the Northeast needs is a plan that’s poorly thought through and that doesn’t take key issues into account.”
Boardman recently told a rail labor group that privatization of British Rail has not been a success and increased costs.
Former Amtrak President David Gunn was blunt in a statement he made about British Rail privatization when Gunn ran Amtrak: “Since privatization [of British Rail], the system has had more accidents and delays.” And former Amtrak President Tom Downs, when he ran Amtrak, called privatization of British Rail “a disaster … They have multiple rail companies and fares, and trouble even issuing a national ticket.”
The conservative Economist magazine reported in 2005, “The privatization of British Rail has proved a disastrous failure … a catalogue of political cynicism, managerial incompetence and financial opportunism. It has cost taxpayers billions of pounds and brought rail travelers countless hours of delay.”
In responding to the Mica/Shuster proposal, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “Amtrak is the entity most capable of taking the next steps to modernize rail service in the Northeast Corridor.”
The Mica/Shuster proposal, which likely will have support of the House Republican majority, will face tough opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), said June 15, “I will fight in the Senate to stop any plan that threatens Amtrak and commuters on the Northeast Corridor.”
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), said the Mica/Shuster proposal “makes as much sense as privatizing Medicare or Social Security. In other words, no sense at all.”
Senate Republicans also are likely to oppose the Mica/Shuster proposal. The current ranking Republican on the Democratic-controlled Senate Commerce Committee, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, told The Washington Post some years ago, “There will be a national system or there won’t be an Amtrak at all.”
In fact, in passing the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, a bipartisan congressional majority said, “It is the sense of the Congress that long-distance passenger rail is a vital and necessary part of our national transportation system and economy; and Amtrak should maintain a national passenger rail system.”
Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, said of the Mica/Shuster proposal, “They want to hand over the conductor’s cap to the same folks who ran the stock market off a cliff. Privatizing passenger rail in the Northeast Corridor will not merely affect train service in that region; it will have a crippling domino effect on train service from sea to shining sea.
“Because of its national scope, Amtrak is able to invest profits from [its profitable Acela service on] the Northeast Corridor to offset less profitable long-distance lines in other parts of the country,” Rahall said. “Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation invited proposals from private companies to develop high-speed rail in the United States. Not one single proposal was submitted by the private sector for developing high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. Not a one.
“We ought to be looking at ways to help Amtrak achieve the goal of high-speed rail; not looking at ways to dismantle it,” Rahall said.
WASHINGTON — Two House Republicans with transportation oversight authority — House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and Rail Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) — want to transfer ownership of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor to the private sector as the first step toward dismantling Amtrak and privatizing rail passenger service in the U.S.
The 457-mile long Northeast Corridor — two to six-tracks wide, fully electrified and with all but a handful of highway-rail grade crossings eliminated — connects Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. It carries almost one million intercity and commuter passengers daily on more than 2,000 trains — the majority commuter trains.
Amtrak, which was created by Congress to operate money-losing intercity rail passenger service in the U.S., acquired most of the Northeast Corridor following the 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central and other Northeast railroads that had owned it.
While Amtrak owns 363 miles of the corridor, another 94 miles of the corridor is owned by the states of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, which similarly acquired their shares from the estate of bankrupt Penn Central.
Amtrak is responsible for operating intercity passenger trains, and providing maintenance and dispatching for other users, which include commuter agencies and freight railroads. Amtrak receives federal and state subsidies in exchange.
Mica said the transfer of ownership of the Northeast Corridor would permit the federal government to auction off train-operating and real estate development rights to the highest bidder. In 1987, President Reagan unsuccessfully proposed selling the Northeast Corridor to the highest bidder; and the George W. Bush administration had a similar objective.
Congress rejected the proposals, viewing them as attempts to destroy Amtrak and U.S. intercity rail passenger service. Among Republicans, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) have expressed opposition to any attempts at breaking up Amtrak’s national intercity rail passenger network.
Former Amtrak President David Gunn observed of a privatization proposal in 2002 that the Northeast Corridor will never be able to stand on its own financially. He said most of the overhead catenary providing electrical power between Washington, D.C. and New Haven, Conn., was erected during the 1930s and is in need of replacement. “Do you really think some company is going to come in and replace all those wires for an operation that, at best, might break even financially?” Gunn asked rhetorically.
The British-based and politically conservative Economist magazine reported in 2005 that the privatization of British Rail “has proved a disastrous failure … a catalogue of political cynicism, managerial incompetence and financial opportunism. It has cost taxpayers billions of pounds and brought rail travelers countless hours of delay.”
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) responded to the Mica proposal that Amtrak makes the Northeast region — one of the most densely populated in the U.S. — “work.” He said Amtrak was created in the first place because the private-sector could not earn a profit operating passenger trains.
Amtrak itself has been seeking private investors to help it finance proposed 220-mph high-speed rail over the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak, however, would retain care, custody and control of the corridor and continue receiving federal and state subsidies to operate passenger trains over it. Amtrak says more than 25 private investors have expressed an interest in participating with it in future high-speed rail projects.
Mica says he prefers full privatization, which is broadly seen as a backdoor attempt to destroy Amtrak and the nation’s national intercity rail passenger network.
Mica asserts his plan will hasten the development of high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor. Currently, 65 percent of the corridor already has trains operating at between 110-mph and 150 mph, and Amtrak is the only rail passenger operator in the nation operating trains at speeds of at least 100 mph.
Aging Northeast Corridor infrastructure — including century old tunnels and track curvatures running through heavily populated areas — as well as federal safety mandates for passenger cars that are heavier than those used in Europe and Asia, have much to do with Amtrak’s inability to operate trains faster than currently are operated by Amtrak.
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s vision for high-speed rail along the Northeast Corridor gained a significant boost May 9 when the Federal Railroad Administration redistributed to Amtrak $795 million of some $2 billion in high-speed rail grants previously rejected by Florida.
Portions of that grant money also were distributed to 15 states that have plans for high-speed and higher-speed rail.
The funds come from unobligated amounts appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has not been affected by recent congressional budget cuts. That law, intended to stimulate the economy at the depth of the current recession, provided some $10 billion for rail projects. Some $6 billion of that $10 billion has now been distributed.
Some of the funds directed to Amtrak May 9 are earmarked for 24 miles of Northeast Corridor track in central New Jersey — between New Brunswick and Morrisville — to be upgraded to handle 160-mph train operations. The current top speed over that segment is 135 mph via Amtrak’s Acela trains.
The Northeast Corridor connects Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
Midwest states will receive $404 million to upgrade tracks between Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis for 110-mph passenger-train operations. Work already has begun — as part of a joint project among Union Pacific, Amtrak and the FRA — to upgrade tracks between Chicago and St. Louis to 110 mph for passenger-trains.
California will receive $300 million toward initial construction in the Central Valley of a planned high-speed line linking Sacramento, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Following is a breakdown of the grant allocations:
Northeast Corridor
$450 million to Amtrak to improve NEC track, and power, signal and catenary systems in one of the corridor’s most heavily traveled areas, creating a 24-mile segment of track that can handle 160 mph train operations.
$295 million to New York to build new routes that enable Amtrak trains to bypass the Harold Interlocking in Queens on Long Island — one of the country’s busiest passenger-rail junctions.
$25 million to Rhode Island to design and construct an additional 1.5 miles of third track in Kingston, enabling trains operating at speeds up to 150 mph to pass other trains on a high-volume section of the corridor.
$22 million to Maryland to conduct engineering and environmental work to replace the century-old Susquehanna River Bridge.
$3 million to Rhode Island to conduct preliminary engineering and environmental work to renovate the Providence Station.
Northeast Region
$58 million to New York to upgrade tracks, stations and signals along the Empire Corridor, including replacing the Schenectady Station and constructing a fourth station track at the Albany-Rensselaer Station.
$40 million to Pennsylvania to rebuild an interlocking near Harrisburg on the Keystone Corridor.
$30 million to Connecticut to build double-track segments between New Haven and Springfield.
$20.8 million to Maine and Massachusetts to construct a 10.4-mile section of double track between Wilmington and Andover, Mass., improving service along Amtrak’s Downeaster route.
$1.4 million to New York to conduct preliminary engineering and environmental reviews for a new Rochester intermodal station along the Empire Corridor.
Regional Equipment Pools
$268.2 million to Midwest states to purchase 48 high-performance passenger cars and seven quick-acceleration locomotives for eight corridors in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Missouri.
$68 million to California to acquire 15 high-performance passenger cars and four “uick-acceleration locomotives for the Pacific Surfliner, San Joaquin and Capitol corridors.
Midwestern Region
$196.5 million to Michigan to rehabilitate track and signal systems between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, bringing train speeds up to 110 mph along a 235-mile section of track.
$186.3 million to Illinois to construct track along the Chicago-St. Louis corridor between Dwight and Joliet to accommodate 110 mph trains.
$13.5 million to Missouri to advance design work to replace the Merchant’s Bridge over the Mississippi River along the Chicago-St. Louis corridor.
$5 million to Minnesota to complete engineering and environmental work to establish the Northern Lights Express, which would connect Minneapolis and Duluth with 110 mph trains.
$2.8 million to Michigan to conduct an engineering and environmental analysis to construct a new station in Ann Arbor.
Southern Region
$15 million to Texas to conduct engineering and environmental work to develop a high-speed rail corridor linking Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston.
$4 million to North Carolina to conduct an environmental analysis of the Richmond-Raleigh section of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corirdor.
California and the Northwest Region
$300 million to the California High Speed Rail Authority to extend construction on the Central Valley corridor by another 20 miles, from Fresno to the Wye junction, which will provide a connection to San Jose to the west and Merced to the north.
$15 million to Washington state to construct a Port of Vancouver grade separation, which will eliminate a congested intersection and bottleneck between freight and passenger tracks.
$1.5 million for analysis of overnight parking tracks for passenger trains on the southern end of the Pacific Northwest Corridor at the Port of Vancouver, adding new capacity for increased passenger and freight-rail service.
$15 million to eliminate a congested intersection and bottleneck between freight and passenger tracks along the Pacific Northwest Rail Corridor at Eugene, Ore., by elevating one set of tracks over the other.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman, FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo and former BNSF top attorney Jeff Moreland, now an Amtrak board member, were enroute here from Washington Saturday morning for dedication of the new station renamed for Vice President Joe Biden.
They got as far as Baltimore on their first-class passes.
A power problem on the Northeast Corridor stopped all Amtrak trains dependent on the overhead catenary for power.
Fearful they would miss the dedication, they made a call and soon left the train, piling into an automobile quickly provided, and reached Wilmington only a bit late. Biden was patiently awaiting them.
“We would not have gotten off the train if we could have sequenced it faster, but the event would have been over … and that’s the evaluation we made,” Boardman told ABC News.
The news dispatch reported they “were escorted from the coach by security guards and a small entourage of assistants.” ABC News said rental cars were obtained for the entourage.
Biden understood. He said later he had taken more than 7,000 roundtrips between his home in Wilmington and Washington while a U.S. senator; and, yes, not all were on time.
The remaining passengers on the train endured a two-and-a-half hour delay, later attributed to a malfunctioning transformer in Philadelphia.
Boardman used the opportunity to make a pitch for more federal funds for the Northeast Corridor. “If we’re going to really grow the Corridor the way it needs to be grown, we have to substantially increase the amount of power that’s available so that we don’t trip these transformers,” he told ABC News.
A new report, “The Northeast Corridor and the American Economy,” produced by the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission (NEC Commission) details how the Northeast Corridor (NEC), carrying 750,000 daily Amtrak and commuter/regional rail passengers, “is a critical national asset, an economic engine for the U.S., and contributes about $50 billion a year to the national economy.”
WASHINGTON – The reduced level of federal investment in Northeast Corridor (NEC) infrastructure has resulted in a cumulative degradation of its components, nearing the loss of asset functionality and decreased reliability of the system that threatens the successful continuity of passenger rail operations, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman told a Congressional committee June 7.
The Federal Railroad Administration is currently managing a comprehensive planning effort to define, evaluate and prioritize future levels of investment in the Northeast Corridor (NEC) through 2040.