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| Re: How 3rd Rail Running Commuter Rail Could Have Avoided / Ameliorated Fiery Crash (1339554) | |||
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Re: How 3rd Rail Running Commuter Rail Could Have Avoided / Ameliorated Fiery Crash |
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Posted by ElectricTraction on Thu Feb 12 18:28:15 2015, in response to Re: How 3rd Rail Running Commuter Rail Could Have Avoided / Ameliorated Fiery Crash, posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Wed Feb 11 20:12:47 2015. Suburban sprawl is not progress, and that's beyond suburban, that's exurban.Let's say, for the sake of our discussion, that the various pols got their priorities straight (yeah, right) and they electrified from NYP to ALB and SoNo to New Milford with 25kV/60 overhead, and cut the third rail back to about W 168th to allow freight trains to get to the Bronx without going over 3rd rail, among two dozen or so other major projects that rail transit in the NYC metro region needs. That would leave the Wassaic run as the only thing using those POS DMs. Would it make sense at that point to have DMs for 4 trains a day when they could be replaced by standard P40's for the peak hour trains? Even Amtrak could toss their stupid DMs, as they could run under the wire with ACS-64's to ALB and switch there, like they do at WAS today with the long-distance trains. Southeast is already a 90 minute trip. Sure, Danbury and New Haven are 120, and New Milford would be longer, but electrification up there makes sense because of the Stamford crowd going up north and train continuity. POK is about 106. So yes, technically that would make the Harlem the shortest one-seat ride of the bunch, but with only 4 trains daily, running DMs just doesn't make sense. Make people get off their butts and get on a different train! My theory is this. If a line warrants one-seat service, then it warrants electrification. Like electrification to POK (POK MN is a freebie doing NYP-ALB) and New Milford and Oyster Bay, Port Jeff, the Central Branch, Yaphank, and Speonk on the LIRR. Same for NJT. NJT's DMs are a cop-out of not stringing more 25kV60 wherever they have the density necessary to support one-seat rides to NYP. If it doesn't warrant electrification. like north of Southeast, or east of Yaphank and Speonk on the LIRR, then it doesn't warrant one-seat service. I would, however, serve that section of the line better by upgrading the line and running significantly more trains to/from Wassaic as cross-platform Mini's and eventually DMU's giving more schedule flexibility, and then only use Maxis as necessary for the passenger load, which may become entirely unnecessary with significantly more trains running. I would do the same with the east end services on LI, and anywhere else diesel extensions go away from the high-density populations and service levels. |
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