Logan and I are 30 years apart (sadly for me!) and we are both slammed by school work this semester. The Trains for America blog has been a sad casualty of that business and my own frustration with the toxic political climate that is doing so much harm to the country I love.

Since it’s been a while, I can say that Amtrak is in a bad state. It is unclear to me whether the president is the president or an interim, and the commitment (if any) to long distance trains seems vague. I may be misreading. I do know that the recent rumblings about the Sunset/Eagle schedule changes being discussed for April are, so far, nothing but wishful thinking and your typical railroad rumors.

While Logan and I have been neglectful, and we feel really bad about it, we do welcome guest columns. If you wish to contribute, the work must be attributed (not anonymous), free of libel and personal attacks, and hopefully bear some marks of journalistic evenhandedness.

Though I do not know Paul Langan of High Speed Rail Canada personally, I consider him a friend am I am delighted to submit this item for your discussion. I hope to offer more new material to TFA in the next months and perhaps offer a new look. Anyway, enjoy.

Canada-USA High Speed Possibilities – Part 1 Montreal-Boston

Paul Langan,  Founder High Speed Rail Canada http://highspeedrail.ca – 11/11/09

High Speed Rail (HSR) is coming to North America the question is where will it be implemented first. I would like to examine the cross border opportunities for HSR that have been put forward.

Four possible passenger rail corridors connecting Canada and the USA exist. They are; Vancouver BC to Seattle WA , Windsor ON to Detroit MI ,   Montreal QC – New York NY and Montreal QC-Boston MA.

All these cross border corridors share three significant fundamental challenges.

1. A multitude of political stakeholders – The more governments that are involved the process the slower the ability to get change to occur. This is especially true between Canada and the USA where dialogue and cooperation on passenger rail issues has been historically weak

2. The immigration and customs border crossing issue. Border Immigration officials in the USA and Canada must come to an agreement on an efficient and effective means of allowing people to cross between the two countries by rail. I witnessed first hand the elimination of the Toronto , ON to Chicago IL Amtrak passenger rail service in part by over zealous USA immigration officials delaying trains. In British Columbia the Canadian Border Services Agency has been a severe detriment to increasing passenger rail service between these two countries

3. A lack of a national Canadian vision on HSR – USA President Obama has made clear his vision for the revitalization of modern higher and high speed passenger rail service for the USA . In Canada , Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not stated any national plans relating to passenger rail renewal.

Over 110 years of passenger rail service ended on the Montreal-Boston corridor in 1967 when the past passenger rail service ceased between the two cities. That trip took eight and a half hours to complete. Modest new plans are for a restored service with five and a half hour trip time.

The Boston – Montreal Corridor was designated a high speed rail corridor in 2000 by the Federal Railroad Administration.  In 2003, a HSR study was completed for this 529km corridor. The full study is available to be read at the http://highspeedrail.ca .

The study lays bare some of the additional challenges facing the implementation of HSR from Boston to Montreal. They are;

1. Dealing with 4 different rail owners – Getting agreements from four railway companies to restore higher speed passenger rail service in this corridor will be challenging. An example of this problem is in shown in #2.
2. Pan Am Railways – Privately owned railway who own track between Nashua-Concord Hew Hampshire have no interest in high speed rail along the line and have prevented the State of New Hampshire from applying for funding for HSR http://www.nh.gov/dot/media/nr2009/nr093009rail.htm
3. None of the current infrastructure currently meets the needs for higher speed rail.
4. There are over 360 at grade road /rail crossings.
5. North Boston Station does not have significant capacity to handle these trains.

It should be mentioned that there is also a small group of individuals that would like to see a Boston-Portland- Montreal higher speed passenger rail route along the former CN now St. Lawrence Atlantic Railway line.

Since that study ws released there has been some very positive renewed commitments to higher speed rail.

A “Vision for New England High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail”. http://www.mass.gov/Agov3/docs/PR071309.pdf

has been collectively developed by the State Departments of Transportations in Maine , New Hampshire , Vermont , Massachusetts , Rhode Island and Connecticut (the New England states).

The New England states are successfully working through the Coalition of Northeastern Governors (CONEG) promoting the need for high speed passenger rail service renewal.

Although there are very real challenges to restoring higher speed passenger rail service to this corridor, the Phase One HSR study has been done. The study concluded that there were no fatal barriers from the implementation of HSR in this corridor.

The recent New England states vision for renewed passenger rail service and a recent  meeting in Boston between  Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to promote HSR are promising signs.

Berkshire buying Burlington Northern railroad — latimes.com

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Eurostar set From Paris Gare du Nord to London Waterloo, filmed in 2004 included sevural TGV’s, across the Channel Tunnel an on UK’S CTRL1 (HS1) as far as just north of the Medway Bridge where the …

Eurostar set From Paris Gare du Nord to London Waterloo, filmed in 2004 included sevural TGV’s, across the Channel Tunnel an on UK’S CTRL1 (HS1) as far as just north of the Medway Bridge where the …

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Republican Leader John L. Mica (R-FL) statement on the need for billions of dollars in pending high-speed rail investments in the United States to be wisely spent.He argues that the original $8 billion should be spent on true (European-style) HSR projects reaching speeds of over 150 mph. He foresees three such projects and makes a compelling case for the northeast corridor. It is hard to argue with that logic.TFA presumes that the other two demonstration projects will be Illinois and California. Florida has only demonstrated the ability to build political deceptions.One would presume that California and Illinois would be the other two test sites. But there we go again, using reason and logic on a political matter. All of this has implications for Amtrak long distance service, which is the perpetual red headed stepchild. One area where Mica could use some help is the concept of “high performance rail.” Funds used on HPR are not necessarily misspent, even if not properly included in the HSR demo allocations. Many medium sized cities can logically be connected by HPR, which is much cheaper to put in place.

A panel at the Megaregions + MetroProsperity: Sustainable Economics for the Texas Triangle Conference on September 25, 2009 in Houston, TX.Participants:Harris County Judge Ed EmmettFort Worth C…

Steer Davies Gleave’s High-Speed Rail Summit 09 was the first high speed rail conference in the UK to bring together an international panel of speakers to share their experiences and insight on hig…

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, OCTA Board Director and Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, OCTA CEO Will Kempton and representatives from Orange County will join other Southern California leaders for the news…

This news comes from Railway Age.

President Barack Obama nominated a top official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to serve on Amtrak’s board of directors. Anthony Coscia has been chairman of the Port Authority’s board of commissioners since April 2003.

UPDATE: A reader posted the link to the official White House announcement, which names two proposed directors for the Amtrak board.

Bert DiClemente, Nominee for Director, AMTRAK Board of Directors
Bert DiClemente is currently serving as the Vice President of CB Richard Ellis, Inc., which is the largest commercial real estate company in the world. He has been serving in this capacity since 2003. Prior to this position, he worked for Insignia/ESG and Jackson Cross & Associates as Director and Associate Director.   He was responsible for the leasing and selling of commercial real estate and represented a number of Fortune 500 Companies.   Mr. DiClemente also served from 1977-1997 as the State Director for then-Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Wilmington, DE.  In this capacity, he was responsible for three statewide Senate offices and was a senior staff advisor to the Senator on all issues and policies related to the State of Delaware. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a B.A. in political science.

This is good news. The Board needs to be at full strength. The next shoe dropping will be that of Mr. Boardman. Stay tuned.

(And I don’t have any inside information. There is a decision due there soon and you have to believe that current President is a long-shot.)

This is somewhat discouraging news for high speed rail advocates.

Chicago Loses Bid for 2016 Olympic Games

Chicago was stunningly eliminated in the first round of
voting for the 2016 Olympics on Friday, with Rio de Janeiro,
Madrid and Tokyo still in contention.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na