Northeast Corridor
As Northeast Corridor (German Northeast Corridor ), abbreviated NEC is called the busiest passenger rail link to the populous northeast coast of the United States. It stretches from Boston via New Haven, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore to Washington, DC. The 720 km long route is electrified throughout and currently the only significant, electrically operated remote railroad in the United States. It is largely owned by Amtrak, but the route is also used by other railway companies with different trains. The section between New York and New Haven is one of the transport operation Metro North Railroad.
History
After many private operators crystallized at the beginning of the 20th century, two railway companies as a track operator out. North of New York, New Haven, south of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Both talked a comprehensive local, long distance and freight traffic. The routes of both companies were joined at the New York Penn Station since 1914.
Because of a steam ban in New York used both companies electric locomotives to reach the train station. In this case, both the power consumption was initially only through busbars.
Only in the 1930s, both completed societies electrification of its network with overhead lines at 11.5 kV/25 Hz AC. New Haven but retained in the Greater New York at the power rail to Grand Central Station.
Following the merger of the New York Central to Penn Central Pennsylvania in 1967, this company took over at the end of 1968, the New Haven. The Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970. Distance passenger services took over on 1 May 1971, the newly established parastatal distance transport operator Amtrak, all other services remained first with Penn Central.
In the transport of April 1, 1976, the rescue company Conrail ownership of the North - East corridor Amtrak was founded transferred. Only on 1 January 1983 Conrail was from the transport services to newly created and existing transport operators. Metro North was also the new owner of the corridor section between New York and New Haven.
As part of the ICE Train North America Tour, a German ICE in the second half of 1993 was traveling on demonstration runs and October to December in regular service. Previously, a Swedish X2000 had been used on the track.
Today
The NEC is the only existing high-speed line sections in the United States. Between Washington, DC, New York City and Boston connections with the built in French style Acela Express trains are offered, which are an alternative to cars and aircraft. For these traits the route north of Pelham to New Haven in 1985 changed to 1986 to 12.5 Hz kV/60 and electrified the line from New Haven to Boston with 25 kV/60 Hz.
The Acela Express trains run each on a road sections in Rhode Iceland and Massachusetts with 240 km / h, the sections together but only 29 km long. East of New Haven there are several sections that can be driven with 180 km / h respectively at 200 km / hr.
West of New York, the Acela Express trains are limited to 220 km / h with many sections that can only be driven at 200 km / hr. Many sections would be enough just traced out, so that could be driven at 240 km / h on the basis of what is still in operation overhead contact line construction from the times of the Great Depression but this is not possible. Unlike common in Europe, has the catenary created during the Great Depression, no re-tensioning and tends at higher outdoor temperatures to sag. Therefore, it can be driven with a maximum of 220 km / h. Sagging upper lines lead especially in the summer time and again to malfunction. A conversion would be very complicated, since the structures would need to be replaced (which is now also provided in the NEC -UP program, see section expansion program ).
New line
2010 has started to explore new routes for trains to 350 km / h Northeast Corridor - in the southern part (Washington, DC - New York) parallel to the old route, which is busy almost continuously to 100 %. In an environment of large cities the route is already four tracks, which are shared with regional trains and freight trains. In the northern part (New York - Boston), in addition to the existing coastal route also considered completely new alignments that can lead to a halving of travel time.
For the " next-gen" Amtrak is trying raise public funds as the population in the region is growing rapidly and already operate highways and airports to the limit. With a new high-speed line, a large part would be transferred to rail, and by the shorter connecting the metropolitan Washington, DC - New York - Boston at a distance of one and a half hours driving time of great economic area as a whole strengthened.
Amtrak will develop by mid-2012, a business plan that details the funding requirements. The plans will be presented in Philadelphia at an international congress ( 8th World Congress on High Speed Rail ) in July 2012. In the " Vision for the Amtrak Northeast Corridor - 2012 Update Report " has been shown that for the most part, new stations are created for the high-speed traffic along the route. Planning to Boston was laid by feedback on Providence, where in urban areas, the previous route is expanded to four tracks and the former regional stations will be rebuilt with the support of the state to provide passage tracks for high-speed traffic. The route of the 2012 Update Report for the new line from New York to Providence is not running parallel to the old route through the coastal towns of New Haven and New London, which will instead be served by its own " Shoreline Express ," but a few dozen kilometers inland on Danbury, Waterbury, Hartford, with only the latter a hold of the " NextGen Super Express" is, as a transition to railway line between Springfield and New Haven.
In addition, an extensive expansion program NEC -UP was inserted, with its advantages it is hoped that the financing of the construction program - instead of up to 10 billion in some years, NextGen will then be able to restrict in grants from the federal budget to a maximum of 4 billion U.S. dollars. Amtrak argues that for infrastructure projects in highways and airports regularly 50 to 80 percent of the costs were borne by federal funds, and hopes grants a similar amount. In California, the argument was impressed that the expansion of the Interstate several lanes lead to cost a similar amount would be as they are needed for the construction of a high speed line.
Expansion program
Amtrak has also started planning a series of upgrades along the way. The last revision of the September 2012 revised the proposals for the new building program of high-speed rail " NextGen " and adds ( Northeast Corridor Upgrade Program ) is a broad expansion program "NEC -UP". The expansion program includes a number of major projects to be implemented for a cost circumference of 33.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.
A large share of 14.5 billion U.S. dollars, the line upgrade from Washington to New York. In particular, for the improvements of the OCL, which are then self- exciting, and the replacement of some old bridges, federal funding could be secured, which were originally intended for high-speed traffic of other states, are no longer retrieved from these, however. With improvements, the speed barriers may be raised to large parts of the route - the Acela Express has so far only a dozen kilometers exploit its maximum speed. The costs and the purchase of 40 new Acela Express is included which may then an hourly service can be realized. More track upgrading work for 3.9 billion refer to the section from New York to Boston. The overall goal of the exercise of routes and vehicles is a speed of 257 km / h ( 160 mph ) with consistent separation of the high-speed traffic from other rail traffic in the Northeast Corridor.
However, the largest share of 14.9 billion U.S. dollars, the Gateway Project, to fix the bottleneck between Newark Penn Station and New York Penn Station. In addition to several new buildings Brück this includes especially a new tunnel under the Hudson River. The groundbreaking ceremony for the first part, the Palisades Tunnel ( Palisades tunnel ) occurred on June 8, 2009 (the name was derived above from the " Palisades " cliff slopes on the western Hudson River from ). The tunnel entrance at the northern end of Manhattan, the so-called "tunnel box" was inserted in February 2013 in the planning documents of the Hudson Yards development program. The construction of the actual main tunnel under the Hudson River is not yet secured.
In addition to the NEC -UP expansion program, the additional funds from the NextGen program is now distributed among the new lines - of which 51.4 billion U.S. dollars in the corridor Washington New York, which allow a start-up in 2030, and 58 billion U.S. dollars in the corridor New. York Boston with a planned start-up from 2040, the total extension of the Northeast Corridor mitsam NEC -UP and NextGen then adds up to 151 billion U.S. dollars earlier mentioned - the federal funding is for it not yet secured, as a preliminary measure, Amtrak involved in the development of high-speed train for the high-speed railway construction in California, which is also 350 km / h ( 220 mph ) to be configured.