Alden Sabio: Yes it would. It would be worth the investment IF Americans stopped driving their gas guzzling vehicles. Yes, many seniors are already using trains. I have a good example of how rail is beneficial. Several times a year I go to a large midwestern city to shop, go to ball games or catch a concert. I get on a Metro link outside the city, some 30 miles away. It is cheap. I don't hassle with driving in the city or parking. It is also fun. Much to my surprise many people do the same thing. When going and coming from ball games the Metro is packed, and the people enjoy it. That Metro connects to the bus station, rail station and the airport. The Metro link stations out in the burbs or country have plenty of parking and allow long term parking for no charge. It's a get deal. Yes, this is the future of travel/commuting in America....Show more
Ollie Hamiel: True high speed rail is almost always dedicated so it is either a new line usually paralell to an existing ! line or an existing line is taken out of service and upgraded. To upgrade to faster although not true high speed rail, it can be done the same way as any track upgrade, track windows where they hold all traffic for a several hour period of time and when applicable traffic can be rerouted, such as in cases with multiple main tracks....Show more
Daria Verfaillie: Well, here in Northern California: CalTrain upgraded old Southern Pacific / Union Pacific tracks (everything is Standard Grade) to increase the speed and safety of commuter service.They replaced all the ties with concrete ties and rails with welded rails... They would put in a shoo-fly (passing track) that was several miles long to bypass the double track. All the materials and equipment would be set on a staging track.The work was done during the night... and the teams would SLAVE through the night to finish a section of track (the equipment today sure speeds it up).IT DOES slow things down & throws off the ! schedule... for the MONTHS it takes to do the work.Even MORE i! mpressive was when they were building a "grade-separation"... an elevated length of track to separate trains and road traffic over 10 miles long. THAT took almost 2 years to complete, but the RESULTS were terrific !!...Show more
Elissa Curlin: Most of the old lines you can´t upgrade like this. Completely new lines are necessary: much wider curves, new switches etc. Wherever old lines are used, they have to do the upgrade work while the Traffic is going on. This means maybe delays due to slow passing the work side or even cancelling some trains.
Felicitas Phildor: In the UK it has taken years for the West Coast Main Line to be upgraded for faster running. It involved numerous closures of lines ('engineering possessions') over weekends and for lengthy periods during holiday times such as Christmas/New Year
Sharie Sommerville: In the us, all most all rail is standard gage. So both high speed and regular can use the same track. Most track is double track, ! with one track going east, and the other carrying west bound trains. What they do is build a third set of tracks in the right of way, or they shut down a section of tracts, lets say 1 mile. When they shut down down a section, they have to stop trains like when the flagman stops cars on road construction....Show more
Theresia Fashaw: Depends.In the UK, they just shut the line for hours or days, cancel service and explain it as "engineering works projects". In the US, they jump in and do it between trains. They're really good at that and they have sophisticated machines that allow them to do a lot of work quickly. If it's a really big project, they install extra crossovers so they can overhaul one track while trains in both directions swap use of the other track, delaying trains 5-15 minutes tops. Last week, BART had a fender-bender which shut down one leg of their busiest junction in Oakland at 3pm. Trains were rerouted, and commuters were delayed 15 minutes at wo! rst during the evening commute, then trains ran on time. And BART is a! system which is "maxed out" on capacity.The CalTrain project was major, and they shut the railroad down on weekends for about two years to do it. You would think this would have hurt their ridership, but it didn't....Show more
Robin Weelborg: Injudicious use of the air 'll do it every time... nearly instantly, too...
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