Real High Speed Trains for Northeast Corridor

As part of bringing America out of the Great Recession, the much talked about High Speed Rail with 150mph average speed is started for the Northeast Corridor, one section of the US where it really makes since. What then?

Some travel times
New York - Philadelphia: 48 minutes
New York - Washington: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Boston - Washington: 3 hours
 
Then, they start expanding up to Albany, followed by the rest of Upstate New York and Canada, and down to Richmond, which will be extended down to the Hampton Roads and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. While building a new high-speed line to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh has been fantasized, the mountains between the two cities would result in heavy construction costs and limitations on speed.
 
I doubt any significant expansions to the system would be made until the oil crises in the 1970s. Until then, you might see incremental improvements to lines north of New York and Boston and south of Washington, but they probably won't get up to the standard on the Corridor itself. Of course, there's always the possibility of it becoming a big political topic in the 50s or 60s, so anything could happen in that case.
 
keep the US Mail moving by rail throughout the Northeast Corridor and have an open mind about letting UPS and FedEx add cars as well...a decent source of additional income and traffic reducer as well
 
Great Recession means the 2008 economic problems. He is talking about replacing Ascella which is not true high speed since it slows way down in CT and a few other choke points.

To do this would mean running new rail in CT for sure probably inland from the normal run. so maybe a special rail laid the whole route except for in the cities?
 
The biggest problem in the NEC would be land acquisition for the straight lines and huge radius curves needed to get 200mph HSR. However there is a lot of low hanging fruit in the NEC that could see major improvements in speeds; the 90mph on Connecticut is one and the catenary induced limit of 135mph in other place is another, if the NEC was able to have a 150mph limit along its entire length speeds would drastically increase and journey times would tumble.
 
Rail construction costs are the biggest limitation.

Back during the late 1980s, Canadian politicians floated the concept of high-speed rail connecting Windsor/Detroit with Quebec City.
When I asked a locomotive engineer, he replied "tracks are already to support 100 miles per hour, but level crossings are the problem." He explained that far too many red necks attempted level crossings despite flashing lights, bells and brightly coloured gates.
To make high speed rail succeed, you need rails on a different level than automobile traffic.
 
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