The Esch Cummins Act: US Railroad Consolidation program

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Electrified Main Lines of the US as of 2017

Note: All line include the Amtrak lines, as they were build parallel, or otherwise very closely, to these lines.

NOTE: This will be updated. I just wanted to get the initial outline over with.

More than one road

• The Pennsylvania/New Haven/Boston & Maine/Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Northeast Corridor from Portland to Norfolk

Pennsylvania Railroad

• The Keystone Division from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh via Harrisburg and Altoona
• The Panhandle Division from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, with a reroute one the line to Columbus though Zanesville, paralleling the Amtrak Midwest line.
• The Former Norfolk & Western from Harrisburg to Roanoke

New York Central

• The Empire Corridor from New York to Cleveland via Albany and Buffalo.
• The Water Level route from Cleveland to Chicago via Toledo and South Bend, IN
• The Buckeye Division from Cleveland to Cincinnati via Columbus and Dayton
• The Hoosier State Division from Chicago to Greensburg via Indianapolis and Lafayette. With the line spliting at Greensburg for Louisville or Concy

Milwaukee Road

• The line west of McLaughlin, SD, including the Salish Sea main line from Portland, OR to Roberts Bank, BC. This was built by the Milwaukee Road in the 1980s
• The entire mainline from Harlowtown, MT to Seattle.
• The line from Chicago to the Twin Cities via Milwaukee and La Crosse

Baltimore & Ohio

• The Sand Patch Division from Point of Rocks, MD to Butler, PA and Parkersburg, WV.
• The Reading Division from Atlantic City to Harrisburg via Philadelphia and Reading.
• The Reading Division from Reading to Williamsport
• The Lackawanna Division from Sunbury to New York via Scranton.
• Their own New York- Washington DC line.

Southern Pacific

• The mainline through the Central Valley.
• The entire Sunset Route from Los Angeles to New Orleans
• The Overland Route from Oakland to Reno (a joint project with the Union Pacific and Amtrak)

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Pre-Act POD events

• Instead of buying the CB&Q, James J. Hill build east from the Twin Cities to Rochestor and Madison, WI. Though he is forced to give up to save funds, the rest of the line is gained by the acquisition of the Illinois Central' Madison Branch and line to Omaha.
• The Santa Fe builds a line from Sonora, TX to New Orleans via Sant Antonio, Austin, and the pre-existing line from Sommerville to Oakdale, LA
• The RF&P builds a line from Richmond to Newport News in the 1890s. But they are halted from a bridge to Norfolk until the 1930s.
• The Norfolk & Western tries to reroute its entire main line from Bluefield to Kenova via Charleston. But only the Bluefield- Charleston part is ever completed.

 

[isayyo2]

With the B&O electrifying their Washington-New York route the competition with the PRR must be absolutely fierce! Is there any possibility they could force themselves into Manhattan proper?

 

[TheMann]

With the B&O electrifying their Washington-New York route the competition with the PRR must be absolutely fierce! Is there any possibility they could force themselves into Manhattan proper?

If I were in the B&O's position I wouldn't make the huge capital investment into electrification until I could get a station in the city itself. What did in the Royal Blue more than anything was the need for passengers to be bused over the Hudson before catching their trains.

 

[isayyo2]

So on the topic highways, I've been reading over a 1938 proposal by Senator Bulkley of Ohio who was favored by FDR. This "Superhighway" plan would've had three east-west and four north-south routes and would've been entirely self-funded by tolls and bonds; despite FDR's approval of the idea, Senator Bulkley lost his reelection to Robert Taft, an anti-New Deal Republican. This got me thinking that if our highway systems were entirely tolled would car ownership decrease? Would Interstate trucking be less profitable because of the tolling? If a pre-war tolled Interstate was at least partially built before WW2 then we should see early intermodal ideas like Flexi-Van or Piggyback be incorporated into the mainstream freight roads; ideally, of course, passenger traffic would remain higher than OTL and perhaps Pullman could introduce a through car Auto Train program to be shared among the Class 1s.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/origin01.cfm


Any thoughts?

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

So on the topic highways, I've been reading over a 1938 proposal by Senator Bulkley of Ohio who was favored by FDR. This "Superhighway" plan would've had three east-west and four north-south routes and would've been entirely self-funded by tolls and bonds; despite FDR's approval of the idea, Senator Bulkley lost his reelection to Robert Taft, an anti-New Deal Republican. This got me thinking that if our highway systems were entirely tolled would car ownership decrease? Would Interstate trucking be less profitable because of the tolling? If a pre-war tolled Interstate was at least partially built before WW2 then we should see early intermodal ideas like Flexi-Van or Piggyback be incorporated into the mainstream freight roads; ideally, of course, passenger traffic would remain higher than OTL and perhaps Pullman could introduce a through car Auto Train program to be shared among the Class 1s.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/origin01.cfm


Any thoughts?

good idea.

 

[Lucas]

@Andrew Boyd, just have a take on what would the electric roads would be like on TTL 2018.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Options for passenger rail ITTL

My idea is that Amtrak will still exist. Albeit primarily as the operator of high speed trains in the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest. While privte railroads take up most of the western passenger train operations. With the host railroads often helping by building an extra track for Amtrak to use.

Alternateively, the private railroads still exist, and Amtrak merely serves as a mouthpiece for the railroads to get the finincial aid they desire. Which includes support for various passenger trains and the improvements of right-of-ways.

Either way, I can imagine the toll road idea @isayyo2 mentioned taking place. Not only will it drive people back to the rials, but it will also mean the roads are better maintained ITTL.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Before I work on the railroad museums of TTL. Here are some people that have their lives changed for the better ITTL.

• Stephen Hillenberg, the creator of Spongebob SquarePants, never gets ALS.
• Chris Savino, creator of The Loud House, realizes the error of his womanizing ways after my spin on the John Krikfalusi debacle featured in @OldNavy1988's American Magic TL. That said, the main difference is that this happens not at the studio OldNavy created for that TL. But rather at Spumco.
  
• The following never get cancer
  • Stefan Karl Steffanson
  • John Hurt
  • David Ogden Stiers
• George Carlin is still alive
• Robin Williams never gets Parkisons and so never commits suicide

 

[OldNavy1988]

@Andrew Boyd

By ADS, you mean ALS?

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

@Andrew Boyd

By ADS, you mean ALS?

Yeah.

Also feel free to explore.

 

[TheMann]

Options for passenger rail ITTL

My idea is that Amtrak will still exist. Albeit primarily as the operator of high speed trains in the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest. While privte railroads take up most of the western passenger train operations. With the host railroads often helping by building an extra track for Amtrak to use.

Alternateively, the private railroads still exist, and Amtrak merely serves as a mouthpiece for the railroads to get the finincial aid they desire. Which includes support for various passenger trains and the improvements of right-of-ways.

Either way, I can imagine the toll road idea @isayyo2 mentioned taking place. Not only will it drive people back to the rials, but it will also mean the roads are better maintained ITTL.

The problem is that even if you have interstates be tolled across their entire distances (easy to do in city locations but all but impossible in most rural ones until the advent of automated toll collection, which is 1980s at the earliest) you still have the problem of air travel, and it was flying that ruined passenger trains with the advent of the jet age. You can make the private railroads' passenger trains last into the 1960s, but one the Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8 and De Havilland Comet 4 are flying, you better have a better reason than speed for passenger trains or else they will absolutely fail to pieces. That's easily possible for flagship ones in the West (Super Chief, City of San Francisco/City of Los Angeles, California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, Coast Starlight) and for some in the East (particularly the Southern Crescent, Silver Meteor and Champion), but you'd have a tough time doing that in the Northeast and much of the Midwest.

Amtrak operating as a high-speed operator while the freight railroads operate the long-distance runs is a hard sell because the high-speed, highly-traveled routes would surely be the ones that make money. Now, you could make it possible for the railroads to use their flagships as promotional tools/showcases for shippers/executive haulers to justify the costs involved, but I think you'd still have a challenge making it work.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Amtrak operating as a high-speed operator while the freight railroads operate the long-distance runs is a hard sell because the high-speed, highly-traveled routes would surely be the ones that make money. Now, you could make it possible for the railroads to use their flagships as promotional tools/showcases for shippers/executive haulers to justify the costs involved, but I think you'd still have a challenge making it work.

In that case, I'm sticking to Amtrak with the flagship trains as promotional tools.

 

[isayyo2]

@TheMann

I know you've said on more than one occasion that once the jet age starts, rail passenger traffic's final collapse is assured as OTL; and without an early oil crisis like in your own TL, I'm unsure if traditional intercity traffic would ever remain profitable in the post-war era.

But on the topic of trying to stop inevitable things, do you have any thoughts on how suburbanization/ urban decay could be stymied?
I do think there is merit in the thought, but you'd have to go way back to the City Beautiful Movement and Daniel Burnham with his great plans for Chicago, San Francisco and Manilla.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Amtrak ITTL Part 4: The Coast-Coast Long Distance Trains

I'm just going to follow @TheMann's ideas since they honestly are the most workable and logical.

Amtrak's own HSR lines are often used when available, but particularly in the West they do have to run on host railroads. Amtrak has a pecking order on what railroad routes they use. They tend to stick to the more passenger-friendly roads like Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Southern. Though there are trains that operate on B&O, Great Northern, ACL, IC, and Union Pacific lines, though this is more limited to the trains that came from them like the Empire Builder, Silver Star and Palmetto.

A few of them (Lake Shore Limited, Colonial, Performer) are entirely run on Amtrak-owned lines, and these ones generally use the Viewliner and Amfleet equipment that remains in Amtrak's fleet simply because of the speeds involved and a desire to keep these trains able to maintain 120 mph on the high-speed lines so that they reduce the problems with regional and high-speed trains operating on the same tracks. (For this reason Amtrak only allows EMUs on commuter services on high-speed corridors.)

One result of the preferred lines and routes is that in some lines, particularly the MoPac's former Rio Grande main line from Denver to Salt Lake City, there are several different trains - the American President, California Zephyr, City of San Francisco, Desert Wind, Pioneer, Rocky Mountain and Windy City all use this route - running on the same lines, thus giving shorter-haul passengers a choice of departure times, and virtually all Amtrak long-distance trains are equipped to handle such passengers as well as their sleeping car passengers. (The Rio Grande has long scheduled more freight trains to run at night to allow Amtrak's fast-moving - most of these trains cross the Denver-Salt Lake section in about 12 hours - passenger trains to run along the spectacular line through the daylight.

For the sake of convenience, I will be separating the list into categories. With the first being...

Coast-Coast passenger trains

City of Los Angeles: New York- Philadelphia- Pittsburgh- Columbus- Indianapolis- Chicago- St. Louis- Kanas City- Wichita- Trinidad- Santa Fe- Albuquerque- Flagstaff- Los Angeles

American President: Washington- Baltimore- Pittsburgh- Columbus- Indianapolis- St. Louis- Kansas City- Pueblo- Salt Lake City- Reno- Sacramento- Oakland- San Jose- San Francisco

Sunset Limited: Miami- Orlando- Jacksonville- Tallahassee- Pensacola- Mobile- New Orleans- Houston- San Antonio- Del Rio- El Paso- Deming- Tuscon- Phoenix- Yuma- Palm Springs- San Bernardino- Los Angeles

City of San Francisco: New York- Albany- Buffalo- Erie- Cleveland- Toledo- South Bend- Chicago- Des Moines- Omaha- Cheyenne- Denver- Salt Lake City- Reno- Sacramento- Oakland- San Jose- San Francisco

Braveheart: Miami- Orlando- Jacksonville- Savannah- Atlanta- Chattanooga- Nashville- Louisville- Indianapolis- Chicago- Milwaukee- Madison- Twin Cities- Minot- Billings- Helena- Spokane- Seattle

Next up will be the other major name trains. Split into regions...

 

[TheMann]

@TheMann

But on the topic of trying to stop inevitable things, do you have any thoughts on how suburbanization/ urban decay could be stymied?
I do think there is merit in the thought, but you'd have to go way back to the City Beautiful Movement and Daniel Burnham with his great plans for Chicago, San Francisco and Manilla.

There is a way around suburbanization destroying the centers of cities, but one still need to bear in mind that suburban neighborhoods are always going to exist, and in the post-war era the cheap land of the suburbs (and their proximity to 'war plants' that will employ large numbers of workers) is going to cause suburban movement to a considerable extent no matter what one does to avoid it. There will always be people who want the large house with a two car garage and a swimming pool and white picket fences, and population density makes that all but impossible in most major city centers.

The best way around that is a combination of gentrification, intelligent urban renewal projects (NOT the construction of vertical slums like those in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis and New York) that replace slums with properties where people would be proud to live and improved transportation on a human scale, which means while freeway building is unavoidable (and in some cases necessary) transit should go right with it. This way, there are neighborhoods in city centers that appeal to people with middle-class incomes who otherwise would have moved out to the suburbs. Keep these areas from degenerating into slums and you'll be most of the way there, and once the problems with traffic and pollution take hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s these areas will expand as better public transportation and a desire to avoid spends hours every week in traffic jams brings people back to these areas.

The City Beautiful Movement has one very serious flaw in its philosophy - it believed making the areas more beautiful would in and of itself promote a more harmonious social order. Anyone who knows anything about sociology knows this is foolish (and in many cases malicious) nonsense, as while people of many different social and economic classes can live in adjacent or even integrated areas, there has to be reasons far beyond aesthetics to do so. If you combine the City Beautiful aesthetics with a specific desire to provide better places to live for those of lower socio-economic status, you have the ability to get somewhere, and many of the design elements that mark City Beautiful projects and designs - radial streets and parkways, large parks and civic plazas, monuments, highly-styled building designs - have the ability to be highly beneficial to a urban renewal effort. However, to achieve this you have to put the function over the form, and City Beautiful planners rarely did that.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Amtrak ITTL Part 4: Eastern Long Distance Trains

Part two of this TL's Amtrak trains focuses on trains primarily in the east of the nation. Most of them operate on the specialized Amtrak Midwest and Southeast lines. Though some do use host railroads like Amtrak usually does in the west.

This WILL be periodically updated. So you all may want to look at it once in a while.

Thanks to @TheMann for letting me borrow some of these ideas.

Colonial: Portland- Boston- New York- Philadelphia- Baltimore- Washington DC- Richmond- Norfolk

Twin Capitals: Ottawa- Montreal- Burlington- Albany- New York- Philadelphia- Baltimore- Washington

Palmetto: Portland- Boston- New York- Philadelphia- Washington- Richmond- Norfolk- Raleigh- Fayetteville- Myrtle Beach- Charleston- Savannah- Jacksonville- Orlando- Tampa

Silver Star: Boston- New York- Philadelphia- Baltimore- Washington- Richmond- Raleigh- Charlotte- Columbia- Savannah- Jacksonville- Miami

Broadway Limited: New York- Philadelphia- Pittsburgh- Columbus- Indianapolis- Chicago

Lake Shore Limited: New York- Albany- Buffalo- Erie- Cleveland- Toledo- South Bend- Chicago

Nickel Plate Limited: New York- Scranton- Buffalo- Erie- Cleveland- Ft. Wayne- Chicago

Old Dominion: Chicago- Indianapolis- Cincinnati- Charleston- Roanoke- Richmond- Norfolk

City of New Orleans: Chicago- St. Louis- Memphis- Jackson- New Orleans

City of Houston: Chicago- Indianapolis- Louisville- Nashville- Birmingham- Jackson- New Orleans- Houston

Floridian: Chicago- Indianapolis- Louisville- Nashville- Chattanooga- Atlanta- Macon- Savannah- Jacksonville- Orlando- Miami

South Wind: Chicago- Indianapolis- Louisville- Nashville- Birmingham- Montgomery- Pensacola- Tallahassee- Jacksonville- Daytona Beach- Orlando- St. Petersburg

Southern Crescent: New York- Philadelphia- Baltimore- Washington- Richmond- Raleigh- Greensboro- Charlotte- Spartanburg- Atlanta- Birmingham- Jackson- New Orleans- Houston

National Limited: Portland- Boston- New York- Philadelphia- Pittsburgh- Columbus- Dayton- Indianapolis- Terre Haute- St. Louis- Kansas City

Snowbird: Toronto- Buffalo- Scranton- Philadelphia- Baltimore- Washington- Richmond- Raleigh- Fayetteville- Myrtle Beach- Charleston- Savannah- Jacksonville- Orlando- Miami

New England States: Portland- Boston- Albany- Buffalo- Erie- Cleveland- Toledo- South Bend- Chicago

Pan-American: Detroit- Toledo- Cincinnati- Louisville- Nashville- Birmingham- Jackson- New Orleans- Houston

Performer: New York- Albany- Buffalo- Erie- Cleveland- Toledo- Detroit

International Limited (w/VIA Rail): Chicago- Grand Rapids- Detroit- London- Kitchener- Toronto- Ottawa- Montreal- Quebec City- Moncton- Halifax

 

[TheMann]

IMO, the New Englander should be the New England States, which was one of the NYC's named passenger trains.

Having the Palmetto and Silver Star start at Portland seems wasteful, though one could easily make the case for them departing from Boston rather than New York.

I don't know how often you plan to have Amtrak passenger trains on the NYC Water Level Route, but if your Amtrak is gonna have more than one I'd say have three - the very-limited-stop flagship train (20th Century Limited), the limited-stop train (Commodore Vanderbilt) and the regular Lake Shore Limited. The 20th Century Limited can be like the American President and Super Chief in being a ultra-premium flagship run, all-bedroom sleeping cars and luxury lounges and Michelin Star-grade dining, while the Commodore Vanderbilt is an all-bedroom fast tourist train, very comfortable and meant for travelers (additional family bedrooms and baggage cars, additional cafe cars, observation coaches, et cetera) and the Lake Shore Limited is as now but with better dining cars and facilities as this Amtrak deserves.

If demand from Washington/Baltimore/Philadelphia is big enough you could also do this for the Pennsy trains, with the Capitol Limited and General being the complements to the Broadway Limited.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

I don't know how often you plan to have Amtrak passenger trains on the NYC Water Level Route, but if your Amtrak is gonna have more than one I'd say have three - the very-limited-stop flagship train (20th Century Limited), the limited-stop train (Commodore Vanderbilt) and the regular Lake Shore Limited. The 20th Century Limited can be like the American President and Super Chief in being a ultra-premium flagship run, all-bedroom sleeping cars and luxury lounges and Michelin Star-grade dining, while the Commodore Vanderbilt is an all-bedroom fast tourist train, very comfortable and meant for travelers (additional family bedrooms and baggage cars, additional cafe cars, observation coaches, et cetera) and the Lake Shore Limited is as now but with better dining cars and facilities as this Amtrak deserves.

Good idea. I was mostly thinking the same thing you were doing with the Rio Grande line.

 

[Duke Andrew of Dank]

Amtrak ITTL Part 4: Western Long Distance Trains

Special thanks the @TheMann for letting me incorporate his ideas.

NOTE: This will be periodically updated.

Super Chief: Chicago- St. Louis- Kansas City- Wichita- Trinidad- Santa Fe- Albuquerque- Flagstaff- San Bernardino- Los Angeles [1]

California Zephyr: Chicago- Des Moines- Omaha- Denver- Salt Lake City- Reno- Oakland- San Jose- San Fransisco

Desert Wind: Chicago- Cedar Rapids- Omaha- Cheyenne- Denver- Salt Lake City- Las Vegas- San Bernardino- Los Angeles

Empire Builder: Chicago- Milwaukee- Madison- Twin Cities- Bismark- Billings- Helena- Spokane- Seattle

Western Star: Chicago- Milwaukee- Madison- Twin Cities- Minot- Billings- Helena- Spokane- Portland

Windy City: Chicago- St. Louis- Kansas City- Denver- Salt Lake City- Reno- Sacramento- Oakland- San Jose- San Francisco

Rocky Mountain: San Antonio- El Paso- Albuquerque- Santa Fe- Colorado Springs- Denver- Salt Lake City- Pocatello- Boise- Spokane- Cranbrook- Lethbridge- Calgary

Pioneer: Chicago- Cedar Rapids- Omaha- Cheyenne- Denver- Salt Lake City- Pocatello- Boise- Portland- Tacoma- Seattle

Cascades: Eugene- Portland- Olympia- Tacoma- Seattle- Bellingham- Vancouver

Coast Daylight: Seattle- Tacoma- Olympia- Portland- Eugene- Sacramento- Oakland- San Jose- Monterrey- Paso Robles- San Luis Obispo- Santa Barbara- Ventura- Simi Valley- Los Angeles- Anaheim- Irvine- Oceanside- San Diego

The Lone Star: Chicago- Springfield- St. Louis- Poplar Bluff- Memphis- Little Rock- Texarkana- Dallas- Fort Worth- Austin- San Antonio

Mount Rainier: Denver- Salt Lake City- American Falls- Boise- Spokane- Tacoma- Seattle- Bellingham- Vancouver