Stew's U.S. HSR News November 2024 | CAHSR Northeast Corridor Brightline West Keystone Service Acela

Drama for New York City and Penn Station, drama for Brightline in Stuart, FL, and drama for the United States in the election. It's a dramatic election special edition of Stew's High Speed Rail News!
All that and more in this action packed exploration of all the U.S. high speed rail news that matters from October of 2024.
At the moment we're looking at developments with California High Speed Rail, Brightline West, Cascadia High Speed Rail, Texas Central Railway, Dallas Fort Worth High Speed Transportation, Chicago Hub Network, Illinois High Speed Rail, the Northeast Corridor, and Acela Service. These are passenger rail lines planned or in service that have the potential to travel at 150mph or faster. There are other fast passenger rail routes in the U.S., like Keystone Service, Brightline Florida, and the CSX S-Line that do or could travel as fast as 125mph. I will cover those more sporadically.

SPECIAL THANKS to EPICSNAKE for the thumbnail image

Image Attribution:

"A westbound SEPTA Paoli/Thorndale Line local on Track #4, westbound Amtrak Pennsylvanian (New York to Pittsburgh) on Track #3, and eastbound Amtrak Keystone Service (Harrisburg to New York) on Track #1 all meet at the curve on the four track Keystone Corridor in Rosemont"
by Bruce C. Cooper

"A westbound SEPTA Paoli/Thorndale Line regional rail train departing from the Bryn Mawr station"
by Centpacrr

Nancy Pelosi golf-clapping Donald Trump
by Doug Mills/New York Times

Chapters:

0:00 Hey, It's Your Old Pal Lucid Stew Again
0:14 Acela & the Northeast Corridor
2:55 Keystone Corridor
4:11 Brightline Florida
5:20 Brightline West
5:49 California High Speed Rail
6:46 Federal Grants
8:19 Intercity Passenger Rail Election Primer
10:55 Texas Central and Dallas Fort Worth HST
11:29 Stew's Boo Boos
12:29 Thanks and Up Next
12:50 See You On That Big, Beautiful Freeway!

References:

[stickynorth]

Not a boo boo but the Liberal Party here in Canada seems poised to announce the winner of the bid for a high speed rail system between Toronto and Quebec City via Peterborough, Ottawa, Laval, Montreal and Trois Rivieres in the coming days... This was supposed to be just an exclusive conventional railway project until it was hastily reimagined as a 300 km/h trainline via the secondary alignment inland from places like Kingston and Cornwall... The early buzz from renderings is that it's the TGV-SNCP project with Alstom which happened to of course swallow Bombardier Rail a few years back making sure the trainsets will most likely be a Made in Canada product from either Thunder Bay where there's always spare capacity, Kingston where the UTDC and HSR train test loops exist with small manufacturing capacity I believe or greater Montreal where there's still still plenty of options... Also buzz about the Ellis-Don Prairie Link between Edmonton and Calgary being partially financed soon by the fed's so that we Albertans don't feel left out of the train game... Though no word on the Cascadia HSR financing from Ottawa...

[alhollywood]

Really glad to see the NEC records, only gives more support for continued improvements.

[epicsnake]

Oh my gosh thank you so much 😖I started as a viewer and I'm really happy to be able to contribute to your channel. Keep up the fantastic work Lucid Stew!

[TitanicFan]

The Department of Transportation made a cool YouTube video on October 29th called "Y'all Aboard!" It talked a about the history and process of trying to bring Amtrak service back to Mobile, AL.

[MrMarshmallow]

As always, thanks for the news, Stew! I never heard of the New York Penn South concept. Certainly interesting. It's also great to hear that maintenance facilities are started to get those upgrades for the Airo train sets. Hopefully the issues with the Frederick Douglass tunnel gets figured out, but it's great to hear that the legal issues seem to have been resolved and construction can begin soon. Perhaps West Baltimore redevelopment won't be too far behind?

[ThirdWiggin]

Looking forward to the VA/NC/SC/GA videos!

[nanashi]

A suggestion for future content; can you look at High-Speed Rail connecting Las Vegas to Salt Lake City?
They are already looking at the viability of bringing High-Speed Rail into Utah.

[TheLiamster]

The Frederick Douglas tunnel is absolutely necessary but it is so expensive. It shouldn’t cost more than 2 billion dollars at most

[RailMan_Productions]

It it feels like it’s been forever since
We’ve gotten a stews News

[Kudian]

Something I wanted to mention is a recent development in Charlotte, NC. Back in September-ish, the city got approval to purchase a bunch of rail from Northfolk Southern for $74 million. This track purchase was done to create the commuter line that had been planned long ago, but fell dead many times. The city is planning to vote on a sales tax on the 2025 ballot. If all goes well, Charlotte may actually have a commuter rail in the next couple of years!

[BIoknight]

Stuart deciding against a station is truly the dumbest HSR news of the year. Nimby dead-enders are idiotic.

[NoirMorter]

As a conservative I'd trim spending on highways, roads, rails and Air ports until we get a better handle on the budgets. then I'd prioritize; Ports (air and sea), Bridges, and Rail projects. Those are weights and can be effected by individual projects. I'd also make it easier for cities to do what they want with "federal roads" for instance there is a road in the city nearest to me that is a main throughfare. They're building a light rail and can't do it on that road because its owned by D.C. which in my opinion is horrible. DC bearcats have no idea what any nation needs. The internet made it faster to see their incompetence. But that's my opinion.

[probablymaybesomeone]

Hey Stew,
1:11 Article onscreen shows "...Upgrades in *Seattle*" and not Philadelphia. Mistake?

[kiptoke]

Not particularly a factual boo boo but 1:10 is the Amtrak article for Seattle yard improvements, not Philadelphoa

[nicholasmarshall]

Im suprised you didnt talk about CAHSR construction, was it a good month, bad month, or meh month?

[ChrisJones-gxfc]

So when you say "next several decades" for CAHSR reaching SF, that assumes what exactly? That there'll be zero funding for it for those decades, or that construction will take that long? Both?

While there may not be funding identified right now, that doesn't mean there won't ever be. Even if California goes it alone, starting funding in 2030 with a steady stream of a couple billion dollars per year set aside for HSR, and prioritizing SF first which currently is estimated to cost $24.6 billion ($19.6B Merced-San Jose and $5B San Jose-SF), that would mean HSR arrives in SF by the early to mid-2040s. Of course, that assumes CAHSR's estimate of up to six years to complete the 13.5-mile tunnel through Pacheco Pass, and that all pre-construction and construction activities go smoothly with minimal delays.

It'd probably be a similar situation for going to LA. Assuming the same funding scenario, and construction activities don't begin until after SF is reached, then HSR probably reaches Palmdale in the late 2040s or 2050s, and LA/Anaheim the early 2060s.

[ncliffordjr]

5:40 is it?" this guy knows construction lol

[gregory]

Oops, you missed the news that the Federal Railroad Association *denied* a request for funds to rebuild the St. Lucie Bridge.

[JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

7:40 the bad news in Springfield is the station on the new alignment is farther from the state Capitol, which means it is farther to walk and hence less attractive to some customers.

[HarrisonMoore-pz]

Hey Stew! It’s looks like Canada could (maybe) be heading toward getting its first HSR line.

Any chance you’d be up for covering this?

Thanks from Canada!