• AA5B@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Many of these allocations are what you’re looking for, except the 120 mph part.

    As the pair of example most interesting to me, allocates money for planning

    • upgrades to Hartford—>Springfield, including double tracking, increase potential service from like 30 trains to 40. While some is local commuter traffic, this all feeds down from Vermont to Acela at New Haven. There’s your midrange rail and connection to high speed
    • new service Boston—>Albany. Currently one impractical long distance train to Chicago, but run up to seven per day. Now you not only have mid range rail becoming usable, but you’re connecting Acela and Downeaster in Boston with Vermonter and Connecticut Trail in Springfield and big parts of NYS at Albany. Now you have a web of useable service, and Springfield and Albany have the beginnings of hubs

    While these still aren’t fast enough or frequent enough for good midrange rail, they’re a good bet by connecting to Acela, by connecting to nyc and Boston where cars and flying are tough, and by connecting dozens of colleges with tens of thousands of students who don’t have cars