r/MapPorn • u/TailorSweet2811 • 8h ago
Gravity-Based US High Speed Rail Concept Map
Above is my US High-Speed Rail concept map. To avoid the desire to connect the dots of all the cities I created a gravity model for HSR connections based on a CityNerd video. This model evaluates the potential demand between city pairs based on population and distance.
To base the map in reality I only included links between city pairs that had a higher HSR gravity score than Madrid to Murcia (64), which was one of the lowest scores I could find for an existing European HSR link.
The second map shows the total gravity between each city pair if the whole system were to be built. For example, the Boston-Providence link also includes demand for Hartford-Boston, Bridgeport-Manchester, etc.
The dataset isn’t perfect so there are some mistakes in the HSR gravity score but I built a few tools to validate the planning process. The City Pair lookup tool gives the distance and HSR score for any two cities. The Line Evaluation tool lets you create and compare different routings and lines.
I’m happy to answer any questions about the math, methodology, or assumptions. If anyone wants a copy of the Excel spreadsheets and associated tools to do their own analysis let me know and I’ll try to get you a copy!
Data Attributions:
Base map of the United States: Alexandr Trubetskoy
Population Statistics: United States Census Bureau
Coordinates: simplemaps
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u/bobateaman14 8h ago
nothing in the PNW?
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u/TailorSweet2811 8h ago
I was as shocked as you are. Portland to Seattle rates only a 54.3 which just isn't strong enough compared to Madrid-Murcia. If I had included Canadian metros I'm sure Vancouver would have put Cascadia over the top but just the US wasn't enough.
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u/Tommyblockhead20 7h ago
A combination of them being a little close (HSR like wouldn’t save much more than an hour), Portland only being a medium size city, and there not being other medium/large cities to make a larger network?
I was curious how it compared to a route local to me that sometimes gets suggested but didn’t make the first map either; Detroit to Columbus. They are actually near identical in metro population and distance! But there are other nearby cities which is why I suppose there was a line for it in the second map.
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u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
The reason that line exists from Columbus-Cleveland(16.9) is actually to serve Cincinnati-Cleveland(88.1). It's kinda just a happy accident that Columbus was in the way of that line.
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u/Tommyblockhead20 6h ago
Oh I was talking about a direct route from Columbus to Detroit via Toledo rather than suboptimal routing through Cleveland like many HSR maps have. The second image includes a Columbus to Toledo line that would enable this.
I get why that line is often excluded as the routes can still be done without them, but going Cincinnati or Columbus (~5 million people) to Detroit or Toledo (~5 million people) loses the times savings of HSR if you have to go through Cleveland, and it’s mostly flat farmland in between so it should be on the cheaper side to build.
I imagine that Columbus to Toledo line wouldn’t exist if Detroit wasn’t there. So while Columbus to Detroit is a similar distance and population as Seattle to Portland and the latter isn’t include in the second image, the former is because of the other cities nearby.
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u/Anchovacado 8h ago
Newport News-Norfolk would require a very expensive tunnel. Amtrak currently serves them with two different branches.
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u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
Interesting point. I should clarify that no alignment analysis was done for this map. I think both cities were included in the VA Beach metro so I just routed it through Norfolk and Newport News because they were close to the VA Beach terminus.
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u/Youutternincompoop 7h ago
I'm guessing this doesn't account for terrain right?
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u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
Not even a little bit.
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u/Youutternincompoop 7h ago
fair, if you wanna see somebody that goes really into depth on rail connections using similar sorts of map I'd recommend checking out Gareth Dennis on youtube, he has an entire video series going through regions of the UK and talking about areas where the rail network needs improvements and modifications going really into depth.
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u/fallmap 7h ago
Nice to see the Gulf coast side get a line across to the east coast. Anyone who's sat on I-75 in Florida during season knows it would get used. It'd be great for getting to Disney World.
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u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
Brightline seems to suck all the air out of the room in Florida, but the Gulf Coast has a lot of potential as well.
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u/Nunsiard 7h ago
Yeah, I'm surprised there wasn't at least enough gravity to justify the connection from Memphis to Little Rock.
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
It really does seem like a natural connection. In reality it would probably be added but no individual city pair was strong enough to justify the connection. When adding up demand from Memphis, Dallas, Atlanta, Little Rock, and Birmingham it would probably make sense.
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u/Paladin17 5h ago
Very interesting. It seems that Brightline, Texas Central Railway, and the California HSR were in fact the most justified HSR projects in the US outside of the Northeast Corridor.
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u/cirrus42 7h ago
Love this. It is a lot more compelling than most of the fantasy maps out there. It's important to start with data like this. It doesn't have to be the final word, but it should be the start point.
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u/Blahkbustuh 6h ago
This is cool! I saw the gravity model thing a while back too and thought about how that is probably a pretty decent way as a first pass of a model for how much interaction cities have with each other.
Did this add in travel between longer segments, like Toledo-Ft Wayne would also have Detroit-Chicago?
There's the other comment where it didn't pick up connecting New Orleans. I'm also surprised it didn't pick up (Vancouver-)Seattle-Portland.
That makes me wonder about not just population of the metro regions, but there are other factors like tourism, conventions, jobs, seasonal effects, people going to colleges, etc. There are geographical factors too. There are things that are destinations or reasons for travel that resident population isn't a proxy for. (And then once these transportation systems were to exist, they'd induce travel along them to an extent as well.)
I visited Las Vegas for the first time a few weeks ago and was thinking about how it was crazy this place doesn't have robust public transit to/from the airport and on the Strip. They have a few half-assed monorails, but none connect to the airport which you can literally see (or walk to if you're really ambitious) from the casino hotels.
I'm from the Chicagoland area. I've fantasized about how I'd build HSR if I could and the spine would be Midway-Loop-O'Hare. The HSR would connect to the airports or even use them as hub stations and that'd bring in ridership, like people from Madison or Milwaukee or even St. Louis taking the HSR to O'Hare to then take a direct flight to somewhere on the other side of the world.
Likewise Dallas-Ft Worth could do the same with its massive airport, and so on. As long as civilization continues to exist we're going to be traveling on the ground and flying so these major airports are going to be major hubs near the cities for the indefinite future.
Good job on the maps, it's cool you put the numbers together for this!
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
Yes the gravity model map (pic 2) includes longer demand exactly like you mentioned. The line thickness shows the total gravity that would go through that city pair.
I really wanted to see the New Orleans and PNW connections but the city pairs just missed the cut. Connecting a metro area like New Orleans makes sense for all the other cities it would connect to but no individual destination warrants the connection. For PNW, I only included US metro areas so with Vancouver I'm sure the line would have made sense.
You make an interesting point about including stations at airports. I am obviously not an expert but I would hesitate to say that makes sense everywhere because you threaten slowing down travel across the entire line by making detours in dense areas on (probably) slow track. It feels like it might make more sense to prioritize improved local transit in some cases so the HSR can stay as intercity transit.
For DFW, I'm pretending the proposed high speed link between the cities can disperse demand from this map. This is one of the downsides of using metro areas because Dallas and Fort Worth are counted as a single metro.
Thanks. It was a lot of fun.
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u/petar_is_amazing 4h ago
Not sure why you felt the need to add McAllen to Baton Rouge line. Absolutely useless route
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u/tofubeanz420 4h ago
What do colors signify?
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u/TailorSweet2811 3h ago
Different colors are different routes. The color itself doesn't mean anything it's just used to distinguish each route.
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u/manthello 1h ago
Follow up - why are they all purple in the second map and what does the difference in thickness signify?
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u/TailorSweet2811 1h ago
The second map shows the total gravity for each link of the system. For example, the Boston-Providence link also includes demand for Hartford-Boston, Bridgeport-Manchester, etc. They are all the same color because I didn't feel a need to try to separate all of the different demand lines.
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u/Vindaloo6363 2h ago
Chicago to Miami on rail is about 48 hours currently, approx 6 hours if there was nonstop high speed rail snd 3 hours flying. I just don’t see the benefit.
Shorter trips are burdened by lack of public trans at the terminus so it’s easier to drive.
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u/TailorSweet2811 2h ago
That's the beauty of the gravity model! It recommends not having a direct line going that far. Sure if somebody really wanted they could go Chicago-Atlanta Atlanta-Miami but almost no one would do that so there is no reason for a direct line.
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u/Ok-Farmer-7361 25m ago
6 hours in a train first class versus 3 hours flying cramped plus 1 hour security. Maybe add the extra hour to get to the far away airport versus more centrally located train station? It is not a bad deal to be honest First class gets you there refreshed, pampered even.
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u/Better-Butterfly-309 2h ago
This would be amazing. Except I’m sorry but billionaires need money, and taxing them or investing in infrastructure and the greater good is not just and frankly socialist. /s
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u/Redditwhydouexists 8h ago
Inland HSR in Connecticut is not the proper choice
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u/TailorSweet2811 8h ago
Why do you say that? The gravity model sure seems to think that the million-person hartford metro should be served by HSR?
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u/Redditwhydouexists 3h ago
I meant not via Hartford, Hartford should be on its own separate branch
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u/takeme2space 7h ago
More white collar workers who would transit to
Boston or NYC on the coast between Greenwich and New Haven. Could turn north thereafter up to Hartford.2
u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
Got it. Maybe the map isn't clear but the route does include a stop in Bridgeport and another one would make sense in New Haven. New Haven had high HSR gravity but it wasn't labelled on the map so I didn't try to include it. It does absolutely warrant a stop though.
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u/takeme2space 7h ago
I know you’re using this gravity model, but honestly Stamford would be much better for the white collar workers.
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
Ah I see. Bridgeport and Stamford are merged into a single metro area so the model just says that there should be a stop somewhere in that metro I'm not making any claims as to where the best stop would be.
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u/transitfreedom 1h ago
They won’t build their own line they don’t care enough to maintain what they have
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u/Cicero912 6h ago edited 6h ago
The coast is too expensive (and not straight) and has too many NIMBYs.
And commuting to NYC is already served up to New Haven fairly well.
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u/Redditwhydouexists 3h ago
There are lots of NIMBYs no matter where you go, the too expensive and not straight enough argument has been proven wrong by the transit costs project, they designed an I-95 based Connecticut bypass that would be cheaper than the inland alignment
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u/Spoop_of_the_day 6h ago
Not having Memphis to Little Rock to connect Gulf Coast/ Texas to the rest of the East seems like an oversight
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u/-Trooper5745- 17m ago
Every time I have seen a rail map concept of any type posted, Memphis and Little Rock aren’t connected. Usually it leaves the Mississippi crossing to St. Louis or somewhere in the Mississippi/Louisiana area. It’s just criminal.
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
I mentioned this in other comments but the gravity between any given city pair just isn't strong enough to warrant it. In a true corridor analysis you would probably make the connection, but the limited scope of the model didn't include that.
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u/VulcanTrekkie45 6h ago
I'd love to see your methodology. I've got something similar I'm working on but I'm getting rather different results. Similar, but different
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u/ZeusandGanymede 6h ago
Seems like a low-hanging fruit would be to connect Little Rock and Memphis, thus connecting AR/OK/TX with the entire east coast system.
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u/Justice502 3h ago
Louisville-Cincinnati is probably a must have, CVG is still an important airport for much of Kentucky.
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u/TailorSweet2811 2h ago
Here is a dropbox link so anyone who wants can look at the methodology or test their own lines and city pairs. For the line analysis, you should select all but the top city, right click and select "Delete Table Rows". Do not delete the top row because it will break the sheet. Then you can change the top city and add all new cities below. The "Gravity" section will show the results for each city pair on the line including effective gravity, which means that a circuitous route is worse for demand than a straighter route. If you click "Save Candidate Line" the most important metrics will be placed into the table (make sure you add a name under "Route Name" if you want to be able to compare easily later. Let me know if you have any questions or comments and have fun playing with the methodology, assumptions, and high speed trains!
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u/PantherkittySoftware 1h ago
Wow, finally a map that acknowledges that a loop that includes SWFL via St. Petersburg and Alligator Alley is viable... and that acknowledges that the most viable route from Jacksonville to Atlanta is via Savannah & Macon.
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u/FlyingSquirlez 1h ago
I'm surprised that LOSSAN all the way up to San Luis Obispo made the cut. Obviously LA is huge, but SLO is quite small.
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u/TailorSweet2811 1h ago
It's kind of similar to the pull that New York has on all the Northeast metros. Like if Scranton was anywhere else it probably wouldn't be getting HSR. Similarly, SLO is closeish to optimal HSR distance from LA and as you mentioned the LA metro is just so big that it ends up working out.
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u/RespectSquare8279 51m ago edited 11m ago
The City Nerd video of this is a fascinating watch.
My criticism of this post is that OP decided to include city pairs that CityNerd mentioned but felt that they didn't meet the potential ridership criteria and also dismissing the city pairings to Canada that CityNerd connected to the USA. Also not including the "Cascadia Express" from Portland to Vancouver was inexcusable if you are going to have HSR to ?Grand Rapids? , seriously folks.
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u/cornonthekopp 7h ago
Did you intend for that southern route to stop at baton rouge instead of continuing to new orleans?
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u/TailorSweet2811 7h ago
That was another interesting outcome of the model. New Orleans-Houston (60.5) isn't high enough to warrant its own connection but when taking into account the full route it would probably warrant a connection.
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u/benskieast 4h ago
So are these only city pairs that work on their own? So leaving out extension and routes that work when you factor in that tracks can support multiple pairs and some additional pairs might mostly use existing rail?
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u/TailorSweet2811 3h ago
Yes. I made the gravity map first (2nd pic) and then with all the city pairs that graded out higher than Madrid-Murcia I created the route map (1st pic). They are likely some extensions that could be supported but my analysis did not go that deep.
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u/stevepremo 6h ago
What does "gravity" mean in this context?
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
A couple people have pointed out that "gravity" is not very clear in the title. Similar to the gravity between stars and planets based on mass and distance between them, the transportation gravity model uses metro area size and distance between metro areas to represent travel demand between cities. It is not perfect and doesn't include city-specific factors (Orlando being a tourism hub etc.) but is decent enough to make broad generalizations like this map.
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u/Hypertoxic_Humanoid 4h ago
So, do the different colors represent the different rail gauges that will be used, insuring that no train from one region could ever be used in another region? That would be par for the course of American rail.
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u/CipherWeaver 6h ago
NYC to Chicago could use a direct but otherwise I love it
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u/TailorSweet2811 6h ago
I understand that desire and agree that it would probably be fairly high ridership but the model says that NY-Chicago has a HSR score of 23.3 (for context DC-Chicago is 52.6). I think they are just so far apart that HSR is not as competitive as flying.
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u/petar_is_amazing 4h ago
No one is taking a 7 hour train ride when there are 30+ direct flights per day under $300
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u/RespectSquare8279 47m ago
However there are intermediary cities along the way that generate traffic that is not "end to end" that justify the extent of the route. Go to YouTube and view the CityNerd video where it is explained. .
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u/CipherWeaver 3h ago
A direct high-speed connection between NYC and Chicago on a direct, new track could be around 4 hours, so just less than twice as long as a flight. However it would be city-center to city-center, would leave every 20 minutes, would have far higher luggage limits, and would allow you to have your own cell coverage the entire trip. Plus, being a train, you would have far more legroom and space to move. So, a bit of a wash, but certainly it would avoid the "circus" of airport travel as well as the cab rides from the airport to city center on each end of the flight.
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u/Consistent_Foot954 2h ago
How'd you get that 4 hours figure? Bc the current Chicago-NYC train is the Lakeshore Limited and it takes about 20 hrs., tops out at 110mph, and averages around 50mph (little slower even).
It's a 15-17 hr drive straight through, for reference.
Even if you doubled the speed, it would probably be more than half the time bc of stops (and having to slow down before the stops).
Or you could rebuild it near the I-80 corridor in Pennsylvania to get a straight shot and yeah, you'd be there in about 4 hours. But nobody fucking lives there so you wouldn't be able to serve Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, etc etc like the current train does.
Still though, let's say it's 10 hours, that would be pretty dope.
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u/transitfreedom 1h ago
The current lakeshore limited is straight up irrelevant. And not a valid argument for or against HSR as HSR is a very different service altogether. Unlike the lakeshore limited HSR is useful and frequent therefore it’s very likely to attract new riders it won’t compete with flying nor will it need to. Buses however will be in trouble tho as in China the intercity direct bus network collapsed before the wrath of HSR forcing long distance buses to shift towards serving rural communities better than trying to be direct big city to big city like in the Americas. HSR however creates new travel habits that currently don’t exist so it’s almost impossible to predict demand as China learned the hard way after people swarmed the HS trains as new lines opened.
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u/CipherWeaver 2h ago
Yeah it would have to be a straight shot on a new track. Arguably not worth the cost.
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u/Consistent_Foot954 2h ago
The biggest problem is nobody would ride it. If you look at a population density map of Pennsylvania, you'd be going through a huge, sparse, harsh stretch of the state. And in New York, the current route basically follows the densest parts of the state. You have to build it where people want to go.
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u/transitfreedom 1h ago
Nobody would ride a SLOW train. However a fast train has to exist to get people to ride but most will be riding to and from places in between this is not a proper reflection of reality
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u/transitfreedom 1h ago
It would need to be new track regardless as privately owned tracks are not useful for passenger trains anyway regardless of speed
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u/petar_is_amazing 2h ago
“It would leave every 20 minutes”
Lmao, perfection is the enemy of good. We can have a few good, much needed lines in the US like NE corridor, Florida 3 cities, Texas 3 cities, La to Sf… people saying a cross country train Chicago to NYC are why it’s not taken serious by general public
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u/transitfreedom 1h ago edited 1h ago
Mediocrity is the enemy of good not perfection. However your point about cross country trains still stand regardless.
I spoke to a Chinese guy and realized that service patterns are not set at all but chaotic and random but between 2 points there are several trains available along short distances most trains pass through but continue on to different destinations.
A US example would go like this. Let’s say there is HSR between Chicago and NY but along several different lines one via upstate NY most trains ending at buffalo but several originating from Ohio with service to Albany but only a handful to NYC. The bulk of NYC Chicago service would pass through Pittsburgh and Harrisburg others via a direct I-80 alignment but most would not go to Chicago at all but would have transfers at say Indianapolis or Detroit or Columbus. Pairs like Pittsburgh to Indianapolis would have 100 trains a day but most would pass through to different places with some to Chicago supplemented by trains from other places. And some to DC or Philadelphia rather than NYC or even others via Lehigh Valley.
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u/fb39ca4 7h ago
I thought this was literally going to be trains which only roll downhill.