Day trip to Yoho NP because YOLO

 We could have easily spent another day or two in Canmore.  There were lots of trails to explore.  But, YOLO means Yoho. Yoho is one of the three adjoining Canadian National Parks in the area.  Some quick research showed us we might be able to get in three hikes, so off we went up Trans Canadian Highway, past Banff and Lake Louise, up over Kicking Horse Pass, to the Yoho Visitor's Center.

Kicking Horse Pass.  Nice First People name for the area, right?  Nope.  Canadian Pacific RR surveyor, looking for a route over the Rockies, got kicked in the chest by his horse. Hard. Was not pleased.  Out of action for a couple of weeks.  Named the pass after that event.  It's the home to an amazing engineering feat - Double Spiral Tunnels.  The railroad makes two loops inside the mountain to gain elevation with a tolerable grade (2.2%).  They have a nice model in the Yoho Visitor's Center where you can see how it actually works.

Double Spiral Tunnels model diorama

There is an overlook of the one tunnel at a rest area along the Trans Canadian, but we couldn't see much and no trains wandered by.  

However, at the Visitor's Center in Field's which is on the west side of the pass, we saw a train starting up the grade to the tunnels.

(You knew I'd sneak a train thing in here somewhere....)

The ranger at the visitor's center gave us good directions to our first hike:  Wapata Fall.  A short hike to some nice falls, they said.

At the trail head.  Getting ready.

A well-trod, but nicely maintained trail

Remember that Randy Bachmann song....still true.

Nice Falls! Nice Falls!  Nice falls are a trickle cascading down a hillside.  These are thundering, guaranteed death, ain't nobody going over in a barrel, raft, kayak or anything else, falls.

The trail gave quite a few good overlooks.  Here are too many pictures and a video.

Sue at the bottom of the falls

Falls Fools.

Next, onto Emerald Lake.  Our first of many turquoise colored glacial lakes. The lakes get this color from the rock fines, "glacial flour" that are milled of the rock surfaces under glaciers and then run off into the streams of glacial melt water. 

We hiked around the lake starting at the end where the park service runs a lodge and cabins.

There were quite a few people out in canoes.

Some flowers along the way

A marshy area on the far side of the lake

Trouble brewing...

More pictures!

...of these cool looking flowers.

It's getting cloudy...It's actually pouring back at the lodge end of the lake!

You can see the path of snow avalanches, where the trees have been scoured away.

Lakeside lodging

After the rain, back where we started!

We wanted to try to do Takakkaw Falls, but we were running out of time.  So we decided to hit Banff on the way back.

Sue is underwhelmed by the Bow River falls in Banff.  Hotel is background is one of the Fairmont hotels, build by the Canadian Pacific RR to spur tourism.  Top-of-the-line place to this day - $900/night!

Classic Banff view.

Anybody thirsty!  Nice local pub with pub food for dinner!  

So, yeah, Canmore was really nice, but Yoho NP was even better!

But, still, Randy Bachmann.... We ain't seen nothin' yet.

Tomorrow.  Lake Louise.

Canmore - You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.

 Bachmann-Turner-Overdrive.

Canadian.  Just some really bad music.  Mostly.  But, a few catchy guitar pop songs, still played at Wedding receptions.  

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is one of them.

It fits Canmore Alberta to a "T".

Once again, we vacationed with our friends Sue and Tom.  How could we follow up our great Grand Canyon - Utah trip?  We decided to try the Canadian Rockies. 

First stop.  Canmore.  Why not the more famous Banff, just up the road?  Because just up the road a little bit puts you in the very expensive real estate of Banff National Park.  Canmore is cheaper - and pretty darned nice, itself.

We didn't regret it.  But, little did we know what was up the road a few days later. 

We arrived right after a rainstorm, just as the clouds were lifting and the sun was starting to peak out.

The mountains surrounded the town.

There were flowers and strange tourist all about/

Mountains everywhere.  These Canadian Rockies are the real deal!

The Bow River runs down the valley through the town.

Our hotel was on Policeman Creek, a branch off the Bow River.  There was a trail over the creek.

Policeman Creek

The view out our hotel window

To the north

...South

    

...East

The prominent peaks over Canmore are known as the Three Sisters.

The view from the  pool at our hotel

The hotel as sun sets on the mountains behind

and on Policeman Creek

...and on the Three Sisters

The second day in Canmore we went for a bike ride on a trail along the Bow River

Morning outside the hotel

Historic church building in town

We rented some bikes in town for a half day and rode south along the river.

Creative Photography

The result

Happy Bikers

A nice rest stop on the river

Smooth trail with big scenery

Say "hi", Don.

The wild flowers were out in the meadows along the way

The Three Sisters were in view the whole way along the trail.

The next day we headed for Yoho National Park.  How could it beat Canmore?

 

You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Amtrak: Charlotte to Atlanta

 I turned my Train Performance Calculator to passenger trains.  The Crescent.  A way-too-slow, runs where the people are when they are sleeping, train. 5:40 minutes for 260 miles from Charlotte to Atlanta.  Very not useful. How can it be fixed?  Let's take a look...

The route is chocked full of curves.  54 miles of the 257 mile route are 2 degree or sharper.  About half of that is 3 degrees or sharper.  It seems that 3 degrees was likely the design standard for the route.  NS has maintained 5 inches of superelevation in most places to keep the track speed up to 60 mph or higher as much as possible. 

Miles of curves between Charlotte and Atlanta by curvature (degrees)

There are so many curves, so closely spaced, it's rather impractical to speed up much between them and gain much reduction in running time.  In fact, the timetable actually limits the majority of the route to 60 mph, the max for 3 degree curves with 3 inches of underbalance.  Amtrak equipment is generally allowed 3" of underbalance in curves - slight centripetal force greater than the superelvation.

Boosting the horsepower through additional locomotives or electrification improves running time only a couple of minutes.

What does help is being able to run through those three degree curves faster.  Let's try a tilt train.

Talgo equipment has been tested to 8 inches of underbalance.  Other countries run tilt equipment from 7-9 inches.  So, I chose 8 inches. For reference, 

Increasing the under balance to 8" allows 80 mph on three degree curves with 5" of superelevation knocks over an hour off the running time.

Increasing track speed to 90 mph helps running time a bit, but involves nearly constant acceleration and braking.  Not very practical.  What would make 90 mph practical would be easing all curves over 2.2 degrees.  Added with tilt equipment, another 20 minutes could be saved.

Here's a summary of scenarios.

Some detail from the scenarios:

This is just a piece of the route, but it is very typical.  This is "as constructed" in the 19th century when the south didn't have the wealth to build to higher standard and there was no money subsequently to modernize.  

The sheer number and spacing of the three degree curves make running much faster than 60 mph an impracticality.  If you use tilt equipment and allow 8" underbalance, you can get to 80 mph without too much trouble.  But if you want more than that, you get into easing curves.  There are more than 50 miles of curves that would need attention. That's a very expensive proposition and not one a handful of Amtrak trains could justify.  

Conclusion?  Tilt equipment.  Getting the running time from Atlanta to Charlotte down under 4 hours makes a New York to Atlanta day train possible.  If similar improvements can be made along the North Carolina RR the the Durham to Petersburg HrSR route created, multiple NY to Atlanta trains become practical.  

For freight?  Electrification.  It's the roller coaster grades of this route that kill the average speed.  Electrification brings much higher HP and the potential for much higher average speeds.  See previous blog post.

Ultimately, this route's engineering is just so bad, it might only be suitable for freight and a separate HSR rail route might be needed for passenger.  The state of GA wasted some big money on a study of alternatives about a decade ago (https://www.dot.ga.gov/GDOT/pages/AtlantaCharlotteRail.aspx.)  

However, we'll never see any HSR construction if we can't show conventional passenger trains are attractive and the current schedules are not competitive.

Tilt trains are the practical answer.