First 2010 Open Thread
Just got back into Monterey after a nice trip back from Seattle aboard the Coast Starlight. I know there was some discussion in the previous post about that route and Amtrak more broadly. While this is intended as an open thread, I’ll take my publisher’s prerogative to add some thoughts on this, with the experience still fresh in my mind:
- There is a significant demand for intercity passenger rail. Both trains, going to and from Seattle, were packed, and the #11 train that I was on (departing Seattle yesterday and currently en route to LA) was totally sold out. Amtrak does very well at the holidays, as do the airlines. The Pacific Surfliner trains between San Luis Obispo, LA, and San Diego also see enormous ridership during the holiday season. The notion that there’s no demand for passenger rail in this state is therefore not only absurd, but disproven by the facts. HSR will tap into that demand with faster and more reliable service along those high-traffic corridors.
- Amtrak is hamstrung by the fact that it doesn’t own the rails it uses. Amtrak trains are at the mercy of the freight rail operators, primarily Union Pacific and BNSF here on the West Coast. During the height of the previous economic bubble UP freight was so frequent that the Coast Starlight experienced delays so bad the train became known as the “coast starlate”. That record has improved considerably since the economic crisis began. But even with dependence on freight, some Amtrak routes have been able to post impressive on-time performances. The Capitol Corridor has a 92% on-time performance rating even though it runs 32 trains per day, primarily on UP tracks. Capitol Corridor management, primarily under recently-retired Gene Skoropowski, innovated an incentive payment structure whereby UP makes more money when they deliver a better on-time rate.
Delays still happen. On the day I left for Seattle (December 23) the southbound Coast Starlight, #11, was delayed between 8 and 9 hours after it hit a tree near Mount Shasta. That’s bad, but then I’ve experienced similar delays when snow near Mount Shasta or Siskiyou Summit forced a closure of I-5 and I either had to stay the night in Ashland, or take the long way around via Highways 199 and 101. On my own trips, the train going north (#14) left Salinas 15 minutes late, and arrived at Olympia 10 minutes late. Coming south, we left Seattle on-time, and arrived at Salinas about 40 minutes late. Not perfect, but not bad either, given how little control Amtrak has over the rails it uses.
That all being said, HSR significantly outperforms Amtrak since it will be using its own purpose-built rails that the state will own. In Japan, delays of even a minute are infrequent, and as in Spain, delays of 5 to 15 minutes will produce a refund of some or all of a passenger’s fare. Given that Amtrak can still attract lots of riders even with a reputation for delays, that further suggests to me that HSR will have little trouble attracting many more riders with much faster and much more punctual service.
- It’s true that Amtrak’s lines, aside from the Acela, do not generate enough revenue to pay the operating expenses. Then again, neither does any single one of the freeways in California, and the Orange County tollroads are frequently being bailed out by the public. So Amtrak is being held to an unreasonable and hypocritical standard. That being said, if a service can produce 100% farebox recovery ratios while still offering a timely and affordable service, it’s always worth going for. The Capitol Corridor again offers a model of how this can be accomplished, where state funding of infrastructure (cars and rail projects) has produced significant gains. The charts below are from 2008, and while ridership has declined since then, ridership remains above the 2007 level, suggesting that the long-term trend remains in effect:
These charts show a steady increase in both ridership and revenue on the Capitol Corridor, even before the 2008 spike.
This chart is even more impressive and significant. It shows that state subsidy levels (Capitol Corridor is funded by the state of California) have remained pretty much static for the last eight years, yet the Capitol Corridor has had dramatic success at growing ridership and bringing its costs under control.
The current battle over HSR funding isn’t really about the operating costs, since there won’t be a need for ongoing subsidies for that (not that there’s anything wrong with such subsidies). The battle is instead over who foots the bill for the cost of the construction of the dedicated HSR rail corridor. Seeing as nobody has yet proposed we pay back the entire $400 billion cost of just the Interstate Highway System alone (subsidized entirely by tax dollars), not to mention the billions California has spent on its own freeway system, it is again hypocritical to demand that the public NOT be asked to pay for the cost of HSR.
Anyhow, that’s a brief set of HSR-related Amtrak thoughts. Keep in mind that though this blog is focused on California HSR, we do support the reconstruction of the a broader national passenger rail network we had until about 40 years ago, when it was abandoned in a very short-sighted and foolish move. HSR is a necessary part of that renewed national network, but it’s not the only part, either here in California or nationwide.
Back to our usual topical posting tomorrow. My planned post on assessing the CHSRA will still happen, but not until later in the week. Happy new year, everyone!
I don’t think that a single sold-out train per day is an indication of demand for 8 tph all day long. And I don’t think that you can blame freight railroads for Amtrak’s crappy OTP when on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor things aren’t much better.
Joey Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I doubt so much schedule-padding is necessary on the NEC. Amtrak seems to leave oodles of time in there in case of delays (and they’re still late much of the time). When I was returning home we sat in some stations for as much as 1/2 hour. Nice chance to get some fresh air, but not really effective if you want to get someplace in a reasonable amount of time.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Agreed. Right now Amtrak intercity services for the Coast Starlight are not really conducive for people on tight schedules who must make their journeys as rapidly as possible. Even though I’m working tomorrow, I had some “padding” in my own personal schedule; had train #11 had another 9 hour delay coming south, it would have sucked, but I would have made it home to Monterey by 9PM – not ideal, but still quite doable.
Since the Coast Starlight is currently the only direct train from SF to LA, and since it takes about 12 hours to make that journey, it’s just not an option for most travelers who prefer not to give up entire days for their intrastate journeys (still, many people do exactly that). HSR on the other hand would indeed be a better option for those journeys, one reason why the comparison of Amtrak to CA HSR is of limited utility.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
1. I didn’t say it was demand for 8 TPH from Seattle to LA all day long. I said it showed there was strong demand for passenger rail even under the constraints Amtrak has to deal with, which shows that there is reason to believe the demand for a very different – faster and more reliable – passenger rail system is really there. I wouldn’t draw too much from the comparison, but given that every other global HSR system has had success attracting riders, Amtrak is another point in CA HSR’s favor, even if it is an admittedly minor point.
2. Amtrak owns some of the NEC but not all of it, and still has to deal with delays caused by other non-Amtrak trains that use that corridor. Even so, Acela’s OTP for November 2009 was 89.3%. The national OTP for airlines is 77.3% for the most recent month available, October 2009, so the Acela beats the national airline average OTP.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:05 pm
1. Okay, then bring up foreign HSR systems. Amtrak operates a different kind of transportation system; demand for a faster, more reliable Amtrak could mean demand for four times the frequency, in which case it’s a waste of money, or demand for a hundred times the frequency, in which case it’s not.
2. Amtrak is a railroad, not an airline. Airlines may not be able to run on time on congested corridors, but trains always can. The Acela’s schedules are just a suggestion by the standards of the TGV or Shinkansen or AVE or ICE, and the fact that it’s only half as delayed as the airlines isn’t a point in its favor.
Well, fwiw, I found it interesting that per the CCJPA charts that in FY07-08 the state subsidy to operate the service was BELOW revenue for the year. That appears to be a first. And, that is a good thing…. as state subsidy for the service appears to be somewhat flat. Though, I am unsure of the funding methodology. Good for CCJPA!
Maybe some of you saw this NY Times article concerning San Francisco’s planned Transbay Terminal project. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03sfstation.html
See page 2 for comments concerning CHSR.
Nothing really new.
This is by far one of the dumbest articles I’ve read in a while: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_S_op_04_ed_bullettrain.3e70355.html#end
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 7:07 am
Yes, absurd. It was an editorial. It was one-balanced…. the pro argument consisted only of:
“Advocates claim that high-speed rail offers the right approach for the future. Perhaps. …”
synonymouse Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 10:49 am
The CHSRA is quickly losing the battle in the court of public opinion. The big city newspapers are turning against it because they see hsr draining funds from much more important urban transit systems. It is no accident that the Oakland Tribune editorial against the hsr singled out BART as the proper recipient of government funding not the hsr. It is just a matter of time before the average BART rider comes to the same conclusion, especially when they are agitated by fare hikes and service cuts due to loss of state funding.
So it turns out that the hsr’s real antagonist is not some Palo Alto so-called nimbys but BART, the 800 lb. gorilla of Bay Area public transport. It is likely that state and federal budget problems will persist for years at the very least and a return of Reaganism would only make spending cutbacks more severe.
Steel wheel rail technology’s shortcomings are noise, vibration and slow speeds. These problems can be mitigated by direct routes away from populated areas as much as possible. The CHSRA has done exactly the opposite and succumbed to political corruption)Palmdale). The hsr must be more revolutionary, in the image of a maglev, rather than evolutionary like a gussied-up Amtrak.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I’m really not sure if you can claim that the “big city newspapers” are against HSR, especially when most of them against HSR are all owned by one company.
I think you’re smoking something if you think that Media News has any sort of pull. Especially since they’ve replaced local reporting with editorials and AP stories.
Maglev’s shortcomings are noise, and incompatibility with existing rail services, in addition to its greatest shortcoming of being massively expensive. There’s a reason why it hasn’t been widely implemented.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Not to mention that most people, including politicians, realize that the day of the newspaper is over.
AndyDuncan Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:52 am
If you want people to take you seriously (which is, admittedly, difficult at this point), you probably shouldn’t bring up maglev.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Ahh, but maglev is an excellent way to achieve fiscal responsibility for CAHSR. Especially if it’s competing with BART for funding, right?
Joey Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
And of course, BART is is shining model of financial responsibility!
dejv Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
> Steel wheel rail technology’s shortcomings are noise, vibration and slow speeds. These problems can be mitigated by direct routes away from populated areas as much as possible.
Misleading. Avoiding population centers mean avoiding customers and therefore creating need for subsidies. Kind of self-fulfilling prophecy from you. ;)
Regarding speed: CHSR system is to be designed for 220 mph and it will be based on existing technology. The only maglev in commercial operation achieves 268 mph. No big difference. (Yep, Chuo Shinkansen is to be faster but it is still under development.)
Rafael Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Maglev creates plenty of aerodynamic noise when traveling at the same speed as steel wheels and even more if traveling faster. It is, however, very quiet at low speeds since there is no rail-wheel noise at all.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Same thing about being very quiet can be said about electric steel-wheel rail at low speeds (assuming its not going through hairpin turns a-la TTC entry).
synonymouse Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I am not suggesting maglev per se, but a rail technology with the appeal of a maglev image. The CHSRA should have concentrated on a I-5 starter line with no stops enroute and bleeding edge speeds. This approach can stir the enthusiasm required to bring in private investors.
If the hsr is government run it will have exorbitant labor costs, rendering it impossible to turn a profit. The only way private capital can be attracted, without noisome taxpayer guarantees, is if the scheme is fast enough to compete with air and the line is run by a private operator.
If higher temperature superconductivity ever does materialize maglev might come on, because noise and vibration are persistent problems with steel wheel technology. The hsr is very likely to be marked by higher noise and vibration than touted. Just ride a BART train some time to find out how serious the noise issue can be.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Have you ever been on a high speed train? If your sole exposure to rail is BART, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Just two weeks ago I was in Prospect Park, PA, less than a block away from where the Acela goes through at grade. I was impressed (but not surprised) at how quiet it was. No sound walls, nothing. 4 tracks (I think, haven’t seen a satellite picture, but I think there were four OCS wires), and the neighborhood was not blighted in any way. It’s a quite nice residential neighborhood next to, GASP, an existing rail corridor. The only complaints my in-laws had was about the freight trains rumbling through at night.
HSR at or below 125 mph is not going to be a noise issue at all.
Disclaimer: I’m not sure how fast Acela goes through there, but it looked like a respectable speed. Maybe someone can look it up.
Note: I’m not saying that going at 220 mph through cities in the Valley is going to be a picnic. Just that the 125 that Peninsula NIMBYs are whining about is not going to be a problem.
Joey Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Problem is, HSR tends to have trouble attracting enough ridership to cover operating costs without intermediate stops. It’s one of the reasons why the LA-Phoenix line is questionable. Also BART is by far the loudest rail system I have ever ridden, high speed or otherwise. You can’t really use it as a reference point for noise levels.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Hehe, West Berlin S-Bahn in the late 1980s was louder, but they were also using trains built in the 1920s and 1930s.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
The towns the Shinkansen lines give intermediate local stops to are a good deal smaller than Bakersfield and Fresno. Most trains just skip them.
jamiewhitaker Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
synonymouse wrote “The CHSRA is quickly losing the battle in the court of public opinion.”
I think synonymouse is right on, but I don’t think it is the newspaper editorial pages CHSRA should worry about. I think this year’s budget battles will feature cage matches between education, healthcare, water departments, local governments, and transportation systems. If Californians begin to see CHSRA as a rich person’s luxury compared to healthcare and education funding that helps everyone, watch out …
In the meanwhile, CHSRA needs to try to hold on to current friends and supporters … yes, I’m hinting at their need to declare the “Beale Street Alternative” in downtown San Francisco studied and infeasible for the northern terminus. http://www.change.org/actions/view/save_high_speed_rail_in_san_francisco
Joey Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I’m still confused as to what people have against the Beale St. option…
Spokker Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Education doesn’t need anymore money in California, it needs reform.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I don’t have any children and I am plain tired of pro-education folks arguing that schools are under-funded.
Of course they are… everything is under funded. But we all know that the pro-education camp will not stop until a highly paid teacher follows every single child around from the time they have breakfast until the time they go to bed. And, “Education should fund their breakfast, lunch and dinner… just to make sure they are nutritionally prepared to recieve information. And, “Education” should fund kindergarten beginning at the age of 2 years old (aka, day-care). And then when/if a child fails, the State should provide a job for them and retirement package.
Please observe the sarcasm.
jimsf Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Agreed. Voucher time. and Time for parents to take responsibility for it.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
“Quickly losing the battle in the court of public opinion…” that is plain nonsense. The public already voted and are increasingly behind this project and any other that puts people to work. the public is not against jobs. Stop being foolish.
@robert- good evaluation of amtrak. Indeed the vast majority of delays are due to heavy traffic and a mostly single tracked nationwide freight network. Not just the holidays are sold out, checking tonight, the coast starlight is packed full to a “Y” fare until Thursday due to high demand, and sold old tonight and tomorrow (14)
Contrary to what Alon says, the one full train a day is not the whole “demand” picture because it doesn’t consider the people we turn away, everyday at every station along the way. And of course, one can only speculate on how much more demand there would be with higher speeds.
right now I still get “we didn’t even know this was here” ever single day, concerning the SF connection.
Every single day people come in and are amazed to find out that they can take a train to sac. you should see their expression when they find out there are 32 per day. “When did that start?” they say.
(HSR had best do some good advertising and outreach cuz people live in an amazingly airtight bubble these days, I mean hello, its the information age, yet does anyone actually know anything?) I digress.
The demand also does not take into the account the number of people who want to go by rail but can’t travel on the one departure a day sked.
What’s really amazing is that people will often pay more than flying, to take longer the flying, for the simple fact that they prefer the train. Im not talking about tourists, Im talking about folks who use the starlight for instance to travel the minor city pairs up and down the west coast. There’s the people who simple won’t fly due the treatment at the airports. I can read peoples faces, and I hear their questions, and there is a pent up demand just waiting to be tapped.
That said, here’s a handy travel tip for anyone who uses 11/14 or is thinking about it, between the bay and socal.
Most people don’t think of upgrading on that journey because its not an over night trip, but, the upgrade between SFC and SBA or LAX is the best deal around. Here’s why.
If you get the “D” bucket fare ( book a couple days or more in advance) and you are traveling as a couple, (2 people)
the cost of upgrading from coach to first class is only an extra 47.50 per person.
Why is that good? Because meals are included, and if you are going at least to SBA or further, you get three meals, ( dinner prior to arrival in SBA at 6:17p) Well three meals on the train are gonna cost you about 40 bucks anyway right? so for 47.50 you get the three meals, plus as gravy, you get the first class compartment, access to the “Pacific Parlor Car” first class lounge, the option to take your meals in the first class parlor car instead of the common dining car, ( nice tables, under the glass dome) movies downstairs in the mini theater, and for a nominal, ($5 ?) fee, afternoon wine and cheese tasting featuring product from the starlights various regions. Totally worth the price. There’s no other upgrade that I have found that beats this particular value. People just don’t think of it, and its my special trick my good customers, I get em to upgrade almost everytime after that shpiel.
Try it next time you’re worth it and you’ll love it especially if coach is stuffed and god only knows who’ll you’ll have to sit with.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Yes, there are more delays on single-tracked UP-owned lines than on quad-tracked Amtrak-owned lines. But there are still delays on the Amtrak-owned lines, more than there would be if Amtrak were run with the efficiency of the main HSR carriers in the world.
jimsf Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Its still a matter of infrastructure not operations. The infrastructure and rolling stock nationwide is outdated and amtrak is just now catching up on maintenance. There was no national investment in rail as in other countries, there was a pittance of a subsidy, a ragtag rainbow fleet of ancient rolling stock, and antagonistic or at best uninterested freight partners. This is the US not europe or asia. We don’t do anything here the way they do. Are you from here? If you are you know that already.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
The NEC isn’t outdated – much of it has received recent upgrades, and the rest is still in good enough condition to allow trains to proceed at full speed. Decrepit tracks result in slow zones, which are not common on the NEC and are not the main cause of delays there.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
My sole experience on the NEC came on December 23 on New Jersey Transit. On our way in to New York, we had to take PATH from Newark to New York (BTW, why the hell are they both called “Penn Station”?) because nothing was going into New York on the NEC due to electrical problems.
On the way back, our train was delayed over an hour because of a disabled train somewhere between NY and Newark. NOTHING was able to pull out of NY until that was cleared.
Sounds like there still are some major infrastructure problems, both on the NEC itself and with the outdated (often) equipment used on it.
Btw, to the BART bashers, when it comes to ghetto subways, wow, PATH took the cake for me. Most delapidated train I’ve ever been on.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
The Pennsylvania Railroad built the line, and called various stations on it Penn Station, including New York, Newark, and Baltimore.
The trains are fairly new – the Acelas and the locomotives for the Regional were built in the late 1990s; the Regional coaches are older, dating to the 70s and 80s. But age is an input variable, one where Amtrak is not doing very poorly. The output variable – the reliability of the trains and the tracks – is terrible, and that’s entirely on Amtrak and the FRA.
I’m pretty sure the PATH train you’re talking about is the 1965-66 equipment. At the time those trains were built BART didn’t even exist. But PATH is now modernizing the rolling stock, replacing everything with Kawasaki trains from 2008.
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Equipment age is not a problem for me. Hell, like I said, I’ve been on the Berlin S-Bahn Class 135 (I think, or could have been Class 125), which were built in the 1920s and 1930s, and ran through the late 1990s.
Poorly maintained equipment and infrastructure IS a problem for me.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
BTW, why the hell are they both called “Penn Station”
Why the hell are they all called Union Station, there’s one in DC, there’s one in Chicago, there’s one in LA, there’s one in Denver. there’s one in St Louis… there’s Union Stations scattered all over the place. If you are in a city like Newark where there’s a Lackawanna Station and a Central ( of New Jersey ) Terminal and a H&M terminal it makes sense to call the station the Pennsylvania Rail Road owns Pennsylvania Station. Would you have felt better if they were both called Union Station? There was talk of doing that in the 1890s.
Sounds like there still are some major infrastructure problems
Stuff like that happens when your train is using an electrical system that went into service in 1937 and still has original parts in it. The problem in the morning was caused by low voltage at the North Bergen substation. Was it more pleasant to get on PATH or would you have rather waited for three hours while they fixed the problem? There’s a lovely waiting room in Newark. The disabled train would have been less of a problem if they were running more than one track in each direction. With the tight schedules they run, if everything isn’t running on schedule it can take hours to recover from a problem. Look at it this way, you got to see what a crowded bus terminal masquerading as a train station looks like.
Dear Robert,
I wanted to contact you directly, but I guess commenting in an open thread might be the way to do that. I know this is a long-closed question, but I was wondering what your personal reasons were for preferring Pacheco over Altamont for the alignment. While I realize that this results in faster and more frequent service between San Jose and Southern California, and improves connectivity to the system for Gilroy and Monterey County — this affects a total of at most 1.5 million people, less than a quarter of the population of the greater Bay Area. On the other hand, isn’t it more important to (ultimately) provide fast service between the Bay Area and Sacramento to replace the Capitol Corridor, and between the Bay Area and Central Valley cities such as Stockton and Modesto? Hence wouldn’t HSR be more practical this way, despite the reduced service and slightly longer trip to San Jose? I guess ultimately I don’t have access to any data that would show this to be better, but intuitively it seems true, and various pro-transit organizations seem to agree.
The environmental claims of the EIR/EIS seem bogus since (a) Pacheco has its own environmental issues and (b) the Dumbarton rail bridge is going to be rebuilt anyway.
I don’t need an in-depth reply if you can give a pointer to posts or websites where this is discussed, with data.
To disclose (lack of) biases: I don’t actually live in California anymore, but I’ve previously lived in Palo Alto, Pasadena, and Menlo Park.
wu ming Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 9:11 am
i’m not robert, but the general reasons are: a) because it’s settled, and we have more productive things to discuss; and b) because the capitol corridor doesn’t actually need replacing so much as expanded frequency and upgrades to track. the closer distance between sac-oakland means the extreme high speeds are less needed than with a longer shot like SF-LA.
AndyDuncan Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
An altamont alignment wouldn’t function as a replacement for the Capitols because the ridership on the capitols is not predominantly Sacramento-San Jose, it’s predominantly shorter trips like Emeryville-San Jose. A “replacement” for the Capitols would need to be along more or less the same route as the existing capitols and hit more or less the same stations (or at least the stations with the highest ridership). An altamont alignment would serve what is basically an all new market for Sac-Stockton-Livermore-Fremont-San jose.
Ultimately, the Authority’s decision was to build both, but to shift the cost and scheduling risk of a new transbay crossing to someone else’s project. Pacheco is the less risky of the two alternatives and provides either doubled train frequency to San Jose, faster trip times (SF-LA would be slower via altamont with train splitting, SJ-LA would be slower with or without train splitting), or both.
Rafael Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Robert has long argued that he’s fine with either route out of the Bay Area, his priority is getting an express HSR starter line between SF and LA/Anaheim built at all.
For my part, I would have preferred Altamont, but via Santa Clara rather than Dumbarton or SJ Diridon (cp. CHSRA’s Altamont variation #9). The primary benefit of moving the station would be run-through tracks, cutting the express line haul penalty relative to Pacheco Pass to around 8 minutes while still avoiding a new Bay crossing and allowing all trains to stop both in SF and in the south Bay. As a rule of thumb, ridership changes by about 1% for every minute added or cut from line haul time. However, this would be overcompensated by the utility of strictly regional high speed trains running between Sacramento, Silicon Valley and SF. Service between NorCal and SoCal will be the backbone of the HSR network, but it’s not the only connectivity that counts.
That said, I’m seconding Robert’s opinion that getting HSR built at all should be the top priority so let’s focus on the EIS/EIR process and on funding.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
wu ming and Rafael have explained it well. Prior to the July 2008 decision I was agnostic – both Pacheco and Altamont have pros and cons. However, those tended to balance out, and either option would have been fine – neither option had an advantage or a weakness over the other. Sure, Altamont would make it quicker to get from the Bay Area to Sacramento, but Pacheco makes it quicker to get from the Bay Area to LA, so on and so forth.
Now that a choice has been made between two perfectly acceptable options, we ought to stick with it in order to get this thing built in a timely and affordable manner. There is no good reason to revisit the issue.
Spokker Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Follow the lights!
Essentially, peninsula NIMBYs favor Altamont because they want the trains in someone else’s backyard, and Bay Area transit advocates favor Altamont because all their transit monies is sucked up by BART and they want HSR to replace ACE.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Bear in mind, I think Altamont-through-Dumbarton would have been slightly better than Pacheco (though not to the same explosive extent as Richard Mlynarik…). But for what it’s worth, here are Pacheco’s selling points:
1. No need for a new bay crossing; Dumbarton is a single-track bridge passing through wetlands, and an upgrade to two tracks would be expensive.
2. Slightly less track length in Phase 1, cutting initial construction costs (but much more length in Phase 2).
3. SF and SJ can be served on one line; Altamont-through-Dumbarton can’t serve more than one of the Bay Area’s three major cities on each branch, so serving two cities would require reducing frequencies to each destination.
4. The mid-Peninsula station can be placed at Palo Alto, which is a more important origin as well as destination than Redwood City.
5. Less reliance on Union Pacific, which controls necessary ROW between Fresno and Modesto and in the East Bay. Some of this ROW would be in Phase 2 of Pacheco anyway, but an operating railroad would have a much easier time getting Union Pacific to relent than a railroad that isn’t even under construction.
Reason #3 is why I think Pacheco is even an option, with help from $1 and #5. Reason #4 is no longer relevant as Palo Alto NIMBYs have derailed the idea of a station there; Mountain View is still on the table and is a better choice than Redwood City, but the HSRA’s planning documents assume it’s going to do with Redwood City and that’s what’s probably going to happen. Reason #2 I think is a wash given Altamont’s lower overall track length including the Sacramento extension.
Personally, the design issues I’m concerned with aren’t really Pacheco vs. Altamont, but more mundane things like curve radii, the poor design of Transbay Terminal, and excessive cost overruns and lack of regional planning coordination in the LA Basin.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
…assuming they ever went to San Jose or Oakland if Altamont had been selected….
The Shasta Route – “Connecting Oregon and California by Passenger Rail: Overview and suggestions by Hans-Joachim Zierke”
^^^ several years old, but many of observations, remarks and suggestions are still valid.
wu ming Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 9:11 am
i would love to see that line sped up as much as could reasonably be done.
jimsf Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:25 am
shastadaylight
“Amtrak trains are at the mercy of the freight rail operators”.
They shouldn’t be – freight operators are legally obliged to give passenger trains priority.
Question: if Amtrak offered compensation to passengers on late trains, and the lateness was caused by the freight railroad, coudl Amtrak then sue the freight railroad?
Peter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Only if Amtrak was forced to offer compensation by legislative mandate, otherwise it would be a problem of their own making (Amtrak voluntarily paying money to someone places no mandate on other parties to pay Amtrak). Or if they had a contract with the freight railroads. Even then you’d get into some nasty battles over proof of “Whose Delay Is It, Anyway?”
jimsf Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Amtrak does offer compensation.
Spokker Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Jim, where’s my voucher?!
jimsf Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Please call 800 872 7245 m-f during regular business hours and ask to be transferred to customer relations. Please wait until you have completed all your trip segments. Explain the details of your service disruption and customer relations will determine compensation if any per policy guidelines. ( comp varies per delay time, long distance, commuter, etc)
All I have to say is I love Europe’s rail system. I just got back from spending the second half of December in Germany and Austria and rode the ICE train again. What a pleasure. I think people do no realise how nice a HSR system can be, whether it’s the ICE or TGV. It’s a shame too many American resist change. They dont know what they are missing.
Just got back from Germany. Got to love the ICE train!! We are soo missing out!
Eric, you’re not the only one who feels that way. A Trainspotter’s Guide to the Future of the World an op-ed by Paul Kennedy in the International Herald Tribune/NYT lays out some major reasons why the US should try to catch up (congestion, reliability, technologial competitiveness) and why it hasn’t happened yet (“In America, most of the country feels that it is handing over funds solely to support East Coast and West Coast commuters.”, cars and airplanes path dependency).