HSR won’t have priority over Caltrain services, in the sense that the MOU between CHSRA and PCJPB regarding the ROW down to SJ requires a minimum of 8 Caltrains per hour each way during rush hours. How many of those will have to reach the TTC is not yet nailed down, …

You contradict your thesis before the end of the paragraph. The evident bottleneck that might constrain 8tph in rush hour is precisely at 4th & Townsend, the DTX and the station throat to the TBT.

All of these scenarios exclude the complication of an underground station at 4th & Townsend.

That would be begging the question, wouldn’t it? A major part of the bottleneck of the current design is due to the fact that there is only one express track shared between access and egress at 4th and Townsend and that operations at 4th and Townsend are directly tied to operations at the TBT station throat – the Caltrain local HAS to get to the extreme right hand side outbound and an HSR that will be passing it while its at platform HAS to get onto the central express track outbound by the last switch so that implies whether there can be a local sitting on the inbound track blocking the use of the extreme right hand side inbound.

Widen 4th and Townsend to give two express tracks and the DTX can narrow down to two track, one each way, and the HSR station throat operations are at the very least no longer connected to whether there is a local Caltrain at 4th & Townsend

But I can’t figure out why Richard M. likes the Tehachapis over the Grapevine?

California is electrifying a commuter corridor sharing tracks with HSR. It’s not electrifying the Surfliner or the CC.

And there’s no such thing as special national transport demands. The US isn’t special, except in the FUD-sowing arguments of local consultants. SNCF’s analysis holds for multiple countries from different regions of the world; why should it fail for America?

now i am convinced you’ve never been out of the country. the rest of the world is chock full of american (and european, and japanese) investment of this sort. this isn’t buying ad time to elect pro-chinese politicians or pass initiatives, this is a rather run of the mill investment in a (boondoggle IMO) private infrastructure project.

Once they realize that Sin City has gone into decline they’ll withdraw their money quietly.