Fresno Jumps Into Lead for HSR Maintenance Facility
It was a long and busy weekend in LA at the California Democratic Party convention, which for me included a trip to the RailPAC meeting at MTA headquarters on Saturday morning. It was a very good and productive meeting, and I’ll say more about it in an upcoming post. I’m also playing catch-up on a few other HSR-related matters, including Morris Brown’s lawsuit and the recent State Senate hearing on HSR.
Today though, I want to focus briefly on an update on the debate in the Central Valley over the HSR maintenance hub. Merced’s Castle Airport has a lot of support there as a site, but Fresno is making a very strong push to land the site – and having increasing success in generating support.
Fresno maintenance hub supporters, including Fresno mayor Ashley Swearengin and Fresno County officials, have launched a new website, Fresno Works, touting the reasons for locating the hub in Fresno and the 2,300 jobs they claim the hub will create.
Accompanying this was an event in Fresno where these supporters, representing business, labor, and political leaders from the Fresno region, made their pitch to CHSRA chairman Curt Pringle:
Fresno Works — an organization of city and county officials, and education, business and labor leaders formed last year to lobby for the 225 mph rail line and maintenance yard — hosted Pringle at a luncheon attended by about 50 rail supporters.
Mayor Ashley Swearengin touted letters sent to Pringle by the mayors of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Sacramento and Santa Ana in support of locating the maintenance yard in Fresno County.
“We really offer the ideal site,” Swearengin said, because the land is owned by a short list of property owners and is close to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks. Fresno Works also hopes to divert $25 million from Measure C, the county’s half-cent transportation sales tax, for an incentive to land the maintenance yard.
“I’m not saying your application was better than any other application, but the Fresno Works presentation was awesome,” said Pringle, mayor of Anaheim. “No other community has shown such a great sense of unity.”
Getting letters of support from those other cities is key, showing that Fresno has statewide support for the hub. That support alone won’t decide matters, as technical and operational questions matter too. But it’s good to see Fresno making this push, particularly because they are making a very high-profile point that HSR = jobs. I’m all in favor of it.
That’s not to say I support giving this to Fresno. I’m still neutral on this. The fact that these cities are competing for the jobs it will bring, however, is a sign that HSR support is deepening and broadening. And that is always a welcome thing.
As a Fresnian I am so proud of our Mayor. Old Bubba would never have put his nose to the grindstone like this to win the HMF.
Toldja! No way is Ashley going to let this get away, Fresno has a history of embarrassing losses for job creating facilities. Children’s Hospital, UC Merced, Running Horse Golf Course… It’s not going to happen this time.
YesonHSR Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
I think Fresno has an outstanding package..plus its right next to the BNSF a railroad that is a partner with CHSRA . Merced Castle is on the wrong side of town for a test section, not long enough and of course next to the balking UP..they may never come around and this money ARRA would be more than able to build to Fresno-Bakersfield section and with up to 135 million dollars from Measure C its going to be hard to beat !
Layover yards should really be as close to the terminals as possible to cut down on deadhead moves … but what about heavy maintenance facilities? Does it make sense to have those out near the middle of the route or nearest terminals for similar reasons? Certainly land near terminals is likely to be scarcer and costlier, but what’s the optimal location overall? What do the world’s other leading HSR operators do and why?
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Considering the warm reception the CHSRA is getting North and South, they are likely to build it in the city that wants it the most.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
JR Central does Shinkansen maintenance near Tokyo; SNCF does TGV maintenance near Paris, with separate facilities for each Paris station’s network; DB does all ICE maintenance in a few cities around Germany, all of which are ICE network hubs.
Winston Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
None of the proposed sites are near either end of the line, so an end of line maintenance facility doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Of the choices that are under consideration, Fresno seems like a very good one because of the large pool of possible workers as well as the larger number of nearby vendors. It is really nice having a big selection of machine shops etc. that you can do business with nearby. If the construction costs are remotely close then I suspect that over the long run, Fresno would turn out to be the best choice.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Um, Brisbane?
The cost of transporting trains from the factory where they’re assembled to the yard is approximately zero, so that’s not a real issue. I’d be a lot more concerned about having 200 or 300 kilometers of deadheading for every 4,000 kilometers of service.
swing hanger Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
JR Central also has a heavy maintenance facility in Hamamatsu, roughly halfway on the Tokaido Shinkansen line. Trains running to/from the facility don’t have to be deadheads the whole length, they can be revenue runs, say an all stops Kodama service- a single trainset typically has several round trips diagrammed each day, the first or last one can be a shorter length if it has a periodic maintenance scheduled to be done.
This act of putting a facility in the absolute wrong place is a perfect example why the CA HSRA is on the verge of moving from “Vision Based Planning” to “Needs Based Planning”. In the adult world with real railroad planners, the facility would be somewhere near the north and south terminals, not in the middle of a route.
With Medhi gone, and a new CEO about to be announced, the Adult Supervision is about to be put in place. Some of the dreamers here that know nothing about railroads and transportation operations and finance should start to learn about “Shared Use Corridors”, as that is going to be the new order from Los Angeles to Palmdale.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Why is Fresno the wrong place?
YesonHSR Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Yes why??? i
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
The idea is that many non-revenue runs sent to Fresno for maintenance would be wasteful, however, an old post from Rafael suggests otherwise.
“unless the operator is as boneheaded as Deutsche Bahn, any given trainset will only see the inside of the heavy maintenance facility once a year for preventive maintenance, every 7 years or so for an overhaul of safety-critical components and every 20 years or so for major refurbishment.
Your fears of large numbers of dead-head trips due to siting the heavy maintenance facility in the Central Valley are misplaced. Basically, it could be just about anywhere on the network.”
Guess who he was replying to?
He goes on to say that light maintenance facilities should be near terminal stations, such as the one in Anaheim, but the major facility could be anywhere on the line.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Light or Heavy maintenance occurs a bit more frequently than that. Look to manufacturer specifications. HSR will certainly be different than light-rail or subway cars.. but also unlike freight cars and locomotives.
I would suspect some light maintenance would occur every 6,000 or 7,500 or 10,000 or 15,000 miles. If a train operates 1,000 miles a day… I can imagine each train undergoing some type of light maintenance once every week or two.
Heavier maintenance at 25k or 50k or 100k mile increments.
Joey Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Light maintenance will occur at the termini.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
What’s “light maintenance”? Specifically, what does it entail, and what are the intervals of light and heavy maintenance?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
You tell us. You’ve spoken with great authority on the subject of where to place the
HEAVY
maintenance facility.
rafael Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 3:38 am
light maintenance: interior cleaning, exterior cleaning, visual inspection of safety-related
components, lube, tightening bolts etc. Some tasks are performed daily, some weekly,
some less frequently.
heavy maintenance: non-destructive testing of axles and wheels for metal fatigue and other
microscopic damage, testing of brakes, traction power, train control and other systems fo
on- and off-design conditions to the extent possible, pro-active replacement of safety-related
components on a schedule defined jointly by the manufacturer and the national railway
safety agencies, repair or replacement of broken or worn parts. Prescribed maintenance
intervals vary widely, with Deutsche Bahn pushing the envelope aggressively in its specs for
new rolling stock. The upshot is that any given trainsets will spend several expensive days in
the shop 1-3 times per year.
Some tasks require the use of massive cranes or hydraulic lifts to separate the car body(ies)
from the bogies, hence the term “heavy” maintenance. For example, it’s the only way to
replace worn bogies and typically, the only way to grind the surface of the wheels to manage
metal fatigue on the contact surface. In the special case of trainsets featuring Jacobs bogie
or single wheelset configurations (Alstom, Talgo), heavy lift equipment is also needed to
replace entire car bodies and, to change trainset length. This reduced flexibility must be
weighed against the crash safety and other benefits of these design concepts.
Some HMFs perform exterior paint jobs, overhauls of car interiors etc. that are only needed
very infrequently (e.g. once or twice in the lifespan of the trainset). The scope of any given
HMF’s capabilities is determined by fleet size, facility size, work force utilization and other
considerations.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 5:34 pm
If it’s three times per year, it doesn’t matter too much where the facility is. But then again it wouldn’t that big of a job center.
The question is, does CHSRA intend to ensure trains get sent to middle-of-nowhere maintenance facilities only three times a year?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
They don’t look at it, say to themselves “Yeah that’s a train” and send it back on it’s way. There is a bit of labor involved in periodic maintenance.
swing hanger Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
I reckon Brandon’s figures are closer to the mark, based on figures I saw (can’t recall exact #’s) while at an open house last summer at JR East’s Heavy Maintenance Facility at Rifu-cho on the Tohoku Shinkansen. High speed trainsets require very close tolerances, especially on running gear and electrical pickup, so the maintenance intervals are going to be shorter than other types of rail cars. And after 20 years, the HSR operator should be looking to replace those trainsets with more efficient models.
swing hanger Reply:
April 23rd, 2010 at 6:31 am
Here is the schedule for Shinkansen maintenance in Japan:
-every two days: visual inspection, pantograph examination
-every 30 days or 30,000km: check of electrical systems
-every year or 450,000km: overhaul of bogies, traction motors
-every three years or 900,000km: comprehensive examination, complete trainset overhaul
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
There would be a maintenance facility built in Anaheim according to current plans.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Shared use? blah blah blah. How about first addressing how shared use is, or is not, consistent with Prop 1A or AB 3034.
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
They want to overturn or change Prop 1A.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Was that a question?
I’ve heard of the shared use proposals. . but not of any proposal from ‘shared use’ proponents to change 1A or AB 3034. IMO, one cannot advocate the first without also discussing the second.
Peter Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Who owns the ROW and tracks between Palmdale and LAUS? And between LAUS and Anaheim?
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
They’re actively working on it.
I think they are seeing how the bill that would strip the CHSRA of its Prop 1A funding works out first, but I’m just speculating.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14884996?source=most_viewed
rafael Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 4:00 am
@ Brandon -
The first question is if FRA will even permit shared used (a.k.a. mixed traffic, i.e. allowing compliant and non-compliant rolling stock to share track as opposed to right of way). Right now, there is no regulatory path for that except “guaranteed time separation”, which in practice means very long headways. The agency may be amenable to drafting new regulations if and when satisfactory positive train control and corridor traffic management systems are to be installed, but Congress has not given it the authority to drive the process for getting to that point. The worst outcome would be a hodgepodge of incompatible technologies implemented in different sections, i.e. exactly what Europe now has to contend with for historical reasons.
The second question is if a shared use concept is even compatible with the planned mix of freight, commuter, long-distance and HSR traffic in a given section. Integrating the timetables of multiple operators is non-trivial, especially where freight companies own the tracks. In addition, shared use inherently constrains achievable line haul times and/or line capacity for one or more services due to intrinsic speed differences. These constraints be eased but not entirely eliminated by constructing bypass tracks at (selected) secondary stations.
The third question is whether or nor AB3034 even permits shared use. My reading of the bill is that
it doesn’t preclude it. Back in Nov 2008, the plan explicitly called for just that in the Fullerton-Anaheim
section, FRA and other rail operators permitting. That, however, was predicated on substantially lower HSR service frequency than Curt Pringle was willing to accept.
Risenmessiah Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
“Adult Supervision” Is this a reference to Barack Obama or Al Michaels?
As it were, if we really achieve 220mph train speed, Fresno is only going to be an hour to 90 minutes away from the end of the line. Unless you envision trains running 24 hours a day, this is probably acceptable.
Would Fresno be my first choice though, that I can’t say….
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
I think it means Art Leahy, Will Kempton, Richard Katz, and maybe Curt Pringle. But Pringle was flying around Fresno in a helicopter so I don’t know.
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I think Pringle is for the shared track alternative but he was telling me personally that tunneling was possible in Anaheim. Perhaps he just blows where the wind takes him.
Risenmessiah Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Sounds likes the Southern Californians are just bidding their time waiting to get rid of Diridon and Kopp. Perhaps the tension is from Schwarzenegger appointing those guys out of respect but now it’s clear that they are viewed as “obstacle” by those south of the Grapevine.
I disagrre with some comments above.
Being that the system will be long and have frequent service upon it, layover yards from which trains will be dispatched would ideally be located at several places along the line. Yes, near the terminals are ideal; however, can and should be augmented with facilities at mid-line locations too.
The HSR system will have at least 3 layers of service… express, regional & local/commuter. One can see that the local/commuter trains would/could be dispatched out from mid-line yard(s)…. making their first inbound trips to SF or LA from a place like Fresno… and their end-of-the-day trips from a LA or SF back to locales nearest the yard.
I used LA and SF, but the same could apply to Sacramento or San Diego too.
Additionally, yes, a fast straight track section is needed for final train testing… before they actually ready for their first customers. Every new train needs testing. Ideally, a facility with good proximity to a high speed segment should be provided.
And finally, heavy duty maintenance functions will be necessary… pantographs, trucks, etc. Although a huge amount of space may not be required… heavy maintenance space is cheapest where there is a lot of room and nominal demand for that room.
The Central Valley is ideal for a number of reasons.
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
“And finally, heavy duty maintenance functions will be necessary… pantographs, trucks, etc. Although a huge amount of space may not be required… heavy maintenance space is cheapest where there is a lot of room and nominal demand for that room.”
Of course, there is a paradox. Those places where land is cheapest are also the least desirable places to terminate a high speed train, considering there will be relatively less demand there for passenger rail travel. The idea is that the Central Valley should definitely be served, but as long as the train’s ultimate destination is San Francisco or Los Angeles.
So revenue runs between SF-Fresno or LA-Fresno are probably not as desirable as other types of services. But as Rafael explained non-revenue runs for heavy maintenance are probably not going to happen as often as some people believe.
Peter Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Well, of all the CV locations to terminate a train, Fresno would be the best…
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Nothing is wrong with Fresno. In fact, any place in the Valley appears to be more than sufficient… assuming sufficient access to labor and local access.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
But the trains don’t need heavy maintenance every trip, day or week. They may want to do the monthly inspections at the heavy maintenance facility so once a month a trainset has to be scheduled to end a run in Fresno.
They can get out the 14 column pads, fill the ink pots, sharpen their quills and use computer software to figure out how to rotate the trainsets to have that happen.
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Operating a train between San Francisco and… Fresno? The horror.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Even with a maintenance facility at the end of the line, they’d need to schedule their trains to rotate through so that the trainset needing maintenance ended up at the end of the line on the day it needs to. That’s even more true with a Sacramento or San Diego extension.
With four platform tracks at Fresno, they wouldn’t even have to have a line on the schedule that terminates at fresno, they’d just have to have a cross platform transfer on one of the locals to allow one train to go out of service while a fresh train coming out of the HMF takes over for the rest of the run. An extra minute or two of dwell on one or two locals per day isn’t going to kill the schedule.
Victor Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Yep, I agree, The central valley or Fresno(I lived in Tulare once upon a time) in particular is ideal for a heavy maintenance location as It’s mostly farmland out there and they’ll need a decent amount of It, Whereas the light stuff can be done near a terminal, Just ask any scale model railroader, As that’s their hobby and they study stuff like this, Of course they don’t model the whole line as they use selective compression, Otherwise things like buildings and their locations are put where they should be, Just like in real life which the model is supposed to emulate, to create the illusion of realism.
Spokker Reply:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
I once had a little steam train that my dad bought me for Christmas and it had real smoke and sounds and everything. Well I put the maintenance facility for it near my closet door instead of next to my bed where the line terminated and my dad hit me and said I was a bad planner and sent me to bed without supper.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:30 am
^thats because the square footage in homes in those days was a lot cheaper and there was no ceqa, so there was no reason to put the facility near the closet. Things are different now.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Not only does it make sense to dispatch some trains to and from the middle of the system but there are other things to consider beyond running the railroad. This isn’t just a railroad proposal, but a political endeavor and jobs creator and that is why many of the counties that would normally oppose a prop 1a, supported prop 1a. like it or not. if you want to be adult-reality based, you have to acknowledge the politics as a legitimate component. No place needs good jobs more than the central valley and these are just the kind of jobs ( and job training programs that will be included) that the valley workforce can sink its teeth into. Frankly its about time the the valley stopped getting the the la-bay shaft.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Excellent point about the politics.
jimsf, when I drafted that response, I envisioned you may concur with dispatching from additional locations.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:31 am
your visions were correct. I concurred.
Victor Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Yep, The valley does need the jobs, But more important is the fact that California is longer than It’s wide, So like in Real Estate It’s location, location, location. Since If You had the heavy maintenance facility in the North or the South It would be a long haul for that, And If one had one at each end and a train needed to get an overhaul, It would still have to travel some, So a centralized facility makes sense as only one is needed as the distance would be about the same as if there were two facilities instead of one and the cost of the land in the bigger more built up areas is higher than in the Central Valley, Plus It’ll generate jobs, the question is how many? But I’ll leave that to someone else.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 10:36 am
FNO is 80 minutes from SFC and 84 minutes from LAX. Can’t get much more in the middle than that I guess. And since the proposed location is south side of FNO that makes it more like 82 and 82 respectively. I like that.
Did anyone see the two nutcases speaking at the end of the Authority’s meeting from April 8? It was freakin hillarious! Everyone go to 21:28 in Part 5.
Regardless of where anyone thinks a Heavy Maintenace facility should be built, an RFP was sent out by the HSR authority requesting applications for a Heavy Maintenace facility in the Central valley which from a job standpoint is very much needed.
The Fresno site has a very good location however, the biggest problems with the Fresno site our the following. First the site proposed assumes that over 78 property owners want to sell their property. (A big if and this will take time) Second the $ 25 million financing they are proposing to acquire land was approved for other transporatation measures and in fact 30 days ago the group in charge of releasing this money told the Fresno Committee no. Third if they were somehow able to use this measure C money to buy property to secure a Maintenace facility all it would take is one disgruntled tax payer living in Fresno to file a suit claiming the money approved by the voters for Measure C was never intended to buy land for a Heavy Maintenace facility. This Fresno County tax payer could sue and it would take up to one year before the case would ever come to trail.
The Fresno site has alot of if’s and since it requires land purchases and some mitigatiion it will take time.
The Castle site has one property owner, (Merced County) It is a former Brownfield site so it has been cleared environementally. The County is willing to lease this 200 acre site plus additional acreage if needed for $ 1.00 a year. The site is adjacent to a new freeway and will have acess to both the BNSF which it sits on and the U.P. so the authority has a choice. Finally, the Castle site sits on the fourth largest runway in California and was always the preferred site by autority staff since 2005 look in all the staff submitals. In conclusion Castle is the quickest site to come online and it also will save the tax payers money.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 12:28 am
so castle would have fewer obstacles.
rafael Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 4:29 am
Castle would make perfect sense IFF the Merced County HSR station were located there as well and in addition, there were long-term plans to leverage the runway for commercial service (incl. especially time-sensitive air freight, fighting forest fires etc.) Thanks to HSR, Castle would be just 15 minutes from Fresno and 45 minutes from Silicon Valley IFF a future passenger terminal were integrated with an HSR station. Of course, neither SJC nor FYI are looking for competition, though perhaps they ought to look for relief. Traffic growth at both airports is constrained by noise considerations and neither has a runway long enough for an A380-class aircraft. Also, there’s no reason why SJC and/or FYI couldn’t be shareholders in a relief airport.
However, for now at least, CHSRA is still pursuing an alignment in the CA-99/UPRR corridor, in part because that’s what the cities of Merced and Modesto say they want – even though express trains running through at 220mph will create serious noise problems in their downtown areas. Local politicians would be well advised to look beyond just jobs in deciding what they advocate, an option that skirts these towns to the east might be preferable. Afaik, there’s currently no plan at all to operate anything other than general aviation out of Castle.
For these reasons, I think Fresno’s pitch is currently at least as attractive for state voters as Merced’s.
Land ownership is arguably the least compelling argument, as CHSRA/the state can exercise eminent domain if need be. Repurposing measure C funds wouldn’t be trivial, but even the far more litigious denizens of San Mateo county have had to put up with that sort of thing: voters there approved a sales tax hike to help fund the restoration of the Dumbarton rail bridge and a new Caltrain service across to Union City. County politicians are instead using it to plug a hole in their general transportation budget created by the need to reprogram MTC funds to BART’s Warm Springs Extension project, which was long delayed by the earlier extension to SFO.
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 8:43 am
I know you’re somehow wedded to this vision of Castle becoming a major air carrier hub. But how would that make it preferable as a heavy maintenance site over Fresno?
Oh, and btw, the code for Fresno Yosemite International is FAT (formerly called Fresno Air Terminal, I believe).
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:44 am
“First the site proposed assumes that over 78 property owners want to sell their property.”
Not even close, there are 76 parcels (not property owners, multiple parcels can be held by one owner) in the 696acre ‘study area’ but the maintenance facility will only take a small portion of the study area and so only a handful will actually need to sell. $25 million buys a whole lot of land in fresno, even at make-nice premiums.
Victor Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Remember the Eminent Domain case everyone bitched about from a little while back? That and a suitable amount of money and those 78 or so properties in Fresno could be the CHSRA’s, As It is for a public purpose.
The authority has released a potential timetable and train schedule which shows some local trains serving Merced to SF and LA to Merced as part of phase one. So even if trains need to get to this maintenance facility every week for maintenance, they could serve a SF or LA to Merced run first, with only a few miles of non-revenue service to get to the facility. This would give Merced a slight but probably insignificant edge. If trains will only see this facility once per month or once per year, it really doesn’t matter where it goes.
Once the tracks to Sacramento are built, those Merced-bound train would instead go all the way to SAC, but I have not seen a detailed timetable or schedule for phase 2 service.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:33 am
wheres the sked?
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:35 am
I think it’s one of the older ones we’ve already discussed ad nauseum.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:38 am
oh this one…
meanwhile while fresno and merced comptete for high speed rail…. back on the peninsula they are still sending angry letters and trying to stop hsr at san jose and/or make the trains run at low speed to sf.
“This analysis should include the possibility of sending some (high-speed trains) all the way to San Francisco on shared tracks with Caltrain,” the letter says. “These trains (sic) sets could run at speeds similar to the current trains run by Caltrain and on the same number of tracks as Caltrain.”
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Dear Jim, you really ought to stick to punching little holes in tickets.
Sharing tracks and running the smallest practical number of different classes (= average speeds) of traffic is exactly how every professional, technically competent, utility maximizing, public serving transportation PLANNING organization in the entire world would go about it.
Building an entirely separate, completely redundant, guaranteed-underutilized, and finally useless parallel, unequal system — which is the proposal from the World Class cost maximization geniuses at PBQD the the Peninsula Rail Program does — when it would cost less to do the right thing (shared tracks and stations), would provide far greater operational flexibility to do the right thing, would provide far positive, rather than massively and irrecoverably negative, local and regional benefit to do the right thing, would readily allow project phasing and cost containment to do the right thing, would provide hugely less financial risk exposure to “unexpected” shortfalls of actual over ridership “predictions” to do the right thing … well, those are all the hallmarks of organizations which are none of technically competent, ethical, aware of contemporary transportation operating practice, or interested in anything besides private rent-seeking cost maximization.
There’s no reason for long distance inter-regional “high speed” trains to operate at a significantly different average speed than shorter distance intra-regional “express” trains, or with significantly different schedule reliability or significantly different frequency. But that’s in the real world.
In short, the sentence you quoted shows excellent technical and economic insight by the author.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
First of all Richard I wasn’t making a judgment on whether or not hsr and caltrain should have shared track flexibility. It. matters not to me. What the nimby’s want is to either term the trains at sjc, or run them at grade on the existing tracks just like caltrain without the improvements. That would slow the average speed down to what, about 30 mph. Clearly its not an option.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
and I don’t punch holes in tickets.
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
How’s your blood pressure today, Richard? You really need to chill. It’s going to be a long development process and we need you to survive so that you can actually provide constructive criticism. This junk that you’ve been cutting-and-pasting from one post to the next does nothing to help anyone. Instead, it just makes you look like an angry old man, no better than our favorite NIMBYs on the Peninsula.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
( ps perhaps we can dispense with the “old man as a pejorative” idea. As someone who is at the halfway mark, I resemble that.
I will say that what comes with living through nearly 5 decades, though is some perspective. All the things that 20 and 30 year olds think of as being “critical” and “the end of the world” and blah blah blah, ( I thought the same thing about the same things ) actually are not “critical” nor the “end of the world.” What you discover is that all the drama turns out to be for naught. You’ll see.
Thats why I don’t freak out over the fact that this hsr system is less than perfect. In the big picture of life, its just not that important. And trust me, I marched in the streets for stuff that was a lot more important than high speed rail only to reach the conclusion that in the end, while significant, it just wasn’t the end all be all we once thought it was.
so everybody relax. the trains will be delayed. your taxes will go up. you kids will do things you hate. it will rain on your day off. people will not not burst into flames like a blinker at carousel upon entering the tbt, and you will gain 20 pounds that you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to lose. )
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Well, I used “angry old man,” not “old man.”
But yes, I agree that the the-sky-is-falling fears of Peninsula NIMBYs and armchair track designers alike are completely overblown, and everyone needs to chill out.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
I will confess to grumpy though.
It would be nice to have a blog day where everyone only focused on the the upsides of the project , even the parts we don’t like, as being good as a whole and the benefits. Even less than perfect progress should be celebrated when compared to no progress.
tomh Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
“There’s no reason for long distance inter-regional “high speed” trains to operate at a significantly different average speed than shorter distance intra-regional “express” trains” Yes there is: To make the long distance HSR trains get from point A to point B faster, AKA to sell more tickets so HSR is more economically viable.
And let me get this straight: We can run CalTrain regular trains that stop at each station, CalTrain express (“baby bullet”) trains, and CHSR trains (that will make only two stops between SJ and SF), all by sharing existing tracks with existing at-grade crossings, and you think all these trains will run on time?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
No. You don’t have it straight.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Cut him a tiny bit of slack. He’s probably never seen anything except the astounding goodness of BART and can’t conceive of two trains both traveling in the same direction at the same time on two different tracks therefore allowing one to pass the other.
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
It’s not straight, it’s bent.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
TomH: it all depends on traffic density. Richard argued elsewhere that if HSR goes through Altamont, and if the total traffic on the Caltrain corridor is 6 tph HSR and 10 (?) tph Caltrain, then everything can be accommodated on two tracks with a four-track passing section at Hillsdale. It involved drawing a lot of line maps showing where the takeovers could take place. With the Pacheco alignment, it would require more passing sections south of Redwood City. In either case, it would lock certain service patterns and schedules. If you believe that both HSR and Caltrain are capable of high traffic, say 10-12 tph Caltrain and 8 tph HSR, then there’s no way everything could be accommodated on two tracks.
The grade crossings aren’t that big of a deal. High-speed trains encounter them when they travel on legacy track at lower speed, which is what this corridor is. The trains get priority at the intersections, so it can coexist with very high reliability. The reason to grade-separate the line is that if traffic density becomes very high, then the crossings will be shut down nearly continuously at rush hour.
Joey Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Actually there does seem to be a significant speed difference between the the locals and the intercity trains (on the order of 20 minutes, give or take). And that’s to say nothing of the locals.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Two points:
1. The advertised Gilroy-SJ-SF speed profiles are quite simply make-believe for commercial operation; moreover everything that the Peninsula Rail Program geniuses have done has the effect of worsening average speeds and increasing energy consumption.
2. Good engineering is about trying to do what is optimal, not about spending all that is possible.
Joey Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
May I remind you that 200 kph isn’t even considered high speed overseas?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for sharing.
Joey Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
You know, Richard, in light of recent events I have come to agree with you more than I used to, but at times you seem just as misinformed and paranoid as anyone else. It mystifies me why you continue to use the term “flight level zero airlines” to describe electric trains running at reduced speeds along an existing, heavily used diesel rail corridor. Especially if service frequency is as low as you claim it will be, there is no reason to believe that 200kph high speed trains will bring ANY more noise than what currently exists. Sure, NIMBYs with their ignorant obstructionism and unprovoked litigation will try to get the speeds as far down as they can, but I sincerely doubt that they’ll get very far.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Define “optimal.”
We’re building a system that is the equal of the Shinkansen or the AVE – not the Acela.
Off topic but interesting presentation on Talgo’s “Avril”.
It’s a 380kph trainset. Locomotive hauled, but here’s the interesting part: the locomotives are set up like EMUs with the electronics underfloor, allowing full seating in the power cars for EMU-like seating efficiency in a locomotive-hauled trainset.
Also interesting, the short articulated cars allow them to go 3.2m wide allowing a 3+2 seating config within the UIC loading gauge.
Also interesting is the Shinkansen-style nose, although IMO they’ve managed to make it prettier than any shinkansen, except maybe the 500.
3.2m wide coaches (nearly identical to US Passenger Loading gauge) for Amtrak compatibility, Commuter-rail level platform heights for caltrain compatibility, super-tight curve radius for shittacular TTC station throats, and 380kph top speeds for buzzing farms and ensuring 2:40 runs from LA to SF (whichever station).
Sure, you’re pretty much locked into that manufacturer with regard to platform height, but still, it could be a rolling stock solution to a lot of the problems the project is facing.
jimsf Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
well, its not as gorgeous as agv, but I like it. I really like it.
rafael Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
The big issue with Talgo gear is that the designs require a different platform height (760mm, a UIC standard) than any other manufacturer (~1000mm, non-standard). The special wheelset technology permits a lower center of gravity, which is a good thing.
Unfortunately, selecting Talgo also locks operators into a single HSR trainset vendor for a given line or fraction of their network.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
What’s interesting to me is primarily the weight of the rolling stock – 287 tons for a 200-meter train, which is even lower than the Shinkansen. On the other hand, the articulated bogies with one axle between each car pair raises the axle load to near the limit of HSR.
rafael Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 3:59 am
Total train weight matters primarily for energy consumption during acceleration phases. In California, high speed trains will only stop rarely relative to total miles traveled, so I think this is a secondary issue.
The primary parameters that determine wear and tear on bogies, rails and track geometry are weight per axle, the number of axles passing over a given spot each day and, the speed at which they do so. Note that slab track geometry is more resilient than conventional gravel bed technology, but that the latter has other advantages. Talgo could reduce the axle load of its products by making its cars even shorter, i.e. adding more axles to a train of equal length. However, that opens other cans of worms so customers have not insisted on it. Apparently, RENFE and others feel the maintenance overheads associated with a limit of 17 metric tons per axle are acceptable.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 5:31 pm
17 tons/axle is really an upper limit. A couple of heavyweight designs reach it, such as the Velaro, but there are plenty of options that don’t even come close. JR Central brags about its 11.5 tons/axle trains; overall, in Japan the newer trains hit about 14 tons/axle only at severe crush loads, and apart from the Shinkansen usually stay under 10.
dejv Reply:
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:42 am
Such designs are possible by PTC, implemented network-wide in 1960′s:
As tests continued, the worst railway accident in JNR’s history occurred in 1962 at Mikawashima Station, killing 160 passengers and injuring 296. A down freight train in the Mikawashima Station yard on the Joban Line, entered the safety siding when the driver missed the stop signal. The locomotive and one freight wagon derailed, blocking the main track of the down line. A following down train hit the freight train and derailed blocking the main up line. Six minutes later, an up passenger train collided with the previously derailed cars, derailing its first four cars. This disaster prompted the decision to introduce a new ATS, combining a cab warning system and ATS. As a result, the frequency-shift type ATS was introduced on all JNR lines by April 1966. It was called the Type-S cab warning system (ATS-S). Trackside coils were installed at about 43,300 points on the ground and pickup coils were installed on about 13,000 carriages.
(from here)
3200 mm is actually wider than maximum width of UIC loading gauge (3150 mm, but in curve with R = 250 m) and it’s the width of most US passenger cars. It just fits UIC platforms that are 1675 mm from track center (I think that width was chosen to allow continued through-running of russian trains on standard-gauge lines that were converted to OSJD loading-gauge previously.
Probably more interesting than nose (talgo 250 and 350 already have duck bills) is total output of 8800 kW with four motors, while virtually every contemporary locomotive is limited to 1600 kW per motor. I guess they’re body-mounted, quite unusual in today rolling stock.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
My spanish is almost as bad as my english, but their diagrams seem to show two motors per power car on one slide and two motors per bogie on another slide, or 8 motors and 8 powered axles in a 200m trainset.
What I found interesting about the nose wasn’t that it was duck billed, but that it was elongated from the 350s and looks even more like the Shinkansen than the current trains.
Peter Reply:
April 20th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Yes, it does look like each bogie of the power cars has two motors…
dejv Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 12:43 am
“Desarrollo” means “Development” according to my dictionary, so probably both designs are possible at the moment.
Another interesting thing is that they probably dump passive tilting for Avril because they coudn’t fit tilting train with five seats abreast into UIC loading gauge and conventional secondary suspension of power trucks precludes passive tilting of powerheads.
Andre Peretti Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:55 am
I doubt Europeans (Spanish included) will like 3+2 seating.
Peter Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 10:03 am
Yeah, it’s just way too much like being on an airliner.
Plus, it didn’t look from the interior pictures as if you could fit a wheelchair down the aisle. Sounds like 3+2 wouldn’t be ADA compliant.
AndyDuncan Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 10:28 am
Do the 2+2 UIC trainsets even have ADA compliant isles? If not we may end up with 3.2m or 3.4m wide trains with 2+2 seating. 3+2 is used on 3.2m wide coaches back east, no? Wonder if those are compliant.
Peter Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 10:40 am
Aren’t those normally pretty old coaches? The one I was on from NJ Transit was REALLY old. They may have been grandfathered in, if they’re noncompliant.
anonomouse Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 12:25 pm
All sorts of rumors float around about the 2+2 seating on new bilevels. Supposedly for ADA compliance for wheelchairs. They don’t have wheelchair lifts at the stairs, I suspect people in wheelchairs would have a very difficult time negotiating the stairs. Brand new Metro North M8s have 3+2 seating. So who knows…
Peter Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 10:41 am
I’m actually not even sure if there is in fact a requirement that wheelchairs be able to travel down the aisles…
dejv Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 12:31 pm
IMO, 3200 mm is too narrow for comfortable long-distance 3+2 seating, but operators of crowded trains will like it. It has the same effect as adding second deck while keeping the same (or smaller, in case of Talge) cross section and therefore aerodynamic resistance. They’re offering 575 places, about the same as TGV Duplex (545) or 200m Shinkansens (546 – 635), noticeably more than AGV or ICE 3 (460) or 200m single-deck TGVs (around 360).
People sometimes prefer the sheer possibility to board the train to seating comfort however, I can’t imagine any other reason, why would passengers accept JR East’s 3+3 seating in E1 and E4 classes.
jimsf Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 3:41 pm
the whole advantage of train travel is that you get nice big comfy seats and leg room in coach that you can’t even get in first class on a plane. start cramming people onto trains with 2-3 or 3-3 eating and they are gonna say “screw this” and just resume flying.
Peter Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Yeah, HSR is not trying to cram as many passengers as possible into the trains, they’re not trying to run commuter services.
jimsf Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 3:57 pm
don’t tell richard, but I heard that Bechtel is going to design the curtains.
dejv Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Comfortable seat is whole advantage of rail on slow trains only. For some people, the whole advantage is speed, beating other modes of transport. And for another people, it’s flexibility, that they can board a train whenever they show up at the platform. WP says about E1 this:
so:
* comfort is essential for you. Buy a ticket in Green car
* you like the comfort but you don’t want to spend fortune and having to decide particular train is no big deal for you. You’ll go for reserved seat
* you want to get home as soon as you’ve done your bussiness in other town and you’ve got absolutely no idea when you’re finished. Unreserved seat is obvious choice, the time saving makes up for smaller comfort. And your journey happens to be on friday afternoon, you can trust me that sitting in any seat is way better than standing in aisle/corridor or not being able to travel because all trains are reserved-only and sold-out.
Alon Levy Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Indian intercity trains are 3+3 as well, with 3,250 mm coach width.