California Receives Some FRA Planning Money
The FRA today announced recipients of an $80 million grant program for HSR and intercity rail. Florida’s HSR project received by far the largest share of funds, $66 million, but California wasn’t left out. $6.2 million went to the Capitol Corridor:
$6,200,000 for track relocation work in California on the Capitol Corridor which will help bring about fewer delays and faster travel times along a route that connects San Francisco and Sacramento, the state capital.
What exactly will the money be used for? According to the Central Valley Business Times:
The money will help pay for track relocation work at the Amtrak station in downtown Sacramento. It will allow for longer boarding platforms for the increasingly lengthy trains. And it will provide money for planning future rail service into Placer County, using Union Pacific’s tracks, a spokeswoman for Capital Corridor says.
UP has been an obstacle to improved passenger rail service east of Sacramento, although they and Capitol Corridor have a very good working relationship west of Sacramento. This may seem like a small project when compared to the Capitol Corridor as a whole, and certainly next to the HSR project – and it is. But it’s also further evidence of ongoing federal involvement in passenger rail funding, which needs to be supported and welcomed if it is to grow.
Left out is it..nothing for CAHSR..Grow well about 19 billion will do..notice that there will be a 32 billion
supplement for Iraq/Afag soon..so Mr President..where is change we will?.
rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:31 am
Congresscritters tend to direct funding to and secure other considerations (e.g. lax or compliant regulation) for the companies that fund their political campaigns. They can’t afford to pay too much attention to whether that’s good or bad for the country as a whole since getting re-elected has become so damn expensive in the US. I reckon active fundraising and scratching the backs of those who have already donated is now roughly 90% of the job description of any elected official, especially at the national level.
We the
peopleFortune 500.Fact is, there are plenty of defense contractors all over the country. There are virtually no rail-related companies and quite a few of the ones working on HSR are subsidiaries of foreign companies that are cagey about making campaign contributions. The Kafkaesque thing to do would be to spend prop 1A funds to lobby Congress for a big check for HSR, but afaik that would be illegal. Moreover, California residents and businesses have long been net contributors to the federal budget.
Haha, off topic, but I posted this overview on another forum. Tell me if you think it’s accurate.
“For those that haven’t been following the HSR drama in California closely, here’s a kind of big picture look at HSR support/opposition in the state. There are a few groups battling with each other right now.
1. First are the California High Speed Rail supporters. They may or may not have minor concerns about the project at this point, but also believe that the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. They have little tolerance for NIMBYs and generally wish to see the trains go 220 MPH and serve downtown areas well (however, they don’t believe trains should necessarily go 220 MPH in dense urban areas, to be clear). These supporters tend to hang out with Robert Cruickshank at the California High Speed Rail blog. I would say they skew toward a younger, liberal type. They’re really worried about peak oil. All environmental doomsday scenarios will come true unless high speed rail is built, according to this group.
2. Then there are rail supporters who hate the current plan and won’t back down on their opposition. They believe that the CHSRA is corrupt and is pushing for a gold-plated project to serve the needs of contractors rather than passengers. They generally support an incremental approach to rail in California. They would rather the trains use the Altamont Corridor rather than the Pacheco Pass. They would generally like to see the 220 MPH section put next to I-5, avoiding the Central Valley and Palmdale. They have little tolerance for politicians such as Rod Diridon and would like to see transit and rail professionals take over the CHSRA. Their heroes are Art Leahy and Will Kempton. Groups in this category include TRANSDEF and the California Rail Foundation headed by Richard Tolmach. This group skews older and is probably a bit more conservative. They definitely support a European high speed rail system. They like to threaten lawsuits too, something they have in common with the next group. This group tends to be the most bitter and angry. The good is definitely the enemy of the perfect here.
3. Then there are the true rail opponents. These include NIMBYs, libertarian types, hardcore conservatives, home owners, etc., who say the train will be a failure under any scenario. These people are ancient. Some in group 2 hate these people, but others in group 2 will use them to drum up support for alternatives away from city centers. However, group 3 still hates group 2′s plans because they still cost money and aren’t personal automobiles. Sometimes this group will masquerade as concerned citizens and suggest that the route be put underground, even in suburban areas. This is simply a means of killing the project entirely (think Cheviot Hills and the Expo Line). This group consists of Bay Area Peninsula homeowners (not all of them), Orange County NIMBYs (Anaheim colony district) and Randal O’Toole.
I think those are the three main groups. Of course, there’s bickering within groups.”
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:57 am
Overall this seems right, but I would quibble with some of the points about group 2. I see nothing whatsoever to indicate they actually support a “European high speed rail system” – one is being planned right here, right now in California and they’re either on the sidelines or are actively undermining it. Our plan is very, very similar to the Spanish plan.
I think group 2 are supporters of a certain kind of rail. They’re generally happy with the current level of passenger rail service, think some things could be done here or there to improve and upgrade that service, but just aren’t motivated by or interested in bullet trains the way group 1 is.
In practice, the folks in group 2 and group 3 tend to agree about the CA HSR project, and have even been willing to work together to undermine it (not speaking of Leahy and/or Kempton here, but of the average members of group 2).
I’d add that group 3 doesn’t necessarily skew “old” – it just skews “older.” There are a lot of boomers in that group, members of a generation that is increasingly becoming reactionary and very deeply hostile to change. Part of that might be the early stages of the boomer generation becoming elderly and deciding they’re done living through significant change, part of it is a recognition on the part of all these group 3 types that massive, fundamental change to the America they knew is already underway, they don’t like it, and are going to rage against it like Canute trying to hold back the tides.
But overall, yes, this strikes me as a good overview. Except for group 1 I’d say that the environmental doomsday scenarios are already coming true – just look at the Gulf of Mexico.
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:51 am
My perception is that lots of folks actually subscribe to the idea of a European-style HSR system. They just hate the implementation, because it involves construction and operations a lot closer to wherever they happen to live than they had bargained for – horizontally and/or vertically. They do want to use the system or else, they want others to use the system so they themselves are no longer stuck in traffic. They just don’t want to live next to the infrastructure.
This is actually a common problem for planners of all kinds of high-capacity infrastructure all over the world. The middle class wants it all to work perfectly all of the time yet be completely out of sight and preferably, paid for by someone else. In the specific case of rail in the US, the problem has been exacerbated by decades of benign neglect. For example, if SP had quad tracked the SF peninsula or extended the line to its HQ at Market/Embarcadero in SF way back when, all other planning and development since then would have taken place in that context. The same logic applies throughout the state, indeed the nation.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 6:53 am
SP had plans to go to the Ferry Building. It was quashed. Would have made a lot of sense, nice intermodal-ish thing at the foot of Market Street circa 1910.
rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Entertaining, but I’m sure you just trod on quite a few sensitive egos with your characterizations. People rarely fall quite so neatly into any given pigeonhole. They are also prone to angrily changing their minds when they are confronted with facts that don’t match their expectations, even if those were set by wishful and/or naive thinking rather than CHSRA or other officials.
Spokker Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:54 am
We’re all hypocrites at some point in our lives.
rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 5:47 am
A hypocrite is a person who says or advocates one thing yet secretly does or believes the opposite. There may be some “fake” HSR supporters out there, but I suspect a much larger number of people who voted yes on prop 1A(2008) genuinely didn’t understand what that would mean for them personally (or their friends and neighbors). Ignorance isn’t hypocrisy.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I think you’re mischaracterizing group 2. While all group-2 people I know prefer Altamont to Pacheco, few support I-5. Tolmach might, but Clem and Richard do not and neither do most NorCal NIMBYs and Los Banos-about-concerned environmentalists.
Within group 2, I’d say there’s a split between two camps – call them 2A and 2B. 2A is the Tolmach types and the if-8-hour-trips-were-good-enough-for-my-grandfather-they’re-good-enough-for-me people. William Lind is in that group, too, though he doesn’t talk much about CAHSR specifically, just about HSR in general. 2B is the Tillier/Mlynarik/Drunk Engineer camp, which says nothing about incrementalism and everything about planning the little details (turnaround times, timed transfers, connecting transit) the same way as in Europe.
A lot of the railfan subset of group 1 would agree with the criticism levied by the 2B people. For example, among the pro-HSR blog commenters I’ve encountered who expressed a preference for Altamont or Pacheco, I’d say about 90% support Altamont. A lot of us supporters have no trouble attacking the bad transit integration or making fun of Diridon Intergalactic. However, we’re still supportive because we think that even with this incompetence, benefits will exceed costs.
Why is there no planning to electrify and speed up Capitols like Altemont? The track northeast of Martinez is flat and straight so it should be easy to speed up; however, Martinez to Richmond has tight slow curves so some significant improvements would be needed to speed up that section.
rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:12 am
Below 125mph top speed, electrification and speeding up are actually two distinct sets of problems.
In the Capitol Corridor, the curves in the Richmond-Martinez section do impose a modest speed limit but the larger issue is that mixing slow freight and fast passenger trains on the same line would constrain capacity, especially considering UPRR’s habit of running trains whenever it feels like it and the totally antiquated signaling technology in virtually the entire legacy rail network in the US (major exception: NEC). Electrification of the entire Capitol Corridor would therefore merely get a relatively small number of daily passenger trains off oil and onto the electric grid, at massive expense. UPRR has no incentive to switch to electric locomotives, EPA and/or CARB would have to force the company to do so.
As for air quality, EPA’s Tier 3 and 4 standards for new and replacement locomotive diesel engines will go into effect between now and 2015. These call for particulate traps and NOx scrubbers similar to those already used on heavy duty trucks in Europe and soon to become standard issue on US commercial vehicles as well. Note that all of these exhaust gas aftertreatment systems are pricey and require fuel with ultra low sulfur content, i.e. what is already sold as diesel at US pumps now. Railroads, though, are still using dirtier, heavier and above all cheaper fuel at this point. If SCR systems are used for the NOx scrubbing, an additional operating fluid (a highly pure solution of synthetic uric acid or else, ammonia) is required.
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 8:48 am
So what would in fact be required to speed up CC? They’re double-tracking most everything north of the Bay, which should increase their reliability a lot. Is the signalling the main problem there? What would have to be done to speed the passenger trains to at least 110 mph?
Samsonian Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Is the signalling the main problem there? What would have to be done to speed the passenger trains to at least 110 mph?
I would imagine a pair of dedicated passenger tracks, as well as PTC would be needed for that.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
First, the FRA would have to allow higher cant deficiency. Among the many stupid FRA rules in the US is one restricting passenger trains to 3″ cant deficiency, or sometimes 4″. This is not a safety rule, but a passenger-comfort rule, based on experiments done with unusually uncomfortable trains, which tilted to the outside of the curve. Current industry best practice is that 5″ is standard, and 6-7″ is available with a waiver. Tilting trains can do 12″, but they’re more expensive to buy.
Second, there would have to be changes in track maintenance. American railroads don’t keep good data about curve radii, and often change radii without documentation when they do maintenance. This forces speed limits to be lower than what track and train safety would dictate. In addition, it also forces superelevation to be low: if the curve radius is wider than expected, then high superelevation would create too much cant excess.
On well-maintained level track, freight trains can travel fast enough for 5-6″ superelevation to be safe, in contrast with the 3″ more common today (raised to 4″ on passenger-primary lines like the NEC). Raise superelevation and cant deficiency from 3+3 to 6+6 and the speed on a given curve will go up by 41%.
None of this requires new signaling or double-tracking. Even with a top speed of 79 mph, using the above to eliminate slow zones can raise average speed well above 60 mph. JR Hokkaido’s Super Ozora service, which runs tilting DMUs on curvy single track at a top speed of 75 mph, averages 63 mph.
dejv Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
The problem with superelevation is a bit more complex. First, the 6″ limit is set by standard track-laying and MOW machinery. In tight curves, it goes even lower. Second, in tight curves is problem with CWR stability due to high radial forces (in Europe, there were succesful cant increases in tight curves with steel Y-shaped sleepers, but that’s suitable for lightly used lines only). Third and most important, long-term vertical load should be evenly distributed to both rails.
That effectively means that any competent european infrastructure manager would go for US-like superelevations with US-like train mix, because freight trains make most of tonnes that pass through the line, so using theoretical superelevation of freight trains is obvious choice. I know about one case of incompetency, where not-exactly-high recommended superelevation (7.1*V^2 / R; empirical value for usual mixed-traffic operation where V maximum speed in km/h) caused rapid degradation of geometry in tight curve, because the curve is adjacent to station where every train has to stop. Accelerating heavy coal trains that go with large cant excess then damaged geometry of inner rail, even though they are outnumbered by locals and IC/ECs that run with cant deficiency.
Keep in mind also that Zierke’s work is about curvy mountain route with minimum stops, where cant + cant deficiency are crucial to shorten travel times. CC is predominantly straight with only one short curvy section outside station approaches (Martinez to Richmond, ~ 30 km), so acceleration and top speed can reduce travel times more efficiently.
rafael Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
It ought to be easy enough to acquire accurate track geometry data with a suitably equipped train. JR operates special “Dr. Yellow” trains that maintain the database to assist with preventive maintenance planning of the shinkansen network. Of course, UPRR doesn’t bother with any of that because it has no interest in maintaining accurate track geometry in the first place. It’s super-heavy freight trains would quickly make mincemeat out of any attempt to keep conventional ballast track in excellent condition. Slab track would be a different matter, but UPRR has no incentive to switch to that.
Given UPRR’s tendency to take fixed schedules with a large grain of salt, any increase in line haul time achieved by applying tilt technology (bad idea for FRA-compliant equipment, cp. Acela Express fiasco) would still be dwarfed by the padding Amtrak CC needs to include in the timetables it advertises to customers.
dejv Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
In addition to track geometry car, you need database of what should nominal values look like.
I spent one summer next to CSX’s mainline with several ~40mph super-heavy coal trains per day and their geometry was very good.
I’m aware about only one use of slab-track for heavy haul lines – Rheda systems on DB network. It’s far from widespread though and heaviest trains are still limited to 22.5 t/axle, roughly 2/3 of US axle loads.
Rafael Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Main lines are built better and maintained more frequently than secondary ones. Still, would that CSX line support speeds above 79mph if the signaling were upgraded?
Slab track is also used in base tunnels, e.g. the St. Gotthard, that are intended (primarily) for freight use. Afaik, the 22.5 t/axle limit has more to do with the ballast track in the rest of the network than with the slab track technology.
dejv Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Alon Levy Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
CSX says that the upper limit of what it will allow passenger trains to go at on its tracks is 90 mph. Presumably this means its hot intermodals can go at those speeds modulo FRA regulations; the locomotives are capable of nearly 100, and the railroads routinely ran freight at 90 until the FRA instituted the 79 mph speed limit (itself a way of blackmailing the railroads into adopting PTC).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Can’t run freight faster than 79 on old timey lines with no or primitive signals. The do run freight faster than 79 in select places where there are automatic block signals. If I remember correctly both UP and BNSF on the Great Plains.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
For reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_speed_limit_(United_States)
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
The Capitol Corridor is lost cause as long as its operation is beholden to the UP Railroad and to the FRA.
Something like $700 million public dollars has disappeared in to capital “improvements” and rolling stock, and the net public benefit is one train an hour or less, glacial speed, scandalous operating costs, and horrible timekeeping.
Pretty much anywhere else in the word that order of magnitude of the big bucks would have built you a completely new, completely reliable and modern new line all the way.
It’s a basket case. Stop throwing good money after bad. Stop being taken to the cleaners by “incremental improvements” which are just a code word for “backfilling SP/UP deferred maintenance”.
It would be a better world if this weren’t the case, but, well, that’s not the world we live in.
I agree, Robert and Skopper; that’s about what we are looking at. It’s an interesting demographic analysis. I wonder why we seem to see so little of it in the press, and I wonder if any marketing firms are aware of it.
As a corollary, it has been reported that younger people are not so into cars as their parents and grandparents were. Again, I wonder what is going on in the marketing field, particularly the people who sell cars. I would not want to be in their positions today, selling to at best a reluctant or appathetic market, who can, I think, be summed up as “What’s the big deal about driving? My grandma drives. . .”
I’ll try to find some links on this later; if you want to start on your own, suggested search terms would be “demotorization” and two article titles, “Teens Not The Driving Force They Used To Be” (originally in the Washington Post) and “Rebel Without A Car” (originally in the Los Angeles Times). Alternate general search terms would be “youths delaying driving,” and “fewer teens driving;” keep in mind that such searches will also turn up a lot of other material such as “teens delaying consumption of alcohol,” but it will get you started.
Item of note–this is a long term trend, it has been going on for at least 10 years, possibly longer. Again, I am surprised more has not been made of it in the mainstream media, compared with other topics, such as Lady Gaga.
Skopper, what other forum did you post this in? I’d be interested in seeing the responses you got.
this will help more than people realize with making CAHSR a success. until the sac extension is finished, the capitol corridor and the new sac train station will be a major feeder infrastructure, both via the capitol corridor as well as through a new san joaquin service times to link up with the HSR at merced or fresno. the new sac station will also be a HSR station, so it’s laying a foundation for that as well, even if the HSR part won’t be getting built yet.
and extending the CC up to placer county is huge, there are a lot of people up there who clog up 80 commuting to sac,and having regular rail service right up the same corridor that holds the vast majority of the population in placer county (330,000 at last count) takes a ton of pressure off 80 between auburn and the bay area. if they could somehow get it to go to tahoe, and get the ski resorts to set up shuttle buses at the train station, it would be a godsend for the whole 80 corridor.
this mkight not be explicit HSR funding, but it’ll feed people right into that trunk line, and boost ridership numbers significantly, since the sac area is the biggest population center in the state left off the initial trunk line. CC brings them in with a single-transfer ride (double-transfer if they hop BARTA at richmond or the BART bus to embarcadero at oakland) to their HSR destination downstate.
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Now if only someone could lay some heavy rail track out to the terminals at Sacramento airport…
wu ming Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:12 am
they’re talking about running the RT out to the airport via natomas in the medium-range future. we could have had a ^%$#@! RT extension out to davis built by now, had the city blocked it in the 80s like the idiot NIMBYs that they can be from time to time. thankfully the town’s a lot more committed to rail then back then.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:47 am
The sacramento light rail has to be the slowest, most unreliable mass transit system I’ve ever ridden. I lived in Sac for a couple years, I don’t think I had a single trip on it where the driver didn’t have to stop for a few minutes to fiddle with the doors. Luckily traffic in downtown sac isn’t so bad that the street-running portions are a huge issue, but that system needs help.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Visit San Jose sometime and your notions about Sacramento having “the slowest, most unreliable mass transit system I’ve ever ridden” will be shattered.
Spokker Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
I thought Sacramento’s network was okay. Sure, it’s street running in the downtown area, but the line to Folsom got pretty speedy once out of downtown.
Spokker Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
I mean, they aren’t going to build a subway in Sacramento, for crying out loud.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
On the other hand, Sacramento’s light rail is among the least expensive in the US per-rider.
wu ming Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
and yet it’s got the 9th highest light rail ridership in the states.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Apparently I’ve struck a chord with all the people here who haven’t actually had to commute on the thing.
Be late to work a dozen times because of delays and then feel free to post on here about ridership stats and how it’s fast outside of town.
Samsonian Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:52 am
I thought Capitol Corridor already served Auburn. Admittedly it gets little service, like Gilroy on the CalTrain line. Improving service on Capitol Corridor and expanding its reach would provide a lot of benefits. It’s a pretty important corridor.
wu ming Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
it serves it via bus. this would be an extension of the rail service.
So I guess Caltrain got their waiver from the FRA?
http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_15178764
“Caltrain officials have convinced federal safety authorities to allow quick European-style electric trains to zip from San Francisco to San Jose, a national first that paves the way for fast electric commuter and high-speed trains in the Bay Area and around the country.
…
Caltrain will essentially be a pilot operation for the trains, called electric multiple units. If successful, commuter railroads and planned high-speed rail networks throughout the nation would have access to cheaper, greener and faster trains.”
And the money shot.
“The waiver allows all passenger trains, whether diesel or electric, to run on the same tracks. Freight locomotives can continue to operate in the wee hours while passenger trains are parked.”
The waiver also means that they have to conduct crash tests, do some grade separations and implement more advanced train control systems.
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:33 am
That’s absolutely fantastic news.
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Well, except for the crash test part. Doing those with real-world vehicles as opposed to computer simulations is going to be expensive. Perhaps Caltrain can persuade FRA to accept the results previously obtained by the manufacturers that end up on the procurement shortlist. However, I suspect FRA may specify US-specific test procedures, ostensibly to level the playing field for any US vendor who wants in on the action but in actual fact just to create job security for FRA bureaucrats.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
The FRA has done crash tests, with retired LIRR cars, which aren’t the ones Caltrain will be shopping for but they have done crash tests with crash energy management systems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpcfZeokUI
Alon Levy Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Okay, so the FRA thinks E231s are unsafe on US tracks because of tests done with old LIRR cars. Nice.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 29th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Have they expressed an opinion on either? The meme around here is that the FRA has been sitting around with a 1938 manual up it’s keester since 1939. They are moving ahead. May not be as fast or in the direction you would prefer but they are moving.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:50 am
“Freight locomotives can continue to operate in the wee hours while passenger trains are parked.”
So it’s not a true mixed-traffic waiver then. That’s fine for the peninsula, but it’s also therefore not as relevant the rest of the country where agencies want to actually mix trains.
Elizabeth Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Our understanding is that the mixed trains are old Caltrain trains and new Caltrain trains.
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Yes, so Caltrain can continue to operate during the transition period.
Well, so much for platform-height harmonization…
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
That depends. It might be possible for Caltrain to use mini-platforms or special gizmos attached to either the old or the new rolling stock for a transition period before platforms get rebuilt in the context of the grade separation project.
Presumably, neither FRA nor CHSRA will ever permit Caltrain’s legacy FRA-compliant rolling stock onto the HSR tracks in the SF peninsula. Any track sharing, which is contingent on adopting an SFFS or FSSF track order, would apply exclusively to the new non-compliant EMUs.
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Given that this is in fact a pilot program, this could possibly be extended to “true” mixed traffic, once the FRA realizes that it is in fact safe.
In the meantime, it will allow dinosaurs to operate with new, lighter trains.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
There downside to this is that Caltrain wants to and will continue to be designed and operated as a freight railroad by old freight railroad guys. just with some other stuff bolted onto the side as an exception.
Or, in one word: CBOSS.
Look at the SMART railcar procurement disaster — done by the same olde tyme railroading consultant who will specify Caltrain’s global one-offs to nobody’s profit but the consultancies’ — for the type of rolling stock and look at the Caltrain San Bruno grade separation unmitigated inexcuable clusterfuck — done by the same old tyme railroading dudes who come up with Transbay, incompatible platform heights, and 14 track Diridon Pangalactic — for the type of civil engineering masterpieces we can expect to see a great deal more of from the old US freight railroad guys as they continue to do the only thing they know how to do, namely build an AREMA FRA freight railroad.
Don’t get your hopes up too high, guys. It’s not like one of the FRA waiver requirements was to fire everybody associated with Caltrain’s engineering or planning departments.
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
The salient argument here is that CHSRA will anyhow pay for its system (probably ETCS), just like its paying for electrification, grade seperation and ROW surveillance. Caltrain really ought to piggyback off all of that, especially since the FRA waiver is contingent on successfully completing real-world crash tests.
Kill CBOSS! Co-opt the consultant(s) by assigning them to the ETCS implementation team. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I love how you always include the BART and VTA light rail tracks in your “14 track Diridon Pangalactic” flaming criticisms.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Dear Peter,
How about integrated transportation planning and maximizing return on investment? Or do we just throw that overboard that because the trains have a different logo painted on the side?
It’s exactly the same class, and in a distressingly large number of cases the same cast, of prime-US-grade transportation professional who came up with, designed, and built VTA light rail and is promoting, designing, and will build BART to San Jose.
If you can come up with any valid economic, environmental, transportation, or equity argument for even a single track of either VTA or BART in San Jose it would be a great novelty and learning experience for all of us.
Regardless of any of which, anything more than 6 tracks of Caltrain+HSR on a single level = rent seeking pork barrel fraud, even excluding your sacred, undergrounded, and blissfully passenger-free VTA-promoted rail fiascos.
Over-selling, over-specifying, over-building and especially over-billing for fun and profit is its own reward.
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
I like how you blame the local agencies for a lack of regional planning. Blame the party responsible, as in the MTC, instead of the local agencies. The MTC should provide the regional planning and oversight. If they don’t, local agencies will be the ones who call the shots. And they will of course be self-centered.
Spokker Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 11:15 am
But it’s relevant for the LA-Anaheim segment where shared track is desired by transit professionals and local residents. Metrolink and Amtrak’s diesel trains may someday operate with electric trains with a similar waiver.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Yeah I get that, but that only works if it’s actually, as Elizabeth states, a true mixed use waiver for Caltrain to intermingle their own trains, and not a waiver that simply says they can run noncompliant trains during the day on the same tracks UPRR uses at night.
You guys are probably right, but does anyone have the doc?
Peter Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Caltrain’s waiver request specified that there would only be “true” mixed use south of Santa Clara during the day.
Spokker Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
The waiver states, according to the article, that FRA-compliant diesel trains can operate in mixed use with electric non-FRA-compliant passenger trains.
Between LA and Anaheim they want to run passenger trains on two tracks and freight trains on three tracks. I imagine they are going for a similar waiver.
That’s what I’m getting at.
Samsonian Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 10:18 am
That’s big news.
“People thought they could only get this level of service by having BART. This out-BART’s BART.” said Bob Doty, head of the joint Caltrain-high-speed rail program. “This tiny little streak of rust out here will be the first in the United States to allow mixed operations of service.”
Who are you and what have you done with Bob Doty? We’ll see if he actually delivers on the rhetoric. CalTrain’s current plans are still actively bad and would make service worse (incompatible platforms, incompatible train control, FFSS/SSFF track configuration which prevents passing/overtakes (i.e. Baby Bullet), most trains stopping short of downtown SF). We need a true shared corridor as described on Clem’s blog (“any train, any track, any platform”).
AndyDuncan pointed out it doesn’t seem like a true mixed-traffic waiver. It seems more of an extension of the “guaranteed time separation” concept. It would also seem to require grade separated crossings (in addition to PTC) for non-compliant trains, which would be a big expense for many communities. It doesn’t seem it’d allow for Euro/Japanese DMUs on mainlines, which is a damn shame.
Still, some progress on the FRA-front is a good news.
mike Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hmmm, this comes a few days after the Caltrain public affairs officer wrote an article claiming that Caltrain will have access to all 4 tracks: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/45332
At the time I assumed the public affairs officer was just lying (to put it bluntly), but maybe there will actually be a shared track solution…
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Simple explanation: He’s lying.
Rafael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
No, he’s just a PR flack who’s not familiar with the nitty gritty of rail operations. Don’t ask a non-engineer such complicated technical questions, people!
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
PR flacks (through nobody knows the precise function or responsibilities of Mr Simon, minister without portfolio and “special assistant” to the SamTrans/SMCTA/Caltrain CEO, might be) don’t come up with statements like this all by their little lonesomes.
The people who wrote the statement appearing over his name (two guesses; you’ll be right on both counts) would like to have you believe that they are very “familiar with the nitty gritty of rail operations” indeed.
Which means that they are engaging in “strategic misrepresentation“.