CHSRA Board to Consider Modifying Initial Corridor Selection
Well, this is interesting. Just a week after the California High Speed Rail Authority board approved the Borden to Corcoran section of the high speed rail project for initial construction – with stations at Fresno and Hanford – we learned late Friday that the CHSRA board will meet on Monday, December 20 to consider modifying the corridor selection in light of the recent award of $624 million in new HSR funding from the federal government.
I don’t yet have any further information on exactly what this modification would include, but it would at minimum include an extension of the segment to get the project closer to Bakersfield. Whether the northern end of the route would be altered as well, to provide more of a Fresno-Bakersfield route than, say, Borden to Shafter is an open question for now. We’ll hopefully learn more soon.
But this does show that the California HSR project is proceeding exactly as planned – with each round of new funding, more of the route gets built. As I argued yesterday, this should be incentive for cities that want the trains but who weren’t included in this first round to be as aggressive as they can in bringing more dollars to the project.
So going into to bfd, there’s d1north and d1south and d2north and d2south
then you see d2south withdrawn and d1north withdrawn.
That leaves us with… d2north and d2south leftover. I wish they’d add another frame showing just those or give them different names. Its hard to follow. especially the way they have to break it up frame by frame. They should make something more complete and more interactive.
Anyway both of the D1 routes are the ones that would impact the high school.
D2south would have apparently been elevated directly on top of the bnsf tracks. It was ruled out/construction issues.
Then they have some routes leaving town via california avenue which is ridiculous.
What’s up with the signature bridge. I like it and think it helps highlight the city, but at what cost?
YesonHSR Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:07 am
I think this initial segment is going to stop just north of Bakersfield as originally proposed in the ARRA application. It’ll be right along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe at that point so real easy connection is available to meet the temporary requirements. Going through Bakersfield is going to require some money with all the urban infrastructure needed.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:09 am
O God dont get the “Drillers” started again!
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:45 am
We’ll have to fight that battle again soon, though.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Looking at teh map, no there is no real reason to disturb the school by demolishing or moving buildings since there is plenty of room in that row to run the tracks on the north edge of the row.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:54 am
*headdesk*
Yes, but that alignment would (a) cause more impacts to a hospital, (b) displace many more houses, and (c) run along California Avenue.
If they choose the “blue” route for the station, they can’t turn tightly enough to reach the “red” route before taking out the Bakersfield High School building that everyone is complaining about. To do so they would have to slow WAY the hell down.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:13 am
they can still use the north edge of the bnsf row from truxton (D2N) to the station and avoid the school then use the blue (D1S) from the station – eastward.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:33 am
No, it’s too tight a turn to transition from the station on the blue alignment to the red alignment while (a) missing the school, and (b) not slowing down.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:41 am
no its not. Im not sure what you are talking about but im just saying follow the existing row from truxton at the river – past the existing station and up to the junction. there aren’t any tight transitions there. look
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Jim, the turn heading west out of the current station can’t follow the current ROW. We’re not talking about light rail at 55 mph or Amtrak San Joaquins at 79 mph using these tracks, we’re talking about a train going 220 mph. That implies VERY large turn radii. When we had the major discussion about the Bakersfield alignment, I actually worked out what the turn radii would have to be to (a) have the station platform be on the blue line, (b) miss the convention center, and (c) miss the school. It was WAY tighter than a train can do at 220 mph.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:57 am
There is no turn heading west out of bfd station. I don’t know what you are looking at. please show it on a map.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Just drawing a line along the current ROW is misleading, since that ROW was laid out for much lower speeds than we’re looking for.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Are we talking a train going 220mph through open county or a train going 160mph through a built up area? Would the turn radius be on the order of 55% smaller, depending on the difference?
Drunk Engineer Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Blasting 220mph right past a school, convention center, and hospital! What are you smoking?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Here’s a map of the constraints. You simply can’t thread the needle around the Convention Center AND miss Bakersfield High School while using a turn radius appropriate for 220 mph. It’s not possible.
Here are the Bakersfield alignment maps. Look at them, enjoy.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:07 am
@ Drunk Engineer
That’s what they’re planning. It wasn’t my idea. Not saying that I have a problem with it, though, either. Those locations are already exposed to a large amount of noise being directly next to the busy BNSF ROW and busy BNSF yard.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Jim – take a good look at how wide the curves are on page 7 of this presentation and you will see why your alignment is impossible without cutting a big chunk out of the convention center.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:13 am
The blue overall is fine, but what I am saying is that you are not going to run a train through bakersfield high school and take out a building. Its not going to happen. It would be a huge waste of money to dealwith the legal battle and the negative media video of high school kids and soccer moms forming human chains across the construction path would be very damaging.
What needs to happen is a hybrid of the blue and red. The red runs to far north parallel the bnsf, they need to saty within the row.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Peter, here are your constraints with the hsr line. I still don’t see the problem. There arent any tight curves here anywhere. ( not to mention trains won’t be going through here at 220 anyway)
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Bringing the red alignment slightly south in order to avoid the hospital might be possible, but from there you’re still limited as to where you can go. You can either go south to California Avenue as with the existing red alignment, or you can cut straight through the residential area between Truxtun and California. There’s not enough room to make that curve west of the Amtrak station.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Even if you limit speeds to 150 mph (reasonable for not-so-dense urban areas), you still need curve radii in the vicinity of 1.75 miles.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Joey, per page 7 of the presentation you linked. That version shows the lines running right through homes and businesses between the bfd station -eastward to the uprr junction. Both alternatives are drawn that way. Clearly, this isn’t going to happen. The lines on the map will have to stay within the existing row. Obviously they are going to take out that neighborhood.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:32 am
In the end they are not going to have any choice except to stay within the existing row.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:32 am
It’s either that, bypassing Bakersfield altogether, or busting AB 3034′s runtime requirements.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Both options considered through Bakersfield will displace a lot of properties. ANY alternative through Bakersfield would displace a lot of properties. If UPRR weren’t so goddamn stubborn, they might have been able to go through Bakersfield along UPRR, which would have avoided most of this crap.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Jim – for a project of this size, taking out a decent number of buildings is noting new. Obviously it should be avoided when possible, but it’s inevitable, and it’s pretty common. Freeways have done it to a level that makes HSR look like nothing, and it looks like even BART had to take out a few rows of buildings in order to be built. It looks terrible at first, but in the scheme of a large project it’s so common that few people even look twice at it.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:47 am
well you know as well as I do that they are not going to be able to take out the high school building and they are not going to take out that neighborhood. This is why they get so much criticism, ( not that I’m defending nimbys) because they make these very arrogant choices. Its one thing to run trains on existing row and have people fuss about the added noise. (nimbys) when they have lived next to a row thats 100 years old. Its quite another thing to come into schools and neighborhoods and take out homes and business when there is existing row a block away. Its simply not going to happen. And as I pointed out earlier, there is still another area that is going to be a problem – the greenacres area just west of the oil refinery where they propose the hsr leave the bnsf row and cut through those homes. I have worked the trains on that route traveling behind those homes, and those people are not going to go for it. Those are expensive homes with large “ranchette” lots and if you want a hornets nest, just go start poking them. Im not arguing against the plans per se, im just pointing out that there are going to major issues and once the neighbors get wind, the project is going to be mired in legal action again.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Joey, freeways used to do this but nowadays… all Im saying is ready because the authority is aksing for a hornets nest of legal action, and project delays only to realize that in the end they will wind up bein relegated to the existing row. watch and see.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
“hornets nest of legal action”
Just because people are angry about something doesn’t mean that they have effective legal options.
If their homes or businesses are taken by eminent domain, then they will be compensated. They can’t stop the eminent domain action itself.
If they don’t like the alignment selection, then they can sue under CEQA, but they can only win if the Authority’s analysis of the problem was insufficient. They can’t stop a project under CEQA or NEPA, just delay it. If they do happen to win, then we’d get a replay of the Atherton suit, where the Authority would have to revise its EIR, put it out for public comment again, and then recertify it prior to beginning construction.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
but why take peoples homes ( actual people live there you know) and why propose something that is a problem waiting to happen when there is existing row to use. Just like on the red line alignment west of the amtrak station, they have it on an elevated north of the existing row, taking out all kinds of existing development and they ruled out an elevated directly over the bnsf tracks due to construction difficulties. Thats crazy. Building an elevated over the existing tracks can surely be done for no more expense and far less public objection, than building one through an area where you have to take out development unnecessarily.
And again while I have far less concern for people along a row who are bothered by the upgrades, I have a big problem with the attitude of plowing though neighborhoods for no good reason with a “just get over it you don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things” attitude. Its not really acceptable whether or not they have legal standing. its just wrong.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Joey, I make it a mile from the existing ROW at Gage St and E 21st to the Mt. Vernon Ave overpass, which I take it is the curve west of the station that Peter is referring to, and its less than 25degree of angle, so it should only take 0.7mile to complete a 1.75mile curve radius turn of under 25 degrees.
I think running a bit closer than the ROW to Bob’s Muffler and Radiator is less problematic than Bakersfield HS.
Obviously at 220mph it would not fit.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Jim,
Eminent domain has its time and place. If any project was worth eminent domain, this would be it.
“they ruled out an elevated directly over the bnsf tracks due to construction difficulties. Thats crazy.”
Why? If it’s not technically possible, then how can it continue to be considered?
“Building an elevated over the existing tracks can surely be done for no more expense and far less public objection, than building one through an area where you have to take out development unnecessarily.”
See above. If it’s not technically possible to construct it within the existing ROW, then “taking out development” is NOT unnecessary. It is necessary because there are no other options.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
can they cut over from teh bnsf at truxton a nd use truxton south of bobs to ease the curve back into the row east of bobs like this rather than taking out all those homes in the neighborhood south of truxton…
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
@ BruceMcF
I was talking about the curve over the Q Street underpass, actually. Jim’s map had the tracks exactly following the curve, which is WAY too tight for 220, or even 150 mph.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Jim – if this process didn’t have plenty of precedent in which there was little to no fight involved, I might agree with you.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
The curve you’re talking about is pretty tight as well.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I don’t believe that its not technically possible. of course its technically possible. There is an ulterior motive for not doing it. There is so much room in that row, and so many tracks… freight and passenger operations are juggled all the time when upgrades are happening. It is technically possible.
Something else is going on here. There is something going on with bakersfield and development and developers that we don’t know about. I’d bet lunch on that.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
@ jim
Still wouldn’t work. The impacts would be similar to those of option D1-N, which was knocked out for the following reasons:
From pg. 124 of the Prelim AA
- Very high cost, similar to D2-S.
- Completely elevated.
- Extensive reconstruction of BNSF yard.
- Two long, skewed spans crossing UPRR mainline and yard; could require piers on UPRR right-of-way at Kern Junction.
- Realignment of E. Truxtun Avenue required between Beale Avenue and Gage Street (1,000 ft).
- Most complex construction of all alignments.
- Station and station track construction within BNSF
right-of-way.
- Extensive construction within BNSF yard.
- Coordination with relocation/replacement of
Bakersfield HS industrial arts building.
- Extensive construction within UPRR right-of-way below Kern Junction.
- Some realignment of Edison Road to maintain access from side streets.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
“Something else is going on here. There is something going on with bakersfield and development and developers that we don’t know about. I’d bet lunch on that.”
Well, here’s their Redevelopment Agency’s website. Have fun fishing.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
peter – i dont see it interfereing with the his school at all. look at this closely. Now look at the bnsf track on the northern most edge of the existing row. tehn follow the line from the river, eastward
first you can see here looking west that there is ample room ( right edge of pic)
then looking here to the east still plenty of room.
and then follow this line by scrolling and there it is.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
that link broke – but look at the the row – there is a two track blank area just perfect waiting for hsr to go there
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Jim, the curve at the entrance to the Bakersfield station is still there and is still too tight. That and the fact that, unless you want straddle bents all the way through Bakersfield, you can’t build a two-track aerial through there, and DEFINITELY can’t build a four-track aerial for the station and the turnouts for the platform tracks.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I dont know what straddle bents means. and I dont see how that curve at bfd is too tight. It doesn’t look tight to me and there are much tighter turns in other parts of the system anyway. Obsviulsy they wont be running at 220 thru downtown bakersfield anyway. and look if you use this row not only is there plenty of room for two tracks, ( and why on earth we need a freakin four track aerial through bakersfiled anyway?) but there is room to run two tracks at grade from the river on the west end all the way to L street. the whole thing has blank two track row available, and the whole thing west of L st is already grade separated.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
and this curve at the station just can’t be that tight. really. really? I don’t see it. I need to get laundry done but, i think this will all wind up in existing row in the end.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
You’re going to have to do a lot better than “it doesn’t look too tight” if you want to make a valid argument. The other similarly tight curves are around stations where trains will have to slow down to less than 60 MPH – trains will likely have to slow down through Bakersfield, but slowing down that much is simply ridiculous. Like I said, you need very wide curves even for a more reasonable 150 MPH. Oh and the reason for the four track section is to allow express trains to pass trains which are stopped at the station.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
So for a 10 degree turn at 150mph that’s about 0.3mile for the turn, around 1,620ft.
That’s if the platform tracks were parallel, and it looks like there is room to run at a few degrees shallower angle. I can see eminent domain of overhead clearances of parking lots, but at 150mph I don’t see the clipping off of buildings being described.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Straddle bent
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
well yeah the station has to be four tracks but not the entire elevated section of row from the river all the way through town.. NO wonder people are being so critical of the overblown-ness of the project! look – THIS CURVE is not too tight. It looks just like the toher ones in the alternatives
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
straddle bent – ah thank you. I learn something new everyday around here. BUT, why do all that when all you need to do is
likethis
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
well yeah the station has to be four tracks but not the entire elevated section of row from the river all the way through town
Current CHSRA standards dictate that the four track section should be 6000 feet long (including the station itself) in order to allow for sufficient acceleration/deceleration room.
THIS CURVE is not too tight
By my measurement, it’s still a little tight, even for 150 MPH, but you’re getting closer. Also where do you intend to put the station, as there’s no room next to the convention center, and you can’t easily build it above the existing tracks either?
why do all that when all you need to do is
If you intend to cross over the existing tracks (which you do), you must straddle them as you do so.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
You’re not taking width of the aerial into account. The transition from two tracks to four tracks begins at the western edge of Bakersfield High School. That aerial will have to be pretty wide.
Also, don’t forget you need arrow-straight platforms, too. Can’t start the turn before you get to the end of the platform.
Look at p. 119 of the Preliminary Alternatives Analysis for Fresno-Bakersfield. It gives you a cross-section comparison of multiple options. The one you seem to be suggesting is the middle one, which is completely straddle-bent construction.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
A 4-track system is necessary for Bakersfield to allow express/direct trains to pass regionals and locals. Unless, every train will stop at Bakersfield.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
now Im late and my house still isn’t clean. But my point is this. They are going to have to find a way to make it work while staying in the row. And they are going to have to tone it down. Bakersfiled is not going to be as accepting as fresno is about welcoming this project.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
This might be doable if you’re willing to accept 150 mph as your top speed. Even then, you can’t avoid all impacts.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
thas good but move the line a touch so its in the row and put the station adjacent to the existing station then it all works.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Its the local track that has to have straight platforms, but the trains on that track are stopping, so the curve for those can be much tighter. Its the express track that has to have the wider curve radius, but they don’t need to stop. If the express tracks are on the far side and the local on the inside, then the platform tracks can be a chord on the inside of the turn that the express tracks are making.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
But we’re dealing with reverse curves here. So that wouldn’t work.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
If the local and express tracks take different paths, then the elevated structures will have to be much wider and more conspicuous, not to mention more expensive to build.
Instead of banning curved platforms, they should look at best practices for what can be done with a very large-radius platform, say 3 km.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Peter, what possible difficulty would be posed if the eastern end of the express curve through the big rail footprint next to the station is a reverse curve?
Alon, yes, it might end up shading the parking lot for JP’s Automotive, Absolute Bail Bonds and Kern Business Forms, and the pedestrian footbridge over the rail corridor from the Convention Center to the Convention Center parking might have to be replaced with a pedestrian subway under the rail corridor. But the “need” to, for example, relocate E Truxton Ave for that corridor seems to be driven by the “need” to blast through at 220mph on the Express corridor even 1.5miles +/- of the station.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Bruce, building two different aerial structures is very expensive. Since we’re talking about high-speed rail here and not some two-bit 50 mph branch line, the junction has to be grade-separated, with flying junctions. Nobody does this in urban areas, not even the Italians, who put the junctions outside urban areas. It makes HSR look like LA’s freeway network, which is both bad engineering and bad politics.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Alon, if there is an at grade location for it, the junction can be an underpass for the local line being crossed.
There’s only two different aerial structures at the station itself, and excluding on option based on that cost first, and then beginning to consider the cost of the property dislocation afterwards, is clearly suboptimizing. That’s the problem of analyzing in stereotype, it ignores solutions specific to the details of the problem at hand.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:34 am
There’s no at-grade location for that. Look for various TGV junctions on Google Maps – they all consume much more space than is available in urban areas. Analyzing a situation based on best industry practices is not a stereotype; there’s a reason cost-conscious agencies don’t do certain things.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Except there seems to be ample room for that west of Truxton and on the other side between Sumner and Miller Streets and Mt. Vernon Avenue. The stylized fact that they consume more space than is available in urban areas is a combination of facts about the engineering requirements of the HSR junction and assumption about the built environment of urban area, and among urban areas of its population size in the world, Bakersfield is quite an odd duck indeed.
thatbruce Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 10:18 am
@Alon: the junction has to be grade-separated, with flying junctions. Nobody does this in urban areas
The Brits would disagree with you on that point (pan around London and you’ll see a few flying junctions within urban areas).
Anyway, you lot are still thinking inside the box. The express tracks do not have to go through, or anywhere near downtown Bakersfield, and hence the flying junctions involved do not need to be anywhere near Bakersfield. The local (stopping) tracks can then have far more constraints on their geometry, such as avidly following the BNSF ROW at-grade through downtown (applying remedies for the 8 at-grade road crossings that remain should be cheaper than a local aerial through downtown).
The express tracks can split from the local tracks in nice gradual curve from the BNSF alignment west of town and then straddle the Stockdale Highway/CA-58 east through Bakersfield before picking up the local tracks again in that empty space near Bena.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Is that an aerial all the way for the Express tracks, or would they be at grade for much of the time?
thatbruce Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Last time I drove through there there was median available along most of CA-58 through Bakersfield, but that was a few years ago and I haven’t glanced at the Caltrans plans in a while. The Stockdale CA-58 transition over CA-99 would be a royal PITA though; below-grade might be the solution there.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am
The Brits would disagree with you on that point (pan around London and you’ll see a few flying junctions within urban areas).
Certain foamers love to point out the ones in Sydney. Whole masses of them. There’s a few in the NYC Subway system, which because they are underground are difficult to see. There’s at least one in the PATH system. A few outside of Manhattan in the approaches to Manhattan. Chicago is busy building one or two though those might be more straight forward railroad grade separations ( separating one railroad from another )
Is that an aerial all the way for the Express tracks, or would they be at grade for much of the time?
At ground level. That would be the point of putting the junctions out in the middle of nowhere, the tracks for the city and the bypass tracks could stay at grade.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
@Thatbruce, Adirondacker: I live in New York; I’m well-aware of the existence of urban rail flying junctions. Although these are bleeding expensive, too, they’re not nearly as budget busting when the design speed is 80 km/h as when it’s 350 km/h.
@BruceMcF: can you draw an actual flying junction on Google Earth that fits comfortably within available space? Not saying you should make an entire engineering drawing or anything, but just something approximating a curve of the correct radius.
Jerry Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Tight curves into Bakersfield? Check out the CA HSR web site for the tight curves going north into the San Jose station. There are also great animations of the aerial curve going over 280. It also shows Caltrain arriving from Gilroy on a different level.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Thats what I thought but I also agree with Alon that there’s not reason the platforms have to be straight. Aren’t curved platforms used all over the world?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Curved platforms are used all over the world, that is correct. All over the world, though, does not have ADA requirements for level boarding and maximum gaps between the train and the platforms. If they knew exactly what trains they were purchasing they could figure out the minimum radius that would still allow them to meet the ADA gaps. Until then, they’re playing it VERY safe.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
may of the trains per hour each direction are actually going to be full express trains from sf to la anyway? il bet not more than one per hour huh. The rest will stop there. BTW how much time would you actually lose if you slow down from 220 to 125 for a half mile? Is it more than a minute? Just wondering.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Peter: the ADA limit for gap-free boarding is a fraction of the radius we’re talking about. With a 3 km radius, a 25-meter car would have a 2.6-cm gap at the center, one third the ADA limit. And the doors aren’t at the center; the gap at endpoint doors would be about 6 mm, and the gap at quarter-point doors would be 2 cm.
Jim: it’s about a minute, depending on how fast your trainset can accelerate back. The range is 53-81 seconds, where 53 is for the super-powered N700-I and 81 for the low-powered Velaro. If the slow restriction is instead 168 mph, same as on the Tokaido Shinkansen, then the range is 20-35 seconds. (Yes, Clem, I’m including deceleration, not just acceleration.)
The operating plan calls for half the trains to skip Bakersfield, which means about 4 tph will skip Bakersfield and about 4 will serve it.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
oh yes they have it going like this. what will the speed be here?
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
thanksk for that info ALon, ( im glad my guessing is so close to actual real math- I always get only so for with algebra and solving things for x – then my brain explodes – and it doesn’t help that everyone insists on using km too. ugh!)
A train stopping at bfd every 15 mins would be great. itll be like catching bart, you only have to wait 14 minutes or less for the next train. more than reasonable. nice for them. Imagine being able to escape bakersfield that quickly and conveniently!
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
@ Alon Levy
I’m not agreeing with the Authority that arrow-straight platforms are the only way to comply with the ADA, I’m just stating their reason for requiring them.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
@ jimsf
Probably 30-40 mph, depending on how much cant deficiency the FRA allows.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Jim: I think the speed restriction there is 55 mph. This is not as awful as it’d be in Bakersfield, because all trains will stop at San Jose; the curves would slow trains only in that they’d force them to accelerate out of the station more slowly and brake into it sooner.
Using km means you have to do less math, not more. All the calculations work exactly the same way, as long as you use consistent units. It’s just easier to convert km to meters than miles to feet.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
@ Alon Levy
I think it was going to be 55 mph or so if they used the Gardner alignment. The curves over the 280/87 interchange are tighter than the Gardner curves.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
It’s just easier to convert km to meters than miles to feet.
Computers are quite adept at handling numbers. Doesn’t really matter to a computer if you are dividing by 1000 to get meters or 5280 to get feet. And the computer doesn’t care if you are measuring things in miles, kilometers, cubits, furlongs…..
I’m vaguely enamored of the concept that by the 1850s or so new railroad ROW was 4 rods ( or greater) wide….
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I’m eyeballing radii, but it looks about 300-350 meters to me. With a cant of 160 mm and a CD of 100 mm, it’s 50-55 mph. If the FRA sticks to the 3″ rule then it’s 48-52 mph.
Could be a little less if the reverse curve at the south end is tight.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
The more you slow down, the more you lose … the slow zone, plus about half the distance to slow down before and speed up after … 3 miles at 150mph takes 1:20, 3 miles at 220mph takes 0:50, so that would be 30 seconds, plus the time lost slowing down and speeding up, so make it a about a minute.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
omg all trains are stopping san jose? So there aren’t going to be any true sf-la express trains? That SUCKS!.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
You can’t really compute a slow zone’s time penalty by saying “half the distance to speed up after.” The acceleration rate decreases quickly as the speed increases, and when the speed range is large, the acceleration at the top could easily be 10 times as high as at the bottom. Thus the train spends more time at higher speed than at lower speed, and “half the distance to speed up” would massively overstate the penalty.
For example: an idealized Velaro accelerates from 125 mph to 220 in 510 seconds. If it traveled the same distance at full speed, it would take not 255 seconds, but 449.
Jerry Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Wasn’t able to add the CAHSR site from my iTouch, but here it is;
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/gallery_bayarea_03.aspx
Just scroll down the page to: San Jose to Merced – Alternative Analysis, for the three video presentations of the approach to San Jose from the south. The video simulation shows Caltrain under the HSR aerial at the station. One of the simulations includes the, “Iconic Aerial Bridge.”
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
It better overestimate the penalty, a rough estimate can either overestimate or underestimate, and overestimating is the conservative direction. However, if you are saying that the Valero accelerates from 125mph to 220mph in a distance of 27.439 miles and taking 510 seconds, the linear interpolation of 620 seconds is 20% high. Which overstates the penalty but not massively.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Your linear interpolation of 620 overstates the penalty by a factor of almost 3. The penalty isn’t 510; it’s 510 – 449 = 61. If you make it 620, then you’ve bumped up the penalty to 171.
But to even get that linear interpolation you need to know the distance over which the train accelerates, and that requires computing the same integral as computing the exact time penalty anyway. It’s not computationally easier, and it’s actually more sensitive to small errors in choice of train parameters. If you tweak track resistance slightly, you might radically change the rate of acceleration from 210 to 220 mph, which would radically change both acceleration time and acceleration distance, while having a trivial effect on the time penalty.
Clem Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
The only correct way to do it is to numerically integrate the differential equations of motion. Mwah-hah-hah-hah!
Alon, where did you get your N700 data, in the PB tech memo?
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
No, I hadn’t seen the memo at the time I wrote the formulas. I’d cribbed track resistance from the Velaro and calculated the quadratic factor based on known top speeds achieved by such trains. After the fact I did the same calculation cribbing the constant and linear factors from other trains, and the numbers for the entire stop penalty turn out to be the same to within 2-3 seconds; I actually overestimated the penalty.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:23 am
If you mean mercy hospital then no it wouldn’t impact the hospital taht I can see.
FIrst of all, impacting the namesake high school in a town like bakersfield is asking for trouble. That is not something you want to do. You’ll turn the whole city against the project.
What Im saying is run along the northern most bsnf track in the existing row rather than the southern most bnsf track like this
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Jim, if you want to see whether your curve works or not, draw it in Google Earth. The draw-line tool can give you a precise figure for the change in degrees, and allows you to eyeball the length of the curve very accurately.
You can also use circle generators to try to make circles the correct size, like Earthshape. But all of the ones I know require computing the center of the curve, which is annoying. Personally I only use circle generators to see the path a new curve would take, to see how many takings it requires.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
lol you lost me. what on earth is a circle generator? Im still not over the switch from rotary telephones.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
It’s an add-on program that lets you create a circle in Google Earth. Google Earth itself only lets you draw straight lines.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
oh. i have google map but not google earth. and my mac/safari goes so slow using that map program geez. Ic can’t stand it.
Ina anycase I think that for bfd they are going to have to come up with some creative alternatives to blasting through highshcools and taking out neighborhoods. Just some minor adjustments, but politically they will have to.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Nearly all lines have some takings. In many cases, the cost of demolitions and takings is lower than the cost of detouring. On the Peninsula, the HSRA has been too eminent domain-averse, not fixing the San Bruno curve with small amounts of eminent domain even though it costs trains about 30 seconds.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
well I just can’t get excited about 30 seconds. But I’m just trying to save on having to do that battle because one, its going to cost, two its going to drag the timeline out and Ill be in the retirement home before this thing opens, and three, I don’t like the idea of such entities exerting their will on local communities in such a destructive way. I don’t like it in SF, and those poor souls in BFD are going to lose all they have when their homes are taken. Its very unseemly. But I don’t have any say over it. I just don’t like it.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
anyway if they have enough extra money maybe they can do the track upgrades/laying from greenacres in bfd where the bfd aerial alights to grade west of the oil refinery all the way up to the wye south of merced.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
30 seconds here, 30 seconds there, two minutes over there and pretty soon you need to budget for sleeper cars because it’s going to take ten hours to get between SF and LA.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
well theres only a handful of areas system wide in question, san jose, san bruno, bakersfield, gilroy thats what, 4 minutes total?
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
“thats what, 4 minutes total?”
When they’re currently planning on building the system for 2:38, and the maximum permissible under AB 3034 is 2:40, that’s two minutes too many.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Jim, eminent domain isn’t that brutal, not when done in small amounts. The owners are compensated at market value; SNCF likes to compensate above market value, since the sums involved are small change while avoiding the risk of lawsuits is worth gold. In the case of San Bruno, the total market value of the houses can’t be more than a third the benefit coming from reducing travel time; the houses have awful location, wedged between an industrial zone and a freeway, and there aren’t many of them.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
ok if you say so. but you’ll see. its gonna be big ole media fuss followed by the eminent domain outrage followed for yet another law trying to outlaw eminent domain, and people being all up in a tizzy followed by pandering politicians-a-go-go. Not saying it can’t be done. Its just going to be a media circus. ultimately I just want a train that will get me there so I don’t have to fly but I can’t help but point these things out. ( and the anti big business – “stick up for the poor working schmuck” part of me doesn’t like it.) And I know that kewl educated hipster types don’t get it but sometimes the family’s home is there their home and they don’t dont want to leave it. its not always about money.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Alon, a good friend makes a very nice living working for the State of California easing the trials and tribulations of people being displaced by eminent domain. They get fair market value, moving expenses, closing costs, etc. There might even be compensation for time and effort. Whatever the state offers, it’s a more than straight compensation for the taking. All of the services are also offered to tenants.
Jim, once they compromise there there and there, they will have to compromise over there and there and then over there and there and there. You’ll end up with an electrified San Joaquin. Tne hours to between SF and LA.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Jim, it’s being done, frequently, all over the country. It’s every urban renewal scheme, every new freeway, and every handout to developers. It’s so basic it’s even written into the Constitution, which says that takings can only be done with due process and just compensation.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Jim – I don’t recall any fuss over the homes they had to take in order to build Millbrae’s parking structure. And I’ve only heard minor grumblings about the buildings affected by the Transbay Terminal/DTX project.
Nathanael Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
It’s a relatively new, non-historic building at the high school, which wouldn’t even be demolished. :-) The Bakersfield High panickers are really panicking unreasonably.
I think that Bakersfield’s decision to build the (quite tall) convention center smack up against the rail ROW on the north has rather limited their options though.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Jim – this is probably the best you’re going to get. Note I’ve modified the curve to be farther west, cutting into the areas (mostly parking lots) south of the Convention Center in order to more closely follow BNSF’s right-of-way. Also note that there are still a few impacts along that route, as it’s impossible to build exclusively within the right-of-way (you need about 50′ for the two track sections).
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Sorry, was supposed to be posted above.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
ok that one is good
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I think that’s pretty much what I had worked out months ago, but that turn between the station and BHS is pretty tight. Have you been able to work out the radius on it? I don’t recall what it was.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
I designed it to be about 1.5 miles, which, assuming that the FRA is willing to offer a little bit of leeway on cant deficiency, should be enough for 150 mph.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
What I was thinking of was about this enter BFD:17891 and load to get the circle filter. That’s a 3km radius on the perimeter of the curve, which is a smidge more than 1.75mile radius.
The modification is probably just adding on towards Bakersfield and deleting the connection down there which would give us an extra few miles with the money. The northern end is pretty much set if they’re going to use the standards of the ARRA due to the fact that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe is on the other side of town in downtown Fresno,they need to continue on through Fresno northward to where the planned cut over is to the BNSF. The northern end of this segment is also probably the route they going to take along the BNSF so they can avoid Madera and then loop down to the Wye so there should not be any waste of the money on the northern end of this initial segment.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:33 am
and what of the Wasco alternative. Though town or through farmland to the east. Any consensus yet?
This is going to be a problem area
and a look at the bfd station site where there is plenty of room.
There is potentially a very expensive structure in Corcoran. If they have to build it, the new route will be Borden – south Corcoran, instead of Borden – north Corcoran.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:03 am
They will swing around its wide open and will stop at Shafer with this money and with the 2011 funding will get into BAK and aslo extend the north end of the segment to the wye..then the fun starts in which way will it go!!
Eric M Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:25 am
That potential $1 billion structure in Corcoran is troublesome for extending the initial route to Bakersfield. In truth, that bypass might not be chosen until the board decides on the exact alternatives for the valley. If they go around the city, that would be great for saving a lot of money.
Victor Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Sure going around might save some money, But in the long run It could as Dallas has proven with their light rail, That building where People aren’t at at the edge just doesn’t mean success for ridership numbers, As It’s short sighted, Where people object the most as long one is careful not to damage or destroy places like a local Hospital or the High School and one really sells the path chosen to the locals, Is the path You want and need.
After all, No pain, No gain.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Corcoran isn’t even getting a station. Building where the people are means placing stations downtown; it says nothing about which path to take between stations.
Victor Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:18 am
True and I wasn’t talking Corcoran, Which was/is a temporary endpoint I think.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:48 am
The cost saving under discussion is in Corcoran. Bypassing Bakersfield is pretty much impossible, and not under discussion at all.
Victor Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I never said I wanted to bypass Bakersfield or even Fresno, Just to go through the densest parts of both cities, That’s all and for a path that is as simple and as nearly straight as can be done.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I know you didn’t. What I’m saying is that your “Don’t bypass cities” argument was specifically in response to Elizabeth’s proposal to bypass Corcoran, so I took it to mean you think the trains should go through cities with no stations. I’m explaining why I misunderstood what you were saying, that’s all.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I’m not proposing anything. I’m merely pointing out the options that the HSRA has brought forward.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:05 am
The draft EIR is due out until the spring, which means you won’t really know where you are going until then. I think it will be hard for the Authority to promise much more than somewhere south of Corcoran.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:08 am
They’ll be able to promise one thing of they build the Corcoran aerial, and another if they don’t.
peninsula Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
If a long history of actual behaviors at the CHSRA are any indication, they can promise whatever kind of half baked, unrealistic, damaging and ignorant scheme they can cook up on the back of an envelope, and everyone on this blog will lap it up like kittens (with exception perhaps of Elizabeth and Richard and a few other critics.)
rafael Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
A $1 billion structure in Corcoran? Who came up with that idea? Just stick to Hwy 43 to skirt the town to the east.
Being almost brand new, I wonder how much modification ( aside from escalators to the elevated hsr platform) the existing facility would need? Its very nice, and seems a waste to go building a whole new station from scratch.
pic1night
pic2exterior
pic3interior
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Preliminary designs (same presentation I linked above, page 11-12) show much larger facilities to serve HSR in the vicinity of the Amtrak station.
James Fujita Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I like the Bakersfield station, but I’ve been through Bakersfield enough times to know that I wouldn’t mind if they made some modifications to the station. Best case scenario, Bakersfield chips in the money needed for a new HSR station.
At the very least, HSR won’t need the bus transfer center which makes up so much of the existing station area. It shouldn’t even need such a large waiting area. (The waiting area now is used primarily by people getting off buses and with time to kill before they can board the train.)
Sometimes the bus has gotten in early enough that I’ve wandered over to the Marriott. I’m hoping that there will be some sort of link between the new station and that complex.
It’s about time. Hopefully this will also involve some redesigns, bypassing cities on the route that do not get a stop.
synonymouse Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Hate to break it to you guys, but your CHSRA scheme has inherent, structural problems that way transcend the mundane question of which part of valley towns to trash with aerials.
The state of California is broke to the point of selling off its office buildings. The machine got a tame SF judge to sanction this piece of idiocy. Willie Brown has rightly condemned this plan as incredibly stupid and shortsighted. I am beginning to think he would make a better governor, much more realistic and commensensical, than the other Brown. I say this even tho Willie was one of the evil geniuses of BART to SFO.
Just to present an admittedly anecdotal picture of just how far PB is out of synch with Bay Area thinking, I present you today’s Chron. In it are the results of their internet poll on Borden to Corcoran – 58% straight thumbs down. Also they deigned to print a letter presumably from a Peninsula nobody who called for the hsr to be relocated to 101. And this in a paper that is a Pelosi machine thus PB organ.
Face the reality: California will not be able to maintain ownership of the hsr. How could a state that cannot control its costs such that it could maintain some existing office buildings ever hope to operate and maintain a high-end rr? Which do you think is going to be easier to own: an office building or a railroad with miles of track and wire and aerials?
They are going to have to sell it off, like Conrail. Now which version of hsr will be more marketable? If you were an entrepreneur, which route would you be likely to buy? The Tehachapi detour with slower schedules and more infrastructure to maintain plus running thru some of the most impoverished areas of the State or the Tejon base tunnels plus running at grade in the I-5 median and then Altamont to the heart of the overall Bay Area. No aerials to maintain plus no pressure to run money losing local service to the down and out valley towns.
You know who will end up stuck with the PB-Palmdale not-so-high-speed turkey? Amtrak, and you aren’t even going to design the detour to accomodate their diesel equipment.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 11:48 am
tl;dr
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Hate to break it to you synonomoose, but the HSR is cheaper than providing the same intercity transport capacity by road or air infrastructure, so saying the state is broke only strengthens the case for building the HSR. If California was flush with surplus funds, it could afford the luxury of meeting those needs with roads and airports. Its not, so it has to go with the more capital efficient solution.
Eric M Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I think it comes down to the fact that Synonymous just talks to hear themselves talk. Its never anything productive and always way off topic.
Victor Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Yep.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Everyone knows the Chrons comments section is full of teabag/neocons that not only dont live in the City or BayArea mnay dont even live in California..they love to troll on the ‘”liberals” board and postBS
most are the same no life trolls that have 3and 4 thousand comments recorded
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
oh I gave up on the chron long ago. Its a worthless rag. There’s better writing and reporting in your local jr high school paper and the comments section is populated by mainly out of state teabaggers and nutjobs who are obsessed with, and have a perverse fixation on all things San Francisco. They visit our city’s paper and bash sf and cali, while at the same time getting their cheap jollies by touching base virtual base with a place they think is enticingly naughty and tempting. Its so funny. Slovenly trailer dwelling hillbillies and pinched up midwestern church ladies with big hair, touching themselves while they criticize our evil liberal ways. lol. So sad.
Where is this special December 20th meeting being held in Sacramento or San Diego?
If I know the authority they will hold the meeting in San Diego since they are only talking about the Central Valley wouldn’t it make more sense to hold this meeting in Fresno or Bakersfield?
Elizabeth Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I think the meeting is in Sacramento and that a board member will be calling in from San Diego. Open meeting laws require the place that someone is calling in from to be accessible and listed.
Jerry Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
The meeting will be held in Sacramento. My question is – Will the CEO/Staff present their recommendation for the additional routing to the Board at the meeting?
Elizabeth Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 11:52 am
That is what the agenda says they will do. I am sure they are scrambling to put together staff memos and recommendations as we speak.
I wonder when the allocation of the $1 billion FY2011 HSR funds will take place? I’m sure that it won’t happen before the continuing resolution actually gets adopted and signed off. If that happens before the draft EIR in the spring, then presumably that extra money could be used to expand the initial segment more than currently planned. Even more so with the California match.
RT
Rick Scott still waivering on HSR:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/11/1968327/gov-elect-rick-scott-holds-off.html
Wasn’t part of the DOT’s motivation to yank the WI and OH money was so official commitments/contracts can be arranged before the new congress. One wonders if DOT is taking a risk in not yanking FL’s cash and giving it to CA and other states not waivering in support. If FL ultimately decides to reject the money, one wonders if the incoming republicans will be able to snatch that money away in an austerity negotiation related to the debt ceiling.
If CA were to get all of FL money, we could probably complete the entire CV (phase 1) all in one shot.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Interesting development if it comes about. Would that and the bond money cover electrification, the repair shop, and the rolling stock? If it did, that would be one bang of a start.
Victor Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I doubt the FL money would do all of that, But If It would, It would be great and CA would have a core HSR system that just needs to start on construction towards LA and SF.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Rick Scott is even dumber than I thought he is. The federal government hands Florida an entire high speed rail line on a silver platter and he still thinks of saying no? Idiot.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
He, like other Republican elected officials, has oil company donors who must be appeased.
Donk Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
What does this even mean anymore? Are there really still deep pocketed oil men in cowboy hats sitting in a board room plotting against HSR? HSR isn’t a threat to oil, there is already plenty of consumption of oil and always will be. Would these oil company donors give a rats ass if he kept the money and used it to HSR or if he redirected it back to other states? I doubt it.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
The donors wouldn’t give a crap. But because of past donor influence, and because of the association between trains and urban liberals (or Europe), movement conservatives are developing an anti-train ideology. Chris Christie supports road projects, and said that the difference between a fare hike and a gas tax hike is just who it falls on.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Naw, they don’t wear cowboy hats anymore–they just wear their hair in pompadours, like Wendell Cox :-)
http://www.demographia.com/photo5.jpg
In my opinion, the situation in regard to the “oil lobby” is both similar and different to your description, and definitely a bit more complex.
Oil money definitely helped finance the early operations of “think tanks” like the Reason Foundation and Cato Institute. They no longer finance these operations to the same extent if at all, but the legacy of oil-road-car-freedom(tm) train of thought remains. Looking at the writing style of the papers of these organizations, and the positions they take, they almost seem to be running on an “autopilot” that was set decades ago. No concern about peak oil or oil vulnerability, no understating of true highway costs, a preponderence of opinion by (cough) “economists,” and what can only be considered a real shortage of any sort of engineering or other real-world viewpoints. I recall in particular one paper by a person who was suggesting an automated highway for trucks that grossly underestimated the cost of providing additional dedicated lanes for it (this was at the same time I-81 was being widened from 4 to 6 lanes in my area, so I was looking at real numbers for that project, which was in the fairly easy terrain of the Shenandoah Valley–not typical of the rest of West Virginia). He even suggested so much money could be saved by just paving a pair of running strips for the tires, eliminating the middle of the slab, figuring we wouldn’t need the rest of it because the automated driving system would keep the truck on two narrow strips of concrete. He also suggested that such a system could haul multiple trailers, much more than could be handled in mixed traffic. Funny, that sounds an awful lot like a freight railroad, with rubber tires–why bother? Phooey!
Couldn’t find that particular article, but I did find this.
http://reason.org/files/cce62e3a8ed97d31be8e1094f658968a.pdf
More recently we had the business of that new governor-elect in Wisconsin being the recipient of over half the campaign money the road-building lobby spent in that election. Make no mistake, the combination of the auto, trucking, oil, and road-construction lobbies does not like rail, and that includes an ancillary business, the auto-insurance industry. They are threatened by this, and it is a legitimate threat in their eyes–look up that Ad Age article that ran here a while back about how kids just aren’t into cars like they used to be.
Put yourself in their shoes–you have an oil dependency problem that becomes painfully acute when gasoline hits $4 per gallon, you have a saturated auto market (something like 117 vehicles in the United States for every 100 licensed drivers), you have younger people apparently abandoning the cars=freedom(tm) idea (and this trend is being accelerated by the current recession), and you also have an evironmental movement in which you are not seen as being particularly beneficial. If you were in that position, what would you do?
It would not be the first time if you recall the National City Lines case–that really did happen. I think it was for the same reasons, too–market saturation. Consider that the country was at market saturation for cars in rural areas by 1921 or so; the only real place for expansion was in urban areas, but those places had trolley cars. So National City Lines was greatly expanded (it had already existed for some time), taking over marginal trolley lines, thus eliminating the competition and building a great deal of momentum for our current car culture. The same industry was really big in the advertising field, partially because of the (then) relatively large numbers of firms involved (including Studebaker, Graham-Paige, Marmon, and other firms that mostly died in the Depression), but also because they really had to sell their product, in essence brainwashing the population.
There was another push for eliminating the competition in the 1950s. By this time, another saturation threshold had been reached (about 1 car per household then), so to keep the factories going, it was required to sell the idea of the multi-car family. There was also a lot of selling of cars on credit, including expanded credit terms to five years (until 1949, you could only finance a car for a maximum of 24 months, and it took an act of Congress to change that). Reportedly, many cars in this new sales push era were sold to people with questionable credit histories (that sounds familiar for some reason).
The remaining independents such as Studebaker and Hudson disappeared in this extremely competitive environment, and we also got the beginning of the Interstate system (which was, among other things, touted as something to fight a recession of the time period–what would be called a “stimulus” now).
Does this mean I think these firms and the people who run them are related to the Devil? Not necessarily, but they do not like rail, they see it as cutting into their livelihood, and they and their lobbyists will work mightily to keep us in our cars, despite the problems that entails.
Money is the most ruthless of masters.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
it not so much about oil as it is about stopping democrats, obama in particular and holding anything and anyone hostage they can.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:38 am
These oil company types do not want any public money spent on passenger rail – they saw a collapse in demand in 2008 here in California when oil prices hit $4.50 a gallon (in some cases higher) and prefer that the public be forced to pay those prices. In fact, overall oil consumption in California has been flat for much of the last decade, which is quite an achievement given that the population grew and sprawl had boomed.
It’s not just oil company donations that are motivating these wingnuts – they also have an ideological hostility to passenger rail, since they believe it’s obsolete and doesn’t fit their idealized vision of the 20th century lifestyle they believe we should all be forced to live.
Eric M Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I have always wondered if there was a big enough market for high speed rail to work in Florida. I love HSR (true worldwide HSR) where it makes sense, ie. CA and Northeast corridor and maybe TX, but I think Florida is a bad idea. Just personnal opinion.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Florida would probably be a good idea, if the phasing were swapped – i.e. Miami would be in phase 1, not phase 2. Orlando-Tampa is an underwhelming choice, and I believe that LaHood is giving it full funding only because the politics is (or at least seemed) straightforward and it could be a demonstration line for the technology.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
I think olrando tampa is ridiculous having been to both cities. Florida is a hillbilly ridden low income dump to begin with, especially that part. tampa-orlando miami with 110 service would be more than sufficient for florida and even then, everyone is gonna drive anyway. Its just the wrong kind of place. I hope the governor kills it and we get the money.
Nathanael Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Whole area of Florida from Orlando south is gonna sink under the waves in 50 to 100 years anyway, thanks to Bush/Obama’s failure to fight global warming. So it really is a waste of money.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Not Orlando – just South Florida (link).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
The people who park their car at the airport in the Northeast or Midwest aren’t going to be driving that car in Florida….
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
but they are going to fly into orlando if they are going to orlando not tampa?
J. Wong Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
They may not if they can get a cheaper fare into Tampa even with the train fare. I know Orlando is pretty cheap anyway because of all the competition but this will be another factor that will help keep it that way.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Or they can only fly into Tampa from their “home” airport. Or they want to go to Tampa and thee only flights from their home airport are to the nearest hub airports and Orlando. Or they want to fly into Tampa, go to Busch Gardens, spend three days in Disney World and then two days in Miami then fly home from Miami. Or someone who lives in West Palm Beach wants to go to Lakeland…
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
That and the ROW is already secured.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
That’s what I meant by “the politics is straightforward”: no lawsuits, no NIMBYs, no eminent domain. Sorry if I was unclear.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Having a ROW already secured is more than just politics ~ it reduces the cost per route mile.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
ROW acquisition is usually a small portion of the overall cost.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:18 am
That can depend on the location. For a freeway in an expensive built-up area, very often the right-of-way acquisition is the major cost component, and can sink a project. This is a serious constraint in the Washington, DC area; some of those roads were in fields years ago, and now those fields are filled with million-dollar condos and bazillion dollar office parks and malls, most of them relatively new, some quite new. A little expensive to tear them down. That doofus, Wendell Cox, has suggested in such situations that the roads be double-decked, but that’s an expensive job, the viaducts that will run for miles will be a maintenance sink, and the lower level will be driving in a most depressing, gloomy environment. Who wants that?
An interesting thing about Florida and its interest in HSR is that this was originally driven by a traffic study by that state’s DOT that suggested projected growth, if it continued at the rate they had been observing, would, over a relatively short time, require an additional 44 new lanes of road capacity running the length of Florida. Yes, you read that right, 44 (forty-four) lanes! It was a shock! One wonders if the growth will continue between the economy and the peak oil problem, but still, you have a long interest in rail in Florida, and a lot of history, too; Florida, and its resorts, owes a great deal to one Henry Flagler and his Florida East Coast Railway.
Couldn’t find any citations on that 44-lane road study, but I did find these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_expressways_in_Florida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_East_Coast_Railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morrison_Flagler
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Speaking of the FEC tickles those old brain cells, and brings to mind that it ran no further north than Jacksonville, Fla. Its traffic largely originated in New York City, and was handled, relay-fashion, by trains running over the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Richmond, Fredricksburg & Potomac Railway, and the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line (two parallel and rival roads, prior to a 1960s merger to form the Seaboard Coast Line, now part of CSX).
The joint trains operated by these roads had some wonderful names, among them a seasonal train called the Orange Blossom Special on the SAL. Noted trains from the streamliner era included the Silver Meteor, Silver Comet, and Silver Star; later, the Auto Train would be started, originally as a private operation, and continued today under Amtrak. This routing to Florida remained popular through the deciline in passenger services, and remained profitable long after other trains fell into the red. It still has multiple long-distance Amtrak trains today, a rarity outside the NEC.
It is worth noting in light of the recent discussion of a new NEC that Amtrak’s former president, David Gunn, once said his choice for a big capital improvement project would be to extend electrification south, perhaps as far as the Carolinas; he saw huge traffic potential in the population growth there. I’ll leave it to the imagination to figure out how he planned to do this for a railroad he did not own, but it is interesting to think about–and in terms of the real world of traffic on I-95 and the oil question, I think it makes sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaboard_Air_Line_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Line_Railroad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Fredericksburg_and_Potomac_Railroad
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 9:31 am
More brain cell tickling going on, this one in the “foamer mode” (somebody warn Dork!) :-)
Most eastern roads had rather conservative diesel and streamliner paint schemes, but the roads in the Florida tourist trade could rival the western lines for art-deco era color.
The SAL’s “citrus fruit” color scheme; the prewar version was even splashier, with silver trucks and running gear:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=243833
The ACL had an unusual paint scheme, featuring silver and purple; photo here appears to be at the EMD plant in LaGrange, Ill., when the unit was new in the late 1930s:
http://www.thedieselshop.us/ACL.HTML
RF&P was very conservative in comparison, but like the B&O just to the north, drew on the Civil War heritage of its territory for a blue and grey paint scheme, shared by both freight and passenger diesels:
http://www.rfandp.org/
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 9:39 am
OK, the last of this for now: FEC’s red and yellow:
http://www.getcruising.com/rails/_fec.html
General Florida passenger train link from the above.
http://www.getcruising.com/rails/
Have fun.
Brian Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
ROW acquisition might be a small part of the financial cost, but it is politically very costly. If it really was so easy to obtain ROW, then why wasn’t SF-SJ or LA-Anaheim selected first? It also seems a large amount of commenting here is about ROW and where to route HSR – even down to minor route adjustments to avoid a dozen homes in Bakersfield. FDOT made a choice a long time ago to use highway ROW to reduce its costs (both financial and other) so that HSR could get built faster. @jimsf Having lived here in Florida for the past 13 years, it is not all hillbillies and rednecks. Rather, there are also alot of New Yorkers and northeasterners. Having been to California myself, your state is not free of rednecks either. Enough of the namecalling and stereotyping!
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
When you include the planning horizon and the way that delays and uncertainties in finalizing a new alignment lead to both project creep and to expenditure of fixed nominal authorizations in out years when they don’t go as far, the cost of having to acquire a ROW is substantially higher than just the “ROW acquisition” row in the budget.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I think the White House should put the pressure on Scott’s new regime: Make up your mind or you lose out.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Maybe sign contingency agreements with CA and other states: You are entitled to so and so much more if Florida ends up saying no, and so and so much if they keep their money.
Donk Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
“Scott reiterated previous statements about the project, saying he wants to make sure that a high-speed rail line is a good deal for Florida.”
He wants to make sure it is good deal for Florida!???!!! You mean an almost completely free HSR system?!??!
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
It has to “pay for itself”, I’m guessing. I like how he couldn’t say what he meant by “good deal”.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
If CA were to get all of FL’s money, it would probably have enough to build Sylmar-Bakersfield instead of a CV segment. This would be much more useful, both as an independent HSR (with an electrified shared-track segment going into LA) and as an Amtrak extender. Once you get into LA, the natural choice of where to extend as more funding materializes is as far north into the Bay Area as possible. And if trains start running before there’s construction north of Fresno, then the Pacheco vs. Altamont question could be revisited in light of real ridership data.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Agreed. And the San Joaquins are fast enough already that HSR from LA to Bako + the San Joaquins would provide a compelling travel option for much of the CV. Especially given the lack of air connections in the CV south of SAC.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
I think you are pretty far off. If you get florida money, match it and throw in all the rest of the money, you are still under $10 bn. It is a little hard to say, but our best guess is that BK to Sylamr is $15 bn.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
And oh yeah. The fed dollars have all all these deadlines attached for environmental review, none of which will be met for Bk- Sylmar.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
I honestly have no idea what the cost of Bakersfield-Sylmar will escalate to. I don’t think anyone does. On the one hand, it’s geologically the most difficult and budget overrun-prone segment. On the other hand, there isn’t as much room for scope creep like long urban aerials. It seems like the place where honest escalations are the most likely and dishonest ones are the least likely.
The environmental review bits are a problem, though – I didn’t think of that.
Nathanael Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
The EIR issue is the reason the ARRA money isn’t going south of Bakersfield, pretty much.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
This would be true if the original (december 2009) cost estimates had not been completely detached from reality. This had 6.2 miles of tunnels, 1.3 miles on a structure and 68 miles at grade. The total cost, including electrification, signaling, communications, program managment was $59 million/ mile.
The reality, at least according to the AA released in September, is that virtually the entire route will be in a tunnel or on an aerial structure. If we use the Fresno- Bakersfield costing as a baseline, let’s say this segment will be conservatively 30% higher, leading to costing of $120 million/ mile. The real estimate is 100% higher than the number thrown out last year. Someone should be in trouble.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
C’mon, read the article, he is not “wavering on HSR”, he is refusing to walk into the trap of the question asking if he’ll support going ahead with the system even if the feasibility study condemns it as totally infeasible. “Refused to be drawn out” is not equal to “wavering”, it is equal to “refuses to answer the question posed that way.”
Daniel Krause Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Saying you want to do more feasiblity study at this point in the game seems very shakey to me. I do suspect however, he will support it given the 100% federal funding. However, the suggestion to have a contigency contract signed by another state before the end of the year is a great idea.
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
why in crap does florida get a free freakin deal. Screw that. We pay and pay and pay and pay. all the damn money should come here. I hope he folds. what a bunch of bs. screw florida.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Florida bought the ROW when they rebuilt I-4 years ago. So California has lines in their budget of r ROW acquisition, legal fees, etc. Florida can say “we have the place to build it, ready for it”
jimsf Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
ugh. tampa to orlando. wow. no one is gonna use it. florida people dont use public transportation. they are very similar to texans.
Joey Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Not even Tampa to Orlando. Tampa to Orlando airport. So yeah, ridership potential is rather bleak. By the way though, certain light rail lines in Texas have had at least moderate success.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:52 am
And by “certain,” what’s meant is that the Dallas system is embarrassing, but Houston’s single line is one of the few anywhere in the US with decent ridership per dollar spent.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Until now most of them have never had a viable public transportation alternative to use.
Nathanael Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
It’s not clear the Florida system is going to be viable. The Tampa end is fine, but the Orlando end is ridiculous.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
With a platform-crossing interchange station with Sunrail, the Orlando end seems to have a single transfer straight through pretty much whatever downtown exists in Orlando. Direct escalators / steps from each platform to each platform gives easy both direction transfer. And with the massive fields of asphalt that they are sure to plant in the suburban stations, there’s no need for parking at that crossover: it could be a closed platform interchange station.
But even though committing to the Sunrail was supposed to be part of the deal to getting the Florida HSR funding, I don’t see any evidence of any planning to support direct platform to platform transfers between the two systems.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Your pay and pay and pay, though, was in part your Governor’s decision to take the maximum amount of state match allowed under Prop1A(2008) and make that the offered state match in the application. Its also in part that Florida’s project cost for their Stage 1 was more in line with the funding capacity of the Stimulus HSR funds than your Stage 1.
Peter Reply:
December 11th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Do you guys at CA4HSR know anyone at USDOT who could be asked about setting up such a contingency agreement?
synonymouse Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I suggest that Chinese government involvement with the CHSRA is less and less likely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/world/asia/13japan.html
On the other hand Japanese companies are very likely to be very assertive hsr bidders as the US-Japan alliance is tighter than ever.
Since Japan has shown no reluctance to take on infrastructure projects perhaps even more challenging than Tejon base tunnels would that a consortium of Japanese experts and companies could perform an audit of the CHSRA scheme.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
What does this have to do with a contingency agreement for Florida surrendering its HSR funds?
Anyway, Japanese investment in CA’s HSR system would be perfectly acceptable as well. They already pledged a $40 billion investment. I think that China may still offer the best deal to CA, but Japan would be acceptable, as well.
I still see no reason why Japan or China would want to reopen the Tejon-Antelope Valley debate. Either would be more interested in seeing the system built quickly, in order to get its foot in the door in the U.S. market as early as possible, than waste time rehashing an issue that has already been resolved.
synonymouse Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
They would be interested in profitability potential and can recognize the liability of 30 extra miles of extra trackage and wire(actually 60).
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Unless the Japanese (who also have considerable earthquake experience) decided that surface running was the better choice in a combined matrix of initial cost, maintenance cost (both for track and tunnel), and earthquake risk.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Yes, they definitely would be interested in the profitability potential of serving Fresno and Bakersfield on the mainline, versus bypassing them via I-5 and having to build one or two very long spurs, which would completely negate the “30 extra miles of extra trackage and wire(actually 60)”. allegedly saved by your/Tolmach’s Tejon scheme.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
And the benefit of Fresno and Bakersfield as fare revenue generators ~ not only as origins, but, given the number of people raised in the San Joaquin who end up finding work in other parts of the states, likely also as destinations ~ with 1hr to 2hr trips to both the LA Basin and Bay Region.
With their long experience in running successful rail operations, the Japanese won’t be trapped into disregarding the benefits of multiple overlapping origin/destination pairs on the stronger corridor with the point-to-point surface-airplane model of the Tolmach Tejon Boondoggle.
just a thought but here in the uk the plan is to have 250mph / 400kph trains as 220mph is now in use elsewhere so the thinking is that by the time the line IS open (i am being optimistic but dont see why not!) 250mph will be the normal new hsl line speed.
if this were used in california then the trains could still maintain the required point to point times but not need to go as fast through towns. over here i cant see trains running at 150mph plus on aerials through the middle of towns – people are going insane about building the uk hs line through so-called open countryside even though it will mostly follow a busy highway and a disused railway formation !
we do have 125mph trains that run through the middle of the town where i am and i am quite close to the tracks but cant say the noise is very intrusive it is not as annoying as the planes coming over or the roar from the motorway – and that is further away on the other side of the woods !
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I believe that portions of the system are being built to be able to support 250 mph, as that will likely be required for certification of the trains at 220 mph (10 percent over 220 mph is 242 mph).
How fast the trains actually end up running through the CV cities is still up in the air, but the system is required to be able to meet a 2:40 maximum time for a non-stop train between San Francisco and Los Angeles Union Station. The wisdom of actually running at the speeds necessary to achieve that time is debatable, yet that’s what the statutory requirements are.
It could also be that the operator, whoever that may end up being, decides that having trains skip both Bakersfield and Fresno is unnecessary, eliminating the 220 mph express trains going through those towns.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I think they should offer at least a handful of sf-la true express trains. Even if its only a couple in each direction each day. Id run them as all business/first with a premium fare and they would sell out everyday. Id have one leave sf at 6a arrive in la by 840a for the morning meetings and one leave sf by 9a arrive by 1140a for lunch meetings with the same sked in the opposite direction.
the for the pm returns, a 1pm arriving back at 340p before the end of workday, and 4p arriving 640p
or something thereabouts. m-f. There is surely enough business types who would flock to these departures in order to have an all business ( no tourists, no kids, no etc) travel experience.
And with so many trains per hour/day (locals and limiteds) it wouldn’t cut into availability to any noticeable amount.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
the limiteds should serve sf-sj-fno-la
every 30 minutes on the half hour
and the locals serve all stops.
every 30 minutes on the quarter hour.
5am-10pm
then one local per hour at 11p 12, 1a 2a 3a 4a
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
No no no Jim. According to the proposed schedules there’s going to hordes of people just dying to get on the 5:05 so they can be in LA at 7:45 and no one is going to want to leave SF or LA after the 9 PM departure….
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
huh? they need to be slapped. can anyone link me to these so called proposed skeds please
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
The line has a late night curfew for ongoing regular maintenance. Just like, you know, France and them.
Of course, in Spain what they do is the late evening train is a conventional rail sleeper with substantially cheaper tickets, arriving Madrid or Barcelona in the morning before Start of Business hours.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
ok well bart uses that excuse too. but ok then, they can run either every 90 minutes over night or they can reduce to gap to
last train at 2am- first train at 5am. thats a 3 hour window.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
3 hours maintenance curfew? You expecting the US to go to a 5 day, 25 hour workweek in the near term future? Indeed, it seems like a 3 hour maintenance curfew, and they’d have to throw in periodic line closures during regular service time, which would seem to be a fairly incompetent operating system design for an intercity corridor passenger railroad. A midnight to 5am curfew would seem to be a sensible target.
Hence the first train out of LA-US and SF-TBT are Limited Express, which by legislation can arrive 7:40 at the other, allowing substantial time for connections, and another at 8:10 and 8:40. The regional all-stations would be mostly early morning runs leaving before the LS or SF semi-express or all-stations can get to the CV stations, and arriving ahead of the Ltd Express, and similarly in the evening.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Bruce, the maintenance train and the people staffing it have to get to where they are going which means setting up the car/train. And shutting it down at the end of the shift. Actual work out on the tracks might be 4 or 5 hours out of an 8 hour day. Since, in the dead of night, there’d be a train coming through once an hour in each direction, they could single track.
Real world railroad serving real world Americans – the Northeast Corridor is up and running almost 24/7. But not all of the track or all of it during the dead of night.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 12:34 am
“Actual work out on the tracks might be 4 or 5 hours out of an 8 hour day.”
There’s your five hour curfew. And, sure, the NEC is up and running almost 24/7, except when its not, but on the other hand, its not an Express HSR rail corridor either. Certainly in Spain, given the practice of having the late night train after the last HSR of the evening be a sleeper train on the conventional rail network, the conventional rail network must be open to late night service, unlike the HSR corridors.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
The late night curfew also allows them to avoid most of the late night noise impact penalty for environmental review considerations.
Arthur Dent Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Yes and no. For the ROWs where aerial structures are introduced which include the freight tracks, night noise will increase. The EIR will (or should) take a hit as a result.
Maintenance is a nightly event – how noisy is it?
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Quite noisy if they’re grinding the tracks. Should be less frequent for HSR though, as it won’t have freight trains pounding the tracks. But they wouldn’t be doing maintenance everywhere every night. I think that will be one of the issues dealt with in the Statement of Overriding Considerations.
Arthur Dent Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that the tolerance levels of HSR tracks did require nightly maintenance everywhere every night. Anyone?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Nightly inspection. They don’t grind the tracks every night.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
There are a range of them, since of course they are notional schedules until the business model is decided, and if a franchise business model is decided upon, what the CHSRA will determine is minimum service levels, not route design philosophy. The 2009 Business Plan schedule (page 5 [sheet 9/15]) is a mix of regional all-stations, semi-express, and express service.
Obviously a franchise winner that presently operates a station skipper schedule is more likely to do that, a franchise winner that presently operates a regular service tier schedule is more likely to do that.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I don’t like that schedule and its written in a way that no one will be able to decipher.
when oh when will they learn.
Don’t ask me how to do though, after all I’ve only been answering questions from the general public for 30 years.
ugh.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Chill, no one will likely ever have to deal with this schedule. It’s just an illustration of how it might work.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
ok but I know they are going to make it difficult. trust me.
Joey Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
It’s not that difficult to read. The numbers in the grid represent the elapsed time since the start of the trip. A | means that the train does not stop there. Numbers on top represent the headway for that particular service pattern. Anyway, by the time people are actually riding it, there will be a real timetable.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Its not a passenger timetable. Indeed, given that I think there is no way in Hades that the CHSRA will adopt the direct public operation business model, no model requires them to compose and publish a passenger timetable and its only a possibility under one of them.
Its straightforward to set up an excel spreadsheet and generate a timetable from the service outline they provide. Just be sure to use “$” when setting up the follow-on departures so that when you sort it by time at various locations, you don’t mess up the departure time.
And, no, I don’t like the station skippers. Regular service tiers and clockface schedules are easier to use as anchors to build local transport services on.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
The proposed schedules are lurking somewhere on the official website. 8 departures from SF or LAS between 5AM and 6AM. Last departure of the day at 9PM.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
the schedule from la and sf should look like this clockface/memory as follows:
1200a local
0100a local
0200a local
0300a local
0400a local
0500a local
0515a ltd
0530a local
0545a limited sfc sjc fno lax
0600a express sfc lax
0615a limited sfc sjc fno lax
0630a local
0645a limited
0700a local
0715a limited sfc sjc fno lax
0730a local
and so on with locals on the half hour and limiteds on the quarter hour until 10pm.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
if you make it simple and striaghtforward like that everyone will learn it and confirm to it.
of course that isn’t going to happen. instead what we will get is very confusing and arbitrary schedule and it will printed and posted in such a way that passengers are not able to decipher it. People will constantly miss their trains. They will confuse the weekend sked with the weekday sked. they will read the wrong lines, confuses am for pm and, with no 24 hour service, wind up being stranded overnight in train stations. All of which can be avoided if the people in charge make decisions based on whats best for the passengers rather than whats best according to some marketing consultant.
But whatever good luck.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Passengers in a number of European countries cope with HSR corridors being closed in the middle of the night without any dramatic problems of being stranded in train stations. That is, Europeans seem to have this uncanny knack of being able to learn when the “last train” is.
A regional rail transit service should run ongoing night trains to keep the network open, but the drop off in transport demand for after midnight arrivals makes after midnight a perfectly reasonable time to put in the HSR maintenance curfew.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Passengers in a number of European countries cope with HSR corridors being closed in the middle of the night without any dramatic problems of being stranded in train stations. That is, Europeans seem to have this uncanny knack of being able to learn when the “last train” is.
well yes because Europeans are literate.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Quite substantial illiterate portions of populations in countries such as India, the Southern Cone of South America, and nations of southern Africa are also capable of of grasping the “last train” concept.
Though it is not implausible that large numbers of Americans will prove less competent than illiterate migrant workers in Argentina ~ guess they will just have to catch a cab to an Amtrak station and find out if there are any night trains.
jimsf Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
lol.
well there aren’t any such trains, which is why I always wind up putting a few on the street when I lock the doors.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
You are working in 2020 and popping back to 2010 to chat with us? kewl.
jimsf Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
got one o them time machines.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
But to be certified to operate at 250mph, a sufficient length of test track must be built to accommodate 275mph test operation.
Joey Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I think we’re confusing terminology here. In any case, trains typically operate at 90% of the design speed. So if the line is designed for 250 mph, they will operate at 225.
Eric M Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
But if you want to run them at 250mph like Bruce said, they must be certified above and beyond 250. You don’t run them at 250 if they are only certified to 250.
nick in the uk Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
here i believe 250 mph / 400 kph is intended to be the line speed
BruceMcF Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Yes, and if we want to raise that to 250mph to gain a couple of minutes to spend on dropping down to 160mph in +/- 1.5miles of central urban stations with Express bypass, we need a line design speed of 275mph.
We have some news on this now spreading throughout google
political_incorrectness Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=7835698
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
So, do we now know that they’re definitely planning the Corcoran bypass? Do we have a reference for this?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I’ve seen a few stories about this, but so far there’s no details yet. And it’s a damn good question about the Corcoran bypass.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I was just looking at the backup maps and data, and it would appear that they would have HAD to build part of the Corcoran aerial as part of Alternative 1, to the exclusion of building the bypass.
My guess is that they (staff) wanted to build the Corcoran bypass, and they just had not yet released a revised Supplemental AA withdrawing the Corcoran aerial because they needed to choose the Corcoran aerial alternative in order to meet the independent utility requirements of the ARRA funding. Now that they have more money, they can afford to skip the aerial and still meet independent utility by interconnecting to BNSF just outside of Bakersfield..
political_incorrectness Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Based off the Authority’s figures of $4.15 billion for the segment and 65 miles of track, it will cost almost $64 million per mile or $40 million per kilometer if 1 mile=1.609 km. That is within the cost of a Japanese HSL under construction at the time. “A review of HSR experiences around the world” by Campos , Javier, de Rus, Gines and Barron, Ignacio from 2007. I do wonder if this is including the ariel feature in Corocan. If this can be placed at ground level, this would reduce the cost drastically and allow for extension of the line further north.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
The 65 mile figure was for 54 miles of high speed rail alignment and 11 miles for possible connectors to BNSF. A better calculation is 54/ $4 billion (leave out reserve) = $74 million plus money for passing tracks in Fresno plus electrification plus communications and maybe a maintenance facility. We think $85 million / mile is a good estimate for Fresno – Bakersfield, given the Bakersfield structure is even longer than the Fresno one.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Given that both the bypass and aerial options are planned to run through at least part of the Pixley Wildlife Refuge with a mile long “rail bridge” (not the same as a “viaduct”), I can’t see why they would choose the technically difficult and much more expensive aerial option
nick in the uk Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
i thought you said pixey wildlife refuge !!!!!!!!!!!!! i had visions of rail lines diverted to avoid fairies ! sorry i obviously dont live in california
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
“sorry i obviously dont live in california”
I had never heard of the place before talking about HSR through this area myself, so no worries. ;)
YesonHSR Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
With 2011s funding its a good chance this can go all the way to Bakersfield.. we should be able to get a large amount of that money as Florida has been receiving quite a bit and have almost their entire funding The current governor elect is not about to put any more money into it at this point. saying private compnays should finish their project .We should be able to get at least 500 to $700 million with our 20% match.
CAHSRA better get their lawyer involved in the decision this time before the next board meeting.
is that where all those opposed to hsl live ??? you know away with the fairies /pixies !!!!
Here’s a map I drew of the likely new first construction phase. It includes the Corcoran and Wasco/Shafter bypasses, but not the bypass for the Allensworth State Historic Park. And it begins in Borden along the UPRR alignment, not with the connector to BNSF.
Risenmessiah Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I think it’s much more likely that Fresno to Bakersfield will get built, and any alignment north of Fresno will be subject to further study. The independent utility requirement is not coterminus with where stations are. So it’s very possible that HSR tracks will merge with BNSF just outside Fresno and Bakersfield. Then the line is built between Fresno and Bakersfield station but the cities are required to pitch in for the stations themselves.
> Passengers in a number of European countries cope with HSR corridors being closed in the middle of the night without any dramatic problems of being stranded in train stations. That is, Europeans seem to have this uncanny knack of being able to learn when the “last train” is.
Many countries with HSR also operate some sort of night train or bus service, which operates when the HSR is shut down.
Peter Reply:
December 12th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
There’s nothing that would prevent the HSR operator from running an all-stop sleeper service at reduced speed using a few modified trainsets.
thatbruce Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Or an alternative operator. Hrm.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Nothing, other than it’s not always cost-effective. The sleepers that run parallel to the Shinkansen aren’t marketed as night trains replacing the Shinkansen, but as night trains to much more distant locations.