Saturday Open Thread
Hope you all are enjoying this lazy Saturday. For your weekend reading, hop over to Clem’s blog and read about how to save half a billion dollars at the Millbrae station. A teaser:
Yes, there are difficult design constraints. Yes, this proposed design violates a few engineering specifications and even some regulations. Yes, it will be politically challenging to infringe on BART. But when a half billion dollars hangs in the balance, it’s time to work smarter and not harder. It would be reckless and irresponsible not to explore a compromise solution, through a carefully considered combination of design exceptions, regulatory waivers, and inter-agency agreements. Taxpayers should demand it.
I’ll co-sign this. If we are going to build the kind of sustainable infrastructure that the state and the country needs, we have to be willing to make some changes to the way things are usually done. If there’s a better and cheaper way to build something that is being blocked by some regulations – and particularly if we can still provide safe operations even with revised regulations – then that should be explored at minimum.
Robert wrote:
“we have to be willing to make some changes to the way things are usually done”
You are being pretty coy, Robert, obviously obscure.
So are you taking the track, that CEQA should just be ignored as an example? Maybe also many of the financial and oversight restraints present in Prop 1A also?
Jack Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
CEQA was not designed for projects of this Magnitude.
Peter Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Given that Robert was talking specifically about how Clem has come up with a cheaper way to build Millbrae, I doubt he was referring to ignoring CEQA. He was more likely referring to the OTHER rules and regulations that are making constructing HSR difficult, such as GO-26D and the FRA crashworthiness regulations.
Stop putting words in people’s mouths.
VBobier Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Morris(the Cat) brown = Synonymouse… I doubt They’ll stop until It’s built and running…
joe Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Oh heck, tax San Mateo County residents to build their 500M dollar station.
YesonHSR Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Cats have nine lives .. hopefully this ones is over soon
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Yes, Robert was most certainly referring to the FRA “crashworthiness” rules (because we plan to have crashes, we must make our trains worthy of crashing) and the *truly* obsolete CPUC rules.
If you’d bothered to go to Clem’s site, you’d have seen that these were the regulations causing the bad design.
The CPUC regulations don’t even allow for overhead electrification at 25kV. They require space for men to hang off the side of the train . They don’t allow high platforms. They MUST be changed in order to build ANY form of high speed rail.
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
By “If you’d bothered”, I referred of course to Morris, not to Peter.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
I have been on record since November 2009 calling for reforms to CEQA.
Hello, quick question for the group. I just saw “The Tourist” on DVD, pretty good, nice scenery. They take a train from Paris to Venice which I think is the new AGV train. I think I heard this train is the one that will be used by a private rail company to go from Italy to London. Anybody seen the movie? Is this the same train? Is it in service yet? Will it also go to Paris? Thanks
One thing that has been on the back of my mind lately is that the US is so far behind in railroads whether it be intercity or local trains, how are they going to find people who can operate trains?
Not to be a sour pickle, but I don’t want some any run of the mill ‘shmo running trains that carry 500+ passengers going at 100+ mph. The Chatsworth Metrolink disaster was bad enough…
And another thing, if I wanted to become a conductor/engineer myself, is there even a school that’ll teach me this? I mean a bus, all you need is a Class B commercial license, but what about trains?
Peter Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
My best guess is that any operator who hires you to operate its trains will offer complete training.
Andre Peretti Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:25 am
KTX sent its staff to France to be trained by SNCF, so that its staff was 100% Korean from the start.
Taiwan chose a different solution, maybe because its trains were Japanese and training on TGVs made no sense. It contracted SNCF-International to operate the company while training local staff. The percentage of French staff was planned to gradually decrease from 100% to 0%.
This percentage is now being reached and in-cab screen displays are being switched from English to Chinese.
The world monopoly SNCF-I has on staff training owes much to the generous benefit packages enjoyed by SNCF staff. Most can retire at 55 (50 for drivers) with full retirement pension. If they can pass a (very elementary) foreign-language exam they can start a second career with SNCF-International. There is no shortage of volunteers, which explains SNCF-I can respond almost instantly to any demand from any foreign country.
2 years ago, SNCF-I had some problems with French fiscal services when it was discovered that staff working in Taiwan were paid through a sub-branch called “Rail consultants Ltd” conveniently headquartered in the tax-free Isle of Man. The unions, usually quick to denounce any capitalist excess, had kept remarkably silent about it.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I believe the freight railroads in the US offer basic training for entry-level positions, and promote from within, with additional training. But because it’s all the same union, there’s probably a lot of horizontal movement, i.e. someone from UP who moves east will be hired at full seniority by CSX.
VBobier Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Actually that “Union” is not really a “Union”, It’s the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
David Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Brotherhood, League, Association, Federation, Guild, Union. They are just different names for the same thing, an organization that negotiates employment contracts on behalf of their members.
Clem Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
You seem to assume that high-speed rail places the fates of passengers into the hands of the train engineer, sort of like an airplane. Not so… computers don’t make mistakes.
Ken Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
That could be said the same thing with planes; lots of stuff inside the cockpit are automated, but you still need a pilot and co-pilot.
The Shinkansen too requires two people to operate even though many of it is computerized. And Shinkansen operators are one of the highest paid jobs in Japan.
Considering that becoming a train engineer might be a good career choice for future, I’d really want to learn how to operate a train, let alone a high speed train.
Joey Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
If all else fails any and every train in the system can be remotely stopped by signaling. That’s not the case with planes.
Alex2000 Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Not to nitpick, but the Shinkansen actually runs with one Engineer.
Good youtube clip from a TV show Shinkansen cab ride-along: http://bit.ly/h6R6RO
Alon Levy Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
One engineer and one conductor – i.e. one pilot and one
stewardair host.Andre Peretti Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
A Shinkansen driver constantly receives orders from the control center and must pass a number of defined points within a few seconds of the set time. A train is considered late when it is more than 59 seconds late, and this rarely happens.
By contrast, TGV drivers are most of the time on automatic, switching to manual mostly on approach to stations. Lateness has been defined by negociations with drivers’ unions. They obtained that a driver arriving 5 minutes late will still get his punctuality bonus. That’s why TGVs arriving 5 minutes late are not such a rarity.
A TGV driver subjected to the same treatment as his Japanese counterparts would probably sue the company for harassment.
joe Reply:
March 26th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
I take issue with the infallibility of computers – safety will require human oversight.
Train safety is far less complex a problem than airplane safety.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_system
http://hf.tc.faa.gov/capabilities/ctas.htm
Nevertheless, system software will cost hundreds of dollars per line.
Kevin Hecteman Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 12:49 am
There are several schools around the country that will teach you basic skills, viz:
http://www.scc.losrios.edu/Documents/catalog/programs/RAILR.pdf
http://www.modocrailroadacademy.com/
http://www.railroadtraining.com/
Whoever hires you would train you in their way of doing things, although most every Class I, regional and short line in the U.S. uses the General Code of Operating Rules.
And nobody, so far as I know, gets hired as an engineer right off the street. Plan on putting in some time (as in years) as a brakeman/switchman/conductor before you’re eligible.
Yeah, we’re decades behind in terms of passenger trains, but in the three decades since the Staggers Act became law, this country has built up a rather good freight system.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:00 am
Step 1: Have Spaniards build everything. (In metres and kilograms, even.)
Step 2: Don’t bother translating the “how to drive/repair this train” manuals or the “how to bid on this contract” documents.
Step 3: Both the Amtrak and PBQD problems are solved! Your train system gets built for 1/3 the cost, runs three times as efficiently and carries twice as many passengers.
The evidence is conclusive and irrefutable: English causes irreparable fatal passenger transportation brain damage.
Emma Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 10:36 am
Exactly! I really don’t see why rail projects have to be all-American. It’s just more expensive and more time-consuming. Bahrain-Qatar high speed rail is built by Deutsche Bahn. They show DB the money and say “here is how much we have, give us the best HSR system that this money can buy”.
I really don’t see why we always have to re-invent the wheel.
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Because changing the Federal Buy American law requires going through the fscking US Senate, which is the World’s Worst Elected Legislative Body. Perhaps to work on that problem, you should go over to some of the political blogs Mr. Cruickshank posts at. :-)
Ken Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Problem with CA is that we live in earthquake country so standards are much more higher.
Safer bet is to have the Japanese bring their Shinkansen over to us. 9.0Mw earthquake and skyscrapers in Tokyo still standing and bullet trains automatically shutting off keeping hundred of passengers safe and the rails still running is quite an engineering feat that could be imported to CA.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Traditionally (i.e, in the steam era), “operating” employees used to have to study a railroad’s operational rulebook and an appropriate employee’s timetable (which is not the same as one issued to the public) for 30 days, and also make a certain number of “student” trips to become familiar with the division over which he would operate. There would be no pay for this. You would then have to take an examination, both written and oral, on the operating rules; you needed 100% to pass.
If you passed this test, you would make some more student trips (this time getting paid) under the eyes of senior employees, after which you would be marked into a seniority roster (list). Traditionally, these senior employees could be pretty rough on the students, but those who have gone through this will tell you there was a reason for it; the railroad environment can be very unforgiving of human error, and it’s easy to be hurt or killed (or hurt or kill another employee) if something goes wrong. Very often that something that could go wrong might be miles from any sort of help or aid; you had then (and now) to earn the trust of fellow employees for them to be comfortable with you.
Once you were marked up, as a new employee, you would be on what would be called an “extra” list. This means you would be “on call,” for extra trains, employee absences or relief, and so on; sometimes you may not work for weeks, other times as much as you are allowed by an hours-of-service law that dates (with modifications) back to 1916 or so. That hours-of-service law, or “hog law,” was an early attempt to prevent problems with crew fatigue; there are many accounts from the 19th century of employees working for days without rest, with the resulting accidents.
(For really good descriptions of working conditions in the 19th century, I highly recommend “The General Manager’s Story,” by Herbert Hamblen, published in 1898, and “Railroad Man,” by Chauncey del French, published in 1930 or so. “Railroad Man” is an autobiography; “The General Manager’s Story” is a novel in first-person style, but was written by a man who had been in engine service for 16 years. It’s interesting to note that this novel, with some blood-curdling accident descriptions, was written by a fellow whose writing career was more in juvenile literature.)
Your eventual ranking in the seniority roster (which some really old-timers used to call “whiskers,” but don’t do that today!) would eventually give you “bidding rights” on favored jobs, which normally meant a scheduled train with something resembling regular hours.
Promotion or bidding on a new position (i.e., to move from being a fireman to an engineer, or from a brakeman to a conductor) meant starting over (although with pay), with another rules examination, more student trips, and a turn on the extra board until you got seniority to bid on desirable jobs. These aspects of railroading remain the same today, although unfortunately, there are fewer regularly scheduled trains; most freight trains today are run as “extras,” which is to say they run when they are needed, not on a fixed timetable, and there are, as you well know, very few passenger trains compared with the past.
Instruction, however, has changed considerably. Today just about every Class I railroad and Amtrak has a formal classroom instruction program, followed by further instruction under operating conditions. Amtrak and the remaining 4 or 5 big carriers also have locomotive simulators; Southern Pacific may have been the first carrier to start using these, back in the 1960s.
There are also railroad academies out there as well. One that does some advertising is called the Modoc Railroad Academy, and it’s in California. There are likely others, but I’m not familiar with them. If you’re interested, the site for Modoc is below:
http://www.modocrailroadacademy.com/
Good luck, I hope this may work for you.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
They’re planning to hire Simpson. Homer Simpson. He’s the greatest guy in history. Duh.
Ken Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Sacramento, hmm… same state but a bit too far for me to make the move to attend classes there. Sigh…
I think this is one big part of the equation that’s missing in rail jobs: not enough schools to teach the skills necessary to becoming a rail conductor/engineer.
Part of me thinks that this lies in the perception that railroad jobs are dirty and hard sweaty type of jobs because so much of it is freight rail than carrying passengers here in the US. In Japan, it’s the other way around; train operators are highly sought after white collar professionals earning six figure incomes. They are trained and licensed professional who hold certification requirements similar to commercial pilots and ATP certifications as they hold the controls to hundreds, if not thousands of passengers per day. I mean, there’s a different certification to fly a FedEx plane to say United Airlines, right?
I was quite impressed when I saw the shift change occurring at the Kyushu Shinkansen in Kagoshima; the train operators were dressed pilots, came in with briefcases, and saluted each other like pilots.
If we really want to get rail going in the US, we need funding for more schools that teaches such skills to becoming a passenger rail engineer. There’s just too few out there here in the US.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Err, why? There’s absolutely no need for it. All Class I railroads, and I believe most of the rest, train anyone hired off the street for free.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
The engineers on the LIRR are working something like 12 revenue-hours per week. If anything, there are too many engineers on mainline rail in the US – and if I were CAHSR I’d seriously consider offering various agencies around the country a swap agreement, in which CAHSR hires their surplus employees so that they can reduce staff without pissing off the union, and in exchange they join CAHSR in requesting the FRA to drop dead.
Looks like the Authority is considering at-grade tracks through Fresno now. From the Fresno Bee:
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/03/26/2326033/fresno-rail-may-descend-from-sky.html
If they do, I think we’ll be seeing an east-side of the UP alignment. This is an expected development. I thought they were set on the viaduct. Looks like the costs of 12 miles of aerial is too much, even against the restructuring of two freeways.
Paul H. Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:16 am
*unexpected development
AndyDuncan Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:29 am
That’s great news, hopefully they won’t have to sacrifice speeds. Putting the trains at grade would be preferable for just about every reason, if it’s possible.
I’m starting to like the new Adult Supervision at the Authority.
AndyDuncan Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:31 am
Perhaps this Milbrae cluster-____ can be van Arked as well.
Clem Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 11:24 am
“Reducing the number of overhead structures not only lowers the cost of the project, Wall said, “it reduces the visual and environmental impacts for communities.”
Then why in the world were they ever planned in the first place?!??
Alan F Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Possibly because of the private land that would have to be acquired for ground level tracks, the disruption to local traffic and moving local roads. Now that they have some real funding and more solid political support, go for the less expensive options but which will involve more disruption during construction. Eminent domain of private land can be a problem if someone insists dragging the process out in court even if you offer to buy the property at a premium to the market.
It is critical to the success of CA HSR project to keep costs under control on the first sections to be built as cost overruns and excessive cost growth will put the project at risk. Cost growth in the SF to San Jose and the route through the mountains from Bakersfield to Burbank are probably inevitable.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Possibly because of the private land that would have to be acquired for ground level tracks,
You can’t dangle an elevated structure over private property either.
Peter Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Eminent domain doesn’t slow the acquisition of the parcel. That itself is a very quick process. The government says it’s condemning the property and that’s about it. The government then owns the property. What takes time is the legal process afterwards to determine how much compensation the landowner is entitled to.
Clem Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
You make it sound as if land acquisition were expensive or difficult. It is neither. That can’t be the reason.
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
The process of claiming land which is held by another public agency (like a road) can be a big pain, and the process of claiming land from Union Pacific is of course a nightmare. But you know that.
synonymouse Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
@ Clem
Perhaps the explanation for PB’s aerial planning is a torqued extension of the not invented here. Obviously neither at grade or elevated was invented by PB but it acts as if had the patent on pouring concrete.
YesonHSR Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Speed.. and the fact you have for every stupid idiot that has an idea about what the streetlights should look like with the overpass or underpass and other nonsense that has to go to 12 layers of bureaucracy and make sure every self-righteous know it all is satisfied that’s why you build a high-speed guideway..
synonymouse Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
I wonder if pressure from the Brown administration has something to do with the focus moving markedly away from stilts. And what exactly are the limits of “value engineering”? Could it extend so far as to questioning the dogma on Tejon or will that always be heresy?
I took the liberty of putting Clem’s link to the Quantm study on the Altamont Press site and one posting came up with the observation that “NIH” is in play. “not invented here” There clearly are some very big egos high up in the PB hierarchy who have had it in for Tejon from the beginning. So maybe the best approach is to bring in a lot of new big egos to shake things up. Like Caltrans, Sac pols, Richard Branson’s people and the like. A surfeit of prima donnas might ruffle and rattle the orthdoxy.
But in the real world of electric passenger railways fiascos are us. BART’s politically hired and politically fired general manager is going to be sent on her way with mucho dinero:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/27/BAO21IJKOR.DTL
Herein lies the problem with the BART-Pelosi-union patronage machine management model. Out of control payroll coupled with lackluster management. It is the worst of worlds. One time engineering risks like schist or scheist at Tejon pale by comparison to the permanent and indelible red ink drowning the public run and subsidized government model. The business plan has to recognize that the most direct and shortest route will be the least expensive to operate and will be more attractive to private interests.
YesonHSR Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 12:00 am
You still have not jumped in front of a BART train to put an end to your misery
!!
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Stop making shit up, Syn.
Some other comments from a discussion board:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4124
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=37551
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,907265
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100430065809AAivfC8
Does any proposal exist for service along the L.A.-to-Phoenix corridor besides Desert Lightning?
Alon Levy Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
I think in 2009 or so, some people came up with a fantasy map for Southwest HSR that included LA-Phoenix, in addition to many lower-performing lines.
Matt Korner Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
I think your incorrect. I’ve seen the L.A.-to-Phoenix corridor ranked very high by at least a couple of groups, including the Brookings Institution.
Matt Korner Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
you’re
Alon Levy Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Okay, to make it clear, I’m talking about official or semi-official proposals. I’m well-aware that on the national fantasy maps, LA-Phoenix scores fairly high.
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
High-speed service, you mean? The city of Phoenix keeps trying to get ordinary service back, and Amtrak is trying to get daily service back, but of course they’re dealing with the Railroad Which Hates Passengers.
On Cyburbia.org, I asked this question about the role of urban planners in the discussion of high-speed rail as a means to strengthen megalopolises, and these were the responses:
http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43672
This is just for fun and nostalgia–some photos from a special photo session at Orange Empire Railway Museum at Perris, Ca. I particularly like the third shot, featuring a pair of trolleys and a vintage bus running down the street.
http://69.181.5.214/read.php?2,1374,1374#msg-1374
Looks like another cool place for train nuts like me.
http://www.oerm.org/
What are the chances that CA HSR will be built north to Modesto rather than east towards Gilroy? It looks like if you could get as far north as Modesto you could run profitable trains from the north to LA. The same track towards Gilroy gets you to the edge of the valley, with no prospect of running profitable trains until the tunnels are bored. My back-of-the-envelope estimate says that if HSR Modesto-Palmdale (in the ca. 1:30 that it should take) and with conventional rail running Modesto to Bay Area/Sacramento and Palmdale to LA, we could see travel times of under 5 hours.
That should yield about 10 million annual trips (Since typical rail market share for 4.5 trips is about 10% for rail/air and 2% for rail/auto (you can look at the Boston-Philly numbers here)). That could be served by 15 daily roundtrips (which should should cost $300 million – $200 million for the HSR segment, $100 million for the FRA trains) – Matching the current Amtrak lowest fare of $59, gives a healthy profit.
Stockton would be better still, of course, but Merced probably isn’t far enough north to make for a profitable set-up …
Alon Levy Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Much more important than figuring out how far north to go is figuring out how fast and convenient the LA-Palmdale segment would be. Money should be spent on electrifying the legacy line to allow trains to run on it, like in Korea, negating the need for a transfer or an engine change. It’s not difficult to check what the runtime would be with a Talgo 350, N700, or E6, depending on what assumptions you make on superelevation.
Modesto-Bay Area on legacy track is harder, because it’s longer than LA-Palmdale and requires running on a UP line and either a reverse move at San Jose or resurrecting the Dumbarton Bridge. There’s really no point in running through to the Bay Area on legacy track unless HSR reaches San Jose.
egk Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Don’t think you are going to have through running anyway. You are going to be having transfers at Modesto/Merced and Palmdale to FRA legacy equipment anyway. We are talking a 3-5 year interim solution. It is not worth doing anything to upgrade the legacy lines.
Instead get the experience running the 220 mph central valley line using 4 shiny-new trainsets and grow ridership with auto-competitive rail connections to most of NorCal (Fremont /San Jose on the ACE route and Sacramento/East Bay on the San Joaquins. That serves almost everybody – sorry SF).
And it is way more important to figure out how far north to go. Merced-Modesto on an express HSR is around 10 minutes – it is 45 minutes on Amtrak. That half hour is what gets you down to car-competitive speeds. By just building tracks you are going to be building eventually anyway.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Bleh. The transfers really will kill ridership – these are new riders, and intercity ones to boot.
By the way, Merced-Modesto is 35 minutes on the fastest San Joaquins, and will be 16 minutes on HSR.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 28th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
One seat rides means you are stringing catenary and coming back in a few years and ripping it out when you build the new line. Or you run some odd beast of a train that can run at 220 on electric and then on diesel on the legacy lines. Or at best you are hitching Amfleets to an ALP45DP. ( the first one should be in Pueblo soon if it isn’t already )
They won’t be offering Californians SEPTA/NJTransit/two subways/Metro North between Wilmington and New Haven they will be offering NEC Regional service to people who now have the San Joaquin with bus service between Bakersfield and Los Angeles.
Nathanael Reply:
March 29th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I would actually expect the solution of hitching a diesel at the change point to haul the electric train across the “legacy track”, which is pretty much always possible and has in fact been done in France.
However it is worth making minor upgrades the ‘legacy line’ from Palmdale to LA if it can speed up the journey. If you’re hauling Talgos, you can handle more tilt, and if you make some effort with the track standards and superelevation, you may be able to get some more speed out without spending that much. The only important point is beating the bus on time, and if there’s HSR from Palmdale to Bakersfield, you wouldn’t need to get much speed in order to do so.
The hsr doesn’t have to reach San Jose to achieve a reasonable level of functionality. A decent BART connection is good enough for starters.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
To clarify what I said, if the point is to through-run trains to LA and SF, instead of making people transfer (ugh), then it’s obviously impossible to use BART.
Clem Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
In Livermore!
synonymouse Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
LIvermore is an obvious transfer point. Hsr is not going to take you to your door. Many riders will drive to a collector station. The CHSRA knows this; that’s why it is demanding, to quote the Coneheads, “mass quantities” of parking.
There are alternatives and I expect they will come up as the paucity of funding becomes clearer and clearer in the months ahead.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Airplanes and buses don’t take you to your door either. People use them.
synonymouse Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
Exactly, and they don’t require stations in downtown SF. The TBT tunnel is a nice idea, and it should have implemented instead of BART to SFO. But PB-CHSRA does not to play nice so seeking help from another big bully, BART, is probably the smartest and safest recourse for PAMPA. The enemy of my is my friend.
I suspect this is what Kopp and BART(who knows – maybe even PB)have had in mind all along. The big con.
egk Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
never thought I’d agree with the mouse, but he is right. Just get some reasonable service that is accessible and we can be in business. But I think you are going to have to use the ACE or San Joaquin route to get to BART – so might as well be Fresno.
Clem Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
It would not be difficult to build HSR across Altamont pass to Livermore. There are alignments available that would be nearly tunnel-free. (In fact I believe there’s a 3.5% alignment that is completely tunnel-free.) The more intensive (i.e. Pacheco-like) tunneling would be between Livermore and the East Bay.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
We went over the “tunnel-free” claim on your blog
If I remember correctly, tunnel free with open cuts that would make Goethals proud.
Clem Reply:
March 27th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Playing BART against CHSRA is dumb. Tails, PB wins. Heads, PB wins.
Sunday Train: American Greatness and High Speed Rail