Value Engineering the San Francisco Peninsula, with Riders in Mind
Update:
Based on Alon Levy’s feedback I have come up with an improved second schedule here. It provides Baby Bullet connections to the Caltrain local at Mountain View and Hillsdale.
Original Post:
Clem over at the Caltrain HSR Compatibility Blog has put together a really interesting tool allowing anyone to create a train schedule for the combined Caltrain and HSR traffic on the San Francisco peninsula rail corridor. It allows one to program in the frequency and start times of various high speed and Caltrain trains (local, express, semi-express) and see where along the corridor sections of four tracks would be needed for that particular schedule. Clem’s focus, and his contest, is around how to provide a low level of HSR and Caltrain service (what he and Richard declare “realistic”) at the least cost, by minimizing four track sections along the corridor. I found the tool and used it to a different purpose, how can we create the best possible train service on a value engineered system buildout.
Californians For High Speed Rail has always focused on making sure high speed rail is built, and when built is “done right” for future riders as much as possible. That same aim inspired me to create two proposed schedules (my own, not official CA4HSR proposals), one more Caltrain-oriented, and the other more tightly integrating high speed service . The schedules aim to provide five important pieces:
- Robust local Caltrain service (six to eight trains an hour per direction) to both accommodate and grow local demand along the corridor
- Moderate to high HSR train service (six to eight trains an hour per direction) to accommodate the initial decades’ service demand, allowing a high ridership and profitable service ramp up
- Excellent timed connections among the various Caltrain services and between Caltrain and HSR trains providing far better service metrics for both services than a schedule without timed transfers.
- All trains serve Transbay Terminal, the highest demand station in the central core of the Bay Area
- Value engineer out expensive but potentially unnecessary infrastructure
The first schedule I put together, combines a robust nine train an hour Caltrain service with six high speed trains an hour (half local and half express). Compared to Clem’s example schedule, my proposed has multiple advantage for riders:
- Robust Caltrain service with:
- 9 trains an hour at peak hours
- Frequent Baby Bullet service with under 50 minutes travel time
- Frequent semi-express service under 55 minute travel time
- 9 trains an hour serve Transbay Terminal and 5 other stations
- 6 trains an hour serve 4th and King and 8 other stations
- Robust HSR service
- 6 trains an hour to Transbay and San Jose stations, allowing turn up and go traveler behavior with no schedule needed
- 3 trains an hour to Redwood City and Milbrae, providing faster local access with high frequency
- Good transfers for Caltrain and HSR
- Well timed transfer with BB meeting locals at Milbrae and Mountain View
- Well timed transfer with semi-express meeting locals at Hillsdale southbound, and delivering passengers to the HSR local at Redwood City southbound; good distributing transfers northbound with semi-express picking up HSR local passengers at Redwood City and Milbrae
The schedule has its flaws too. Several defects in the schedule:
- No timed transfer between semi–express and local trains at Hillsdale northbound
- There are no cross platform transfers between Caltrain and high speed trains at Milbrae
- HSR express does not meet mandated 30 minute schedule between San Jose and San Francisco Transbay (this appears to be a model flaw)
- The schedule cannot accommodate more than six high speed trains an hour without
a compete re-write
The second schedule I put together, combines a moderate six train an hour per direction Caltrain service with eight high speed trains an hour (four local and four express). Compared to Clem’s example schedule, my proposed has multiple advantage for riders:
- Moderate Caltrain service with:
- Six trains an hour at peak hours
- Two Baby bullet trains an hour per direction with under 50 minutes travel time
- Six trains an hour serve Transbay Terminal and 5 other stations
- Robust HSR service
- Eight trains an hour per direction to Transbay and San Jose stations, allowing turn
up and go traveler behavior with no schedule needed - Four trains an hour per direction to Redwood City and two to Milbrae, providing
faster local access with high frequency
- Eight trains an hour per direction to Transbay and San Jose stations, allowing turn
- Good transfers for Caltrain and HSR
- Well timed transfer with HSR meeting Caltrain locals at Milbrae and Redwood City
- Well timed transfer with Baby Bullets meeting locals southbound
The schedule has its flaws too. Several defects in the schedule:
- No timed transfer between Baby Bullet and local trains going northbound
- Six Caltrains per hour may not meet market demand in a decade plus
- HSR express does not meet mandated 30 minute schedule between San Jose and San Francisco Transbay (this appears to be a model flaw)
Both proposed schedules allows several significant infrastructure cost savings:
- No expensive new tunnels needed in San Francisco between Bayshore and 22nd Street.
- No “overflow” terminal needed at 4th and King/Mission Bay, because all Caltrain and high speed rail service terminates at Transbay
Using Clem’s tool to build these particular schedules, unrefined as they are, demonstrated several important facts about the San Francisco Rail corridor:
- Robust and moderate Caltrain and HSR services can co-exist
- Building a “phased” or “blended” plan that includes a 4th and King/Mission Bay terminal for HSR is a waste. A Mission Bay high speed rail station will not be needed for decades, if ever. A trenched 3 or 4 track through station at Mission Bay (as proposed by the City of San Francisco) will do.
- While new tunnels can be avoided from Bayshore to 22nd street in San Francisco, robust Caltrain and HSR service requires four tracks along the rest of the corridor. This is especially true if good timed transfers are to be scheduled for both Caltrain and HSR services.
- A three track tunnel from Mission Bay to Transbay is actually useful, allowing 2 parallel in or out movements and one opposite direction move simultaneously between the two. At Mission Bay the stopping pattern allows trains to sort so that only two tracks are needed south of 22nd street to Bayshore.
- The first schedule’s service level is possible ( I haven’t checked or optimized the second schedule) with the current Transbay configuration if:
- HSR trains turn around in 28 minutes rather than the currently assumed 40 (I believe this is within worldwide operating practice)
- Caltrain trains turn around in eight minutes, an aggressive but not impossible schedule, even with 10% schedule padding in the line
run
- The schedule can only work if Caltrain agrees to a common platform height with the CA HSR Authority (around 48″ -/+) and multiple key stations are designed with two island platforms (to allow cross-platform transfers between trains, whether Caltrain or high speed).
As an amateur train schedule, using a crude tool, in my spare time, I have made a proof of concept that high service levels for both Caltrain and high speed rail riders are possible along the Peninsula, within a budget. It will require upgrades to make Caltrain, service, safer, quieter, cleaner, and faster, but with creative thinking from Caltrain, local commuters can benefit enormously from the initial upgrades high speed rail will bring.
A trenched 3 or 4 track through station at Mission Bay (as proposed by the City of San Francisco) will do.
Any details on that? I wasn’t aware that had been proposed by anyone who wasn’t a blogger.
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
It was in the AA page 14
The trains can sort themselves out at Bayshore. They will all be moving at the same slow speed north of there.
Joey Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
There shouldn’t be any scheduled conflicts.
First, thanks for the shout-out. The “Takt Cup” is still up for grabs! I would like to mention that Richard Mlynarik deserves the credit for all the code that builds the schedules; I only provided the simulated run time inputs.
HSR express does not meet mandated 30 minute schedule between San Jose and San Francisco Transbay (this appears to be a model flaw)
This is not a model flaw. 30 minutes would require significant curve easing throughout the corridor, something that shows no signs of being planned. Station approach speeds would also need to be increased substantially. With the corridor aligned as it is, and with a high-performance train like the AGV, 35 minutes or so is the best you’ll get.
Meh. If it’s cool to dig miles of tunnel through Millbrae (to get around BART) or San Jose (to get around the infrastructural abortion commonly referred to as CEMOF) or the Antelope Valley (because cut and retained fill might disturb the endangered otter or whatever the reason), then it’s cool to bore a couple of short holes underneath a low-rise neighborhood to add ACTUAL CAPACITY by four-tracking through Bayshore to the Transbay.
It makes similar sense to add a nice large-radius swooper through the tip of San Bruno mountain, like a 140mph cockring. Both of these also have the double advantage of not delaying High-Speed passengers from San Diego because some bum groped a a woman on a Caltrain local before vomiting on the floor, and the train is now out of service.
Maybe my view is colored by five years in the City of Screw, where the Katy Freeway is now the widest in the US and the second-widest in North America (Toronto holds that crown), but all this talk of where can we squeeze slow, local commuter trains and superfast high-speeds into the SAME TWO TRACKS is completely missing the boat, er um, train.
The question is not where two and four, but where four and six. Four tracks is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM that makes sense, and you want additional tracks at passing stations. If we were doing this like a new Shinkansen line, Millbrae and Redwood City would offline stations with high-speed switches that allow the trains to enter and exit at full accel/decel. Similarly, having Caltrain tracks periodically split apart around island platforms allows both expresses to overtake locals AND cross-platform transfers. If you’ve ever seen a four-way meet on one of the Kansai-area railways – two expresses overtaking two locals in opposite directions, simultaneously – it is a sight to behold.
I’m thinking four tracks along the entire peninsula, EIGHT tracks at Millbrae and Redwood City. And of course, as Clem has pointed out, flatten out all those damn curves. If this takes Robert Moses levels of political steamrolling to obtain a few pieces of marginal real estate than you better be like Nike and Just Do It.
Of course, all of this will be fracking expensive. No doubt about it. But I’m confident that a handful of NIMBYs with a major lawsuit fetish will be able to hold up the Peninsular segment of CAHSR until the very end, to the point that there’s a “provisional” service running San Jose-LAUPT while they’re still testing the electrical on the Peninsula. And the cool thing about being the last piece of the puzzle is you can have MASSIVE cost overruns and it’s all OK, because everything is already built, it’s all a sunk cost, and the incremental cost of an extra billion or two means nothing against the benefit of “fully built high speed rail” versus “halfassed sort of complete network.”
Hell, it worked for the 105.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
Hi.
But… it’s not like anyone expects this line to get the millions of daily riders seen on the Tokaido or Chuo Lines. (And even the Chuo Line is two-and-four west of Mitaka, with timed overtakes at Kokubunji and Tachikawa.) The point of two-and-four is that intercity train speeds are going to be limited on the Peninsula anyway, so treating them separately from regional trains causes more problems than it solved. Full four-tracking may be justified by capacity concerns later on, but not at the beginning.
Clem’s schedule does not prevent the four-way overtakes you mention. He just chose his symmetry axis to be different. It doesn’t really matter.
Oh yeah, shout outs to Alon Levy.
This odd new concept of “robust HSR service” translates directly into the same old “thank you so very very very very very much for five billion extra public dollars of pure pork for us. Pour, baby pour! Whoo hoo!”.
Or, garbage in, garbage out.
The “on a budget” and “riders in mind” parts completely escape me, as does the mechanism by which 14 trains per hour (including 8 long distance) can terminate and reverse at Transbay. There’s not enough concrete anywhere to help you, I’m afraid. (But whatever: just fork over another $4.2 million to the Finest Rail Transportation Planning Professionals in the World, who just happen to work right here in San Francisco. Cash in, garbage out!)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
as does the mechanism by which 14 trains per hour (including 8 long distance) can terminate and reverse at Transbay.
The engineer, driver, operator, whatever you want to call him or her, walks to the other end of the train? They figured this out in the 1890s.
Brian Stanke Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I would add @Richard to follow the link:
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/passengerrail/reports/systemplan/appendix_d.pdf
It describes a proposed service plan for turning commuter rail trains in 7 minutes using two crews. If the Minneapolis and St. Paul Central Corridor can do it, surely the future operator of Caltrain’s new equipment can, even if it requires relay crews.
thatbruce Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
@adirondacker12800:
The time taken for the train engineer to walk to the other end is inconsequential, except when the schedule has been delayed and they have to run the length of the platform (assuming that they’re not doing something sensible like changing crews at TBT).
The real time constraint is crossing the throat of the speed-limited tunnel entering the Transbay terminal station (30 seconds), followed by traversing the tunnel (2 minutes). With no tailtracks, each train needs to enter the station platforms at slow speed in case they need to use the end-buffers to stop; no using the length of the platform to de-accelerate in here, even if the curves in the tunnel would allow for speeds above a walking pace.
Peter Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
There’s also an issue of performing all the required FRA brake checks when the driver reaches the cab. I seem to recall that CHSRA planned for seven minutes of brake checks alone at the TBT turnaround.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
6 platforms is one train an hour per platform. 12 trains an hour is two trains per platform. 18 trains an hour is 3 trains per hour per platform. Or 20 minutes. 2 and half minutes to get from Mission Bay to Transbay means they will be at the platform for 15 minutes. Walking very slowly – 2 MPH – mean it takes 7 and half minutes to walk from one end of the quarter mile long platform to the other.
HSR trains will be changing crews at Transbay. Crew has to be on the train before it departs and has to turn over the train to the next crew. 3 hours from the time they get on the train in LA to the time the train is turned over to the next crew. They can go on 15 minute break.
Amtrak manages to turn trains at 30th Street in ten minutes. Amtrak NJTransit and Metro North manage to change crews in ten minutes when the Meadowlands Specials are running. Mass transit operators manage it even faster.
thatbruce Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Try using an example station that is more like the TBT, that is, stub station, no tail tracks, and restricted speed (tunnel) access. The Amtrak 30th Street station isn’t any of these.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
They turn the train around when it’s stationary. It doesn’t matter if the station is a through station or a stub terminal or it has curves on it’s approach tracks or they are tangent….. when the train is stopped.
thatbruce Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Surprisingly, all of those elements are frightfully important, as they change how long it takes for the train to come to a stop. This in turn limits the maximum capacity of a given station/track design.
Owen Evans Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 7:11 am
The walking time is not inconsequential. Say you have a train that is 8 cars long, or 680 feet. That is 136 seconds at a moderately fast walking pace of 5 feet per second.
When you’re talking about a 16-car duplex HSR train, we’re talking 4.5 minutes of walking time.
If a new engineer can enter the cab and begin the brake check 30 seconds after the train arrives, rather than three minutes after the train arrives, that’s 2.5 minutes saved right there.
thatbruce Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
You’ve missed the essential point. The time taken to change crews or for the existing crew to change ends is not the limiting factor, and can be treated as inconsequential. The design of the TBT and entrance tunnel is the limiting factor.
14tph is pushing the bounds of what an American stub station with limited and slow access can do. Remember, that ’14′ tph is additive (arriving, departing); the access tunnel needs to deal with 28 movements through it per hour, as does the station ‘throat’.
The first limit is that the TBT does not have tail tracks. The end of the platform is the end of the track. Trains will need to enter and run the length of each platform at slow speed in case there is a last minute brake failure. While the front end of the train is getting closer to the buffer stops, the rear end of the train is occupying the station throat for however long it takes, say a minute.
Its not much better when trains are departing, as that turn just past the start of the platform limits the speed by which trains can leave the individual platforms. Again, while the front end of the train is proceeding through the curve and down the tunnel, the rear end of the train is occupying the station throat for however long it takes, say 30 seconds.
While the station throat is occupied, certain other platforms are blocked from departing or arriving, even if they are not going to use the same tunnel track. True, there are certain combinations of platforms which can have trains arriving and departing at the same time, but at other times, an arriving or departing train is going to prevent access to/from some other platforms.
Once the required safe-working time clearances are added in, each usage of the station throat prevents parts of it from being used again between 1 and 2 minutes. 28 uses of it per hour (14tph arriving == 14 tph departing) leads to the station throat being blocked between 28 and 56 minutes of each hour.
That in turn leads to each train having a rather limited number of ‘windows’ through which it can arrive at a platform and in turn depart from the platform. The question of whether the crews jog, saunter or stroll from one end of the platform to the other is less important than the question of how do you fit all those trains through constrictions introduced by the basic design.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
That in turn leads to each train having a rather limited number of ‘windows’ through which it can arrive at a platform and in turn depart from the platform.
That’s why they have people called “dispatchers” who with the use of sophisticated technology only let the train that can use the window, move. They can even do stunningly clever things like have a train leave the northern platforms as a train arrives on the southern platforms – in other words having two trains moving at the same time.
thatbruce Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
You’re still not getting it.
Go sit down with the layout of the station, including the approach tunnel, some graph paper (for time windows), and ‘dispatch’ all those trains. It sounds like it ought to be simplicity itself.
For extra fun, do the same with 30th Street.
Jerry Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
“limited number of windows”
Sounds similar to an airport with ARRIVING planes either circling in the air or waiting on the ground until a gate opens and becomes available to pull into.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Bruce, Exactly right. Thanks for making the (futile) effort at remedial education.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
How long is it going to take a train to clear the interlocking west of the platforms at Transbay?
Joey Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
If it’s a 400m train entering the station, it could take quite a while.
thatbruce Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
@Richard:
There’s not enough concrete anywhere to help you, I’m afraid.
Oh, if cost is really no object, having the tunnel also be a flying junction would ease the matter.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
thatbruce Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Pity that.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
If cost were REALLY no object, they’d be building a deep undercavern station leading to a 2nd Transbay Tube leading to a deep undercavern Oakland station and then continuing eastward before surfacing…
nah, cost is an object to them.
Since this relates to CalTrain, one should be sure to read the Daily Post today 6/06/2011. Front page and almost 2 full other pages devoted mostly to Scanlon and his over $430,000 compensation, and how CalTrain used devious techniques to hide his total salary from the public.
The Post is not on the internet, so you need a paper copy. I have asked for a digital version of the 3 pages, but thus far they haven’t arrived.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
And we have people kvetching about 250K for Metrolink’s CEO…
William Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
He is also the CEO for SamTran, so $430K looks reasonable to me
morris brown Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
You can view the article on Scanlon’s over $430,000 pay package at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57246992
William’s remark just above is the first person I have talked to that thinks this salary is fine. Remember here is CalTrain, crying about staying afloat and trying to start a movement “Friends of CalTrain” seeking to put a tax measure on a future ballot to support their never ending deficits.
They also had a PR blitz recently, going around to City Councils, telling them for frugal they are.
Adina Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Hi, this is Adina from Friends of Caltrain. I have no idea what you are talking about regarding telling city councils about frugality.
Clem Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
The CEO’s salary is nothing more than a distraction. It accounts for one quarter of a percent of Caltrain’s annual budget. The more important metric is administrative overhead–6%, which is rather lower than average nationally. What if Scanlon was worth every penny in this difficult time when one of the most profitable (well, least unprofitable) systems in the region is facing a financial crisis that is not of its own making?
The continued insinuation by the Post and other public-transit opponents that Caltrain is grossly mismanaged is not only wrong, but tiresome.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Scanlon’s salary is irrelevant to the important problems facing the Peninsula Cities.
The NIMBY cities are making money approving in-fill development as they fight HSR and their NIMBYs stupidly attack Caltrain as a way to halt all development. Stanford’s Hospital Expansion is a go! Menlo Park was paid off and no longer objects.
So NIMBY’s attack on Caltrain will push riders into cars.
NIMBY Menlo Park is also improving their downtown and “adding 13,000 new cars on the road”. Hilariously the impact of this development on residential home values is not required for approval.
Finally, Menlo Park will allow 3,300 and probably all 6,600 new workers at the new FaceBook Campus. There will be best case 15,000+ new car trips per day on congested roads.
Attacking Caltrian will undermine one critical way of reducing congestion. These cities are</b? going to approve new development, they will congest the roads and hurt home values and quality of life will diminish for those living in this car centric area unless NIMBYs stop fighting rail.
Arthur Dent Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Facebook has a shuttle service for its employees. They took the first-last mile problem into their own hands and offer shuttles that coordinate with Caltrain. Google is an excellent example of a company that’s tackled getting their employees out of individual cars and into shared transit. Its sytem is quite sophisticated — moreso than Facebook’s. Public transit agencies could learn a lot by studying how Google does it.
If trains are to get people out of their cars, local transit agencies must address this first-last mile issue more seriously. Solid ridership — and therefore revenue — is dependent on it.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
High Speed Rail — as conceived of by the concrete mafiosi and supported by the fanboys — has only a negative, a very large and permanent negative, effect on the local and regional transportation that in-fill development (nominally) supports.
How exactly does a Flight Level Zero airline in Stanford’s back yard help Stanford hospital workers get to and from thei jobs, exactly? (I mean, other than those millions commuting to Palo Alto from Tulare whose six hour commute might be cut to three.)
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
the get to use the express platform at the station.
Brian, you’re of course right that a common platform height and full compatibility are both key to any good plan, regardless of alignment and scheduling decisions. But, a couple of problems with your schedules:
1. Both require four-tracking between SJ and Tamien, exclusive of HSR traffic. That’s not under consideration at all, and shouldn’t be. So you need to separate the trains a bit.
2. The second schedule requires six-tracking at and immediately north of SJ. Again, not under consideration, for a good reason.
3. Under both schedules, the local-express transfers are bad – even worse than you say. The second schedule offers nothing cross-platform northbound, and if you’re transferring to an express to a local, the only even semi-reasonable connection is 7 minutes at Millbrae. If you’re going to any local station south of Millbrae, you might as well wait for the local.
4. The second schedule also spaces the local trains poorly – 21 minutes at worst. And they have different connections with the express trains, so if you miss a train, you may need to wait 30 minutes.
5. Neither schedule offers an easy way to reduce the number of trains in the off-peak while maintaining the same clockface patterns. If you have different takts for the peak and off-peak periods, you might as well not have a peak takt at all.
6. All else being equal, you’ll want the express rather than local trains to serve Tamien. The reason I do the opposite is because to do otherwise would require turnaround times to be either too long to be cost-effective (extra trainsets would be needed) or too short to be realistic (just 1 minute at each end). This is an artifact of the stop pattern and schedule padding I assume; if you work with different assumptions, chances are you shouldn’t do what I did.
Brian Stanke Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
@Alon
Where do you see this? I only have locals going to Tamien. With 4-6 trains an hour each way no more tracks are needed south of Diridon station.
Again I do not see this on my computer. On the second schedule Two Caltrains head north out of Diridon in parallel. As this are is all triple track or more to Santa Clara they are fine. The only south bound traffic meets the north bound local after it leaves Santa Clara (a five track station area) and the northbound BB and local have lined up after each other on the same track. Making the BB depart Diridon 30 seconds sooner and stay at Mountain View longer could improve the separation as well.
So the first schedule, every local meeting a BB twice, at Mountain View and Milbrae, and vice versa is bad? Please define good.
The Second schedule really requires riders to use the HSR trains as express trains if they want a cross platform transfer to/from a local. It is a crude schedule that needs separate train patterns north and south, while the current pattern only really works southbound. If you can improve it by reworking the northbound traffic please help.
The current local is 1 hour apart at peak times. So every 20 minutes or better is much better. The 21 minute gap was designed that way to fit in the HSR trains. Actually 21 minutes is only one minute worse than the 20 gap most all proposed schedules use.
I am showing what is possible at peak, and how much infrastructure is or is not needed. I have only so much bandwidth. The second schedule can be stripped down easily by cutting the BB, a local, an express and semi-express HSR. There a 4 train schedule with a timed overtake in Redwood City.
I never used your schedule as an example. By using the local more nearby stations are accessible and long-distance transfers are available at Diridon.
Joey Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
4 tracks (or at least 3) south of SJ is definitely necessary under your plan because you’ve got trains running in the same direction in parallel there (looks like high-speed and a local). Look at the string diagrams. As for 6 tracks (or at least 5) north of SJ, you can also see that you’ve got 3 trains exiting Diridon at about the same time in the second plan.
Brian Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
In all the cuurent plans HSR will have a second level station at Diridon with separate tracks south and for several miles to the north. The local and HS trains will be on different track levels heading south (HS up, Caltrain surface). No plan ever contemplated only two tracks for HS + Caltrain south of Diridon.
The line North of Diridon will again have HS elevated (2 tracks) and Caltrain surface (3 tracks). Even if one line is only for UP the Caltrain trains can sort out around Santa Clara station. No additional track needed beyond what HSR has proposed. Again sending the BB out sooner and having longer station stops at MV and PA would improve the “conflict” if desired.
Joey Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:38 am
I thought we were talking about value engineering here. Miles of aerial structure is quite the opposite. Especially since, even under unusually generous service predictions, if you give CalTrain and HSR the same platform height, 6 (or fewer) platform tracks at-grade at Diridon should be plenty. Under this scenario you’d probably want 4 tracks north of Diridon and 2 tracks south (not counting UP/FRA traffic, which would probably be fine to be limited to 1 track in most areas, maybe 2 at Diridon).
And as for conflicts, they may occur from time to time anyway, but you definitely don’t want to schedule them. If you have a timetable, people expect you to adhere to it.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
The first schedule’s overtakes at Millbrae and Mountain View are fine, though, realistically, you need longer dwells them to be more reliable. It’s the second schedule’s overtakes that suck for some connections.
If you want to rework the northbound schedule, make it symmetric with the southbound schedule, and break symmetry slightly if the dwells make the gaps between trains too short in one direction.
I was reading about the AVE RENFE meeting with CAHSRA on Spanish newspapers…what happen with the blog members that attended?
@Brian and @Robert: ‘Engineering’.
Brian Stanke Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
And ‘Engineering’ means?
I am using the term “value engineering” very loosely, as Clem’ whole exercise/contest was for amateurs to use Richard’s tool to attempt to “value engineer” the amount of 4 track sections down to a minimum.
thatbruce Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I’m referring to the title of this post. A misspelling similar to the ‘submiting’ that appears when a comment is posted here.
Brian Stanke Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Thanks, fixed. :)
Off-topic, but perhaps of interest–
Got to pick up my copy of Trains today, and will transcribe Robert Poole’s letter as soon as I can (hopefully I’ll have enough energy for that later this evening after wrestling two air conditioners into their windows), but of equal interest is an article that runs for quite a few pages on the financial status of the Interstate system and the Highway Trust Fund. Of particular interest is a paragraph, late in the story, that (with some paraphrasing here, I’m having to recall from memory) states that now would be a good time to “discuss a [true] transportation policy”, for “the America of that era [of the early construction of the Interstate system] no longer exists,” and that cities such as Los Angeles and others (afraid I don’t remember the others) are “building public transit projects as fast as they can” because “they have no choice” in how to provide the capacity, and the transit and highway systems must be blended to “take pressure off the road network.”
What’s so interesting about that paragraph I am imperfectly quoting is that it is from. . .
Car and Driver, July 2011 issue, and on news stands now.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Indeed; the more public transport handles “average” transportation, the more the roads are available for people that actually love driving — like, presumably, many readers of Car and Driver…
[I live in Tokyo, and yes, even here, I've met people that drive to work -- but in every case, they were very passionate and obsessed with driving. Even with the bulk of daily transportation needs in Tokyo served by the rail network, the roads in Tokyo are still often completely jam-packed, so it's very much in these peoples' interests to promote better public-transportation!]
Off-topic: I put together an easy reference of the operational surpluses made by various high speed rail operations across the world, where I could find them (I couldn’t find for SNCB, Korail, JR Kyushu, or THSR; anywhere else, I didn’t look).
Here is Robert Poole’s letter, Trains Magazine, July 2011 issue, page 6:
The article by Don Phillips, “Fast Train Phobia” [pages 43-43, April] is a thoughtful piece, but neglects a few key differences between the U.S. and France.
First, metro areas in France are far more centralized than most of the U.S., meaning that a larger fraction of intercity travelers wants to go from a central business district to a central business district, as opposed to going from a suburb in City A to a suburb in City B.
Second, the alternative modes in France cost more than they do here, especially car travel. Not only are fuel taxes much higher in France (and the rest of Europe), but also the equivalent of our Interstate system is nearly all toll roads. I’ll bet the out-of-pocket cost of driving between two or more cities in France is three to five times higher than here. Also, Europe deregulated airline service only recently, compared with our more than three decades of deregulation, so I suspect the average airfares are higher in Europe than in the U.S. So, high speed rail looks relatively cheap compared with driving or flying in France.
Third, governments in Europe tend to obscure the large degree of operating subsidies for high speed rail. Most European Union don’t object to those subsidies, as many Americans do, because they are not aware of their extent.
Finally, the comment from Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute, about automobile and petroleum companies opposing high speed rail in the U.S. is ludicrous. Having done corporate fundraising for more than 20 years as CEO of the Reason Foundation, I can assure you that oil and auto companies are oblivious to surface transportation infrastructure issues, whether highway or high speed rail. What their government-affairs/policy people have focused on for at least the past 20 years are mostly environmental and regulatory issues, not infrastructure.
I write on this subject despite being a railfan and model railroader. I’ve ridden trains in Europe, South Africa, Peru, Australia, and North America. I have also driven both steam and diesel locomotives.
Robert Poole, director of transportation policy, Reason Foundation, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:59 am
I’m not going to bother to comment on this, except to note that probably at least 75% of the people who post here could take this apart with their eyes closed (and will, if I know this bunch).
What still amazes me is that this fellow can say what he does and go to sleep at night. I know about not understanding what you are paid not to understand, but the problems we have, particularly the oil question, must seep in somewhere.
I am also still amazed that the auto and oil industries even manage to pay someone like this whose arguments we can so easily counter. Our only disadvantage is that we do not have money for billboards, TV ads, and people who can really get the word out (the “boosters” I’ve mentioned in the past). How nice it would be to plug for rail as Poole, O’Toole, and Cox do for their foundations–and get paid for it, and to do a better job besides!
Oh well, I guess we should be glad these fellows blow the money from the oil and car bizzes as much as they do.
I wonder how much they do blow through? I could use something like that myself.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
The mere words “Reason Foundation” was enough to show me that it was a pack of lies. Those people have a nasty, nasty record of outright lies.
VBobier Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:02 am
They start believing their own propaganda soon enough, no matter what.
VBobier Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:22 am
I sent the following to Trains Magazine:
Peter Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 9:27 am
God, what pack of lies/bullshit/FUD.
And the fact that oil and auto companies, in addition to airlines, are major contributors to Reason Foundation figures into that claim how?
Alon Levy Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Ryanair and EasyJet are actually cheaper than American flights, even low-cost ones. But that’s only in reality, which has a well-known liberal bias. Sigh.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Well when you fly into out of the way airports the landing fees are much lower. American low cost carriers haven’t started to charge for use of the restrooms or carry-ons….. yet.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Wait, outfits like Ryanair charge for the restrooms?! Aren’t there laws regulating such things, given that it’s as much a matter of public health and hygiene as it is convenience…?
J. Wong Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
They don’t charge for restrooms, and you’re right, they never will on hygiene issues. How would you like to be sitting next to someone who decides to save money and piss into a bottle?
Alon Levy Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Ryanair doesn’t charge for bathrooms. It proposed to do so once, but not seriously; Michael O’Leary likes to make outrageous comments, on the theory that there’s no such thing as bad press. Among Ryanair’s other outrage generators that were never intended seriously are having standees on flights, and requiring passengers to load checked baggage onto the plane themselves or face an extra charge.
The mayors of San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento, and Fresno have all signed their names to an editorial refuting the LAO’s report. Their names are listed at the bottom of the editorial supporting both HSR and starting in the San Joaquin Valley first.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/07/3681606/case-for-high-speed-rail-grows.html
synonymouse Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 9:49 am
And these functionaries are as useless as the mayor of Bell.
When are you guys going to wake up and smell the shakedown? When the sales tax is 100%?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Lemme guess, you’d rather have “just a few more highways” …
wu ming Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 12:56 am
so the governor of CA, the speaker of the house, the CA legislature, and the mayors of CA’s biggest cities are all either corrupt or useless functionaries, and the vote of the state electorate to build this system is an uninformed misguided irritation?
it seems you want a dictatorship of peninsula NIMBYs, morris. you’re certainly positioning yourself against people with a lot of votes behind them.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Syn’s just a fanatical my-way-or-the-highway (hah hah) lunatic. Not even funny any more.
“I bet”, “I suspect.” God forbid he does five minutes of work in order to say with certainty.
Depending on when you want to travel, a TGV ticket purchased for tomorrow, second class, from Paris to Lyon ranges from 66.5 to 118.8 euros (although the 118.8 may be a case of only first class tickets available).
Viamichelin.com gives us the toll and petrol cost for the trips in France. The basic route for a trip from Paris to Lyon takes 4:13 and costs 72.73 EUR of which 31.50 is tolls and the rest petrol. That’s a distance of 465km total, 455km on motorways. Tolls are about double the standard for American state owned toll roads, but in line and on the lower end of private ones. Their petrol cost seems high. If we take a Citroen C5 Saloon, purchased in Britain because I can’t read French, with the advertised 68.9 highway miles per gallon, we can expect to use 4.1 gallons or 15.5 liters. Here is the fuel prices and 1.4 euros per liter looks to be an appropriate number, which brings us to a fuel price of 21.7 euros and a total cost of 53.2 euros.
This right here is an incredibly handy tool for flights. Air France is the only company offering flights between Paris and Lyon and it costs 384-386 USD regardless of day over the next thirty days of flights.
So, TGV is definitely cheaper than flying (but that may be a case of sufficiently outcompeting the flights as to remove low cost competitors) and may or may not be cheaper than driving, depending on your car, and of course, only if there is one passenger. Multiple passenger make driving cheaper than the TGV.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that the AVE is about the same price as an airline ticket between Madrid and Barcelona or even rather more expensive.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 9:22 am
This is supposed to be in response to D.P. Lubic’s posting of Poole’s letter above.
Anyone notice that in every article on the web that is related to CAHSR, some person names Florez is spamming the same anti-rail comments over and over again?
I am writing this from the Acela, on the way from NYC to Boston. When I bought the ticket, I noticed that there was one northbound train per hour at rush hour. If that’s the schedule for the Acela in the major population center on the Northeast Corridor, where the train connects to city centers with good transit, and people have been riding this route by train for decades, what is the reasoning behind projecting several times the schedule between SF and LA?
Joey Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
The NEC is nowhere fast enough to be considered high-speed or to be compared reasonably to any other high-speed system. Plus, Amtrak’s capacity is limited in a number of places meaning that they can only run a few trains per hour.
That being said, the Authority’s service projections (8tph) are completely ridiculous, given that most major city pairs cap out at 4tph even after a decade or two.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Between New York and Boston, the Acela averages about 100 km/h. That’s comparable to good 130 km/h tilting trains on unelectrified single track in Hokkaido. The projected schedule for the LA-SF HSR trains is an average speed of 260 km/h for express runs and about 210 km/h for local runs.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Or to put it another way: the Acela is better than driving or air-travel, but for many people, only just. Real HSR is vastly better.
Joseph E Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
There is only one Acela train per hour, but there are multiple Regional trains and commuter trains on the same corridor. The regional trains are much cheaper, and not much slower. And as Alon Levy noted, the Acela is barely “high speed”, not even half as fast as California’s planned system.
GM CEO calls for $1 hike in gas prices
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chibrkbus-gm-ceo-says-economic-outlook-uncertain-20110607,0,4409978.story
David K Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
There should be a $1 increase in gas taxes. That dollar should be used to built transit, repair our existing roads/bridges, and invest in alternative energy research.
Phase in the gas tax increase, at 5 cents a month to ease the impact on customers.
VBobier Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:26 am
Good luck getting that to be law, as outside of a ballot initiative, it would require 4 Repugs and they only vote NO.
Don’t forget off peak service. Fortunately this is just a matter of higher operating costs and infrastructure capacity is not an issue here, but the currently hourly off peak Caltrain service is totally inadequate. Not everyone works 9-5 these days and waiting an hour for a train just encourages people to drive. Virtually every big city commuter rail service in Europe and Asia runs at least 30 minute train service on most lines, and 15 minute off peak train service is typical.
Joey Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 3:11 am
Off-peak service definitely matters. But when it comes to deciding what to build, peak is what you look at, as that’s when you’re going to be using the most capacity. I think the assumption is that once you have sufficient infrastructure for your peak schedule, it’s an almost trivial matter to scale back the schedule to off-peak levels (which, of course, are much higher than what CalTrain currently offers).
Alon Levy Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Sure, but don’t forget that an important part of good service planning is building infrastructure that can easily be used for an off-peak takt. For example, 20-minute peak service with 30-minute off-peak service won’t cut it, because the overtake points will be different; but with 15/30, there will just be fewer overtakes off-peak, using the same infrastructure as at rush hour.