Airlines and High Speed Rail: Unholy Alliance or Blessed Partnership?
California High Speed Rail Authority Board chairman Dan Richard knows all too well about the airline industry. Serving as a Director on the Bay Area Rapid Transit District’s Board from 1996 to 2004, the East Bay resident and his colleagues clashed with United Airlines over the use of airport landing fees to build BART’s station at SFO. United, for its part, feared that BART’s plan would set a national precedent that would force the nation’s airlines to contribute to intermodal transportation improvements everywhere.
BART relented, and promised to make up the money elsewhere. However, that put strain the San Mateo Transit District’s finances. That, in turn, had disastrous consequences for Peninsula residents using other services like CalTrain.
Many, of course, allege that BART deliberately sought to undermine CalTrain with the arrangement. But it’s likely the opposite is true. Although BART collectively wants access to the Peninsula, it probably would have not traded a dynamic and new funding mechanism to do so.
So it’s no surprise that Richard finds himself supervising the one entity that has the airline industry in its cross-hairs: high speed rail. But it’s this history that increases the chance that the Authority’s Board will overlook the chance to make arguably its most important public-private partnership. One that involves, you guessed it, the airlines.
The 2011 Business Plan puts a premium on starting revenue service as soon as possible for California High Speed Rail. Critics, however, contend that there is no way ridership would make service break-even if only the Initial Construction Segment is built. So why then, would any private company, let alone an airline invest in the project?
In a word, profit.
Operating high speed rail on the Initial Construction Segment, will put a over three million people within one hour of Castle Air Force Base. That’s a larger population base than San Diego County, Portland, Vancouver, Las Vegas, or Denver. And compared to a 737 costing around $80 million, a high speed train set is a bargain. So too would HSR give an airline more positive cash flow, which in turn, would provide more predictable rates and service levels.
Perhaps the bigger question is what carrier would want to partner with the Authority. The obvious choice would be United, the largest tenant at San Francisco International Airport. But United’s competition is really international airlines who are part of Star Alliance. Conversely, these major carriers (including American and Delta) have continued to abandon domestic travel to “no-frills” airlines like Southwest and JetBlue. And it shows: Southwest is now the biggest airline in the country, and not exactly thrilled about the possibility of high speed rail in its biggest markets.
Then there’s Richard Branson. After starting Virgin Atlantic Airways in Britain, he expanded to domestic train service in Britain. Virgin Trains was one of the many contractors involved in the Authority’s recent RFP process, and no wonder: Branson based Virgin America (his US spinoff airline) at where else but SFO.
Virgin, though is heavily invested in Bay Area to Southern California traffic and routes between LA and Las Vegas with few transcontinental flights. Currently, Virgin would be unable to swallow revenue loses on these routes waiting for high speed rail ridership to increase with time. And that doesn’t even begin to address operational issues with SFO.
It’s a well known fact among Bay Area denizens that SFO’s design and location makes it a very challenging place to operate a world-class airport. However, because of the revenue and access it provides, San Francisco is not eager to elevate Oakland or San Jose to replace it. Especially after all that money it sunk into that BART station.
That leaves one unlikely suitor: Alaska Airlines. The company serves almost exclusively longer routes up and down the West Coast. It’s been aggressive in adding flights to Hawai’i from California destinations. Alaska’s route map neatly overlays CAHSR’s service area, even if the system is extended to Nevada and Arizona. And the carrier has had plenty of experience dealing with organized labor and cost reductions while still managing to have employees today that are amazingly happy.
But are other reasons too: Alaska has long sought to be an innovator and has done both on the operational side, and the consumer side. The airline also has sought to provide service levels that are more than bare-bones. That’s especially important considering the tastes of many Californians.
Not to mention that fact that they are headquartered not in Texas or Chicago, but Seattle. They understand the different mentality that exists in the West Coast as well as the benefits of large transportation infrastructure. So too will many of them have traveled on Amtrak’s Cascades, on the numerous bridges that connect the Emerald City, and even ferries along the Puget Sound. That stands in sharp contrast to their colleagues in Middle America.
Naturally, some will still question why airlines would want to embrace a technology that could be their undoing. The answer is pretty simple, every successful company has to embrace new technology. Southwestern Bell embraced cell phones faster than other phone companies and eventually bought AT&T itself. Barnes and Noble kept up with the transition to e-readers and is still in business while Borders is not. But even these comparisons pale to Dell Computer’s use of the Internet in the late 90s for sales or Sony’s development of the Walkman to foster blockbuster growth of cassette tapes.
Someone is going to succeed in merging air and HSR travel, and it might as well be California.
It’s already possible to land at Charles DeGaulle Airport outside Paris and connect on the TGV to the hinterlands. But what about the ability to send two executives from the same office in Fresno north to San Francisco and south to Los Angeles, each travelling halfway around the globe? One continues to Dubai and the second arrives in Buenos Aires, not for tourism, but to ensure that California exports gain the widest market exposure possible.
Conversely, passengers on Taiwan’s High Speed Rail system can check in and drop their bags directly at the rail station below Taiwan’s international airport. But what if you could do the same thing on the Las Vegas Strip with your final destination being Australia via LAX? And one ticket reservation to boot, allowing you to pass effortlessly from the reservations desk to baggage claim Down Under?
And last but not least is automatic rebooking, where airline passengers are automatically rebooked when there is a flight cancellation. But what if instead of simply being notified, your train went to the new location instead and dropped you off?
Cliche as it may sound, the sky really is the limit. For that reason it’s vitally important that all parties in the high speed rail project not overlook airlines as a viable dance partner. It’s crucial that Chariman Richard allows what’s past to be past and focus instead on the promise of the future.
When Dan Richard spoke in Fresno he seemed to beam proudly about the BART SFO connection and noted that when they began requesting Fed money they were up against a Republican Congress but ultimately the money arrived. He stated that this year, for the first time, the extension will make an operating profit with about 10,000 boardings.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 11:26 am
Of course RIchard is proud. He defrauded the federal government of a $750 million and made PB/Bechtel/Tutor-Saliba very very very very very happy corporations indeed.
As for “operating profit”, that is also pure fraud. The MTC/BART “accounting” used to arrive at this fictional result allocates all revenue from every trip anywhere in the system that starts or ends on the four extension stations or on the unrelated Colma station to “profit”, while allocating only a fraction of the train-hour and person-hour costs on the extension itself to the “costs”.
So every fare fare dollar of a trip from Pittsburg to Millbrae is MTC/BART “profit”, even though almost all of the trip is on non-extension track using non-extension power and non-extension maintenance and non-extension personnel and non-extension trains.
Short story: he’s lying, just as he did every day during his tenure on the BART board. Anything, anything to make the BART contractors richer. Screw the public!
synonymouse Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Thanks, Richard, for straightening out the spin. And you can anticipate the same sort of torqued accounting to be applied to every mile of the hsr route network.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Um, Richard? That’s just standard incremental-cost incremental-income accounting. Typical in any capital-intensive business. It’s not fraud, though you do have to know what they mean by “profit” (profit is a questionable and vague concept with a lot of room for different meanings, as I’ve learned from studying accounting).
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
To be clear, it’s actually obscenely BAD to only reach incremental operational profit THIS long after starting construction. Incremental operational profit on an extension ought to be reached quite quickly, within 2 years of opening, for a good extension. It’s a relatively low bar and should be reached as soon as potential riders have “realized” that the extension exists.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
Barring deliberate fare subsidies, of course, which there usually are. :sigh:
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Of course you should subtract out people who would previously have ridden BART partway and then caught a taxi to the location of the new stations, but how many of those were there really?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Hi Nathanael,
No it isn’t standard accounting.
Are you angling for a job with MTC?
Jeff Carter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:04 am
I have also posted the facts behind this fraudulent BART to SFO “profit” on here a few times, however, my posts go largely ignored…
It’s pathetic to hear any and all BART spokes-droids/cheerleaders cite/claim the “success” of the SFO extension. Curiously, actually deceitfully, the SFO extension includes the Colma station which opened a full SEVEN years prior to the SFO extension and Colma would not *lose any ridership* once the SFO line opened.
Well I am still waiting to see the 68, 000+ daily riders projected to use the 4 SFOX stations, including 30,000 at Millbrae???
And where are the 12,000 to 18,000 daily Colma riders?
BTW, this huge profit from the BART SFOX nearly bankrupted Samtrans.
Back in the earlier days of the BART-Caltrain debates, many of these yahoos claimed the Caltrain would never gain much ridership, at a time when Caltrain ridership was around 20,000. Well now we have seen that Caltrain ridership has more than doubled…
If we were to apply BART logic to Caltrain; Caltrain would turn a profit also. All fare revenue to/from San Francisco stations would go into the profit pot and the only expense would be the operational (train hours/man hours) of running Caltrain for the five miles in San Francisco (SF to Bayshore) although Bayshore is technically in San Francisco, it is considered an SF station.
The really sad fact is that we (they) don’t learn from their mistakes, we are in for the same BART bullshit, spending billions for a sure to be underperforming BART extension to San Jose, while other more productive transit improvements go unfunded. So yes it is screw the transit riding public, screw the taxpayers!!!
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:01 am
I have also posted the facts behind this fraudulent BART to SFO “profit” on here a few times, however, my posts go largely ignored…
I thought I’d post so you know it didn’t go unnoticed.
The reason this fraud continues is because of where BART is being built. All they need is a forecast to get it built and be damned the outcome. Same mentality is behind HSR. It’s why they hate it so much when challenged. They’re use to having a bogus forecast be sufficient (which never really matters in the first place because in their world mass transit is king so even a crappy outlook is sufficient to support a project). God forbid anyone question them.
joe Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 11:26 am
One wonders if he uses BART SFO.
The DC METRO connection to DCA is simialr technology and usable, BART less so for several reasons.
The DCA METRO service competes against taxi which has to cross an often congested bridge. That makes METRO more reliable and it stops at the terminals. Also METRO stops are everywhere in DC proper so boarding and disembarking gets you pretty close to your origin / destination.
BART to SFO has been underwhelming.
The rub is BART is a 1960′s colonial transit system designed to bring labor into the SF district. Outlying stations are often parking lots, not destinations. You have to drive to BART and ride to SFO vs driving to SFO long term parking.
When I lived in Noe Valley, Glenn Park BART was walkable but the cab ride from SFO was 15 minutes and there is a line of cabs.
I bet BART will link SFO ridership to peninsula access. “Gosh if we had peninsula riders we’d finally make that SFO connection busy as promised.” What BART does well is cross the bay. Across the bay is the Oakland airport and San Jose which are decent alternatives.
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
in what sense do you see the DC Metro as “similar technology” to BART?
The DC Metro uses 750V DC third-rail, a worldwide standard. Its track gauge of 1429mm is within tolerance of standard gauge (1435mm). BART uses 1000V DC (unique, AFAIK) and 1676mm track, which while the same as Indian broad-gauge has a completely incompatible loading-gauge. So each batch of BART cars are one-off custom designs, with consequent high prices and maintenance nightmares.
Metro’s 7000-series cars are being built by Kawasaki at a cost of about $2m apiece. That’s less than *half* the $5m apiece for new BART cars.
Peter Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
You’re taking “similar technology” too literally. They’re both subway systems from the same generation, is what joe likely meant.
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 1:16 pm
as in “they’re both trains”??
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Both of them were funded by the same program, and they have practically identical signalling systems (except that BART fixed a major safety flaw which Washington Metro didn’t fix until the crash recently).
BART was slightly earlier. Washington Metro actually copied *most* of BART’s innovations, while changing the DC voltage (easy) and using standard gauge track and a more typical loading gauge.
DC Metro and BART are very similar apart from those two differences, and are actually frequently called “sister systems”.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:58 am
When did “funded by the same program” become “the same technology”?
And you acknowledge that DC Metro rectified the three most-glaring *technoloogical*, err, uniquenesses, of BART. (That’s three, not two).
Seems like we’re using the word “technology” to mean completely different things.
joe Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
It’s fair to compare how DC-METRO and BART service airports.
Anyone who has ridden both systems would understand the comparison and similarities.
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Yes, fine, and I agreewhen did “how DC-METRO and BAFT service airports” become “similar technology”?
joe Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Have you ridden in both or know of differences that would preclude BART mimicking the METRO-DCA connection or is this a lecture on how shit works?
BTW Customized design isn’t different technology.
Michael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Washington National built a new terminal to meet the Metro Station in the 90′s. The (still) main airport, Dulles, is getting an expensive Metro extension into the far suburbs to serve it. I have used both National (I know its current name) and the express bus from Dulles. I live in SF, so I know BART very well. SFO generates its share of trips, but the rest of the stations on the extension don’t. Improved Caltrain (more frequent and a downtown extension and link to BART) would have served SFO better. Washington was lucky to have a close in airport but now has to spend to get to the main airport.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:19 am
They built a new terminal because they needed a new terminal. Don’t try to imply that DCA rebuilt its terminals to make it more rail friendly. That’s totally disingenuous.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:34 am
“Rail friendly” was a part of the logic behind the new terminal.
It’s my understanding that when the original “National Airport” station was built, there was a hue and cry to keep it away from the airport–by the taxi business. For years, fleets of cabs ran a short shuttle service from the station to the airport. Eventually, there were enough complaints about this additional hassle that it was decided to build a new airport station in conjunction with the new terminal. The change required moving the airport station at least a couple of hundred feet closer to the airport terminal building (much of which was in the footprint of the old building); this involved a bit of a detour in the rail line, and also required it to cross a busy highway twice (once to reach the new station and again to rejoin the rest of the rail line.
That highway between the rail station and the air terminal was a considerable barrier to direct access by rail by pedestrians–and the reason for that fleet of cabs.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Doesn’t chaneg the fact that they built a new terminal to improve airfield mobility, not rail ridership.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
A bit of brain cell tickling going on–Dulles was not the main airport for a very long time after it opened. National remained so for its convenient location, despite the fact that the location is also cramped and can’t be expanded. The latter conditions lead to a bit of controversy during the discussion of the new terminal; there were arguments that National should have been closed instead of getting a new terminal, with all air service transferred to Dulles.
I’ve seen the airport at what is now Reagan National, and it’s tight; I can’t help but think it should have been closed instead.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
It’s 757 friendly, but that’s about it. That’s all it needs to be.
There are also some substantial benefits to multi-airport systems if implemented well. DCA/IAD started off a mess, but it worked out in the long run. If you don’t have the kind of land Denver had (where you can build more parallel runways than the FAA has a standard for), its always nice to have a smaller more regional airport to serve the local traffic, especially when the other is a hub for a major carrier.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Joe,
technology *is* “how shit works”. That’s what the word *means*.
Paul Dyson Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:53 am
They are both grade separated electrified steel wheel on steel rail urban transit systems. Don;t be such a foamer.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Oooh. “Taste the irony.”
but what’s a factor of 3 in capital costs, between friends?
@Peter: precisely when did BART become a “subway”?
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Stop being pedantic.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
How about you start getting your facts right, and learning what words mean?
I find it amusing to see discussion on this very blog, under Robert’s previous post “Airlines and High Speed Rail: Unholy Alliance or Blessed Partnership?”, between Jon, Miles Bader, and Swing Hanger:
with reply:
Sheesh.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
“How about you start getting your facts right, and learning what words mean?”
Not sure what you’re referring to, so I’ll lay it out:
Subway:
Pedantic:
Pedant:
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Well, since you dlo seem to need it laid out for you, here we go:
see that word “underground”?
As for pedantry, get a clue. Look elsewhere on this very same blog-post, for shit’s sake.
Take a look at the cost of replacement cars for DC Metro versus BART. One uses world-standard gauge and third-rail electrification. The other uses a unique voltage, a gauge that’s otherwise used only in India, combined with a unique loading-gauge. In rail terms, that’s different technology.
That is not undue minutiae.
If you want to discuss things at the level at which BART and DC Metro are “similar technology” — that is, that they’re both trains — you aren’t going to learn much.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
oh, darn. Apologies for the botched HTML. I wish WordPress had a “preview”.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Did you bother clicking on the link that you cited?
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
So, if a city built a rapid transit line solely underground, it’s a “subway”, but if it extends the system with an aboveground section, then it’s not a subway anymore. Got it.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Wouldn’t that disqualify the NYC subway system and DC Metro?
Miles Bader Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Seriously, “metro”, “subway”, are vague terms used for everyday convenience, and can communicate the overall flavor of a system, but are not so useful when taken too seriously. Real-world systems are often not so easily classified—and there’s no need to do so, because the elevation of the rails has little effect on the system’s operation or its usefulness. When underground is the best place to put the rails, the rails are underground; when they can put them above-ground, they put them above ground (and when the density the area changes such that tunneling becomes justified, they move them underground).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Wouldn’t that disqualify the NYC subway system and DC Metro?
There’s above ground track in all of the boroughs. Yes the subway runs above ground even in Manhattan.
On the other hand the L in Chicago runs in a subway on the Red Line and the Blue Line.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:07 am
@ Miles Bader.
Thank you.
@ Paulus Magnus
I was being sarcastic.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
is Dyson:
Yes, both BART and DC Metro are electrified, steel-wheel-on-steel rail systems. So stipulated.
What else do they have in common? Not the electrification. Not the rail gauge. Not the loading gauge.
BART’s unique technical specifications make it very expensive to construct, to run, or to upgrade. BART has considerable political clout, and manages to get the lion’s share of available Bay Area funding. Accounting and cost-benefit analyses are skewed to make BART look good, and other local forms of transportation look bad. (See the Jan 15 posts on Clem’s blog for more details on bogus accounting for the BART-to-SFO extension, and MTC’s bogus cost-benefit analyses).
You’d have to ask someone who was around at the time which came first: the high costs of BART (cars costing 2.5x what new DC Metro cars cost; cost for new extensions higher HSR), or the political culture which portrays such costs as “success”.
But given both, I’m not at all surprised that BART-to-SFO ended up being dictated by then-State Senator Quentin Kopp. Kopp pushed hard against having CalTrain and BART meet at San Bruno, and extending the people-mover to San Bruno (I’ve read that the people-mover about a quarter-mile from the BART station; you can *see* it).
In order to push through the BART-SFO expansion, unrealistic ridership numbers were projected. San Mateo County’s SamTrans bought those numbers, and accepted the operations cost.
Reality: ridership was less than half the predicted figure.
SamTrans had shelled out over $400million (according to their audited report, not the $171m quoted on the web-site. Part of that money was for Colma, which already existed; which might be why Colman ridership is included in the bogus “profitable” accounting). As subsidizing the BART extension losses ate up more and more of SamTrans’ budget, SamTrans was faced with insolvency, and eventually bought its way out of finding the SFO extension’s operating losses.
You will find widely-reported speculation — by regulars on this blog, and others — that BART inflated the ridership projections because if they hadn’t, the proposed extensions to San Jose
and Livermore would not have passed muster.
What do you see here? (Serious question). I see a pattern of failure, failures which are reported as “success”. Personally, I tie that into what i see as a failed experiment with BART’s basic technology: BART governance was rotten from the get-go, as they never really acknowledged that the system failed to meet its original goals. Your mileage may well differ.
But that’s why i see BART’s unique technology — which goes hand-in-hand with vendor capture — as part and parcel of BART’s other dysfunction.l Your mileage may vary.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:12 am
I’m more than happy to agree that BART and DC Metro are urban, or suburban- BART up and down the median of 580 to Dublin/Pleasanton is *not* urban, by any sane definition! — transit systems. Because that’s true.
But don’t confuse that with them being the same technology — unless you’re using technology at the leve of “they’re both trains”.
jimsf Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Ive been riding bart since it opened its train to nowhere ( fremont to del norte) line. I, like most bay areans, like bart. With the exception of the again, dirty trains, which will be rectified soon. I have used bart to SFO so many times. The trains from SFO are crowded upon departure most of the time. And bart to sfo is super convenient. Not only does it take me right into the terminal for virgin flights but the adjacent terminal 3 is an easy walk as well. All the complaining about bart on this blog is a joke. This blog is the only place Ive ever heard anyone whine about it.
Bay areans would be happy to have bart ring the bay and access sfo from the north and south.
Ive had to use bart for 30 years to get to jobs, appointments, to move, ( yes carried all my stuff piece by piece) attend events, and so forth, as do most bay areans.
It works. It gets me close enough to just about everyplace except the missing sections ( south bay/pen)
Its built. It works. Quit bitching about stuff that happened decades ago.
so pointless.
I mean get over it for christs sake.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
All the complaining about bart on this blog is a joke. This blog is the only place Ive ever heard anyone whine about it.
The worm in the horseradish thinks life is sweet.
Miles Bader Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 5:05 pm
OTOH, however bad BART is, it’s very unlikely reality has much connection with the flipped-out looney-toons off-his-meds ravings of synonymouse or the grain-of-truth-hidden-under-a-giant-steaming-mountain-of-snark ranting of mlynarik.
Sure other people criticize BART as well, but it’s the nutters who stand out. The odd effect of those two is to make BART look better by painting its critics as insane… :/
synonymouse Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, Miles, I haven’t been subjected to a wake-up flame for quite a while. Unfortunately anything approaching meds are limited to an occasional shot of Bulleit’s new rye(95% rye grain and highly recommended by this loony-toon).
Yes, I do hate BART tho I really did enjoy riding it that first week in the East Bay when they were cranking up the speeds. But it was all downhill from that point and especially when the unions took control. Right now I am smarting over the disgusting loss at Tejon but consoling myself over the wonderful prospect of an in my lifetime humiliating comparison of BART retrodreck to the spanking new hsr standard gauge ocs trainsets. Finally some redress for Bechtel’s sins.
Speaking of all things evil Bechtel I am sure BART would love to impose any SP-like sabotage on the CHSRA. Unfortunately PB has beat them to the punch at Tehachapi and Pacheco and anything that would render hsr more inefficient and unprofitable just means hsr will demand more public subsidy, in direct competition with BART’s infinite needs and desires.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:18 am
SP sabotage? The way I heard it from foamer-types, was that BART chose 5ft6in gauge to be *sure* that they wouldn’t be, er, railroaded, into running freight trains at night.
synonymouse Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Quite simply SP wanted to make sure BART, which it correctly predicted would become enormously
powerful politically in time, would not even think about its trains running anywhere on, near or about SP lines or property. It worked, but now we cannot put hsr on BART tracks but you sure can on Caltrain. capiche?
I guess you could call it a hardwired-hardware embargo. Embargo your fledgling enemy before it becomes powerful enough to prevail – an observation obviously not lost upon the Tejon Cartel.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 8:36 am
In retrospect this was a good thing. Freight shouldn’t have to compete with passenger rail service. Can you imagine what would have happened if BART had to share tracks in parts with freight?
joe Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
The post is about HSR and Airport connections and one commenter observed HSR stakeholder’s pride over SFO-BART.
IMHO, the METRO-DCA design is better. I tried to give some reasons.
I hope criticism and lessons learned from existing systems like BART-SFO which fail to achieve ridership projections and comparison to others which are successful like the METRO will inspire people to expect more when we build HSR.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
“Lessons learned from existing systems like BART-SFO which fail to achieve ridership projections”.
The current Chairman of HSRA, Dan Richard, is a rail “expert” due solely to his position on the BART Board of Directors (an elected position). Richard’s main accomplishment as a Director of BART: the BART SFO extension. That hardly suggests Dan Richard views BART-to-SFO as a failure from which to learn lessons.
Before you can learn lessons from your failures, you have to first see that they *are* failures.
which was sort-of my point behind hammering BART and its oh-so-frequently-copied technology…
Jonathan Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
@jimsf: maybe this blog is the only place you interact with people who have CalTrain, and vastly prefer Caltrain’s superior service, speed, and pricing, to a BART replacement?
Miles Bader Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Wait, is this the once-an-hour-stops-crazy-early-on-weekends Caltrain?
Is it actually possible to get worse?
Alon Levy Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Yes, it is.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
Hell, look at when the service ends in Seattle.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:48 am
To be fair, commuter rail service span can be god awful even in cities with competently run transit.
To be less fair, the gap between the MBTA or the Bay Area people and Translink in transit planning quality is larger than the geographic distance between Boston and Vancouver.
Miles Bader Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:57 am
Wow, they really take the concept of 9-5 seriously!
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
9-3:30, more like.
Fortunately, SkyTrain compensates for this by running every 3 minutes until midnight.
jimsf Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:05 am
Jonathan Reply:February 18th, 2012 at 6:01 pm@jimsf: maybe this blog is the only place you interact with people who have CalTrain, and vastly prefer Caltrain’s superior service, speed, and pricing, to a BART replacement?
Ive spent my share of time on caltrain. Having lived in 7 of the 9 bay area counties over 40 years and having very low income the majority of that time, I have probably used more bay transit for longer than anyone on this blog and I can tell you hands down that bart does it better than any of them. Bart is reliable, fast, frequent, and easy to use. The only negatives from a rider standpoint is that it doesn’t serve santa clara co and it closes before bay areans are done partying. ( and oh how they like their parties) Catrain is neither frequent enough, especially on weekends, nor does it run late enough, espeically on weekends. Catrain isn’t bad, its just not as good as bart.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Caltrain’s latenesses has a lot to do with not being grade-separated, and consequent fatal crossing accidents. It also has a lot to do with clapped-out rolling stock and locomotives. BART has that problem too, but BART is the local playground-bully taking other Bay Area transit system’s lunch-money.
Jeff Carter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
@ jimsf: “Catrain is neither frequent enough, especially on weekends, nor does it run late enough, espeically on weekends. Catrain isn’t bad, its just not as good as bart.”
This has absolutely *nothing* to do with Caltrain “technology” and *everything* to do with politics / political engineering.
There is a severe lack of funding for Caltrain and an incredible unwillingness of Caltrain (JPB) to run the proper service. They can’t seem to get completely out of this stupid 1950’s “commuter rail” mentality. Sure, they have vastly improved the reverse-peak service but off-peak is nearly useless from a practical (typical car driving commuter/traveler) standpoint. While the proposed future Caltrain schedule improves mid-day service it is still too infrequent and evening service is still the same worthless schedule we have today.
Poor Caltrain service is not all the fault of the current JPB/Samtrans leadership, as prior to 1992, Caltrain was managed by Caltrans District 4, in conjunction with the three counties.
You talk about BART being great service but this comes at a great expense of other transit systems in the bay area, especially Caltrain. The reason being that if Caltrain were properly run, it would make BART look sick. And we can’t have that, as it would hurt the taxpayer funded profits of the PB/Bechtel/Tutor-Saliba, etc, etc. conglomerate. And the stupid, clueless, unscrupulous politicians would NOT be able to fund their huge campaign war chests. That is what BART cheerleading/extensions are all about: profits and election campaigns… it has *nothing* to do with improved/good transit. I have seen firsthand that some of the most ardent BART cheerleaders have never set foot on BART, other than some bullshit PR session, I (and others) personally had to show them how to purchase and how to use a BART ticket, which is pretty sad…
Sure BART is popular and people vote for it because all they have for comparison is shitty Caltrain service.
Way back in the early 1980’s the Samtrans Citizens Advisory Committee recommended the Caltrain be upgraded, electrified, extended to Downtown SF, expanded to four tracks, and to secure dedicated funding. But nobody ever took this recommendation seriously. Caltrans produced a number of studies for Caltrain improvements i.e. electrification, DTX, station improvements, outside boarding, etc. during Jerry Brown’s first stint as Governor (1975-1983). But then California elected the very anti-rail “Dukes-A-Hazard” as Governor (1983-1991) and nothing much happened except frequent treats to pull funding and shut down Caltrain.
I have sat through dozens upon dozens of meetings, (going back to the early 1980’s) from New Rail Starts, SCR74-Peninsula Mass Transit Study, BART to SFO, San Mateo Co. Measure A, etc. and there was always this BART, BART, and more BART from the contractor-fed politicians. It was Eastbay vs. Westbay, claims being made that Caltrain improvements and DTX will drain all transit resources for decades, and produce very little ridership. The common dogma from the Eastbay politicians was that Eastbay BART extensions must be built first before BART is extended to Colma/SFO (or any Caltrain improvements), we have been paying for BART (taxes) all these years and we have no BART service. This petty bickering is what lead San Mateo Co. to give 200+ million as a “buy-in-fee” prior to any San Mateo BART extensions. This “buy-in-fee” was used to fund Eastbay BART extensions.
The folly of the BART to SFOX has been pointed out by Richard M. and myself above. The would-be “profit” agreement nearly bankrupted Samtrans and led to a “settlement” brokered by MTC. However, as alimony, Samtrans/San Mateo still has to payoff to BART including a small portion of the Measure A sales tax. Had these funds been directed to Caltrain instead of BART, maybe Caltrain would have been able to avoid the funding crises of the last several years.
Jon Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
I am also sick of all the whinging about BART to SFO. I personally use BART to SFO several times a month and it saves me a fortune in $50 cab fares. Aside from the cost, cabs get snapped up quickly in the busy entertainment area where I live, and most cab drivers prefer destinations within the city so as to keep themselves “in the running”. So although BART is a little slower than a taxi the reliability makes up for it.
That doesn’t mean it makes any sense for BART to replace Caltrain, as that would mean using expensive and inflexible subway technology for distances better server by commuter rail. It also doesn’t mean that the stupid wye makes any sense, or the deliberate lack of a connection with Caltrain at San Bruno. But, as jimsf says, it’s there and it works.
What would help BART to SFO more than a peninsula extension is another line through San Francisco, so that more people in the city are close to a BART station that serves the airport. You would branch of the existing line just north of San Bruno station, cut back over to the Caltrain ROW and follow it to 4th & King, with new tunnels paralleling the existing ones and a subway through the Potrero district. Then maybe take a left under 3rd St, cross Market, and take a left under Geary to Union Square and towards the ocean. A 30th St/Mission infill station on the existing line would be nice as well.
Miles Bader Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
Er, wait, even though BART is er, special, what’s “expensive” and “inflexible” about “subway technology”? What does “subway technology” even mean? The only thing about subways that seems universal is that they’re almost always EMUs… and EMUs are generally a great idea for almost every application.
swing hanger Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Yes, where I live subway and commuter rolling stock is interchangeable, runs together, and works quite well, thank you.
Jon Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:37 am
Alright, point taken. BART technology is expensive and inflexible, not necessarily subway technology in general.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:23 am
*thumbs up*
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
People who are massively subsidized by others are generally pretty pleased with that situation.
jimsf Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Which is everyone in the US
Jon Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:35 am
If you think the benefit that I or any other working person receives from the state in the form of transit and other public services is anywhere near sufficient given the amount that we pay for said services in the form of taxation, you are completely deluded. To suggest that we are actually subsidized is to do the dirty work of the corporations and their lobbyists for them. Why argue over who has the biggest slice of pie when the whole pie is rapidly shrinking, and has been for 30 years?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:20 am
People who are massively subsidized by others are generally very defensive about that situation.
jimsf Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:40 am
Which is everyone in the US.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Everyone, sure, but not all activities. My commute is not subsidized – certainly not by the feds, and not even by the city, which doesn’t shovel snow from the sidewalks. Do I get subsidies? Yes, but not for walking up and down the hill every day.
synonymouse Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:03 am
It is curious and ironic that Richard would select BART to SFO as an example of a ringing success, when many would consider it a failure. And of course the blended Caltrain-hsr to the TBT would undercut BART’s SFO extension, rendering it almost irrelevant. Caltrain would be much faster from downtown SF to SFO.
I’ll stick my dumb neck out and predict that Brown and Richard will soon come out recommending replacing the blend with Ring the Bay. BART would replace Caltrain and hsr terminate at High Diridon. PAMPA will be wooed with talk of a tunnel, San Jose with being the big-shot terminus as the carrot and the threat of Altamont rising from the grave as the stick, SF will bought off with money for the Central Sucksway.
Clem Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:30 am
And leave a $400 million underground mushroom farm at Transbay? I think not. A more likely end state is Altamont HSR to SF Transbay and BART ring-the-bay, with 2 HSR + 2 BART from Redwood City through Burlingame.
synonymouse Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
You may very well be right – I thought I’d push the envelope and have BART excluding the CHSRA from the inner Bay Area and killing off the upstart Caltrain in the process. Admittedly this would be very ballsy even for BART, but it is time for a bold move, any move from BART. Once money is committed to the blend that would constitute the coup de grace for Ring the Bay and, I think, the apogee of BART’s fortunes. Only the termination of the CHSRA itself could undo it and I consider that a very sketchy strategy on BART’s part as a re-vote is way up in the air.
And I do concur that the TBT is definitely on if the blend goes thru. The irony for Richard is that torpedoes his pet project, BART to SFO.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Altamont: more come-back-from-the-dead than Newt Gingrich!
O.T. Brown supports high-speed rail as legacy: Brown pins legacy to Calif. high-speed rail plans
swing hanger Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Hopefully it will be as successful a legacy as his father’s, that being the California Master Plan for Higher Education.
The major airlines use low cost regional airlines that often pay 20K or less for crew. These crew have to rest in high cost markets like NYC/NJ. As if they are getting a room on 20K a year income jobs.
This is what HSR has to beat – cheap labor – low cost & low overhead airlines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
And I think rail/HSR can be more comfortable than a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Dash-8#Series_400
synonymouse Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 11:43 am
The TWU – and Pelosi – will never permit a non-union or privately run hsr in California. So it will need a subsidy. This is not necessarily out of the question, but it makes building the most efficient system a necessity. That’s why Villaraigosa’s deviant route scheme is such a operational and fiscal disaster.
joe Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
“Organized labor
In contrast to non-union competitor JetBlue Airways, Southwest maintains its profitability and low-fare, low-cost business model while being heavily unionized. ”
Too-bad.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Southwest has the highest unit labor costs in the industry, what are you trying to say here? Southwest thrives on short haul.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Forget the Dash-8 — ever ridden in a Beechcraft? There’s misery in commercial flight. Until the most recent model, it was impossible to stand up in the aisle.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
This is one reason why good rail service will suck passengers away from airlines by the droves in “smaller” areas served only by “regional” airlines.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Embraer aircraft are rather nice, especially if you can get seat 1A.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:45 am
Jungle Jets suck. Unless you’re talking about the E-Series.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Yeah, you probably shouldn’t use wikipedia as a source for that.
A pilot that works in New Jersey and choses to commute from Seattle is not tired because of anything the airline did to them.
Clearly you’ve never been on a Q400 either.
Clearly you don’t understand that the pilot salary (which was based on what are called “guaranteed hours” and excludes addition pay pilots recieve) in that case is grossly understated by the Unions who saw the event as a way to suck more out of the industry.
joe Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Safety is the airline’s responsibility.
HSR will be a safer way to reach small markets than connecting with these low cost carriers.
Wikipedia did a decent job summarizing the crash – you offered no corrections to the entry or summarized findings.
Their plane crashed, their pilots are paid shit and the airline which put him in the cockpit and had shit for procedures that I bet they fixed since the crash.
I know you like to blame the Union and the Pilot for his low wage job and being not-very-good but that’s the talent a low cost carrier gets when they pay crappy wages, refuse to train in-house or compete for better talent.
Long hours and lack or rest are airline problems and occur when airlines cut costs and their staff are not fit to fly.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Dude, machines break, people make mistakes and people die. Its a fact of life. For any form of transportation.
You don’t even bother to read the detail report available for free from the NTSB. You use Wikipedia, yet fail to site any other significant incidents in the history of aviation to support your BS.
Total ass clown move.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 6:19 pm
For anyone interested, the complete 299 page report is available here.
The sad thing is that, like a number of other airline accidents (one quite recent, Air France 447, on which I lost a friend), this accident was completely avoidable if the pilots had but properly responded to certain aerodynamic conditions, in this case a stall (as in AF 447).
To me, this shows that airlines have deemphasized manual flying probably too much, so that their pilots rely too much on autopilots to, and forget how to respond when something goes wrong.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
AF 447 went down for due to a mechanical failure. It was not avoidable.
Clem Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
AF447 went down due to the pilot (a) entering a stall and (b) failing to recognize it.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:59 am
Really? Why did he enter that stall? Specifically.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:09 am
Ordering a 7,000ft/min rate of climb at high altitude and then continuing to order pitch-up despite the stall warning going off.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:22 am
There you go again. Stop man. Just stop.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Lets have some fun with this though:
What is a pilots response to indicated overspeed and altitude loss at cruise?
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Pitch up, possibly increase power depending on how great the overspeed, and trim for climb pitch until intended altitude is reached.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
As in, if the airspeed is likely to decay too much in the climb, add power.
It also depends on the conditions. In heavy turbulence, you would concentrate on maintaining wings-level flight, and accept small excursions of altitude and airspeed.
In such conditions, the overspeed would be a greater problem than the altitude loss, and would likely simply be dealt with by pitching up slightly.
James Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
High altitiude cruise is done in what is called the coffin corner of the flight envolope riding the razor edge between stall and overspeed or Mach tuck. The above casual comments ‘just pull up’ are not accurate at high altitude. The pilot is well aware of this. They live it every day. The occasional 747 flame-out and stall each time risk maximum performance pull-out from the dive which usually follows. By the way the turbofan likes to pump air from front to back but under some limited conditions it is less happy pumping sir from back to front. This can cause a compressor stall which is a massive ‘backfire’ which can stall the engine at cruise.
As an aerospace structural design engineer I am amazed that literally billions of people are delivered safely to their destinations over the past few decades. At takeoff you are sitting above a swimming pool size tank of jet fuel (low volitile kerosene). In the air you are sitting at FL350 or so with the associated potential and kenetic energy. Finally you have to safely land on a small strip of pavement. All the time you hear the seat belts click before the wheel chocks are in place. You are really not completely safe until you get out the door. It is funny to hear rail fans try to talk about airplanes. About as funny as me trying to talk about rail.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
James gets the cookie Peter.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:24 pm
@james:
but what happens when you’re at commercial ceiling (38,000 ft), and you start descending at 10,00 feet per minute? What do you do when you go below 20,000 feet? Below 10,000 feet?
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 4:23 am
Uggh, right, high altitude aerodynamics were a long time ago, sorry.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 4:52 am
@ SR
But what WOULD you do in an indicated overspeed and altitude loss situation in cruise. I wasn’t suggesting a major pitch-up, just a couple degrees.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:36 am
Fly a Boeing.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:46 am
More to the point, I wouldn’t want to be in an Airbus with its excessive control laws. A pilot has to be able to fly the f-ing plane.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:48 am
Futhermore, none of us were there so second guessing, especially from people who don’t even know how to fly an airplane, is a bunch of BS.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 8:04 am
Agreed on pilots being able to fly the plane. Hell, I don’t even like it when my DVD player tells me when I can or can’t do certain things.
By the way, I know the Airbus doesn’t have an actual stickpusher (since there’s no feedback to the stick), but is there no system on board to override pilot inputs to prevent a stall?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:16 am
I was always Boeing guy, but the way my uncle explained it to me (he flies the 330) you can push, but if it exceeds the “Airbus Law”, it won’t go further. So once you begin to maneuver, the plane begins to try and correct itself. So one has to wonder what impact a bad speed reading would due to this condition. Especially when you consider what sounds like some confusion from the crew. Of course, the investigation team is less interested in finding a real cause than they are in placing blame. It’s an inherent flaw in the French investigation method. It’s why they blamed Continental for the Concorde crash when the reality is a small metal strip off of a DC-10 never should have penetrated what we know was a poorly designed fuel bladder and location.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:37 am
Thanks for clarifying that. I guess your uncle flies for DL?
Uggh, that’s the continental legal system for you. It’s like the top Google being criminally prosecuted in Italy for something a user posted on youtube, that they didn’t even know about.
The fact that the Concorde was overweight probably didn’t help prevent the tire from blowing, either…
I’m guessing that BEA is likely more interested in protecting Airbus’ reputation than protecting Air France’s in the AF 447 case?
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:33 am
Gah, *the top Google executives*
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 12:32 pm
He was a NW turned DL. He’s got more seniority than I would have ever had. SOB would have bumped me by now had I kept flying. I used to joke with him when I got hired by DL that NW sucked he’d end up at Delta so he should just get used to it (long story short, he’s the youngest of 7 and was only 8 when I was born).
On the investigation front, it’s the French legal system, but yeah. Every investigation they do has a “blame someone” bent to it and the investigations are typically riddled with press leaks. Seems to be the French way.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 4:08 am
The crew of AF 447 had EVERY FREAKIN’ OPPORTUNITY to break the stall and recover safely. Yeah, the pitot tubes were iced over and therefore they had no airspeed indications, but everything was working, including the AOA sensor and the stall warning system. They were already at TO/GA power, all they had to do was push forward to break the damn stall, accelerate, and recover.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:15 am
Yeah, you try to recover from a stall in the dark, in a thunderstorm and Mach .8 with frozen pitot tubes and see how it pans out for you.
Some of you think this stuff is oh so simple.
BTW they did recover, but by the time they did it was too late.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:33 am
Yeah, when the one pilot is constantly applying nose-up command, it’s pretty hard to recover from a stall. It didn’t help that he didn’t tell the others he was pulling back the whole time.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:43 am
If its dark, and you have no visual cues to recover from a stall, you’re not going to recover without instruments unless you get lucky. Their instruments had failed because of a desigg flaw that dated back to the late 1980′s. This flaw presented an “overspeed” indication to the crew and the correct response is to raise the nose to slow the speed of the aircraft. For you to sit there and play monday morinng quarterback on this is completely disigenuous, and shows your total ignorance of the dynamics of flight. I bet you think that at Mach .8 you’d be able to tell the correct attitude of an aircraft don’t you?
Clem Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:16 am
For someone who knows about the aviation business, you sure don’t know jack about AF447. It was a perfectly fine plane flown through some mildly challenging conditions that experienced a minor and temporary equipment failure. The crew’s reaction is what killed everyone.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:23 am
Really Clem? Minor and Temporary? Is that why every A340 and A330 on the planet had to replace their pitot tubes?
The blatant ignorance of some people is astonishing.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/easa-to-mandate-replacing-thales-a330a340-pitot-tubes-330580/
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:32 am
Just a question. Is minor and temporary when you text on a cell phone while driving a train?
Clem Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:37 am
Your style of vitriolic bombast requires rock-solid knowledge and 100% certainty in order to be effective. Slip up once, and you look like a fool. I suggest that you go read the BEA reports on this accident.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:41 am
I suggest you read the report Clem. You already look like a fool on this.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:48 am
BTW. Any commerical pilot that’s had stall training knows exactly exactly why they were unable to recover. If the pitot tube doesn’t freeze resulting in incorrect over-speed indications, this plane never crashes.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:20 am
Don’t give me some drivel about you being an airline pilot either. Your credibility on that went out the window on this thread. There isn’t an airline pilot on the surface of the earth with any integrity that would claim they could have recovered this aircraft. If you’re saying you could have, then you’re full of crap.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:34 am
When did I ever claim to be an airline pilot? I said I got out of aviation, not that I was ever an airline pilot.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:36 am
Then you should shut up about how “easy” a stall recovery of a 600,000 lb aircraft with no airspeed indications would be.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:02 am
It’s rather easier to recover a stall when you pay attention to the stall alarm, which went off for a full minute unnoticed. Paying attention to aircraft attitude would probably also have helped. Granted of course, Air France shouldn’t have neglected their high altitude stall training. Your claim, however, that no airline pilot with integrity would claim the aircraft is recoverable is simply not in accord with the facts of the case.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:08 am
Thank you for your powerful and completely misleading contribution.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:11 am
Yup, those darn BEA reports, just full of it compared to the overwhelming knowledge of SR.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:13 am
BTW. Have you ever done a stall recovery in a 600k-lb aircraft in the dark with incorrect airspeed indications? I mean, if such a task is so easy as you say then one can assume you’ve performed this maneuver yourself at least a couple of times in your life. I mean common, you’ve at least done it in a sim right?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Have you even stalled a Cessna? A light twin? An RJ? 737? A320?
I mean, like you said, its easy.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:15 am
Don’t bother responding. I already know the answer.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:38 am
For any given task, does maintaining situational awareness and giving proper input render the task easier, harder, or the same?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Don’t pretend you know anything about situational awareness. You want to learn something about situational awareness ( in terms of what these guys encountered), have someone fly you off the coast of California about 20 miles during a new moon. Have them do a couple of Chandelles then try to figure out if you are right side up – or even level for that matter, you’ll probably be puking from the disorientation. You may never want to fly again.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:05 am
I never said recovery from the stall would have been “easy”. Yes, the conditions made recovery very difficult. But constant pitch up input by the pilot made recovery impossible.
“Easy” was your word.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:09 am
I didn’t say you did. Magdumb did:
It’s rather easier to recover a stall when you pay attention to the stall alarm, which went off for a full minute unnoticed.
I hade thread shift limits.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:16 am
You did however seem to think they didn’t have airspeed indications, which they did. They had overspeed and you address that buy pulling the nose up. Becasue it was a false reading, the plane stalled. Couple that with the severe weather they were flying through and yeah, it is hard to recover.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:17 am
Is it your contention that the aircraft made sudden uncommanded changes in its operations which resulted in the disorientation of the flight crew, uncommanded changes which were not noted in the BEA report? The flight crew failed to even acknowledge the stall alarm or to correctly respond to the stall. Furthermore, I did not say easy. I said easier. Perhaps you are in need of some remedial English if you are incapable of comprehending the difference between the two words.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Stop trying to draw meaning from an overview of a report that you don’t understand.
Just because one doesn’t cancel a stall warning horn doesn’t mean they didn’t respond to it.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone so ill informed as you.
Clem Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:43 pm
You guys are a trip, arguing about stall recovery. The point was for the crew to heed a valid 56-second long warning of an impending stall. In fact they did not, and instead proceeded to stall a perfectly controllable aircraft. It’s like arguing over the best way to land a jump from the fourth floor window, when the habitual strategy is not to jump.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Clem, his Omniscience said it was mechanical failure.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
AF 447 went down for due to a mechanical failure. It was not avoidable.
I dunno why they are arguing the finer points of stall recovery.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Clem, are you sure? My reading was that the stall warning was intermittent. While it was on continuously for .. 54 secs? .. the stall warning went on, and off, during the descent. The French union, SNPL, more-or-less argues that the flight crew thought the stall-warning was telling them that the plane was alternating between stalled and not-stalled; whereas in fact the plane was alternating between stalled-with-valid-airspeed-data and stalled-with-invalid-airspeed-data (no signal).
And despite Sobering Reality’s frothing-at-the-mouth about stall recovery:
from the BBC. FlightGlobal.com reported the same translation about the two crew on duty not being trained , and also that:
David Kaminski-Morrow, FlightGlobal.com, July 29 2011.
(The BBC report merely said that was “one of ten recommendatoins”)
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:21 am
We bow to your superior ignorance.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
By the way, since you don’t know shit about aviation safety – this from your ignorant commentary. That’s how aviation safety works. A mistake is made, its corrected then avoided. It has zero to do with pilot pay, or work hours (particularly as it pertains to the incident you mention). Only an ignorant shit that knows nothing about aviation would claim that it does.
PS. Don’t drive tomorrow. You might die in the process.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
Sobering Reality exhibit 1: “AF 447 went down for due to a mechanical failure. It was not avoidable.”
Sobering Reality exhibit 2a: “You don’t know shit about aviation safety”
Sobering Reality exhibit 3b: “You don’t even bother to read the detail report available for free“
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:17 am
So you didn’t read it either.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:12 am
Pitch and power, baby.
Jerry Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Geez. No wonder John Madden doesn’t like to fly and takes the bus. (Hopefully he can someday take the CAHSR. Unless that stalls too.)
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Wrong.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:27 pm
The guy is 75 years old. He’ll probably be dead.
Interesting that you mention Alaska. This summer theyre launching Fresno-San Diego, which is unversed. There are also rumblings that they plan on launching Fresno-Maui this summer.
Why is that relevant? The IOS, centered on Fresno, can bring customers from around the valley to FAT, where they can board Alaska flights to places like San Diego (too far for todays trains or buses to be comfortable) or Hawaii (obviously will always be an air market). When you add up the populations of Fresno, Bakersfield, Madera, Merced etc etc, you do get a sizable population that can support longer distance flights.
And Fresno is more than willing to drop lavish gifts on airlines willing to serve FAT, meaning FAT can act as a low-cost hub to an airline like Alaska. (They currently offer flights to Seattle and Portland from Fresno). The airport also has excess capacity, something that the larger airports are sort of lacking.
The one issue would be getting passengers from the downtown station to FAT, which would require a bus transfer.
jimsf Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I would seem that the ideal would be the ability to go to airline x website and book merced to honolulu for instance with a thru fare single two segment ticket. mcd-fno/fat-hnl
Alon Levy Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
CComMack Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Back in the day, when JetBlue was brand new and AirTrain JFK hadn’t been built yet, Jet Blue ran a free shuttle bus direct from LIRR’s Jamaica Station to their terminal at JFK. It gave them a serious boost in the Long Island segment of the NY air traveler market (2.8M people in Nassau and Suffolk), and was a decently popular option for savvy travelers in the Five Boroughs and points west. (A college friend of mine bound for upstate NY took four commuter trains from suburban Philadelphia to Jamaica, then caught his flight.)
Now, I don’t actually know how many people made use of that bus over the two or three years that it ran, but I do know it was popular enough that JetBlue never thought of cutting it until it was finally replaced by AirTrain. Given that that was a connection to a 79 MPH max (and frequently slower) commuter rail station, had no through-ticketing, and had to fight congestion and construction on the Van Wyck Expressway, I have no doubt that a shuttle from a downtown Fresno HSR station to FAT (roughly the same distance) would be similarly successful.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:42 am
Well, you can look at how many people use the AirTrain. It runs frequently all-day, doesn’t have a congestion problem, and connects to a major subway station and a commuter rail station that has semi-decent service to the suburbs and good, frequent service to Manhattan; for most Manhattan destinations, multi-transfer transit is still faster than cars/taxis. It’s invariably much cheaper than taxis to Manhattan and nearly all other parts of the city, and most New Yorkers do not own cars anyway.
Total AirTrain ridership as of 2009: 5.3 million. Total airport traffic was 45 million.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
1. Helps that they actually charge a fare that recovers costs.
2. Its ridership has less to do with passengers and more to do with the 35,000 people who work there.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Do you have a cite for 2? What I read in an article about New York’s secondary job centers (no link, sorry – I’ve been trying to hunt that piece down for years) is that JFK workers almost invariably drive, specifically mentioning that the AirTrain is more expensive than the regular buses and only serves passenger terminals, rather than the various parts of the airport used by employees.
Likewise, when taking the AirTrain, I’ve seen few people on board wearing any airline or airport uniform.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:35 pm
Because everyone wears a uniform to work right?
Seriously? That’s your argument?
JFK only has 16 million O&D passengers. Are you going to sit there and tell me that 33% of them use AirTrain at JFK? Sorry, that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Thanks for answering my question.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:33 am
You’re welcome.
The only thing I wouldn’t like about an airline run train, is that the airlines have done everything within their power to make flying miserable.
Joseph E Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
The airlines are not trying to make air travel uncomfortable, they are trying to make it cheap yet profitable, because that’s what most people want. Because a plane uses a huge amount of fuel, they need to minimize weight and minimize size of the plane; this means packing in the seats as close as possible. Electric trains have much more of the total cost in capital expenses and track maintenance, so it is reasonable to provide a little more space per passenger to maximize ridership.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
I think you’re making a big mistake if you assume HSR will not make similar changes over time.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:26 pm
These comments remind me of a story about Amtrak after the terrorist attacks in September of 2011. As we remember too well, this incident crippled air service for a time, and Amtrak was part of what took up the slack. This included some passengers who purchased coach tickets on the Empire Builder out of Seattle to settle into the long ride to Chicago.
When these passengers, who were normally air people, got on the train, they asked the conductor if there had been some mistake in booking. “We requested coach, not first class,” they said as they looked at the seats. “This is coach,” the conductor replied. “First class is in the sleepers.”
This was on “socialist,” “third world,” “FRA dinosaur” Amtrak.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Except that HSR is a 2-4 hour trip, not 2-3 days.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Yes, and? Shinkansen have been around as long as the jumbo jets, TGV for decades now, neither has turned into cattle car service. Given the close proximity in travel time, travel comfort is the “killer app” for trains to compete with.
Miles Bader Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
… and in fact the trend for the Shinkansen these days seems to be more emphasis on comfort.
swing hanger Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Indeed. The standard class reserved seating on the Mizuho/Sakura services are pretty comfy, I tried them last year, and they are on par with first class seating on older rolling stock.
http://magnetbahnforum.de/phpBB2/userpix/7_P1000790_1.jpg
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
The link doesn’t work.
Also, why is the Sakura a bit cheaper than the Nozomi, if it has Green Car-grade seating?
swing hanger Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
try this one:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/340/128251461353816311638.jpg/sr=1
As for the slightly cheaper fares, perhaps it’s a move by JR West and JR Kyushu to capture more of the Kansai-Southern Kyushu air market?
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Could be… but then why wouldn’t JR West also cut fares on its Nozomi trains, instead of keeping them 300 yen more expensive for Shin-Osaka-Hakata trips?
swing hanger Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
It could be that modifying fares for Nozomi services requires the consent of JR Tokai, who are more concerned about their bread-and butter Tokyo-Shin Osaka route. And JR Tokai always gets their way, for example their insistence on running only 16 car trains.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:43 pm
You guys are really living in fantasyland.
JFH Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:50 pm
What’s fantasyland?
Deutsche Bahn? Trenitalia? SNCB? Danske Statsbaner (DSB)? Iarnród Éireann? RENFE? Acela?
I’ve ridden on all of them, and I believe that they’re all more comfortable than cattle class on the airlines here in the US (some are even better than DL’s domestic first class, in my opinion). I see no reason to believe that CAHSR will be vastly different than their European counterparts. Comfort will be one of the many selling points on CAHSR.
swing hanger Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
I like the airline service in Japan, which is still relatively pleasant, but even the most cramped 2+3 unreserved seating on the Shinkansen has a seat pitch of 104cm, with plenty of legroom for my 185cm frame, which makes it a viable choice.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:10 am
I wonder if SR has ever ridden a train–not just a trolley or commuter job, but an intercity train of some kind, or even a good heritage train.
I say that because his comments about “fantasyland” sound like those who either have had no experience at all, or whose experience was limited to something like the New York subway in its down years, before David Gunn helped turn things around.
It’s an old site, and hasn’t been updated in a very long time, but it gives a little glimpse of what we (foolishly) threw away. I hope he gives it a good look:
http://calzephyr.railfan.net/
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:16 am
Yeah I have and I actually enjoy trains. If they are truly interested in breaking even, some realities will have to apply here.
JFH Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Realities like multiple classes of service, comfy seats, food for sale, free wifi, frequent departures, quick and intuitive purchase of tickets, quiet cars, etc.
There seems to be a winning formula for good HSR that’s used in Europe and Asia. Acela uses it too, and it doesn’t need an operating subsidy. The reality is that CAHSR will use the same winning formula and will have the same operating subsidy-free result.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:06 am
LOL.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:06 am
The subsidy is in 100% of the public paid for construction with zero contribution from its operations.
JFH Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Zero contribution from its operations? As in the state will simply turn the rails over to an operator and say “have at it!” for free? Where do I apply to be the operator?
Operations will be contracted out, as in somebody will have to pay to have the right to use the rails. That satisfies the no-operating-subsidy requirement. Whether or not the company can then use the rails to turn a profit is the company’s problem, not the state’s. (I believe that the operation will be profitable for the company). The contract price that they pay the state can be used to cover some of the construction costs. “…zero contribution from its operations” is wrong.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I’m pretty sure the use of operatign profit is prohibited form being used to pay down capital debt on this thing. Maybe I’m wrong, but it was pointed out on this very website.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Operating profits are supposed to be plowed into system expansion.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Did I miss a wave of terror attacks in September, 2011?
J/k, I make the same mistake…
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Bah, !!@#$%!!!!!
hmm we havent’ talked about who should build the trains lately.
here I see GE doing train control and high speed trains…
Jo Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I am probably just dreaming, but it would be nice if GE or some other USA firm would develop true high speed rail trainsets fully designed and built in the USA.
Clem Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
Or Boeing, yeah.
Michael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Best light rail vehicles ever. Boeing nailed it. (Google, if you don’t understand)
synonymouse Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 12:30 am
The Boeing-Vertol lrv’s rode quite comfortably but by all accounts a maintenance nightmare. They could have been debugged but you would need a Stalinist dictatorship to achieve the necessary policy continuity.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 7:33 am
I hope thats sarcasm.
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:25 am
nope – the Eastern bloc produced a pretty good streetcar(Tatra)based, naturlich, on the good ‘Merican pcc in the 1000,s, as I recall.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:35 am
Given that the only half-decent thing Boeing has designed for decades seems to be airliners, and the 787 has been taking forever, I’m fairly certain that’s sarcasm.
CComMack Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Please, God, keep Boeing the heck away from anything on rails at all whatsoever. Been there, done that, it was terrible. The things that make good aviation engineers are not transferable to rail engineering. Although, to be fair, I should admit that my local trolleys, built by Kawasaki and coming up on 30 years strong, are a close descendant of the USSLRV.
Nathanael Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
How about having Budd do it — oh wait, they were driven out of business several decades ago.
Well, Bombardier bought their designs and is HQed right across the border.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
And Rotem is using their Philadelphia plant to churn out Silverliners and I forget what for the MBTA…
Jo Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:33 am
You also have Seimens in Sacramento, Talgo in Wisconson, CAF in New York, and I am sure Alstom also must have a facility someplace in the USA.
Brian Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:59 am
I think for the meantime we should just accept the fact American manufacturer’s have “lost it” in terms of railway technology. I guess we can still feel proud of the fact we are among the best in the world in aviation technology. Boeing as example of course. Maybe their light rail vehicles were flawed but you got to admire them for trying! Same goes for the United Aircraft Corporation Turbo Train. Not a great success but pretty cool in concept!
For American HSR I am sure we don’t want to risk going with something unproven. If it makes us feel better in terms of our “national pride” we can consider Bombardier as “de-facto American”! They may be Canadian but they are still North American! I am thinking along the lines of the Bombardier Zefiro train sets marketed to rest of the world.
Otherwise we should just go with what the Europeans or Japanese have to offer. To some extent to be successful a hypothetical US HSR manufacturer would need to “adapt” technology from existing systems without being perceived as “stealing” the technology. Still, I got to say it would be nice to imagine a hypothetical future in which the US could regain some prominence in railway technology.
Jo Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Is there some brave little upstart firm that would like to build high speed rail trainsets that venture capitalist would like to invest in?
J. Wong Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:55 am
The answer is “no” mostly because of the qualification “little”. Any upstart firm that would build high speed rail trainsets would have to have at least a billion if not more in investment, which isn’t anyone’s definition of “little”.
jimsf Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 9:27 am
I like the zefiro trains
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
One of America’s biggest problesm is we have “lost it” when it comes to manufacturing. California to an even larger extent. We don’t build jack shit in this state anymore, politicians have made it impossible.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Politicians certainly have a great share of the blame, but how much in recent years–actually, the last 20 or 30–can also be blamed on “vulture capitalism?”
joe Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:07 pm
SB is FoxNews meme.
Factually: Our wages are pretty low and even with Wall Street’s off-shoring financial innovation that has sent work to China – BMW has and Toyota is moving more auto production to the US.
Mazda and Suzuki are hurting because they are predominately Japanese based manufacturers.
SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/careers.php is hiring in LA area and TX. They make rocket engines.
Google and FaceBook are not slouches. They make shit – it’s not bending metal but they do make shit in the USA.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Yawn… I guess you weren’t around in the 70′s.
Max Wyss Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 5:46 am
If the trust in the system can be built up with a builder, the European manufacturers would be more than willing to build production plants in California (actually, it could be part of the package that heavy maintenance is also provided by the manufacturer for a certain number of years, and that could be provided at the manufacturer’s plant). And the operator of such a plant would be an US company. The engineering, however may or may not be located there; the already mentioned Zefiro concept is designed and engineered in Hennigsdorf; the Velaros are designed in Germany, and Alstom has one engineering center. So, at least for the (western) European manufacturers, setting up a site in California would not be a huge deal (note that I consider Bombardier as an European manufacturer, as essentially all products became Bombardier by acquisition.
swing hanger Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:45 pm
GE locomotives OK. Rolling stock no. They should just buy an existing rolling stock builder (for example, Skoda) and its engineering knowhow like Bombardier did, rather than try to reinvent the wheel, like Boeing tried to do.
Jonathan Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
GE builds diesel-electric locomotives for the world market, largely freight (or freight speeds).
The last time GE tried to build a high-speed electric passenger locomotive was the E60, which was a total flop: design speed of 120mph, it incurred two deraliments during testing. Ordered in 1974, to replace the GG-1 and by 1977 Amtrak had two European locomotives running for “evaluation”, and finally bought EMD-made copies of the ASEA Rc4, with Budd-built bodies and ASEA traction. ASEA later merged with BBC to become ABB, which was purchased by Daimler-Benz and merged with their rail division to become ADTranz. ADTranz was later acquired by Bombardier.
Offhand, I can’t think of a successful US-designed electric passenger locomotive since the NS 1200 class.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Do you have any information on what made the E060s misbehave? The only remarks I can recall on the subject suggested the locomotive had too much power for the truck design. Supposedly the trucks (a standard GE type used under many diesels) were tested at high speed at the test track in Colorado under a diesel at speeds approaching that of regular service–but that the extra power available from the overhead system, and a transformer capable of pulling almost twice the power of the diesel and putting it into the motors, supposedly caused the trucks to try to “rock and roll their way out from under the locomotive.”
Are there any other details available?
swing hanger Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 4:00 am
I also recall that it was the trucks that were a problem. As far as new electric locomotives are concerned, I would hope that GE would design or acquire appropriate running gear- their Genesis passenger diesels use a modern Krupp-Mak bolsterless design. As for electricals, I would assume they have the engineering chops given their name and history.
Max Wyss Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 6:09 am
If I remeber correctly, it was inadequate design of the running gear. Nose mounted traction motors are definitely a no-no for higher speeds… and for a 3-axle truck for high speed, you do definitely have to know what you are doing.
swing hanger Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 6:20 am
Yes, too much unsprung weight on the axles.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:49 am
A touch of brain-cell tickling going on–I also recall reading that once these units were taken out of the high speed service on Metroliners, they turned out to work quite well on the slower but much heavier intercity trains that came in from beyond the Corridor. Some of these trains ran to 20 cars or more, and not all of them were lightweight (sleepers and diners were in them) but they could be handled by a single E-60 (the same trains required two AEM-7s). One Amtrak employee said the E-60 was “a horse.”
The Genesis series of engines were the first pure passenger locomotives to be designed in America in many years (up to that time, Amtrak’s power, including the E-60s, and the later passenger power of the few roads that bought it in the 1960s, had been essentially modified or derived from freight power). Indeed, I believe the last Union Pacific E-9 passenger diesels, and some dual-power FL-9s for New Haven, all delivered in the early 1960s, may have been the last true passenger locomotives built in this country prior to Amtrak.
In addition to the Krupp-Mak bogies, the Genesis units incorporated monocoque construction, and were intended to also be built in dual power and straight electric variations. I believe some dual-power versions were built for commuter operations in the New York area, but the electric versions never came.
Jonathan Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Yes, from what I gather on Wikipedia, the E60Cs which actually saw service had a productive life hauling coal trains. The problem with the E60s was that GE recycled a freight-loco bogie (truck) design, which just didn’t cut it for an E-lok with 3x the power-to-weight ratio of a diesel.
What’s the total weight of a consist with 20 cars, including heavyweight sleepers and diner?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:00 pm
This looks like your Wikipedia source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_E60
Some comments about car weights:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1824865
Based on the comments about Heritage cars weighing in between 62 tons for a coach to 70 tons for a sleeper (and a diner might be a bit more), a 20-car train, made up half of coaches, half of sleepers, and likely two diners on a train of that length, would be in the range of 1,328 tons, not including the locomotive(s); it would also be about 1,700 feet long, again not including the power. That’s a mighty heavy (and long!) passenger train by any standard!
Interestingly, trains of near that weight were routinely handled with single, if large, steam locomotives in the classic era; a single GG-1 electric would also handle such a train, and relatively easily, too, at least in the relatively flat territory of the NEC or the old Water-Level Route of the NYC. Going up and down Soldier Summit, Raton Pass, Tehachapi, 17-Mile, or Cranberry grades would be a different story, though, and noisy, too!
Norfolk & Western 611 on Irondale Hill, with 25 cars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv34J8i5nOc
In some ways more spectacular, even with a much shorter train (only 5 cars)–a start with the 611 on Saluda, which is a whopping 5% grade; this was after a stall, caused by nonworking sanders. Once the sanders were fixed, she restarted as you see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPIynJq7tg&feature=endscreen&NR=1
I’ve had this up before, but it’s appropriate here–an ex-Reading locomotive on the former B&O Sand Patch grade, just below the tunnel at the summit; at least 25 cars (some of them 80-tonners from the 1920s on 6-wheel trucks), no diesel helper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wk58jlwVq4
Jonathan Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Fair enough. I’m not surprised it took two Rc4s to haul that.
In Europe, 15,00 tonnes is a respectiable freight train, and 1,300-odd tons is getting on for that.
Closer to my own background, the iconic DB BR 103 was rated at 7,700 KW, about half again the AEM-7 (which in turn was rated a lot higher than the Swedish Rc4). The production 103.1 was spec’ed to haul 400-ton trains on the level, or 300-ton trains up 5 in 1,000 gradients. They were deliberately worn out by DBAG using them to haul 600-ton trains at 200Km/hr. (DBAG had decided to thrash them and buy new locomotives). Mind you, the 103 could handle uo to 9,000 KW in short bursts — starting acceleration — a higher ratio than modern GTO/IGBT Loks like the BR 120-descendant ICE-2, or the pre-AGV TGVs.
Is a discussion on constant-force vs. constant-work on topic here? Looks like the driver of that 4-8-4 could have used some lessons on avoiding wheel-slip. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Monday-morning quarterbacking; just thinking of the cost of replacing the tires!)
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Hello, Jonathan, a lot of the wheel slip you see in these clips is due to a combination of steep grade, sometimes compounded by curvature, and also made worse by what would have been severe overloading of the steam engines seen here.
Normal train length on Sand Patch and Irondale would have been about half or less of what you saw those locomotives working with; the long trains were run in an attempt to both handle all the riders and to keep fares as low as possible while helping to pay for those expensive steam engines.
The grades are sometimes whoppers, too. Sand Patch has stretches of 2%, which translates to 1 in 50 in British/European terms (and I imagine Irondale is about the same), while Saluda’s 5% is an amazing 1 in 20!
Saluda is now inactive, but as you can imagine, it was the steepest mainline grade in this country; it’s amazing that Southern Railway and later Norfolk Southern ran long coal trains up this line–and what went up had to come back down! That’s the tricky part.
Railroads could get even crazier on secondary, branch line, and industrial routes. The narrow-gauge Cumbres & Toltec (heritage railroad, steam operated) has long stretches of 4% (1 in 25), and claws its way to a peak of over 10,000 feet above sea level at its summit. Amazingly, this railroad, in its common-carrier days as a division of the Denver & Rio Grande Western, operated freight trains of livestock cars of up to 100 cars on that up and down, curvy route. Operations were complicated by at least one bridge that couldn’t handle more than one locomotive at a time, thus requiring that the locomotives be spread through the train.
The now-abandoned Blackwater Canyon line of the Western Maryland Railway was standard gauge, and had a grade of a relatively mild 3% (1 in 33), but this road also ran 100 car coal trains up that grade, and there was a complication of curves so sharp that maximum car length was only 70 feet (a standard American passenger car is 85 feet). That tonnage, which was probably around 7,000 tons, combined with the grades and curves that limited the size of locomotives as well as passenger cars, required 10 locomotives to move such a train up the hill between Elkins and Thomas, W.Va. Normal power distribution on that hill was three locomotives up front, four in the center of the train, and three more at the rear. Sound and smoke effects were said to be amazing.
Logging or timber railroads were even more extreme. A preserved logging road in my state of West Virginia is the Cass Scenic Railroad. Originally built just over 100 years ago, this railroad has an average grade of 5% (1 in 20), but also has several stretches of 7% and 8% (1 in 14 and 1 in 12.5), and two stretches of 11% (1 in 9). At one time, it had a stretch of 13% (1 in 7.7)! Even at that, the railroad has two switchbacks or zig-zags, and curves as sharp as 40 degrees. This isn’t a rack railroad; it’s an adhesion line, using special logging engines with swiveling trucks and a gear reduction drive. These geared engines are incredibly slow, with a top speed of maybe 12 mph, but they sound like they are going 100 mph. They aren’t fast, but they can almost climb a tree and can run on temporary track so rough it would scare a handcar.
There were several types of geared engines, the most common being a type called a Shay. This locomotive had its cylinders and a drive shaft running down the right side of the locomotive, which required the boiler be offset to the left. Engines as big as 165 tons were built this way–and one of them is at Cass. It was (and is) Western Maryland No. 6, built in 1945 for a coal branch on that road that had a nice, 10% grade (1 in 10).
Movie footage at the Cass Scenic Railroad; take note of the start at 5:00. This is an every day, routine restart on this railroad after refilling the tenders with water, and takes place on an 8% grade (1 in 12.5). The locomotives represent two extremes at Cass; one, the aforementioned WM 6, is the newest Shay type built, being the very last one erected by the Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio. Its helper, weighing in at less than half the size of No. 6, is No. 5, built in 1905, and delivered new to Cass in that year to what was then the Greenbriar, Cheat and Elk Railroad (those are all names of rivers in the area).
At about 6:20 you can see No. 5 starting back for Cass, and descending the upper stretch of 11% (1 in 9).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDJkzW7ligQ
This railroad runs to Bald Knob, the second-highest peak in West Virginia. On a clear day, you can see up to five states from there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xGgnVxp9sQ&feature=endscreen&NR=1
A bit about the translation of degrees of curvature:
http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/railway/degcurv.htm
More wild railroading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-NJQAIqkWI&feature=endscreen&NR=1
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:39 pm
Mainline mountain railroad, the Blue Ridge grade on the Norfolk & Western; 1.2% (1 in 83,) but with 175 car trains weighing probably 13,000 tons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV8rA3UE-lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-6FKD0pr0&feature=related
Commentary on gradients on the three big Virginia and West Virginia coal railroads:
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/geology/coaltopo.html
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:46 pm
One more–the unique “cab forward” locomotives of the Southern Pacific. These, like the Norfolk & Western engines above, were a variation of the Mallet type, but turned around so the cab was up front. This was done because these engines could come close to killing the crews with smoke in the long tunnels and snow sheds this railroad had, so they put the crews up front, ahead of all that exhaust. This was possible because this railroad had steam engines that burned oil, usually “residual” or “Bunker C” or “heavy bottoms”–what was left after refining off the gasoline, naptha, kerosene, etc. It was black, gooey stuff, like tar, and had to be heated to get it to flow. It’s big advantage was that it was cheap; when gasoline was going for 20 cents or less per gallon, this goo was under 5 cents per barrel!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ErZ5SgkVw&feature=related
swing hanger Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 6:23 am
Speaking of HSR trainset builders, Alstom’s AGV testing on the Rhine-Rhone HSL last autumn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7vh2RlZ5jk&feature=related
Robert,
Could you explain the significance of the former Castle AFB?
Alon Levy Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Some people within Merced have fantasies about having HSR stop at Castle AFB and turn it into a major airport, on a par with SFO and LAX.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 18th, 2012 at 10:21 pm
That’s even worse than El Toro or Miramar notions (granted, with advantage of hindsight, El Toro would’ve been a great intermodal location with Irvine train station and a coastal HSR route for San Diegans to replace Lindbergh).
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
A remote airport tied to HSR is an f-ing dumb idea. El Toro was a joke, but Miramar is still the best (actually only option) for San Diego.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Miramar isn’t any option at all, being as how the USMC and 7th fleet are disinclined to leave. El Toro would be an hour from downtown Diego while handling all their future capacity needs as well as OC and some LA.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:39 pm
As long as it exists as an airfield, it will remain an option. Doesn’t matter if it’s 20 years or 50 years. At some point it will in fact close. At that time, it will convert. You are completely wrong on El Toro; it had far too many technical faults for it to be viable as a commercial airport (primarily terrain). The Marines should have stayed there allowing San Diego to convert Miramar.
Tony d. Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
The next generation of commercial aircraft (B787 and beyond) and Nexgen air traffic control system might make Miramar more acceptable to SD residents as an airport in the future (re ground noise). Same could be said for Moffett Field and residents of Sunnyvale and Mountain View (re SJ Mineta). Bottom line: airport’s don’t belong downtown!
joe Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Tony;
Can’t speak about the SD or CV airport expansions but..
Bullshit on Sunnyvale and Mountain View letting Moffett Field becoming a civilian airport.
Absolutely no way these towns and Palo Alto and other nearby towns allow the airfield to ramp up traffic and route jets over their cities. Moffett Field airport used to support anti-sub prop planes.
NextGen air systems isn’t about noise reduction – it is about networking planes to each other, pack them tighter in flight and allow free flight. That would help reduce congestion between airports and increase airport capacity to some degree. i.e. New tech would allow SFO would keep both runways open when there is low visibility.
New aircraft tech is about efficient and low maintenance engines and composite for lighter aircraft: All improve efficiency, not noise reduction. Noise reduction is a cherry on top of fuel efficiency and safety.
I agree adding airport capacity in “remote areas” and connecting to ridership with HSR rail would be the alternative to creating new capacity at airports near 800K bungalows and town homes. i.e. Moffett Field.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Given that both Boeing and Airbus sell planes to European airlines, noise reduction is a MAJOR consideration for them, as there are very strict noise regulations in place there.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Noise is noise, and the level of reduction has a limit.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:21 am
Agreed. I was just saying it was something taken into consideration in engine design, not an afterthought.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:25 am
They are pretty much at that limit with the GTF from Pratt. The rest is going to be airframe noise, but we’ll see what new designs can do. Some of these nut jobs that run around claiming airports will be quiet are living in la la land.
joe Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Yes. Noise matters BUT I still think “Noise reduction is a cherry on top of fuel efficiency and safety.”
And I doubt future planes will be quiet enough to land in urban areas like Moffett Field.
Fuel prices are non-negotiable but noise quotas are negotiable and less precise – real in terms of noise waking people up but, IMHO a secondary factor to efficiency.
I did look up and read ….
Thanks for the prompt
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Moffett is not exactly “urban”. Final approach to runways 32 are over a golf course, parking moat commercial complexes, and some suburban housing.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Nothing beats the vast blocked off open space east of Miramar. 20 miles of nothing… Its why it will always remain a viable alternative for San Diego.
joe Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Peter Moffett is in an Urban setting. The infill near Moffett is quite impressive. Google’s driven the property values up and consequently new development is moving to large 3 story apts.
Tony d. Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Joe,
Nexgen will also allow steeper descents (for arriving aircraft) at near idle engine thrust (look it up). Nearly 6db quieter than current arriving aircraft. Add to this the next generation airliners being quieter, and you could have something more palatable than P3′s. And for the record, Moffett was also home to fighter jets prior to the opening of Lemoore NAS in the 1960′s. With Moffett takeoffs occurring to the north over the bay, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and PA residents wouldn’t have anything to cry about. A Moffett airport would also be convenient for Caltrain/HSR riders via VTA light-rail line from Mountain View to NASA/Bayshore.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
False, and if I hear anymore BS claims like this about the benefits of NextGen my head is going to explode. Approach slope is limited by the approach category of the aircraft. It does not change as a result of “NextGen”. The max GPA is still 3.6 with a waiver and 3.1 standard – same as it is with visual and ILS.
Tony d. Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Look it up! (Apology not necessary)
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
I don’t have to look it up I use it every day, and you should have quit when you had the chance:
http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/8260.3B%20Chgs%201-24.pdf
Page 101 will help you (APV approaches). Jet aircraft are app cat C, D and E. Most are D.
Same is true for Specials:
http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/ND/8260_52.pdf
Page 40. Table 3-1.
Next time, consider who you might be talking too and you won’t be made to look like a fool.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Ahh, that’s why RHV’s GPS approaches have “only” 3.5 – 3.56 degrees GPA, despite the fact that it sets off low altitude alerts for every IFR aircraft following the glidepath, at least on Z RNAV 31R. I haven’t flown the newer Y approach yet.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Hmmm, or not, as I don’t think any aircraft faster than Category B fly into there. Must be something else in TERPS limiting the approach angle.
I will gladly admit I have no clue how to design approaches.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Approach CAT B has an upper limit of 4.2, but you get better minimums with a 3.6. When we’re talking about max GPA/GS angles it’s the upper limit for that category. If you could use a 3.00 you’d use it because it can get you down to 200 and a half. A 3.6 limits you to about 270 and 3/4. The limit is based on the increase in the approach speed, pilot response latency and aircraft response to a power input.
In that instance, they probably selected a compatible GPA for the airport that gets the best minima. I’m not familiar with that airport but is there precipitous terrain or obstructions? Some noise issue? One of the DPs says no departures on the 13’s. What’s up with that?
Tony d. Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
how do you use NexGen everyday when it hasn’t even been implemented yet? But I digress; the medias recent reporting on the benefits of NexGen (I.e. steeper descents for less noise and less fuel consumption) are completely wrong and you are right; my bad! (Sarcasm)
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
You’re kidding right?
Ever heard of an RNAV approach? RNP approach?
Those are “NextGen”.
Your about as clueless as the spoon fed media on this.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
This is “NextGen” approach proceedure construction:
http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/ND/8260_52.pdf
It was put into use begining in 2005.
Try to catch up.
Tony d. Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Like I said; you’re right and the media is dead wrong..Congrats!
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Well no shit.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 4:21 am
RHV has “relatively” high terrain on final approach to 31 until about 3 miles final, in addition to more terrain to the northeast. The VASI actually gives a 4 degree GP for just that purpose.
We were all surprised when the RNAV approaches came out letting us get below VFR minimums, as the previous GPS approach had a 1400 MDA and was therefore essentially useless. Everyone would simply fly the approach into SJC and then cancel when they got below the layer. The best were the people who thought that meant they were doing a contact approach.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:41 am
Pretty much every airport will be getting an LNAV/RNAV and anything with jet traffic will get RNPs so long as the TERPS criteria can be met.
Brian Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
The current San Jose airport would still be more convenient for Caltrain/HSR/BART/VTA/ACE riders than a commercial airport at Moffett field. The VTA #10 Airport Shuttle Bus between Santa Clara Caltrain and San Jose airport can provide more frequent and quicker service directly to the terminals instead of that lone Moffett light rail stop just off the 101.
An obstacle to making Moffett a commercial airport could be the height of the historic hangar #1 parallel to the runways. I believe it’s height and proximity to the runways would not be compliant with commercial aviation standards. Overall I just think making Moffett a commercial airport would be a bad idea and it has nothing to do with NIMBY’ism. Freeway access in the current location is better too. I know airports technically don’t belong in or near downtowns but there are assets to San Jose’s current airport location. Specifically, more direct access to downtown and a larger population base.
Jerry Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:36 am
@ Brian. ACE and Amtrak have no stops at Santa Clara. That’s part of all of the transportation problems in the Bay Area.
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 11:39 am
ACE will supposedly soon be adding Santa Clara back as a stop once Caltrain has completed construction of the new island platform.
joe Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Moffett NIMBYism isn’t the opposition – the opposition would be from San Jose and local cities – not a few along the corridor but the valley in general and the potential civilian air traffic is not like anything seen in the 20 years I’ve lived in the area. Plus, San Jose airport is underutilized. They would fight it.
Moffett has little traffic – it lost aircraft operations – NASA / Mil aircraft ops were moved in 90s to Edwards/Dryden.
Blimp Hanger 1 is going down. The toxic skin is half off. It is unusable. There are no plans (money) to fix it to do … ?!? it’s for holding blimps.
Freeway access is unworkable – that area backs-up every day and they just re-engineered the interchange to stop back-ups. The HW near Moffett cannot support airport traffic on already congested 101.
Brian Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 11:58 pm
from what I’ve read in the papers the blimp hangar is technically not coming down. They are just removing the skin and treating the structural framework with protective paint until there are the funds to re-skin, and restore it exactly back to it’s original appearance (except for the toxic components of course). I realize it’s not completely clear when or if those funds will arrive to add the new skin. For some time it will just be an exposed skeleton.
I definitely hope it gets restored. I would say it’s very worthy of protection as one of the more unique historic structures in the south bay. I consider it a landmark of sorts and the fact it is no longer needed to hold blimps / airships as irrelevant. I clearly realize the Navy had a different point of view on that!
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:33 pm
New tech would allow SFO would keep both runways open when there is low visibility.
Also false. The minimum runway seperation under nextgen for simultanious operations will be 1,200-feet, which is better than the current 2500 to 4,300-feet, but not the 700 feet SFO has.
joe Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Not false. It is a topic of research.
Tony d. Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Dont bother Peter; SR is right about everything (LOL).
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
If he wasn’t right about everything that would tarnish his Omniscience wouldn’t it?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Says the guy who thinks NextGen implementation is yet to come.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
The 1,200 feet of separation is based on the maximum RNP level of .1. Therefore, the minimum lateral approach separation is .2 nautical miles, or 1,215-feet.
The only thing that will change at SFO is an RNP vs ILS approach to all runway ends. It does nothing to affect the arival rate.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:39 pm
If SFO wanted to improve its operation, then all they have to do is offset the arrival thresholds by 2,500-feet by displacing the threshold of one of each of the dependent pairs of runways (there was a professor that suggested exactly this a few years back and he was dead on – perhaps this sit the “research” you refer to – but it has nothing to do with NextGen). This increases the 700-feet of separation to an effective 1,200-feet. They could do this now an increase the arrival rate by 10-15% depending on the conditions. Of course, they would need an in pavement ALSF-2, which can no longer be purchased from Siemens due to the “Buy America” provisions requirement for the FAA which owns the ALS for airport. GPS would be no more than an overlay of this.
For dual CAT II and CAT II operations, they still need 4300-feet so if they ever expect to have that they better start building an island.
Stop expecting NextGen to provide miracles. Half of what they pimped to get funding will never see the light of day. They’ve already flushed $34 billion down the crapper on this. The FAA should be embarrassed, but instead they just got away will selling a heaping pile of it and the public fell for it hook, line and sinker. Its really rather disgusting.
Peter Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
What’s the current status (if any) of the Tijuana Bi-National Terminal? Is anything happening with that?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
LOL… How do you think that will help San Diego’s problems? You think US airlines are going to set up shop in TJ so that all of their flights have to clear customs? All that thing will do is provide access to flights in Mexico on Mexico’s carriers.
Peter Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:18 am
“How do you think that will help San Diego’s problems?”
I didn’t say I did. I asked what the status was of it. That’s all.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 20th, 2012 at 10:32 am
Supposedly its got permits. Won’t do anything for San Diego though.
thatbruce Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:05 pm
The last I heard of the proposed bi-national terminal in that area was that planes from US domestic airports would be gated in a US-controlled section of the terminal, which would allow them to get to US soil without the requirement to pass through US (or Mexican) Customs. Likewise for planes from Mexico domestic airports.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 6:47 pm
Yeah, that ain’t happening.
This is the most I’ve seen on it. Nothing more than a building and parking on the US side with a bridge to the TJ airport. Passengers will have to pay a fee for the pleasure of using TJ’s airport and mexica carriers, but I suppose for the handful of people that will use it it’s better than sitting in border traffic:
http://www.10news.com/news/26458859/detail.html
The CHSRA must be cracked-out if they think Tehachapi is going to be easier:
http://www.altamontpress.com/discussion/read.php?1,69959,69959#msg-69959
Look at those blinking mountains at Caliente – Tejon is worse than this?
Before picking an operator, Californians need to decide why they are building this thing. Do they want to take average people where they want to go, when they want to go there, for a price they are willing to pay? Or do they want to maximize profits for an operator?
The Acela service provides a nice model. Go after an upscale Silicon Valley and Hollywood clientele. Add in Sacramento politicians and bureaucrats. Charge variable fares, which the preferred clientele can always afford, and average people can afford during periods of low demand. Since taxpayers have already paid most of the upfront investment, fares will cover operating costs.
If the goal is to make high speed rail a preferred way of getting around California for everybody, much the same way as an elevator is for getting around a building, the high speed service will need to be designed more along the lines of an urban transit system. Fares will be low and constant, and capacity will vary to meet demand. Taxpayers will be stuck with the upfront investment and an operating subsidy may be required, but social and environmental benefits may outweigh the additional cost.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:54 am
Acela is a premium service. If you don’t want to pay first class or business class fares you can get coach fares on a Regional. If you don’t want to pay Regional fares you can get on a commuter train. Guesstimates are that the NEC carries 100 million passengers a year. Only 10 million of them use Amtrak. Only 3 million of them use Acela.
Alon Levy Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
The vast majority of those 100 million passengers are commuter, rather than intercity. Metro-North has a fair amount of intercity ridership between New York and New Haven, and maybe NJT gets decent weekend ridership shuttling people from New York to New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton, but these are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. The intercity demand fills hourly trains; peak service on the New Haven Line is 20 tph.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
And CAHSR is not a premium service?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
It doesn’t have to be. Just because the train with leather covered seats, food and beverage service and attendants who speak in hushed tones leaves the the track at the stroke of the hour doesn’t preclude a cattle car with no services other than ADA required toilets leaves from the same track at a quarter after.
jimsf Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 8:56 am
very well put. I prefer the latter, but that will be a harder sell.
I wonder though, if once the infrastructure is in place….why not allow a private operator to run their all ammenities trains and let a a public operator run low cost bare bones transit trains. After all we the public will be the owners of the systems hardware and infrastructure. It belongs to us as californians so we have the right makes demands on the kinds of services available adn make demands on those operators who chose to operate. The cattle car crowd will gravitate towards cheap, the ” i don’t want to mingle with those people” crowd will gravitate towards the amenities laden service.
synonymouse Reply:
February 19th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Sorry, the upscale model is undermined by the Grand DeTour.
The public service model is a done deal. Very significant subsidies indicated.
Interestingly the unions may find themselves screwed in time by the very political patronage machine they were so instrumental in creating and bringing to monopoly power. Once the machine has a 2/3 lock on the legislature they will have become the unavoidable gate-keeper. The bribes the corporations and the affluent used to lavish on the GOP will now go the demo apparatchiks. They won’t need union money anymore and will be apt to drift to the privatization model when the budget is tight. The perils of a one party state.
That leaves one unlikely suitor: Alaska Airlines. The company serves almost exclusively longer routes up and down the West Coast. It’s been aggressive in adding flights to Hawai’i from California destinations. Alaska’s route map neatly overlays CAHSR’s service area, even if the system is extended to Nevada and Arizona. And the carrier has had plenty of experience dealing with organized labor and cost reductions while still managing to have employees today that are amazingly happy.
Are you trying to claim here that Alaska Airlines is going to be interested in the train business? Please stop thinking. Your mind has wandered too far.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I don’t think there’s anyone talking about airlines running HSR…that’s why I wrote this. It’s as obvious an outcome as Apple’s decision to enter into online music and develop the iPod.
After all, do you think it is a coincidence that United and Continental merged to gain an inordinate amount of market share on the Chicago to New York route which will not have an HSR route?
Peter Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Given the current status of HSR development, yes.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 1:42 pm
The market split isn’t really all that bad. This includes all New York and Chicago Airports:
United/Continental 40.6%
American Airlines 33.7%
Southwest Airlines 13.1%
Delta Air Lines 9.1%
JetBlue Airways 3.5%
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 1:54 pm
But the market split between O’Hare and Newark is. And those airlines are not only the codeshare hubs, but also the two which will have HSR connections rivaling European airports.
…Midway should be closed due to safety considerations…and LaGuardia should be leased out to corporate jets….
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Just so I understand you right, exactly what basis do you have for claiming Midway is unsafe?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Midway was built in 1929 to specifications which are no longer allowed. It only continues to operate because it was grandfathered in. You can play dumb about this, but you know very well the risks that Southwest openly takes everyday by flying in planes there. La Guardia doesn’t need to be closed tomorrow, but eventually will need to be shifted to other types of operation…..
Jonathan Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Don’t try to argue with His Omniscience. The Omniscient are _always_ right.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Midway was built in 1929 to specifications which are no longer allowed. It only continues to operate because it was grandfathered in. You can play dumb about this, but you know very well the risks that Southwest openly takes everyday by flying in planes there. La Guardia doesn’t need to be closed tomorrow, but eventually will need to be shifted to other types of operation…..
I honestly don’t know if I have ever read a more uninformed post anywhere. Not ever.
If MDW were truly unsafe, the FAA would in fact shut it down – it really is that simple. Most certainly, if it were unsafe for Southwest (or any other carrier for that matter) they would close it to commercial operations. The one deficiency, which had nothing to do with the “one” over run (first ever by a turbo jet since 1929 – and incidentally had nothing to do with the airport), was the RSA’s. Since the incident, EMAS beds have been installed.
Since we’re on the topic of what you consider to be unsafe… SFO doesn’t meet all current design standards either. Should it close? How about LAX? San Diego? Washington Reagan? How about San Jose? Boston? New York Kennedy? How about Newark? Hell by your standard, almost all airports n the US should shut down.
Then again, you don’t know what is safe or unsafe so no one really cares what you think.
You can play dumb about this all you want, but unlike your other misguided assumptions about aviation, those are actually facts.
LGA is not going to close, not ever. In fact, it’s going to be rebuilt. Sorry Charlie.
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2012/6/centralterminal_jh_2012_02_09_q.html
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:10 pm
No doubt this is the reason you feel MDW is unsafe:
On December 8, 2005, about 1914 central standard time, Southwest Airlines (SWA) flight 1248, a Boeing 737-7H4, N471WN, ran off the departure end of runway 31 center (31C) after landing at Chicago Midway Airport (MDW), Chicago, Illinois. The airplane rolled through a blast fence, and airport perimeter fence, and onto an adjacent roadway, where it struck an automobile before coming to a stop. A child in the automobile was killed, one automobile occupant received serious injuries, and three other automobile occupants received minor injuries. Eighteen of the 103 airplane occupants (88 passengers, 3 flight attendants, and 2 pilots) received minor injuries, and the airplane was substantially damaged. The airplane was being operated under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121 and had departed from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, Maryland, about 1758 eastern standard time. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The pilots’ failure to use available reverse thrust in a timely manner to safely slow or stop the airplane after landing, which resulted in a runway overrun. This failure occurred because the pilots’ first experience and lack of familiarity with the airplane’s autobrake system distracted them from thrust reverser usage during the challenging landing.
Contributing to the accident were Southwest Airline’s
1) failure to provide its pilots with clear and consistent guidance and training regarding company policies and procedures related to arrival landing distance calculations;
2) programming and design of its onboard performance computer, which did not present inherent assumptions in the program critical to pilot decision making;
3) plan to implement new autobrake procedures without a familiarization period; and
4) failure to include a margin of safety in the arrival assessment to account for operational uncertainties. Also contributing to the accident was the pilots’ failure to divert to another airport given reports that included poor braking action and a tailwind component greater than 5 knots.
Contributing to the severity of the accident was the absence of an engineering materials arresting system, which was needed because of the limited runway safety area beyond the departure end of runway 31C.
For the record, there is now an EMAS there. In fact they added one off the end of each runway used by Commerical aircraft. Doesn’t change the fact that what casued the incident wasn’t the airport, because of course there isn’t a safety issue with the airport. That’s somethign you’ve imagined.
http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1202/00081AD.PDF
thatbruce Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:56 pm
We’ll just be throwing an end italics tag about here like so. Maybe that will fix the rendering.
thatbruce Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:00 pm
So much for that idea .
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Yeah, not sure what happened.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Did it work?
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Nope. WTF?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Wrong again. This is the reason Midway isn’t safe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Midway_Airport_Airfield.jpg
You have interlocking runways that are perched feet from runways designed in the prop plane era.
And more to your point: it’s only real tenant is Southwest who, as the Rand Corporation told the City of Los Angeles, prioritizes operational efficiency over safety at LAX.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:17 pm
I thought before you had made your most uninformed post. Now you have.
A runway configuration does not make an airport unsafe and whoever at Rand made that statement probably doesn’t have a job anymore. It’s inflammatory and completely false.
Oh and the term is “intersecting” runways.
The only reason airlines flocked to Chicago was range capability due to longer runways.
Honestly, I’m laughing so hard right now I just don’t even know what to say anymore when it comes to you. This is absolutely the most absurd thing anyone has ever said about aviation safety. You can rest assured that Southwest does not put efficiency over safety (as well documented by their safety record by the way) and you can rest your head at night knowing full well that intersecting runways are not dangerous.
Okay? Now run along.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Seriously? The runway layout? Seriously?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bgDi2BYtIY&feature=related
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Also, the primary runway 13-31 was built in the late 1980′s.
Not quite the prop plane era.
Seriously, did you post that to get a rise out of me or are your really that far out there on this?
If it were unsafe, they wouldn’t have done all this either:
The New Midway – Wings of Change 1996 – Present
•In 1996, Mayor Daley announced the historic Midway Airport Terminal Development Program, which was launched the next year. It was the largest public works project in the state.
•The Midway Airport Parking Garage opened in 1999, bringing covered parking to the airport for the first time. The garage, offering 3,000 hourly and daily parking spaces, is connected to the Midway Terminal Building for convenient access to ticket counters and baggage claim areas.
•In 2000, a pedestrian bridge over Cicero Avenue was constructed. The bridge connects the new terminal to the new concourses.
•In 2001, the Midway Airport Terminal Building opened, offering expanded ticket counters, spacious baggage claim areas, traveler information and a short walking distance to airline gates. A 50,000 square-foot food court opened with Chicago-style food and retail options.
•In 2002, a new Federal Inspection Service facility opened at Midway, which allowed the return of direct international service after a 40 year absence.
•In June 2004, Chicago leadership and airline officials celebrated the completion of the Terminal Development Program.
•A new 6,300 space economy parking garage, including a new bridge and roadway used exclusively for buses shuttling passengers to and from the terminal opened in December 2005.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Also, new construction and substantial reconstruction (such as building Runways 13-31C and 4R-22L) required conformity with current design standards.
So, no, Midway is not a prop era airport. And once again, no, its layout does not make it unsafe. In fact it’s a perfect airport for smaller narrowbodies (such as those used by Southwest) and regional jets that only require about 5,800-feet of runway.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Don’t bring up the Southwest over-run. It wasn’t the airport that was the problem. Furthermore, it was one incident and the prior incident to that was in 1976 and there hasn’t been an incident since.
Jonathan Reply:
February 21st, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Even Richard Branson has separate companies operating Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains.
Lofthansa and Air France, DB and SNCF…. the airlines can do “code-shares” and get really, really cheap seats, but so far they don’t operate their own trains.
But the market split between O’Hare and Newark is. And those airlines are not only the codeshare hubs, but also the two which will have HSR connections rivaling European airports.
Doesn’t matter. You either look at the market in its entirety or not at all.
Midway should be closed due to safety considerations…and LaGuardia should be leased out to corporate jets…
Midway shoudl not be closed and is not unsafe and closing LGA to commerical ops would bring JFK and EWR to a grinding halt.
“Someone is going to succeed in merging air and HSR travel, and it might as well be California.”
Done.
http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/us/info_and_services/from_to_airport?nodeid=1771014&l=en
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:33 am
Its a little different when your corporate focus is on International vs. domestic traffic and your taxes are so high that it makes short haul unprofitable in an already rail centric society.
Even still, LH has a rather robust short haul schedule (sub 300 mile), including markets that overlap with HSR:
Frankfurt, DE Amsterdam, NL
Frankfurt, DE Basel/Mulhouse, CH
Frankfurt, DE Berlin-Tegel, DE
Frankfurt, DE Bremen, DE
Frankfurt, DE Brussels, BE
Frankfurt, DE Dresden, DE
Frankfurt, DE Duesseldorf, DE
Frankfurt, DE Friedrichshafen, DE
Frankfurt, DE Geneva, CH
Frankfurt, DE Hamburg, DE
Frankfurt, DE Hannover, DE
Frankfurt, DE Innsbruck, AT
Frankfurt, DE Leipzig, DE
Frankfurt, DE Linz, AT
Frankfurt, DE Muenster, DE
Frankfurt, DE Munich, DE
Frankfurt, DE Nuremberg, DE
Frankfurt, DE Paris-De Gaulle, FR
Frankfurt, DE Prague, CZ
Frankfurt, DE Salzburg, AT
Frankfurt, DE Stuttgart, DE
Frankfurt, DE Zurich, CH
Munich, DE Basel/Mulhouse, CH
Munich, DE Berlin-Tegel, DE
Munich, DE Bologna, IT
Munich, DE Cologne-Bonn, DE
Munich, DE Dresden, DE
Munich, DE Frankfurt, DE
Munich, DE Graz, AT
Munich, DE Hannover, DE
Munich, DE Lahr, DE
Munich, DE Leipzig, DE
Munich, DE Luxembourg, LU
Munich, DE Milan-Malpensa, IT
Munich, DE Nuremberg, DE
Munich, DE Paderborn, DE
Munich, DE Prague, CZ
Munich, DE Stuttgart, DE
Munich, DE Trieste, IT
Munich, DE Turin, IT
Munich, DE Venice, IT
Munich, DE Verona, IT
Munich, DE Vienna, AT
Munich, DE Wroclaw, PL
Munich, DE Zagreb, HR
Munich, DE Zurich, CH
eric Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 9:48 pm
that’s the model for merging HSR and airline business. larger planes that seat more make more money and move more efficiently than the smaller planes. leave the longer distance trips for planes, and shorter distance trips for trains. Airlines need to “diversify”
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:37 am
There is a very simple recipe for “merging air and HSR travel” in California. Make hsr so slow and dilatory it is utterly irrelevant and totally non-competitive with air. Ergo no complaints from the air industry unless pols try to do a BART style move to legislate out competitors to increase passenger counts and reduce the large subsidies hsr demands.
Speaking of BART how do you think the beer cans would fare up against the wall:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/22/argentine-train-slams-into-station-100s-injured/?test=latestnews
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:49 am
Ouch.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:12 am
Precisely why we need better safety standards than the FRA, CEM would have prevented a 20 foot telescoping of one car into another resulting in those deaths.
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:16 am
What is CEM?
OPB would recommend the sheer structural mass of a ca. 1950 traditional stainless steel passenger car to counter telescoping.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:33 am
OPB? And CEM stands for crash energy management, it’s like crumple zones on a car.
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:42 am
Certainly on the lead car you might want to seat passengers back some distance, if there is no locomotive on the front end.
BART’s beer cans are so deficient they sway-backed from the the simple weight of the body.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:49 am
It’s not quite a matter of seating them back. It’s things like designing the body to deform, for instance, and do so in a way that absorbs as much energy as possible. You do with the locomotive as well because one of the issues is that if you hit something while pushing, the rear car will bounce against the locomotive and if they aren’t both designed to deform and absorb, that can cause fatalities from penetration of the locomotive and abrupt halting.
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:24 pm
OPB on the need for anticlimbers:
http://www.altamontpress.com/discussion/read.php?1,69010,69070#msg-69070
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Good grief, did anybody look at the comments on that page on the wreck in Argentina?
I know it’s a report from Fox–and the report itself is what I would consider “neutral” politically (it is only a report on a bad wreck, which is more than I can say about the network’s HSR material), but those comments make us sound like the bad days of the Deep South. What does this tell us about Fox’s audience?
I can understand some anguish in America today–I feel much myself at times–but this is extreme, and I would say out of line.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Some samples:
“How on Earth did the captain of the Costa Concordia get a new job so soon with that big stain on his resume???’–Bill the Gun Owner
“sad for the loss of life…just another government screwup.. a l b o r e has been called to see if it can be blamed on g l o b a l overheating…but the a r g e n t i n e p r e s i d e n t says it was g bush fault…some think it was bad drugs from c h a v e z ….can’t fix stupid”–Bill Miller 38
“Hope the death toll rises for the Argentine filth.”–Rederick
“this is ONE of those times you wish the news would merge…
“Argentine train slams into Obama, killing 49″–xantrani
“Beaners are soooo dumb!”–popabigballz
“How many people were riding on the roof?”–teabaggin69er
“The Third World happens!”–melvinbonzarelli
“I’m not crying for any Argentinians”–Happy Chimpy
Not all the commentors are like that, but I get the impression they are in the minority–and think so themselves:
An exchange:
“Again, you wonder why it is difficult to have intellectual discussion on a site like this? You get ignorance of this caliber. Its just difficult, because I’m not sure where an educated conservative is supposed to go to have a mature discussion of the issues. This site is so plagued with ignorance that it becomes essentially impossible to have reasoned and intelligent discourse. It only serves to make all of us conservatives look bad in the end, and that is a shame.”–Brody 24
“I honestly believe that the majority of the type of posts you are referring to are made deliberately by those who are detractors of Fox.”–Micarpenter
“I sometimes get that feeling (i.e. that people can’t seriously be that ignorant, and that its really just some double-agent type stuff where they come here to make us all look bad by sharing stupidities). But deep down I know that isn’t true. I go to the discussion boards of liberal sites to pose my side and share the conservative perspective in a tactful way. And you know what? As much as I disagree with their views and positions (and as much as they may dislike what I say), the discourse always tends to be more respectful and intellectual. I wish we could have a community here at Fox where we could have something parallel for the conservative-leaners, but it just doesn’t happen.”–Brody 24
“If people continue to insist on posting insensitive comments Fox should consider shutting down the comment section.”–Tommy Young 75
Sadly, Tommy, I don’t think Fox will do that. . .too much money to be made “from blood in the water.”
United, for its part, feared that BART’s plan would set a national precedent that would force the nation’s airlines to contribute to intermodal transportation improvements everywhere.
Airline rates and charges are required to stay at the airport by Federal Law; BART wasn’t going to set any precedents because the precedent was already set. United did nothing more than verbalize the issue. Airlines have no business financing mass transits wet dreams.
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:24 am
Do you know what the word “intermodal” means?
The City of San Francisco was completely within its rights to as part of constructing the new International Terminal, pay for a BART Station. However, that would have caused a resultant increase in passenger facility charges and United threw an absolute hissy fit because they knew every other major airport would follow suit….
Catch is, as you know, there’s already an L-Train connection to O’Hare, so if you read the tea leaves, you can guess the cities/parties that wanted in on the action:
Los Angeles, Seattle, The State of Hawai’i, Denver, Orlando, and other United focus cities that don’t have such a link. Given the cost overruns in places like Denver and the potential for ultra high costs in Hawai’i and Los Angeles, it was a rational act to ask BART and SF to reconsider. What wasn’t reasonable was to avoid any attempt at compromise and act as if legally and ethically they had the better argument. Neither was true….
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:26 am
Moreover, the OTHER fear that United had in regard to LA, Seattle, Denver, and Orlando was the fact that they would bear the cost of building the infrastructure only to have Southwest come in afterwards and be a free rider.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:17 pm
The City of San Francisco was completely within its rights to as part of constructing the new International Terminal, pay for a BART Station.
Actually no. Capital projects require a cost benefit model that is defensible, to all airlines at the airport – not just United. Bringing BART into the terminal did not meet these criteria and would therefore have been classified as revenue diversion. If the City wanted BART in the airport terminal itself, then BART would have had to pay for it. Ultimately, BART got what they were willing to pay for. If Bay Area taxpayers feel the need to be charitable to BART off airport, that’s their own private financial hell.
The problem here with your suggestion is that you are unfamiliar with airport finance rules. You seem to think they are just like any other government transportation entity and therefore the money is there to be spent on other transportation methods at will when in fact they cannot. Do you see this flaw in your assumptions?
Catch is, as you know, there’s already an L-Train connection to O’Hare, so if you read the tea leaves, you can guess the cities/parties that wanted in on the action
There are no tea leaves, although I certain the Chicago Labor Machine had a field day. Never mind the fact that the “L” wasn’t built by the airport.
Los Angeles, Seattle, The State of Hawai’i, Denver, Orlando, and other United focus cities that don’t have such a link.
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Denver is a hub for United, LAX is now a focus city and they don’t have a focus city in Seattle, Hawaii or Orlando either. Did you stop paying attention to aviation once deregulation was passed or something? You seem to drag up long ago airline information that has no relevance today. Airlines don’t care about mass transit connections that serve less than 10% of their passengers. They really don’t. They are in the airlines business. Period.
Moreover, the OTHER fear that United had in regard to LA, Seattle, Denver, and Orlando was the fact that they would bear the cost of building the infrastructure only to have Southwest come in afterwards and be a free rider.
As with your other misguided conclusions, that’s not true or relevant either. Southwest pays the same rent and fees as any other airline, so they aren’t a “free rider”.
Fact is, airport revenue cannot be used for anything other than the airport. Plain and simple. Don’t like it, tough. Don’t buy it? Ask Detroit how their revenue diversion went down.
Need a definition?
Airport Revenue Diversion – the use of airport revenue for other than airport purposes.
Need a more defined explanation of the issue? Read away. I’m tired of trying to explain it to you.
http://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/dot/files/pdfdocs/av2003030.pdf
datacruncher Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:48 pm
The airlines may not agree with it but the Federal Government supports using airport revenue for ground transportation projects serving an airport:
“i. Ground Access Projects. It is the policy of the United States to encourage the development of
intermodal connections on airport property between aeronautical and other transportation modes and systems to serve air transportation passengers and cargo efficiently and effectively and promote economic development. (See 49 U.S.C. § 47101(a)(5).) Consistent with this policy, a sponsor may use airport revenue to pay for the airport’s share of a ground access project in two general cases: (1) if the project qualifies as an integral part of an airport capital project, and (2) if the project is owned or operated by the sponsor and is directly and substantially related to the air transportation of passengers or property. ”
http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap15.pdf
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:10 pm
That’s not what that is saying. The key point is this:
(2) if the project is owned or operated by the sponsor and is directly and substantially related to the air transportation of passengers or property. ”
The airport doesn’t own BART. The airport sponsor is the owner. Its why the extension of the airport tram at SFO qualified for the expenditure, but not a BART station. Its why IAD can justify a remote tram station, but not bring Metro itself to the Terminal.
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:31 pm
In other words, if you build a tram from the airport to a train station you can because you own and operate the tram, but you can’t use the money to bring the train to the airport.
And what is it with all these format errors?
Tom McNamara Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Nope. See below:
http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/federal_register_notices/media/pfc_72fr28837.pdf
“Use of PFC Revenue To Pay for Debt Service for Non-Eligible Projects” The FAA closed the door after the horse had left the barn. And you don’t seem to get that BART as I recall doesn’t own the station at SFO anyway….
Sobering Reality Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Really? So BART runs on the SFO APM tracks? That’s amazing!
http://www.transportation-finance.org/projects/bart_sf_aiport_extension.aspx
The airports $200 million was for site prep and to get the APM to the BART Station.
The hits keep on coming with you.
Whats with all the italics?
synonymouse Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 7:05 pm
malware?