Jerry Brown Mounts Another Strong Defense of High Speed Rail
Yesterday Governor Jerry Brown spoke to the San Jose Mercury News editorial board about his tax proposal, Proposition 30. The interview included a discussion of high speed rail, which begins at 16:34 of the video below and lasts until 27:22:
This is also worth watching to see how utterly clueless and ignorant of the facts the San Jose Mercury Editorial Board is. The person pressing Governor Brown challenges him by arguing that California’s geography and population aren’t like Spain.
As we know, that is totally false. California and Spain are very, very similar when it comes to population density and geography.
Brown also explains clearly that as California’s wealth expands, it becomes far easier to pay for the cost of high speed rail. In fact, HSR helps that wealth expand. This point was also totally lost on the Merc’s editorial board.
I would suggest another analogy, much closer to home. In 1996, Apple Computer was facing bankruptcy after years of losing money. Their CEO, Gil Amelio, had been cutting spending and other costs while investing in the same old product lines that Apple had been carrying for years. But it wasn’t working.
So Apple brought back Steve Jobs, who charted a very different course forward. He bet the company’s future on innovation. At first it was the iMac and the iBook, but the real gamechangers came when he decided that Apple would start selling music players and phones, items that had never before been in their product line. Yet the iPod became a smash hit for Apple, helping the company become profitable again. And in turn it laid the groundwork for the revolutionary iPhone.
Apple survived its lean times and became one of the world’s richest companies because it didn’t stand still. It didn’t refuse to look ahead. Instead they embraced bold change and reaped the rewards. They took the same path Governor Brown is proposing with high speed rail.
The Mercury News’ path more closely resembles that of Microsoft, which eschewed innovation and instead relied on maintaining the status quo, assuming that PCs and Windows would be a stable foundation for future profits. Microsoft has slowly been losing market share and profits while Apple, a company on its knees in the mid-1990s, has rocketed to the top of the tech world.
The lessons are clear for California. Embrace innovation, embrace investment in bold solutions, and good things will follow. Refuse to innovate, assume the status quo is just fine, and your problems will only deepen.
Print Media, the role model for how to run California like a business.
I suppose we’ll see them eventually petition taxpayers for a bailout because newspapers are the watchdog of democracy.
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Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Seriously. And what’s amazing to me is that these editorial writers write for the paper that is just a few miles away from Apple. Don’t these guys understand how Silicon Valley works? Have they been paying any attention at all to the main industry in their community? Any company that simply tried to maintain their status quo would be laughed at.
And yes, Valley companies back high speed rail, as shown by the ongoing support from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Bay Area Council, both of whom count tech companies among their members.
joe Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
“Don’t these guys understand how Silicon Valley works?
No. They think we’re stealing their content and want to extend subscription service to the web and charge us for them to reprint George Will’s column.
A few years ago Time Mag’s then new editor explained the mag would shift to “analysis” and hire seasoned experts to perform “analysis” . That is to say sell me a magazine full of Conventional Wisdom Pundits like “liberal” Joke Klein balanced by some nutcase.
What is the Time Mag 100? An event where Time mag invites 100 smart people – socialize with these top 100 people and maintain their elite status.
We vulgar people must to pay to maintain this caste system.
Mercury News is serious and they know economics – common sense from the pages of the WSJ and taught to them at annual retreats with award winning pundits and thinkers. Aspen for example.
VBobier Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
As written by Benito Mussolini, head of the state of Italy and of the Fascist Party, 1922-1943, right up until He was hanged by Italians in 1943…
How to run Government like a business, bring in Business into Government=Corporatism…
Corporatism=Fascism…
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Il Duce was shot on April 28, 1945.
Marechal Philippe Petain, head of the Vichy fascist regime, died in permanent detention in 1951.
El Caudillo, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, died in 1975 of natural causes surrounded by supporters. The U.S. guvmint and various Popes just loved the brutal Spanish fascist dictator. Go figure.
joe Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still valiantly holding on to death.
VBobier Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Yes He was shot in 1945, Although He was hanged upside down by His feet in 1943 before Adolf Hitler sent in German paratroopers in to rescue Him to rule over a puppet state in Northern Italy…
it was a Microsoft investment of $150 million that saved Apple. And it is yet to be seen if Apple has the staying power that MS does. Everyone takes a turn at the top of the technology heap, but so far no one has ever stayed there.
He is a hell of a speaker, I will give him that. But all his bravado just obscures the issue. He finally admits it around 25:30. HSR is not going to reduce all that highway investment, pollution, and other stuff. It is a great story and he tells it well, but it is just a pet project
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 12th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
I’ve been hearing about the imminent death of mainframes and IBM for 30 years.
John Nachtigall Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:01 am
Amazing isn’t it. Actually mainframes lasted long enough to be cool again.
“Cloud Computing” is just the current cool name for what was called “computer timeshare” in the 80s. My Dad owned a timeshare buisness. He bought the mainframe and the dumb terminals were in the offices of the buisnesses that bought “time” on the mainframe. He had programs that did payroll. he got out before quickbooks and PCs took over. Now it is moving back that way. The data and maybe even the computing power will be offsite. Amazing to watch people talk about how reavelutionary it is when it has been done before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing
joe Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Cloud computing is done with commodity, PC class computer equipment.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
sometimes, you go look up your checking account balance it’s probably a mainframe providing that information
joe Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 9:08 pm
That’s not a cloud. Apple’s new data centers are not mainframe centers.
The Google innovation and what keeps out competitors is their use of cheap hardware tied with software to build low cost redundant, reliable computing.
Power becomes a major cost so these cloud centers are being moved near power generation faciliti
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
The point of the cloud is that users don’t know and don’t care about hardware or software.
People were chattering about low cost redundant reliable computing when Google’s founders where busy worrying about the junior prom.
joe Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 4:39 am
People were chattering about low cost, redundant, reliable computing and the Google founders built it. They engineered it and then figured ways to use that to become quite successful. From implementation to execution to profit.
I’m impressed.
VBobier Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 6:52 am
There is also Distributed Computing, as practiced with Boinc and its many projects(berkeley.edu), like Seti@Home, Milkyway@Home, Einstein@Home, gpugrid, etc, etc… You want to build a supercomputer? You’d have to match these ordinary Home/Work PCs combined might at doing data crunching and I doubt one can, economically that is…
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Yes AOL was running on one server stashed in the telephone closet.
Um, when is it that Microsoft has lost profits? They’re not growing as fast as Apple, obviously, but they’ve still been expanding profits regularly and setting new records nearly every quarter.
Instead of Apple, the more accurate comparison for CAHSR would be to Kodak. California is going to embrace rail, 1800′s technology, the way Kodak embraced photographic film. (P.S. IBM’s survival/success can be summed up in one word: Gerstner. IBM executives understood IBM was in a death spiral, and they were completely incapable of saving the company. So, they hired one of their biggest customers as CEO and got out of his way. Ford did a similar thing: then-CEO Bill Ford and his family realized the company was going to fail and they couldn’t save it, so they opened the checkbook and hired a CEO who understood big business, transportation, product development, and manufacturing. CAHSR can’t fix itself this way, because it is a government monopoly, and isn’t concerned with costs, customers, or competition).
Paul Druce Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Last I checked, CAHSR isn’t going to be using steam, so what 1800′s technology are you referring to? Maglev is pretty much a non-starter at the moment, there’s no reason for California to adopt it, especially as it would be a first adopter (note that the only large installation planned, which is by JR Central, is for the purpose of adding capacity to a full HSR line).
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
The CHSRA RoundaboutRail is grosso modo BART, which is essentially NYC subway ca. 1900.
Both monorail and internal combustion autos are also 19th century tech.
I don’t think Queen Victoria ever saw an operable maglev.
Jerry Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
@ Paul Druce. Thank you for the JR Central maglev reference. They are experimenting with superconducting magnetic equipment on a 27 mile test track.
CA has the opportunity to provide facilities on an adjoining ROW to the HSR to be used for modern transportation research. (Even a track much longer than 27 miles.)
Such research facilities can be international similar to the Space Station. (Siemans, et. al.)
UPS and FedEx might experiment with High Speed Cargo Containers that slip on and off trucks. Variable gauge trains could be tested also. R&D in CA is ideal.
Max Wyss Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Actually, JR Central has been noodling around with that test track for years now. It may or may not lead to a commercial product. If it does, it may be expected within 20 to 30 years (when another Tokaido route is necessary, because the Tokaido Shink kan sen is beyond capacity).
The German Transrapid Maglev system is more or less dead, after München/Bavaira considered the airport link way too expensive to make it profitable, and also after a serious accident.
So, forget about Maglev; it is not compatible to anything, very expensive, not sufficiently flexible and capacity may not be sufficient. Nice, “sexy” technology, but it can’t beat conventional HSR.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
One of the reasons maglev was proposed in the 1960s was that everybody “knew” that conventional trains would never go faster than 125mph/200kph and if you wanted to haul passengers around on the ground faster than that you had to use different technology. All the problems would be solved and we’d be whisking around at 200mph by the 70s.
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
I’d say the great and enduring attraction of maglev is an air bearing. No flatted wheels, no rail corrugation, no vibration, no hunting and thus no flange squeal or hiss. Metal on metal requires expensive maintenance and rubber tired trains, while quieter, have their technical problems and limits.
Obviously they were naive to think friction, noise, and vibration would somehow miraculously disappear and that maglev would not be many orders of magnitude more complex than robust steel wheel on steel rail. But many “experts” insist fusion in tokamaks will work and that is a more difficult to pull off than maglev. I suspect that quantum computing will prove the enabler in both these “exotics”.
Miles Bader Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
Also maglev (at least the JR style) doesn’t need pantographs, which are a significant source of aerodynamic noise.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I’m still waiting for catenary-free conventional HSR. (Why not? There’s catenary-free low-speed light rail…)
Ant6n Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Maybe somebody will come up with some system powering vehicles with the rails themselves.
Paul Druce Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Giant Tesla coils, always the solution.
jonathan Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Power density. Third rails really just don’t work for HSR. It’s easy to see how Eurostar ran on the old third-rail Soutnern Region electrificatoin. (Anwer: very slowly, which is why the HS1 line has overhead catenary).
not enough surface area on the roof for a rectenna, either.
Michael Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
All my Fleischmann trains, including the ICE-T, are powered from the rails. ; )
Max Wyss Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
The comparison between light rail and HSR is about a factor 20 in energy to be transmitted…
Maybe one day… maybe…
But I have my doubts.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 11:26 pm
My admittedly limited understanding is that third rail has a problem with arcing, limiting voltage (and thus speed), and also with overheating, which would pose another limit of speed if for some rason voltage were unlimited. I forget where I read this, but at high speeds, the pantograph has to vary its point of contact with the catenary, or else the point of contact would overheat and break; as a result, the catenary is not perfectly parallel to the track, but rather slightly zigzags.
The overheating problem isn’t really a problem for contactless magnetic coils. How about the arcing? I don’t know what the voltage limit for such system is, which is what makes third rail so slow.
Max Wyss Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
@Alon: The problem with third rail is that it can not really be implemented with high voltage; the maximum I am aware of ever having been installed is 1500 VDC (la Maurienne; western slope to the Mont Cenis tunnel). The maximum rating of locomotives running there was around 6000 kW, which means that 4000 A were drawn from the third rail. For high speed operation, you have to get into the 12000 kW range, meaning that you have to deal with 8000 A. Now, if you wanted to go up to 25 kV (which would mean dealing with 500 A at most), you would need pretty big insulators, and having that high voltage so close to the ground would be a serious safety issue. And it would be highly impractical.
The zig-zag with overhead wire is not really an issue with overheating, but with the zig-zag, you can distribute the wear on the pickup strips. With high voltage, you have, as seen above rather low currents. In fact, most light rail vehicles draw more current from a 600 V overhead than a high speed train from a 25 kV overhead. The zig-zag also compensates thermal effects better than if it were straight, and it also deals better with the high mechanical tension in the wire.
Actually, there are rules in France (with 1500 VDC electrification), that at standstill, the second pantograph of a locomotive must be raised, to keep the contact current at a reasonable level (a passenger train easily draws 1000 A or more at 1500 V for Head End Power etc. at standstill. The overheating to prevent is not in the pantograph and the pickup strips, but with the wire, which must not be heated up too much, because it would get a phase change which seriously softens the material.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Alon, I can’t understand what you’re seeking.
Overhead power transmission to electric trains is a simple, proven, routine and (outside God’s Own United States of America) comparatively cheap to a common, widely recognised, simple, and routine problem.
There are about a billion better things to worry about.
Ant6n Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Capa-HSR, anyone? ;D
synonymouse Reply:
September 14th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Architects, hypochondriacs, and diesel bus salesmen don’t like overhead wires.
I always have found it strange that these same “modern” architects pimping diesel never seem to have problem with diesel fumes and the dirty orange cloud of smog that hangs over their streets free of wires.
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
“not compatible to anything, very expensive, not sufficiently flexible and capacity may not be sufficient”
hmmm – does that remind anyone of any system we know?
Miles Bader Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Er, you were aware that the Chuo Shinkansen has been greenlighted, and is now a real project (as in “going to happen”), right?
“Construction of the line, which is expected to cost over ¥9 trillion, is expected to commence in 2014. JR Central aims to begin commercial service between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 … JR Central is considering opening up partial maglev service between Kofu, Yamanashi and Sagamihara, Kanagawa around 2020.”
VBobier Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Automobiles are a 1769 technology according to the Wiki, Automobiles are European in origin, So High Speed Rail is an improvement…
There is no CAHSR of which some rodents squeak…
California
High
Speed
Rail
Authority
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
CAHSR refers to the project itself, or the system/service which will be run when it is completed. CHSRA refers to the Authority, i.e. the ones designing the project.
VBobier Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Then to Me that would be CHSR…
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Whether or not you want to put the A in there is up to you. I don’t think it’s worth arguing about.
The poll found that 39% support high speed rail while 43.6% oppose it. Here’s the question they asked:
Why must the pollsters keep providing false information about high speed rail? It messes up the poll results.
Derek Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 6:17 pm
link to poll
joe Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Pepperdine. That’s where my neo-con brother in law graduated and it is the home of Ken Starr.
Please tell me what this bastion of higher education has concluded about CA’s HSR project.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
The people who paid for the poll paid to get the results they wanted. It’s that simple.
Leading Questions, are you in favor of National Service…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Ridership up on all rail systems, younger generation getting fewer driver’s licenses,
and a great route connecting key cities will then prove naysayers wrong.
Just a risk that CA executes the plan well and manages cost well.
Looks like Silicon Valley will once again start to expand, innovate, and dominate coinciding with the construction of HSR along the central expressway corridor all the way down to our creative friends down in SoCal. Today you can see the bulldozers take out the ugly buildings from the Carter years and start to build green high rises of opportunity…the painstaking rebuilding and landscapers are kicking some competitive @ss. As we move towards integration of the media empires California will again become a global leader with an increasing GDP capable of another rise in employment and housing prices. Duh…what is the merc thinking?
Brown stated in this video (when asked about the train to nowhere reference) stated that “most of the new people want to go to the Central Valley”
Anybody know his backup resource on that?