California eyes French high speed train

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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California eyes French high speed train

PARIS, April 3, 2007 (AFP) - The US state of California is eyeing France’s high speed train for a planned link between San Franciso and San Diego, the speaker of its state assembly said on Tuesday during a visit to France.

“We are contemplating in California the possibility of a high speed train that would go from the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles and San Diego, in South California. We’re here to study the rail system,” the speaker Fabian Nunez said.

France’s TGV was on Tuesday attempting to set a new world speed record for a train on rails, with organisers aiming to hit at least 560 kilometres (350 miles) per hour.

“You have been ahead of time (in producing a) very practical rail system in France which can move people from one place to another,” Nunez, California’s third most powerful politician said.

“Today you’ll be breaking a new speed record with your high speed train, the timing of our venue couldn’t have been better.”

The record attempt was to be tried on a 73-kilometre (45.3 mile) stretch of track between Paris and the eastern city of Strasbourg.

Weather permitting, the experimental Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) will aim to break a 17-year-old speed record for a traditional rail-based train of 515.3 kilometres (320.2 miles) per hour. That was set by an earlier version of the TGV.

Nunez, who was holding talks with the Alstom company and French railway officials, said California was also looking at other trains, but had a particular interest in the French model.

“We’ve had several meetings with industrials. We are looking at the other models, but we are particularly interested in the French model,” he said.

California is more adaptable to the French experience. The example of the Paris-Lyon liaison is an experience that is very similar to what we want to do in California between San Francisco and LA."

The

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It better be a corridor w/o at grade crossings. It probably won’t happen anyway because it’ll go to fast past some rare bird somewhere and some environmental groups will fight this tooth and nail.

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If California were to build this, the Japanese should be hired to design it, build it, and run it. They know how to do HSR in earthquake zones.

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For politicians even to HINT about such an HSR is a kind of pornography. California will be doing well if it can honor the CO2 restrictions it has enacted, keep the commuter and regional trains running, and deal with Gov. Schwarzenegger’s “restructuring” of debt when it starts to come due.

Hate to be a sourpuss but we all know these things don’t come cheap. The New Tokkaido Line was built when JNR was still nationalized; ditto the TGV under SNCF. We did go to the moon, which was our national showpiece; but I can understand if it doesn’t fit in the same category as taking an HSR (rail, I emphasize) from NYC to Chi in two, three or even four hours.

There are at least two nations whose HSR is undoubtedly superior to ours (in fact, I’m not sure the Accela will even fit in the HSR category); in a few years there are going to be five or six nations whose best passenger trains can easily outrun ours.

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Even if there was adequate money for HSR contsruction in California, there’s still the problem of dealing with the NIMBY’s - who are all for environmentalism as long as it isn’t in their neighborhood. You wouldn’t believe the number of people that want the tracks of the LOSSAN corridor moved, but almost nothing is said about who is going to pay for the move. Mind you, these are tracks that have been here for 125 years, but because they just bough a house near the tracks they feel that someone should come in get rid of the ‘nuisance’.

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It never ceases to amaze me at just how little thought people will put into what is around the house they plan to buy. Out here, there is a city that has grown such that the BNSF tracks are now in the middle of town. There are a lot of people who want the government and/or railroad to spend millions of dollars to build more tracks to move the BNSF trains over to the UP tracks.

I regards to the tracks being grade separated, why? Everybody knows California drivers are perfect little angels (that is sarcasm).

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It better be grade separated! And with sound barriers etc. Here in the Netherlands environmentalists managed to fool everybody so a 9 km long tunnel was build under a stretch of pasture. I think trains have been running there since 1878 or so (Leiden - Woerden line). The line surfaces whence it reaches a major population zone (Zoetermeer)! A lot of miles of sound barriers were build.

Actually, I got lucky. Where I live, only on the other side of the tracks were sound barriers build, see picture below which was shot from the upper level of my appartment

greetings,

Marc Immeker

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It took 25000 HP for the French to set the speed record for a four car train. Want to bet the wacko greenies want it out there but don’t want the power plant to go with it? California is very close to being French in may ways. how appropriate they would want a French train.

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…Wacko Greenies…?? Don’t we all want a bit of care taken of our mother earth…

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Sure do but Californians want all the water from the Colorado river and all the energy and all the gas they want so they can tool around on their freeways but they don’t want any of the production in their own state and fight it every time it is suggested.

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Well, it’s like this: Californians vote one way and live the other way.

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Who cares? Or, better yet, Yawn . . . .

I think there is a certain pragmatism to the fact the we are not first in this category. There is no need to spend millions or billions of dollars simply to be first in this instance, as the economic reward of being first does not necessarily justify the expense.

Per your example of the moon, we went to the moon, first, not because we wanted to be the best at going to the moon. We went to the moon, first, to demonstrate to the Russians that our space program was superior to theirs and we were winning the nuclear race. A different paradigm drives our desire to be first to the moon as opposed to quickest from Sacramento to San Diego.

I don’t mean this as a personal affront. I just don’t understand why we care that other countries build passenger trains faster than ours? Do we care that the French are much faster at delivering insults than us?

Gabe

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This is just another junket by a politician who could have gotten just as much information about the TGV by staying home and saving the taxpayers’ money. This HSR “project” for California will undoubtedly result in fat contracts for consulting firms but in the end will come to nothing. The cost of building such a system would be staggering, not to mention the maintenance costs after construction and the fare subsidies required to make travel affordable for the average user.

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Anybody have any ideas why the French, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, and several other lesser lights among our galaxy of nations can afford the staggering cost for building such systems, and we, the richest nation in the world, appearantly cannot?

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…Yes, we spend a large chunk of our money {and lives}, policing the world.

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France - size of Texas, ~1000 miles of TGV track, funding approved 1976

Japan - size of California, ~1500 miles of Shinkanses track, funding approved 1958

Germany - size of Montana, ICE uses existing track, funding approved 1988

China - size of total USA, no high-speed yet, construction underway

Money isn’t the problem, at least not directly. American culture, although boosted greatly by the train, has been defined in the past decades by the car and plane: suburbs, business flights, etc. The ability to come and go whenever you want with a car and the speed of a plane tend to put the average American in a position where they will question whether high-speed rail is needed.

In order for a high-speed train to be feasible, it must be able to travel from point A to point B faster than taking a plane. In my limited attempts at convincing people to ride the trains, I mean faster than the flight. It seems that not too many people actually count the time it takes to process through the airport as travel time or the fact that many airports are not all that close to the center of town. If the distance is short enough, then the argument is tha

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Just one question, as a 5th-Generation Californian (family arrived here in 1850). If it’s so much fun for the rest of you to bash the state, then how come so many of you insist on MOVING here and compounding our problems?

I have two bumper stickers on my '67 VW. One says, MADE IN THE BLACK FOREST BY ELVES, the other one says, WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA–NOW GO HOME!

As to high-speed rail, if it happens, it happens. The intercity rail service we already have is running at capacity and new trains are being added as frequently as possible. The Capitol Corridor between Sacramento and San Jose, and the San Joaquins between Sacramento, Oakland and Bakersfield are two of the busiest passenger routes in the nation, rivalling the Northeast Corridor. So, if California decides to build a high-speed rail service between Sacramento and San Diego, it will BUILD it. With or without all of your sniping.

Tom

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There is a difference in being concious of your environment and habitat and being a wacko greenie. Being concious is what caused the special modifications to the engines that run the Romeoville branch on the EJ&E for usage through protected wetlands that are one of the last breeding grounds of an endangered dragonfly. Wacko Greenies would want the railroad banned from operating through the wetland.

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I beg to differ, with regard journey times. There is plenty of evidence in Britain and Europe that the overall city centre to city centre journey times are what counts in the plane vs train choice. For example it’s only an hours flight from London to Paris but the centre to centre journey time is over 3 hours, which is why most people travelling from London to Paris now do so by train.

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And that is a highly logical way of going about it, but I was arguing that Americans, in general, have a warped sense of travel time when it comes to planes. I talk to a lot of people about high-speed trains in Illinois (and by high speed we’re only talking 120mph) and everyone always starts with the same stance: Well jets travel at 300+mph. How can a train be faster? I then launch into the whole airport thing. Usually, it will spark a pondering look, but I have to explain it before they understand it.