Nobody will want to pay the full cost. As you say, the modern american tradition is NOT friendly to such high public works costs regardless of the benefits. It’s funny, the fundamental problem that C-HSR has is the same problem it has in housing. Well heeled low density suburbanites who have their wealth tied up in housing that was built with no long term vision. That’s why land acquisition is causing such a problem. You need to condemn housing and it will adjust the mix of housing which may drive down value at least in the short term.
Also, to the mention of $500 Million to upgrade the coast line…I’d like to see a cost breakdown on that please. I DOUBT the Coast line can be upgraded for 110MPH at that price tag. And as noted, it would still miss many of the mid sized Ca metros. Let Coast Starlight and Surfliner keep those routes.
$500 million might be enough to finish the double tracking where feasible on the Srf Line along with some improvements. The biggest bottleneck on the line is the stretch through San Clementedue due to no room to place a second track and speed restrictions from all the pedestrians (and too frequent tresspassers) along that stretch. Another slow spot is the climb over Miramar hill. Both of these projects would cost well over $1 billion, with the San Clemente project being the more expensie of the two.
IMBO (“B” stands for bombastic), getting consistent 110 MPH speeds on the Surf Line would bring in a lot more benefit than 220MPH in the Central Valley. For one thing, this would allow for dramatically improved Coaster and Metrolink service in addition to Amtrak service on the LOSSAN corridor.
I’m feeling a little pessimistic about the California HSR. They are building from Fresno to Bakersfield right now, correct? It doesn’t hit either of the major population centers they were aiming for, instead it’ll go nowhere to nowhere. Also, they still haven’t a clue how they will get over Tehachapi Pass into L.A. or Pacheco Pass (maybe Altamont? They still don’t know). I really hope to see the HSR completed in a reasonable amount of time and money, but the chances seem low.
Upgrading the Coast Line to 110 would cost hugely. In making such suggestions people forget (if they’re Californians or just don’t know if they’re not) the geography. There are mountains, Santa Susannas, that would require very long twin tunnels to get out of LA. Another long tunnel would be needed to get through the mountains near San Luis Obisbo, where the horseshoe curve is (I think called La Cuesta grade). There is also a serioiusly hilly section south of San Jose. Finally, having ridden the line between LA and Santa Barbara, there are miles and miles of seriously curving track, especially noticable if you are riding in the last car and can see the track out the back.
To make that line serious transportation to the Bay Area, you would need a new, double track railroad using some parts of the existing right-of-way. Its a fine trip to Santa Barbar, because its only a 100 miles. But the 400 mile trip to San Francisco (actually Oakland) takes more than 11 hours, largely because of the problems with the route I just described. Raising the speed limit on the relatively straight sections from 70 to 110 would not help a whole lot. And if you are going to build a new railroad, go ahead and do it right, make it a truely high speed line.
So far as LOSAN to San Diego, its not going to be a fast high density line unless it is fully double tracked, and the slow parts, espcially Miramar and San Clemente are fixed and the alignment moved off the beach. Keep in mind that originally the High Speed Rail lines was to follow that route, but locals didn’t want such a thing in their backyards, and so that route became politically impossible. Keep in mind also that despite the much of the line below Fullerton is posted for 90 mph, the line is hilly enough that the trains have trouble accellarating up to that speed, so they don’t run at that speed very long. The same would be true if track speed were raised to 110. That problem can only be solved with significantly
At the risk of being a bit off topic, I have ridden trains in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, UK, and USA. I have ridden over nearly every mile of Amtrak’s system.
The ride that I enjoy most is LAX to San Diego on the Surf Line. My first ride on the line was in 1958, when the Sante Fe operated the trains, and I was headed to Camp Pendleton. My last ride was February 28th of this year. I’ll be returning to California in June for more of the Surf Line.
It would have been cheaper to flood the Central Valley and use Hydrofoil boats. Just look at some of the benefits to this idea all the increased taxes from the new lakefront property. California’s recurring drought issue solved. Eliminate a lot of the deadbeats that want to build in a rural area that really can’t afford California real estate on the coast. Create a new and large sport fishing industry. Possibly fix the Salton Sea issue. [:D]
The correct answer to this, and it has both a reasonably short initiation time for ‘full’ train technology and then an incremental path for progressive improvement (both valuable for real-world projects) is to use proper active tilt on relatively lightweight equipment. Even the British APT-P was agile at reasonable speed on comparable, if not worse, curvature. This would all remain effective HrSR after the true high-speed line is built, and I have never heard a serious high-speed LA to SF proposal that did not run up the Central Valley and where possible use a true high-speed train’s ability to surmount very high peak grades when suitably-spiraled vertical curves are engineered in.
Count me in in the hydrofoil project. I already have drawings for converting some of the boats you’ll need. Of course it will require a convenient ‘construction accident’ to avoid much of that useless EIS and entrenched-interest business, but that worked for the Salton Sea, would have worked for the recent dam near-failure, and remains an arrow in the quiver of the sorts of California companies who would bid on the, er, improvement construction and subsequent real-estate PUDs around the new linear hydrological transportation feature…
That brief article makes an excellent point. And the current bottleneck in the system at normal speeds is really getting over Tehachapi/Tejon. The Coast line will still play a part in that network. I can imagine pushing down from the north to Salinas or if they ever get a commuter line running to Santa Cruz.