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Some California high speed rail backers now oppose project
California would have been better to fully upgrade the Surf Line before building new high-speed tracks, an article in the Economist notes that Germany’s West Rhine Line is much faster than all Amtrak service outside the NEC… its double-tracked and electrified… compare to the Surf Line which still has large segments of single-track.
What’s the point of a 90-mph top speed if you have stop and wait for other trains to stop? My local Amtrak station master couldn’t believe how slow the otherwise pretty great Surfliner is after he computed its average speed of 46-mph.
The single track has got to be the main culprit; even the express train is slow. Narrow gauge intercity trains in Japan are faster. The cost to improve the Surf Line is likely only billion or two and could be done in 2 to 3 years, far cheaper and faster than super high-speed rail.
Economist: How fast is fast enough?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/07/high-speed-rail
The decision to get to San Francisco from San Jose is a sound one, even thou it ends the chance that we will ever have a SF-LA travel time of 2 hr 40 min.
But look, it saves many billions of dollars making likely that the project might actually get built. You can always twenty years later build a new line to the future TransBay Terminal, like how HS-1 to St. Pancras game almost two decades after the Channel Tunnel open… the Eurostar just had to make due with upgraded Victorian commuter tracks into Waterloo.
As in the Peninsula, there was great NIMBY opposition to a new HS line in the South of England, which politically sank the first attempt at a new HS link to the Chunnel.
Upgrading existing rail lines makes the project more affordable, and allows service to began sooner, you can always make it even better later.
Fully double-tracking and electrifying the Metrolink Antelope Valley line from LA Union Station to Palmdale should be done… then all you have to do is spend perhaps $20-30 billion on new tracks to connect to the Fresno-Bakersfield segment.
To get to Sacramento… upgrade existing tracks used by Amtrak, there is more than enough ROW to double-track, keep top speed down to 90-mph so not to hurt capacity for freight, the lines owners. Use dual-mode or gas-turbine HS train sets for these services.
A few miles in an urban center can really add to costs… a report on the UK’s HS-2 notes that " that the first five miles out of London, from Euston Station to Old Oak Common will add almost 25% to the cost of the project, and deliver little time saving".
It’s true that the current plans violate voter-imposed requirements, except that the still claim that in the very long-term they will meet them, but realistically that’s an even longer longshot then the “blended system” now planned as an “interim” step.
But the “blended plan” is much more realistic than the super dream system pushed by the advocates that now are now critical of the project.
The goal should be to get the SF-LA HSR service up in the shortest time possible at lowest cost… which I point out is still $60 billion over many years. No one as yet shown where most of the money will come from to even build the rest beyond the Central Valley, federal funding for now has dried up.
The 2 hr 40 min requirement while technically possible in terms of engineering and technology is economically prohibited except for a nation like China with money to burn, and the authority to set aside public outcry from abutters to the proposed HSR ROW.
The overseas experience shows that 3 to 4 hours would still be very competitive (http://www.economist.com/node/9441785), the real value of HSR is in connecting inland cities which suffer the worse of the housing collapse, with the bustling and expensive coastal cities in the LA Basin and Bay Area (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/business/worldbusiness/02train.html).
Dan Richard is quite correct that bullet trains around the world use blended systems and typically run at slower speeds in urban areas. That’s the TGV, if the TGV had needed new tracks to enter dense urban regions like Paris or Lyon… it would have been uneconomical to build, look at the cost of later Shinkansens in Japan.
In fact the genius of Frances TGV was that it made extensive use of the existing rail network, TGV Sud-Est Line was only 258 miles long, but upgraded intercity service over 1,000 miles of other lines that branched out from in in Dijon and Lyon. Trains reached as far as Montpellier, Marseille, and the Swiss Alps. Considerable money wa
…Welcome t the political machine. Where your best friends can become your worst enemies…
…Welcome t the political machine. Where your best friends can become your worst enemies…
Wow. There actually is intelligent life in the Peoples Republic of California. Calling out a socialist boondoggle of a black hole bottomless pit as it is developing.
Of course the fact that His Oneness, Governor Moonbeam, Rep. We Have To Pass It To See What’s In It, and one of the mentally challenged senators still support it is reason enough to kill it ASAP.
Do we actually need more high speed construction? Amtrak and local rail authorities need to have reliable service and not super expensive speed to save 15-20 minutes off an intercity run of a couple of hours. Michigan is right now upgrading the track between Chicago and Detroit, but is that what we really need, as opposed to greater frequencies and more reliable timing? Amtrak doesn’t stop here, although it runs through my home town Like most people, once I get on the bus I stay there.
I would agree with Mr Turon that investment in the Surf Line would give a better return on investment than the SF to LA high-speed route. Not only does the Surf Line suffer from many single track segments, it also has more than it’s share of at-grade crossings including many pedestrian crossings. A double-tracked Surf Line will still likely be limited to a 79mph top speed. As for eliminating grade crossings, much of the Surf Line is lined with NIMBYS with deep pockets who might tie up many needed improvements for decades. At 79 mph still very useful but nowhere close to High Speed. Perhaps that is why CHSA’s plan for High Speed rail between LA and San Diego would use a mostly new line between the OC and San Diego? It might be less costly than an upgrade of the Surf Line.
I live in California and have supported a blended system from the beginning, what most people don’t understand is that every Podunk town and county along the route is insisting on a station, that is why true high speed rail would never happen, higher speed rail with dedicated right of way will work especially with everyone clamoring for a stop.
It’s never going to be 100% “PURE”, get real, as stated in the article, systems around the world are blended.
Amen to all that Mr.Turon writes. What’s going on in California is a case study in how NOT to do passenger rail. This whole project is going to collapse of its own weight.
This has been the problem with the Obama administration’s focus on passenger rail right from the beginning. They are caught up in this pie in the sky HSR that the U.S. is not ready for and cannot afford. The administration has refused to concentrate on doing incremental improvements in the existing Amtrak/freight rail system with the goal of modest increases in speeds, modestly shortened trip times and added frequencies. By not doing that they have done tremendous damage to the cause of bringing intercity passenger rail back into the mainstream of ground transportation.
What some of the states and freight railroads are doing are where the real action is. I just rode the new Amtrak service linking NYC with Norfolk, VA. Actually the service is an extension of existing NEC trains. What VA, CSX, and most impressively NS are doing should be a model for the rest of the nation. It’s one pair of trains now. But VA wants two additional pairs that they will get once NS finishes all the work (ctc and 6 new control points between Suffolk and the CSX connection track south of Petersburg) needed to have sufficient capacity for the passengers and NS’ own trains.
This is the immediate future for intercity passenger rail nationwide if it isn’t too late. Public/private partnerships with the freight railroads that allow Amtrak to operate with minimal delays at speeds ranging between 70 and 90 mph.
Grade Crossings and beach homes on the Surf Line are a problem, but because of the old Santa Fe ATS the top speed is 90-mph and the segment pass Nixon’s Home, Trestles, the nuclear power plant, and Camp Pendleton could be prime for brief 110 to 125-mph.
Electrification and tilting EMU trainsets (like narrow gauge express service in Japan) could also cut travel times. Travel time would be almost as fast as the much longer and expensive 200-mph inland route that the CHSRA has layout… no way that will happen in our lifetimes… and I’m only 31. Feel bless if they get the main trunk built by 2040!
I support a SF-LA HSR line as a good idea, but it should be more realistic so it has a ghost of a chance of getting built. The sooner we can use it the better.
The next step needs to be to blast a new line thru the Tehachapi to Palmdale, dual-mode diesels (like NJT) could haul new Superliner coaches at 125-mph from Fresno to Palmdale while using upgrade (double-tracking, signaling, grade crossing improvements) at 79 to 90-mph to reach Oakland, Sacramento, and LA. Maybe a total Oakland-LA travel time of 6 hours.
Later after the third segment from Fresno to San Jose thru the coastal ranges is blasted out, and with electrification San Francisco-San Jose and Palmdale-Los Angeles, you could then run 160 to 200-mph high speed trains (more tilting EMUs?) direct LA-SF in about 3½ hours.
So all we need is “only” another $50 billion, perhaps a third of that to get thru the Tehachapi Pass. To make the project more economical they should examine the prospect of short haul freight model on the FEC’s successful intermodal business.
According to a 2010 study on the Surf Line, the abysmal average speed of 45.5-mph and the less than optimal on-time performance is primarily due to single-track bottlenecks, hand-thrown switches, and problems with the existing signaling and CTC. There simply are too many Amtrak and commuter trains trying to use what is still a 1940 railroad.
Double-tracking and modernization of the signaling and train control systems would go far to allow for a higher frequency, better reliability, and a higher average speed.
As for the curves tilting trainsets can give you an extra 10 to 20-mph top speed for most curves, for example on the Cascades routes the Talgos can go 75-mph where other trains are limited to 65-mph.
The existing hi-level California Coaches are not going to be replaced, but if California was to purchase the now homeless Wisconsin Talgos sets, they could be placed in limited stop express service which combine to major improvements in the permanent way could get you close to 2 hr LA-SD travel time, with the all-stops Superliner Surfliners perhaps at 2 hr 30 min.
A new passenger line LA-SD is not going to be built… if ever for several decades… got to at least complete LA-SF first… improving the existing line is the only real option.
The Surf Line should be at least as well built as an Japanese 80-mph Narrow Gauge Line, where tilting express DMU/EMU trainsets provide average speeds of 60-mph where a non-tilting locomotive haul train could only do 45-50 mph.
In fact you don’t need more than that… high-speed rail is not necessary for 128 mile route.
Good Japanese Tilt Train YouTube Video…
(HD) カーブを高速通過!!振り子特急スーパーおおぞら号(Diesel キハ283系)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U614diwIneQ
Has anyone on this site recommending upgarding of the Surf Line ever ridden it?
If not, take a look at a map as that thing meanders left and right. No amount of upgrading is going to make it materially faster.
If you don’t believe me, buy or rent the Surfline Cab Ride DVD. There are only a few minutes of 90 mph speeds because of the curves. It’s also so built up that the ONLY non-urban parts left are through Camp Pendleton, maybe 15 miles.
Only a new build line would be faster.
Has anyone on this site recommending upgarding of the Surf Line ever ridden it?
If not, take a look at a map as that thing meanders left and right. No amount of upgrading is going to make it materially faster.
If you don’t believe me, buy or rent the Surfline Cab Ride DVD. There are only a few minutes of 90 mph speeds because of the curves. It’s also so built up that the ONLY non-urban parts left are through Camp Pendleton, maybe 15 miles.
Only a new build line would be faster.
This is what happens when we have lawyers/politicians build railroads vs. railroaders. Suprise you? Not me.
I really like what a lot of people are saying here. Improve the existing system! Trains do best at connecting large cities with smaller cities between them. Airlines do well at connecting those larger cities with each other, especially as distance increases. The lessons of Amtrak’s long distance trains is that very few people travel end to end, most are traveling from larger cities to the smaller ones in between, especially where other modes serve those cities poorly, if at all. Looking at it this way, the biggest obstacle in California is the break between Bakersfield and LA. Bakersfield to LA is only 112 miles, yet there is no train service between the two. Bakersfield to SF is over twice as far, yet there are multiple daily frequencies. Why? At just 79mph max but fairly well sustained speed and multiple larger cities along the route, the train is a viable option going north. Very different story going south. There is your weakest link. If the link to the south could be built first so trains could run the whole distance, you wouldn’t capture much end to end traffic, but you would I wager capture considerable traffic between the smaller cities and LA. That would be very convenient for train operation and equipment utilization too: as people coming from SF getting off at those smaller cities would be replaced by LA bound people instead of seats going empty the rest of the way to Bakersfield. In my lifetime, improving the existing system of any given region has proven to make more progress than all the dedicated HSR systems efforts that have been made.
WILLIAM S ENSINGER is quite right, the big value of the CHSR Project is connecting the inland cities with the prosperous coastal cities.
Paul Krugman in Monday’s NY Times wrote…
“California’s longer-term economic growth has slowed, too, mainly because the state’s limited supply of buildable land means high housing prices, bringing an era of rapid population growth to an end. (Did you know that metropolitan Los Angeles has a higher population density than metropolitan New York?)”
Bingo… HSR could help solve the economic imbalance, people and businesses that can afford Bay Area rents can locate in the Central Valley or Mojave Desert and still be only an hour or two from the LA Basin or Silicon Valley.
This occurred in South Korea with the KTX, an April 2, 2004 NY Times article, “Bullet Train Remakes Map of South Korea” reported on this effect as downtrodden provincial cities where place by the new railway into convenient commuter distance of Seoul, the governmental, business, and cultural center of the nation.
Citing anything written by Paul Krugman only detracts from the credibility of one’s argument.