High Speed Rail in California ..?

[Anonymous]

With Amtrak in the hotpan for recent safety issues and their perpetual dismal fiscal status is there a place for passenger rail in the future? And is it time to think beyond Amtrak?

Yes, and yes. In my opinion.
A high speed rail line connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles at speed up to 200MPH. That would be impressive, but can it work? Will people use it and can it actually be profitable? Similar attempts in Texas and Florida have failed, but if one is built that is demonstrably efficient and while perhaps not profitable does not demand a billion dollars in federal subsidy each year then maybe we can see the light at the end of the tunnel here.

Michael Krasny of KQED Public Radio discussed this on his Forum program yesterday and it was quite a lively debate. The show's brief:

In light of the $6 million dollar bond measure under review, Forum looks at the debate over funding High Speed Rail in California. The proposal would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles with a two-hour commute.
Guests:
• Rod Diridon, Chair of the High Speed Rail Authority and executive director for the Mineta Transportation Institute
• Senator Jim Costas, from Fresno
• Senator Tom McClintock from Thousand Oaks
• Robert Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation and Director of Transportation Studies
• Patrick Moore of the Sierra Club
• James RePass, President and CEO of National Corridors Initiative, Inc.

You can hear an internet feed of the program here: http://www.kqed.org/radio/forum/thisweek.html (look for Thursday May 2, 10AM segment).

I think we can, I think we can ... thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I've lived in New England most of my life and never made it out to the opposite coast(there's still time). I've often thought that it would make sense to build and electrified high speed line next to the ex SP Coastline,leaving the existing tracks for freight and commuter. Maybe the State could get UP to sell it and get public/private partnerships to rebuild to a "Texas corridors initiative"(see last month's TRAINS) type open access configuration(yeah,I know UP scrambles the lawyers when they here open access).
What ever happened to the LA to Las Vegas HST proposal? I've heard of both conventional and MAGLEV proposals for this.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

Yes, I believe a high speed Los Angeles-San Francisco high speed line might be workable provided the Los Angeles-San Francisco station-to-station travel time were kept down to 3 hours. This would call for an electrified line and TGV type trains which could run at 175-180 mph. There are two possible routes. The shorter of the two routes would be down the Central Valley through Bakersfield; but, would it be possible to cross the mountains that separate the Central Valley and the north end of the San Fernando Valley and still maintain the necessary high speed? The longer route would more or less parallel the UP's ex SP "Coast Line" except a new line would have to be built along the US 101 Corridor between San Luis Obispo and Gaviota. This route would be slightly shorter than the "Coast Line" and high speed would be necessary to keep the travel time down.

It seems the concept of high-speed passenger rail is to provide an alternative to flying on densely packed corridors of 200 - 400 miles in length. High-speed rail travel can be just as fast as flying on a portal-to-portal basis for trips in the previously mentioned distance, however, high speed rail lines would have to be built from scratch so the first costs will be astronomical.