http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-bullet-train-costs-0428-20110427,0,3868843.story
Very expensive, but for "only" $8.9 bil. more, almost a 50% increase in speed.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
until the issue of the operating expenses of extra electricity, mow, & rolling stock repairs is settled then maybe build it to a 220 MPH capability especially high density routes but maybe not operate at those speeds. When built to the higher speed standards then the operating expenses may be somewhat lower?
The Europeans, Chinese, & Japaneese with a few exceptions are limiting to 150 - 180 MPH. I think that the Ca HSR with its proposed max of 220 MPH may be the acid test for the prolems listed above.
That all said the small difference in building costs seems suspect??
blue streak 1 That all said the small difference in building costs seems suspect??
I wondered about that also. The sponsors may have a built-in bias as well, although in the case of Siemens, they would be in the bidding for either network, 150 or 220.
BTW, DB is still claiming to run some ICE's at 320 km/h top speed (200 mph). But point to point on new, dedicated ROW is quite a bit less. For example, from Frankfurt Flughafen Fenbahnhof (Airport long distance station) to Köln Messe-Deutz (the convention center across the Rhine from Cologne) is 178 km. Non-stops cover the distance in 49 minutes, which works out to 218 km/h or 135 mph.
The cost of electrication is in there and it won't vary much with speed. A better way would be to follow what the French did very successfully. That is to build high quality rail suitable for 150 to 220 mph but start out with 125 mph service using gas turbine power. Electric power costs are deferred until traffic will support the expense. Gas turbine electric power at 150 mph is readily attainable and that could be an alternate to electrifcation at a reasonable incremental cost..
Sustained 125 moh sevice would be such a vast improvment that ridership would favorabke and the staged expenditures for higher speeds would be much easier to sell.
schlimm blue streak 1: BTW, DB is still claiming to run some ICE's at 320 km/h top speed (200 mph). But point to point on new, dedicated ROW is quite a bit less. For example, from Frankfurt Flughafen Fenbahnhof (Airport long distance station) to Köln Messe-Deutz (the convention center across the Rhine from Cologne) is 178 km. Non-stops cover the distance in 49 minutes, which works out to 218 km/h or 135 mph.
blue streak 1:
The Rhein-Main NBS only runs from the west throat of Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof to Siegberg (22.1 km from Köln-Deutz) where line speed drops to 200 kph, from Porz (Rhein) (8.4 km out) it drops to 160 kph and trackage is shared with the S-Bahn. So they need to really make time between Siegberg and Frankfurt Flughafen.
Jerry Pier The cost of electrication is in there and it won't vary much with speed. A better way would be to follow what the French did very successfully. That is to build high quality rail suitable for 150 to 220 mph but start out with 125 mph service using gas turbine power. Electric power costs are deferred until traffic will support the expense. Gas turbine electric power at 150 mph is readily attainable and that could be an alternate to electrifcation at a reasonable incremental cost.. Sustained 125 moh sevice would be such a vast improvment that ridership would favorabke and the staged expenditures for higher speeds would be much easier to sell.
Jerry: I agree, up to a point. However, to have a sustained 125 mph service clearly requires a much higher top speed capability (see my post above as well as beaulieu's) , approaching 200 mph, and that's for a non-stop. Also, on the Frankfurt-Köln NBS, the use of a ROW shared with an Autobahn, with grades of 4% requires electric service to maintain speed at grade and to allow for rapid acceleration.
beaulieu: Those ICE 3's sure do tear along on that NBS, with all the many tunnels! There are some trains that run, with the first stop at Siegburg/Bonn, and then on to Köln, so one can check the sustained speed on the non-stop NBS. It works out to 156 km in 38 minutes, which is 246 kmh (152mph).
Something in these discussions reminds me of the original Metroliner MU cars coming out of the Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project from the 1960's.
My poppa, who worked at GATX at a time the freight car leasor had ambitions to be involved in grand high-speed rail projects, told me that the Metroliner was spec'ed for 160 MPH top speed. Why? Because the Japanese ran the New Tokaido Line at 150 MPH, and anything American had to top whatever they were doing in Japan. And yes, I am talking to all of you around here who comment on how the sky is falling because the U.S. is not keeping up with the passenger train systems of our trading partners.
So with the Metroliner, adding power adds weight, which in turn requires more power adding more weight. Those Metroliners came in at, what was it, 80-90 tons? And the other thing my poppa tol' me was that the Pennsylvania Railroad insisted on replacing those smooth-riding Pioneer III trucks with the kind of clunky equalized pedestal trucks that Amtrak is still specifying for into the middle 21st century. So the Metroliners were these up-powered, overweight, rough-riding bricks that spent much of their time in the shop. What saved Amtrak was when Paul Reistrup ordered the unpowered Metroliners -- the Amfleet -- to be powered by those high HP high adhesion Swedish locomotives.
So California has the Pacific Surfliner, which is a great service from what I hear and competes with the congested I-5 running 40 MPH average speeds, and the next step after that is to run 220 MPH HSR? And it seems what is driving this is a jingoistic keeping-up-with-the-neighbors effect rather than a hard nosed evaluation in the tradeoffs between the utility to riders of the high top speeds (stop-to-stop speeds are less) with the maintenance and capital costs to achieve those speeds?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul Milenkovic So California has the Pacific Surfliner, which is a great service from what I hear and competes with the congested I-5 running 40 MPH average speeds, and the next step after that is to run 220 MPH HSR? And it seems what is driving this is a jingoistic keeping-up-with-the-neighbors effect rather than a hard nosed evaluation in the tradeoffs between the utility to riders of the high top speeds (stop-to-stop speeds are less) with the maintenance and capital costs to achieve those speeds?
It would be nice to get the Surfliners average speed up to 55 MPH (i.e. 2 hours SD to LA). It might take some sections of 110 MPH running (e.g. through Camp Pendleton), but the main effort would be in getting rid of the slow spots (e.g. Sorrento Valley to Rose Canyon) and double tracking the line (watch out for the BANANA's on that one). These improvements would also greatly help the Coaster and Metrolink service. Faster trains would attract more riders and make better use of the rolling stock.
I also agree with the assertion that a reasonable compromise is setting up the ROW for 180 to 220 MPH and starting off with lower speed equipment.
There was an interesting article on the speed-up of the Hiawatha service in an early issue of Trains. Much was made about the continuing incremental improvements.
- Erik
I'm still a believer that more frequent and on time trains will draw more riders than faster trains.
If the choice is 10 trains a day at 150 or 4 trains a day at 220, I vote for 10 trains.
If the number of trains a day is equal, I vote for the higher speed.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
What I'd like to see is estimates of initial costs to build ROW for different top speeds and then the costs to upgrade. One potential problem with the incremental approach is that a dedicated ROW is needed above a certain top speed (+160 mph??) and all the work to get up to that point would not be transferred to the HSR ROW if there was any intention to go beyond that speed.
schlimm http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-bullet-train-costs-0428-20110427,0,3868843.story Very expensive, but for "only" $8.9 bil. more, almost a 50% increase in speed.
Neither the site referenced nor the Midwest High Speed Rail webpage says whether the cost estimates for the mid-west high speed rail project includes the cost of financing. Most estimates for HSR rail projects do not include financing. In many instances the proponents don't appear to have thought about the issue and, therefore, don't know where they will get the money or under what terms it can be obtained. This has been true for the California High Speed Rail Project.
The U.S. Treasury Department's 30 year bond rate (April 28th) is 4.75%. Assuming this rate could be obtained for the mid-west HSR project and further assuming that the financing is locked-in up front, the costs of the project including financing would be $156.4 billion to $139.7 billion or a spread of $16.6 billion.
The actual interest rate probably would be a weighted average of the rates from multiple sources. Getting a rate as low as the Treasury's long bond rate would be a challenge. Moreover, it is unlikely that all of the financing would be organized up front. Therefore, the actual rates, depending on when the bonds are sold, could be significantly higher than the historically low rates that exist today.
I agree that to attain 125 mph average requires a higher max speed but this could still be done with gas turbine electric. Bombardier's Jet train was politically limited to 125 mph but without that it could easily do 150 and probably more and it's old technology. The TGV prototype power car was turbine electric and the production unit would have been also except the 70's oil crisis scared SNCF into electrification.125 mph RTG's were used for high speed passing tests with this unit..This is not generally known but i was there shortly after this took place.
Jerry Pier I agree that to attain 125 mph average requires a higher max speed but this could still be done with gas turbine electric. Bombardier's Jet train was politically limited to 125 mph but without that it could easily do 150 and probably more and it's old technology. The TGV prototype power car was turbine electric and the production unit would have been also except the 70's oil crisis scared SNCF into electrification.125 mph RTG's were used for high speed passing tests with this unit..This is not generally known but i was there shortly after this took place.
I have the impression from reading an article in Aviation Week some years back, where they compared the French RTG with a proposal from United Aircraft for a 2nd-generation TurboTrain, that the fuel consumption of the turbine trains is not that bad -- if you can keep them moving at their rated speeds, which is the whole idea behind an HSR service anyway. The RTG also put the turbine in one power car at idle once they got up to speed, according to the article, also saving fuel.
Jerry had posted a while back about getting someone interested in developing a regenerative gas turbine for the railroad application and that they Army does this on their gas turbine tank to save fuel at part load or idle.
I am wondering if there is some way to save fuel at idle without needing a regenerator. Could you spin a gas turbine with an electric drive at some speed below where it would run on its own power and burn some fuel to keep the turbine at operating temperature? The idea would be to keep the turbine in some state of rotation and heat that you could bring it up to full power without putting the stress of a cold start but use less fuel than required to idle the machine under a pure gas turbine cycle?
Perhaps a regenerative turbine, one that you would modulate at part load, could go in one power car, and the other power car could have a turbine with a low fuel use idle, that you could power up for accelerating the train or climbing a long hill.
Paul,
A gas turbine will go from cold to full power in 90 seconds so with proper planning and disipline, there is little need for much idling. Regeneration helps in part load conditions. Good operating practice is to equalize running hours/ turbine which would dictate regeneration on both turbines. Before Turbmeca withdrew from the industrail gas turbine business they had a regenarated turbine-alternator unit with a claimed BSFC equal to a diesel over the full operating range. There are efforts by others to revice this program but to the best of my kowledge it is still dormant. I wrote a paper comparing life cycle costs (including fuel and lubricanta) for various locomotive power plants several years ago. It was done on contract to a private firm that used the info but did not publish it. If you are interested, I can probably find a summary of the work
My experience with turbines is limited to their use in helicopters, and so is probably not totally applicable to RR use. That said, would it not make more sense to deal with the fuel consumption at Idle rather than the stress of additional starts when used in a turbine/electric power car? It would seem like a turbine electric might be a good investment for trains moving into and out of the Northeast Corridor. Could it not eliminate the need to change engines in DC? If the turbine could be shut down and a pantograph raised. I admit up front that I know nothing of the cost or complexity of dual power.
I would be interested in seeing a very simplified summary of your paper.
Since electrification is the goal, mobile turbines are complicated and probably poor on fuel consumption, and fuel prices are soaring and much higher than when the SNCF moved away from them, why not bite the bullet and move forward now? Costs per mile for elctrification on a new ROW are probably nowhere near as high as updating the NEC. Additionally, a while back someone linked an article on current electrification costs per mile in the UK, which were considerably lower than figures thrown around for the California HSR. I've never seen an explanation for that.
schlimm Since electrification is the goal, mobile turbines are complicated and probably poor on fuel consumption, and fuel prices are soaring and much higher than when the SNCF moved away from them, why not bite the bullet and move forward now? Costs per mile for elctrification on a new ROW are probably nowhere near as high as updating the NEC. Additionally, a while back someone linked an article on current electrification costs per mile in the UK, which were considerably lower than figures thrown around for the California HSR. I've never seen an explanation for that.
Passenger trains make sense in relatively short, high density corridors where the cost of expanding highways and airways is prohibitive.
Before the U.S. builds any 220 mile per hour rail corridors, it should upgrade existing facilities, as it did with the NEC, to enable higher average speeds. It should walk before it runs, irrespective of what other countries have done. By starting slowly, with moderate investments, the proponents of passenger rail will be able to determine if there truly is a self-sustaining market for it. It strikes me that it could get significant upgrades to existing facilities without electrification.
Governments should facilitate investment in passenger rail infrastructure. It would be nice if they could get some private market players to join the party, but given the paucity of returns for passenger rail, even in those environments where the operators claim to be earning a profit, it is unlikely.
Governments should only invest in projects that have a high probability of covering their operating costs and, ideally, paying back the capital invested. By starting with a modest improvement of existing facilities, governments can determine if there is a market for better passenger rail service at moderate speeds. If there is then it can look to developing higher speed capabilities. However, if Americans don't go for high speed trains, which is a possibility, a go slow process is likely to lose less money. For a nation with federal and local government debt in excess of 100 per cent of GDP, this is an important consideration. Or at least it should be!
How much did it cost to electrify the NEC from Boston to New Haven? The most common answer from several searches on Google and Wikipedia is $2.3 million per mile. Adjusting this figure for inflation, the cost in today's environment would be in the neighborhood of $3.1 million per mile. This is for the poles, wires, substations, etc. It does not cover the roadbed, rail, signals, etc.
In response to the 3 replies to my comments on this subject, I offer the following:
To Phoebe Vet,
Your helicopter engine experience is certainly germane; the RTG and RTL Trains were powered with helicopter turbines. The jet Train uses a Turboprop engine. Having said that, I agree that cold starts at short intervals shorten turbine life or at least decrease TBO. However in relatively high speed rail service, the time between station stops will not be that short. Recuperation is less effective as power drops so it will have little effect on improving fuel consumption at idle. There may be some other tricks you can do but I’m not aware of them.
The dual power suggestion has weight and size implications but no one has really looked at this. In an earlier forum letter, I proposed putting the Jet Train locomotive on the end of Acela Trains in Penn Station, which would put it in the lead leaving Penn Station on the way to WDC. This would solve the problem of the decrepit 25 cycle power between NYC and WDC with no loss of speed. Tricky logistics in Penn Station but anything would be less costly than the billion or so required to replace the old power system. (The response to my letter was vituperative. to say the least)
(E-mail me at jrpier@cogeco.ca and I’ll send you a summary of the report.)
To schlim,
Electrification should be looked on as a long term goal, only necessary if the goals of grade separation, high quality rail and locomotives (or power cars) with minimum unsprung weight can be attained. These improvements could generate ridership that would justify speeds over 200 mph and the equipment to make it happen.
Even without recuperation, gas turbine fuel consumption can be competitive, especially on rail permitting sustained high speeds. In some recent writing, I proposed a 10,000 hp freight locomotive powered by two 5000 HP gas turbines, each driving its own high speed air-bearing alternator. In this configuration one 5000 hp unit could be run at full power except in acceleration mode or on steep grades. A similar arrangement could be done with smaller gas turbines depending on the maximum power requirements
Gas turbines love natural gas, of which we have enough to last a hundred years. It’s cheap, emissions are minimal and turbine time between overhaul (TBO) will be doubled. LNG is the most effective way to do this and while it poses a few logistical problems, the Russians have already done it.
Cost/mile for electrification are probably higher now than those for the NEC, both because of inflation and the higher cost of taut wire catenary.
To sam-1,
I could not have said it better
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