Would someone in California please let us know how the vote on the high speed train came out as soon as the poles close tonight?
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Once polls close here at 8pm PT I let everyone know.
Any word yet?
al-in-chgo Any word yet?
Prop 1A is leading with 58% of precincts reporting by 51% of the vote. With the precincts still to come it is expected to pass by a very narrow margin.
Al - in Stockton
With all 100% of the precincts reporting in California Proposition 1A the High Speed Rail Bill has passed by 52% of the vote to 48%. It's a narrow margin but it now looks like California will become the first state with a true HSR system with trains operating at 220 mph as good as anything in the rest of the world.
Al - in - Stockton
Time 5:42 AM Left Coast Time
Now let's hope it sets a good example.
Phoebe Vet Now let's hope it sets a good example.
Al seems to have hit on a potential problem. The dog-legged route through Tehachapi Pass and Riverside are quite inexplicable unless one considers the possibility of political fighting and the attempt to appease as many as necessary.
HarveyK400 Al seems to have hit on a potential problem. The dog-legged route through Tehachapi Pass and Riverside are quite inexplicable unless one considers the possibility of political fighting and the attempt to appease as many as necessary.
There are several other problems that will surface before ground breaking occurs. The one bright spot is that most of the additional land needed for the HSR line between San Francisco and Gilroy has already been quietly purchased under the guise of Caltrans expansion. There is no reason that contracts can not be let for this and construction underway within the next six months.
The land between Gilroy and Modesto should be about the cheapest to purchase as there is really very little that is not already State land or farmland. Beginning in Modesto the land acquisition is going to increase as they want to build alongside the existing UP right of way to Bakersfield. Probably the cheapest method of doing this section of rail would be to use an elevated structure above HWY 99 and this can easily accommodate four tracks where necessary. It will be far cheaper than purchase right of way next to the existing UP that has already came out in opposition to close HSR proximity to there tracks. I personally was one of those that favored builing a bridge across the wetlands in the south bay area and would have chose Altamont Pass and Stockton as the place for the southward turn down the Central Valley with Caltrans serving as a connector to the HSR from Gilroy and San Jose to the point south of the Dumbarton Bridge where I would have run the HSR across the bay. Eventually the proposed plan calls for east bay trackage that would connect in San Jose and use the Altamont Pass to Stockton anyway.
The Sacramento to Stockton section of the HSR will eventually all come together anyway at Stockton or Modesto anyway.
On the south end Tehachapi was selected over the Grapevine due to the costs and the additional tunnele that would be required using this shorter route into LA. and onto Anahiem. The San Diego route out through Riverside was selected because of the population growth taking place along the I-15 corridor from Riverside to San Diego. There is already some 90 mph running sections on the Surfline and it was felt that route could probably be upgraded to 90 mph running for most of its existing route between LA and SD, This would give a second route to passengers to San Diego from LA and probably for those going just between those points the Surfline with the proposed track improvements to 90 mph running for the majority of the trip would be the faster route to take. That route is the fastest growing population in California at the present.
Enough of my rambling I am going back to bed.
The most logical way to approach this would be to plan it as four seperate double-tracked interconnected services, north a loop line between Oakland/SF, Stockton and Sacramento, a central state line between LA and SF/Oakland with a transfer stop in Stockton to the Sacramento loop, and south between LA and San Bernardino/Riverside to San Diego. Personally I think the LA to San Diego route should be planned to be an eventual separate coastal loop line, LA to SB down to SD and back the coast to LA with connecting stops to the central state line.
I realize this is decades of planning and work but the oil fuelling the planes ain't gonna last forever, better start planning to move all those commuters once the cost of flying becomes so astronimical that only the very wealthy will be doing it. The electricity can be generated by wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear plants that can be built at various places around the state, Even if they only go 175-200mph thats still a huge leap in service.
Have fun with your trains
To be truely high speed it must make as few stops as possible. It should stop only at the largest cities and then a commuter train should run the same route between those stops, stopping at all the other places in between.
Unfortunatly,politics willprobably win out,and the train will make several stops along the route.There should be mutiple tracks.One for true HSR which will run non stop from L.A. to the Bay Area, and one for fast trains making stops along the way.
espeefoamer Unfortunatly,politics willprobably win out,and the train will make several stops along the route.There should be mutiple tracks.One for true HSR which will run non stop from L.A. to the Bay Area, and one for fast trains making stops along the way.
I read that it passed about 52% to 48%. It is for a ten billion dollar bond and today the terminator wants to increas taxes by 4.7 billion dollars just to balance the budget. I wouldn't look for anything soon. I would also be very doubtful about getting the other 90 billion dollars to build it which is probably low by half. The feds don't have it. The state doesn't have it. The lenders don't have it and the taxpayers have had it!
The Gilroy alternative puts San Jose which is larger than either San Francisco or Oakland on the route. Furthermore, separate trains can continue up an electrified Capitol Corridor to make East Bay stops and connect with BART.
The discussion of the Bay Bridge in another thread raises the question of whether the hsr corridor could be extended through San Francisco to Oakland and Sacramento. This might be an alternative for duplicative and expensive hsr construction between Fresno and Sacramento and provide the missing link between San Francisco and Sacramento. Fresno-Sacramento still could be upgraded for 110 mph electrified service.
I would be a little more sympathetic to the UP opposition and concerns if the row through the Central Valley was less than ~200' wide. Wouldn't hsr facilitate more grade separation and row control for UP?
I can't imagine how more tunneling on a shorter Grapevine (?) route between Los Angeles and Bakersfield would cost that much more to offset the obvious advantage in travel time.
I'll go along with the need for service to San Bernadino-Riverside. If Tehachapi is so much better, why not just come into LA through SB?
The other Riverside alternative would seem to be improving and electrifying the existing MetroLink between Los Angeles and Riverside for through service north from Los Angeles; but as you state, this would not accommodate Riverside-San Diego demand. The result of an hsr routing through Riverside is a somewhat longer travel time that may be more significant to San Francisco and Sacramento ridership thresholds than to Los Angeles.
One improvement for the Surfliner and Coaster between LA and SD would be a new cutoff through La Jolla.
Tilt trains would make a difference on most existing lines and permit a little sharper curves in engineering for high speeds.
HarveyK400I would be a little more sympathetic to the UP opposition and concerns if the row through the Central Valley was less than ~200' wide. Wouldn't hsr facilitate more grade separation and row control for UP?
Few railroad main line rights-of-way in California are 200' except in places where it doesn't much matter. In urban areas the rights-of-way are rarely greater than 80' and sometimes as little as 25'. Unless someone is planning to pop up the HSR right-of-way where it passes through every town, and create a huge eyesore and urban-planning nightmare, there is little value in using a main line right of way. Locating the HSR right-of-way at ground level between urban areas effectively locks out new industrial customers on one side of the track. Most of the railroad rights-of-way in California have petroleum products pipelines co-located; relocating them is an exorbitant expense, on the order of $200-$1000/foot, and there are often 3 or more pipelines within the right-of-way.
Many of the transit projects I've worked on in recent years have been set back by multiple years by transit planners assuming that Class I rights-of-way were readily available, inexpensive, routes for their railroads.
RWM
I'll grant Railwayman that pipelines may be located in the UP row through the Central Valley which may raise costs if not preclude use for HSR.
Industrial siting may be hampered, but not necessarily blocked out inasmuch as intermittent grade separations afford opportunities for rail access.
The point was that the former SP Central Valley line offers many miles of virtually curve-free and wide row through a mostly rural area, ideal for HSR with minimal relocation. This offers the opportunity for access to the centers of on-line towns rather than a station at the outskirts.
It shouldn't take years to evaluate the possible use of the former SP Valley Line. I certainly don't advocate assuming anything for years and into engineering.
The UP opposition seems petty given their their use for a single-track line; but this might reflect other factors such as pipelines. I'm also curious whether the row was granted as an easement whereby the property might rightly belong to the State.
Narrow row in other areas has nothing to do with the substatial part of the route through the Central Valley. Narrow existing row in urban and mountainous areas may require shared tracks, a new alignment, or dislocation to gain the necessary HSR easement.
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