243129 This 'assemblage'/ ramble dates back 10 or 12 years when I was crusading against the futility and waste of taxpayer money to achieve 'high speed' rail service on the existing infrastructure. Here is an example of where Amtrak is today. The New Haven had a freight train 1st Advanced BO-1, the "Jet", which guaranteed delivery from Boston to Chicago in 24 hours. Forty five years later Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited takes almost 22 hours from Boston to Chicago. The Merchants Limited circa 1963, with a fifteen minute switch from electric to diesel locomotive power at New Haven would cover the distance from New York to Boston in 3 hours and 55 minutes. The Acela Express, in the same time slot and far from it's proposed goal of 3 hours, covers the distance in 3 hours and 40 minutes.49 years have passed and countless millions (perhaps billions) spent in track improvements and wire installation and the resulting time cut from the schedule is zero minutes! Is this considered progress? I have seen the high speed trains come and go. The New Haven's two forays into HST's proved to be futile on the existing roadbed just as Amtrak's is today. Europe and Japan were bombed in to rubble in WW II and the Marshall Plan and SCAP rebuilt their infrastructures with an eye on the future. The railroads were built as straight as the geography allowed. The NEC infrastructure dates from the 1800's taking a circuitous route between industries. Outdated Interstate system is responsible for passenger increase not Amtrak's business acumen. Folks want good dependable transportation. Amtrak can wrest the 500 mile and under market from airlines. FY 2012 Regional up 6.6% Acela up 0.5% 2nd best year ever 1969 Metroliner 2'30” NYP – WAS 2013 Acela 2'45” 5 stops 2013Regional 3' 0” 10 stops 1963 Merchants Limited w/15 minute engine change @ NH 3'55” NY – BOS 2013 Acela w/ no stop or engine change @ NH 3'40” NYP - BOS
This 'assemblage'/ ramble dates back 10 or 12 years when I was crusading against the futility and waste of taxpayer money to achieve 'high speed' rail service on the existing infrastructure.
Here is an example of where Amtrak is today. The New Haven had a freight train 1st Advanced BO-1, the "Jet", which guaranteed delivery from Boston to Chicago in 24 hours. Forty five years later Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited takes almost 22 hours from Boston to Chicago. The Merchants Limited circa 1963, with a fifteen minute switch from electric to diesel locomotive power at New Haven would cover the distance from New York to Boston in 3 hours and 55 minutes. The Acela Express, in the same time slot and far from it's proposed goal of 3 hours, covers the distance in 3 hours and 40 minutes.49 years have passed and countless millions (perhaps billions) spent in track improvements and wire installation and the resulting time cut from the schedule is zero minutes! Is this considered progress? I have seen the high speed trains come and go. The New Haven's two forays into HST's proved to be futile on the existing roadbed just as Amtrak's is today. Europe and Japan were bombed in to rubble in WW II and the Marshall Plan and SCAP rebuilt their infrastructures with an eye on the future. The railroads were built as straight as the geography allowed. The NEC infrastructure dates from the 1800's taking a circuitous route between industries.
Outdated Interstate system is responsible for passenger increase not Amtrak's business acumen.
Folks want good dependable transportation.
Amtrak can wrest the 500 mile and under market from airlines.
FY 2012 Regional up 6.6% Acela up 0.5% 2nd best year ever
1969 Metroliner 2'30” NYP – WAS
2013 Acela 2'45” 5 stops
2013Regional 3' 0” 10 stops
1963 Merchants Limited w/15 minute engine change @ NH 3'55” NY – BOS
2013 Acela w/ no stop or engine change @ NH 3'40” NYP - BOS
The most telling examples to me of fundamental disregard on the NEC was not connecting Boston North and South directly by rail during the Big Dig and OM's observation that tunnel design coming out of the Hudson has been changed that lowers trains' achievable speed clearing the tunnel. Betting on the wrong horse.
HrSR is 'regional high speed' -- the first stage being the 110mph that is permissible with grade crossings, and the second being PRIIA-compliant 125mph.
Most of the indicated corridors don't really benefit from peak speeds higher than the latter figure, if they have the politically-optimal number of stops. And regular stops are a characteristic of 'regional' service that North American HSR emphatically should not share.
I personally find true HSR delightful. But much pf its implementation is tremendously expensive, for no gain other than implicitly money-losing passenger service for those willing to pay a premium for less-than-aircraft speed. The efficient number of corridor destination pairs that benefit from sustained HSR speed, even as low as 186mph, are comparatively few, and the sensible alternatives involve full electrification with peak draws per train as high as 22,000hp equivalent. 110mph is easily sustainable with hydrogen/battery trains, and 125mph achievable with top-and-tail locomotives. (To put this in perspective, a train with one Charger that goes 100mph needs two Chargers top-and-tail to go 125mph).
The problem with 150mph is that you have to spend most of the money for true HSR, and put up with most of the design and construction 'shortcomings' including buff and draft requirements, without really seeing much actual time reduction in schedule keeping. The APT in England, with all its wonderful (contemporary) sophistication, lost out to the HPT for precisely this reason. There were several attempts, starting in the Carter Administration, to rebuild sections of the NEC to what would ultimately be "150mph" speed... few of which ever eventuated in actual practice until well into the 1980s. (The expensively-improved sections north of New Haven supposedly capable of this range of higher speed apparently see very little actual running for particularly great distances.)
One definition heard was-----
1, HrSR was 111 MPH or more which by FRA standards means a closed track access. No grade crossings fenced etc. Class 6 track
2. HSR 161 or greater
But did congress meddled with some other speed definitions?
charlie hebdoHey Joe! Many potential cooridors under 300-400 miles. Already approaching HrSR levels are Chi-StL and Chi-DET. Chi-MKE is a natural and already quite fast. Of course all would be better with modern electrification.
I agree. The train has the potential to wrest the 500 mile and under corridors from the airlines but not at the outrageous costs being posited here. 'True' HSR (150mph+) is not happening on the NEC and to try it on other corridors would be a waste of money. Frequent, timely dependable service can be had at far less than these futile forays. The train can own the midtown to midtown corridor service.
243129 charlie hebdo Overmod (I have not missed the actual point you were making, which is that there won't be nearly enough people in an actual hurry that California HSR will achieve when finally built out even to run trains with adequate frequency, let alone pay off all the development bills. Nearly every high-speed railroad in the worid (and particularly the vanity or overmanaged projects!) shows no sign of coming close to doing so I don't think either of you OM or Joe) have used HSR or HrSR much, if at all beyond our NEC. No Charlie, I have not but show me where it would be feasible in the USA. BTW what is HrSR?
charlie hebdo Overmod (I have not missed the actual point you were making, which is that there won't be nearly enough people in an actual hurry that California HSR will achieve when finally built out even to run trains with adequate frequency, let alone pay off all the development bills. Nearly every high-speed railroad in the worid (and particularly the vanity or overmanaged projects!) shows no sign of coming close to doing so I don't think either of you OM or Joe) have used HSR or HrSR much, if at all beyond our NEC.
Overmod (I have not missed the actual point you were making, which is that there won't be nearly enough people in an actual hurry that California HSR will achieve when finally built out even to run trains with adequate frequency, let alone pay off all the development bills. Nearly every high-speed railroad in the worid (and particularly the vanity or overmanaged projects!) shows no sign of coming close to doing so
I don't think either of you OM or Joe) have used HSR or HrSR much, if at all beyond our NEC.
No Charlie, I have not but show me where it would be feasible in the USA. BTW what is HrSR?
Hey Joe! Many potential cooridors under 300-400 miles. Already approaching HrSR levels are Chi-StL and Chi-DET. Chi-MKE is a natural and already quite fast. Of course all would be better with modern electrification.
What bugs me is that the amount of money spent on the Cal HSR project might been much better spent improving on existing corridors and connecting transit. I would think the number of passenger miles from getting the terminal to terminal speeds on the LOSSAN corridor up to 60 - 80 MPH would far exceed the passenger miles that would be generated by the Cal HSR system.
An eventual extension of the HSR system was supposed to be Inland Empire to SD via the I-15 corridor, but the estimated time of completion is several decades away.
An 80 MPH terminal to terminal average speed on a Silicon Valley to San Joaquin Valley system would have been a boon as well.
Flintlock76 243129 BTW what is HrSR? I think that's "High-er Speed Rail." Not as fast as HSR but faster than the typical passenger train.
243129 BTW what is HrSR?
I think that's "High-er Speed Rail." Not as fast as HSR but faster than the typical passenger train.
105 Big Ones! Man, that kind of money could pay for a lot of, oh never mind.
Overmod(I have not missed the actual point you were making, which is that there won't be nearly enough people in an actual hurry that California HSR will achieve when finally built out even to run trains with adequate frequency, let alone pay off all the development bills. Nearly every high-speed railroad in the worid (and particularly the vanity or overmanaged projects!) shows no sign of coming close to doing so
I don't think either of you have used HSR or HrSR much if at all.
The Concord flew until 2003
The Boeing 2707 lived and died by government funding.
CA HSR is not competing with Mach 3, but with the ~500 MPH of a 737.
Just flew Allegiant 1008 miles (2-1/2 hrs) on time from our local small airport four miles from our home to Sanford, FL's small airport direct and back for a long weekend family destination wedding at Epcot. Used a rental car on lightly travelled toll road 42 miles to resort 12 minutes from Epcot. Free valet parking at Disney with handicap hanger. The total investment in vehicles in and around Disney at any one moment must be mind boggling. Scheduled flight early. Chose third "front" row for seating on planes. Turns out flight crew holds overhead bins open for first couple rows. 156 on board each way "full". Got TSA Pre to speed checkpoint charlie. Took no more than two minute's wait to pick up luggage at baggage claim. Most people carry on luggage. Not a seasoned air traveler. Lucked out on a few things. But I would travel in this manner for what we paid anytime. No super SST required.
243129Aside from not being financially viable (HSR) in some cases, did not the cessation of the SST also give credence to the notion that people are not in that much of a hurry?
Meanwhile, the anticipated business use of the SST speed between airports was largely removed by the development of comparatively cheap corporate jet aircraft, which went directly where needed as needed.
It might have been interesting to see what would have happened if the government had 'seen sense' and allowed SST travel on what were essentially well-trafficked military routings. My guess is that it would have mirrored the experience with Concorde: you'd get enough traffic to keep the things flying, but neither pay them off nor replace them at the end of their service lives.
Somewhere I have to find the drawing of the SST that North American wanted to develop from the XB-70. That would have been an amazing aircraft... arriving just in time to see its fuel cost spiral out of sight and practical fuel supply and logistics go in the toilet.
Note that, with all the developments since then, we haven't seen anything like a revived 2707, or any SSTO variant using a SST for its first stage. I've been waiting expectantly to see what comes out of the hushaboom development projects, but I continue to think there's more of a market for regional autonomous air as far as actual convenience for many actual flights would be concerned.
(I have not missed the actual point you were making, which is that there won't be nearly enough people in an actual hurry that California HSR will achieve when finally built out even to run trains with adequate frequency, let alone pay off all the development bills. Nearly every high-speed railroad in the worid (and particularly the vanity or overmanaged projects!) shows no sign of coming close to doing so. Absent really deep government pockets, and governments reasonably secure about staying in power no matter what they squander, I doubt you'd see much of that level of development. As with the Acela II trains, much of the money would be better spent on amenities, and sensible reductions in time with better-sustained HrSR-level speeds.
Strategic base tunnels... that's another story.
They have so many consultants, that they "had" to hire consultants to "manage" the consultants. Makes ya wonder what those high paid "civil servants" do at the office to justify their salaries, doesn't it?
Follow the money, folks. People are getting paid - a lot - to do the environmental and other permitting studies, to do the design work, to oversee the bid process, to oversee the construction process, etc., all on behalf of the taxpayer to ostensibly make sure their tax money is being well spent. A lot of people are going to get very wealthy from that $105 billion. To them it doesn't matter whether anyone ultimately rides it. The project's unending design process and unending permitting process and unending construction process means very nice paychecks to a lot of CA employees and a CalPERs pension for life at their retirement age - usually 55. There is almost certainly to be government agency employees who will have spent their whole career on the CA HSR project without it ever hauling a passenger. Who is getting paid out of these taxpayer funds for a given project will inform you a lot. Follow the money.
Aside from not being financially viable (HSR) in some cases, did not the cessation of the SST also give credence to the notion that people are not in that much of a hurry?
OOOPS again. Sorry
OOOPS!
Erik_MagOne big help is ... there's no need to deal with underground utilities.
Ulrich,
Scary thing is that you may be right. One big help is that land prices on Mars are a lot cheaper than urban areas in Calfornia and there's no need to deal with underground utilities.
"High speed rail"
Turns out SFO -San Jose is keeping 38 to 40 grade crossings. You know what that implies, and indeed we see a peak speed of 110mph. How many billions spent to get to that point?
Meanwhile the Central Valley part will be built with only one track and overhead in a great many places. To save money.
B interesting to see what the actual achievable timing over this route turns out to be. I remember something in Trains in the early Amtrak years... it has the ring and stamp of John Kneiling about it... that pointed out that if the Government had bought every LD passenger a Volkswagen and gas for the year it would have been cheaper overall. Considering the likely clientele for these trains as delivered... it will be interesting to see if Acela-like cachet attached to them... that might be true today with Teslas.
Colonizing Mars might be cheaper..
Why is this labeled to Merced when it is nominally SFO to San Jose?
I believe the full EIS documentation is available on the official CAHSR site (https://hsr.ca.gov/, see the little bar at the bottom)
Approved EIR/ EIS SFO - Merced
California High-Speed Rail San Jose to Merced Project Section Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement, Summary (railwayage.com)
Gramp I wonder what percentage of total electricity consumption goes to air conditioning at peak use times?
I wonder what percentage of total electricity consumption goes to air conditioning at peak use times?
blue streak 1California High Speed Rail has not Failed and RealLifeLore is wrong - YouTube
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