BNSF President Matt Rose's comments to Congress on HSR
http://www.railwayage.com//content/view/708/217/
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Maybe looking further outside the box, wind and solar power should be developed for residential/light industrial usage and newer generation nuclear/coal should be developed for rail/heavy industrial usage. It takes quite bit of using the gray matter to develop these concepts and acieve viability but isn't that a large part of what the American heritage is all about? Recognizing a new concept and bringing it to fruition.
oltmannd Syltrain These days,they often speak about of the high speed train project on the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor,which was returned back many times since the year of 1984 when the project was discussed for the first time. He was back in 1995,1998 and 2003. The last time in 2004,the former Canada's Liberal Government of Paul Martin which it was against this project had canceled a $ 400 million to Via Rail fast train to Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Who is blocking this project it's of cource the airlines and coaches lobbyists who are fiercely against this project to the high speed train. Including the president of Orleans Express a bus company is fiercely against this project and his a staunch supporter of the Canada's Liberal Party. A bus company and an airline against a gov't subsidized construction project that would steal their business? Shocking!
Syltrain These days,they often speak about of the high speed train project on the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor,which was returned back many times since the year of 1984 when the project was discussed for the first time. He was back in 1995,1998 and 2003. The last time in 2004,the former Canada's Liberal Government of Paul Martin which it was against this project had canceled a $ 400 million to Via Rail fast train to Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Who is blocking this project it's of cource the airlines and coaches lobbyists who are fiercely against this project to the high speed train. Including the president of Orleans Express a bus company is fiercely against this project and his a staunch supporter of the Canada's Liberal Party.
These days,they often speak about of the high speed train project on the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor,which was returned back many times since the year of 1984 when the project was discussed for the first time. He was back in 1995,1998 and 2003.
The last time in 2004,the former Canada's Liberal Government of Paul Martin which it was against this project had canceled a $ 400 million to Via Rail fast train to Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Who is blocking this project it's of cource the airlines and coaches lobbyists who are fiercely against this project to the high speed train. Including the president of Orleans Express a bus company is fiercely against this project and his a staunch supporter of the Canada's Liberal Party.
A bus company and an airline against a gov't subsidized construction project that would steal their business? Shocking!
I agree with you.
Recently the Canada's ex-minister of transport David Collenette under the former Canada's Liberal Party government of Jean Chretien said in a telephone interview in a Quebec City french Canadian daily news newpaper Le Soleil at the beginning of this month in march 7 that the starting of HST between Quebec City and Windsor is the solution to privilege,at least in the near future. He said that there is no doubt that the option of an high speed train is the one is who is the most desirable,but it is the one is realistic and whom at we can obtain a present. There are not enough travellers to justify the investment of an high speed train",asserted David Collenette,during a phone interview at Le Soleil newspaper.
Instead of a train speeding to more than 300 km/h (187,5 mph),the ex-Liberal minister facilitate a considerable improvement of the service of Via Rail with trains running up speed to 200 km/h (125 mph). With this express,the duration of the route between Quebec City and Montreal would be reduced unless two hours instead of fifteen minutes past three o'clock. The same route with an HST will be made in 55 minutes.
From 10 to 20 years are needed,is possible be 30 years,to prepare the sitting-up of HST. With a less fast train,we would have possibility of increasing the clientele at the lower cost. ",he added.
He recongnized that the high costs of a HST train ? Between 15 and 20 billions $? Are the main factor which brings several Canadians to oppose to the project.Mr Collenette said that opponents to the HST also use the argument of the astronomical costs to harm any debate on the need to improve rail service for passengers. He has identified the "powerful" lobby for road builders,airlines companies on the lucrative market for the Montreal-Toronto and to a lesser extent,the coach companies as part of opponents of the high speed train.
Less expensive.
At the difference,the cost of fast train project ViaFast was estimated close to $ 4 billion in the beginning of the 2000s. « The idea is to use existing railroads and improved so that trains can roll faster. That will be much less costly than building new railroads reserved to the bullet trains. Between Quebec City and Montreal,the trains was traveling by the north shore of the St.Lawrence River on tracks that belonged in the past by the CP (Canadian Pacific Railway),"he explained.
He argued that there would be no wait time to allow priority to freight trains. «Between Quebec City and Montreal on the north shore,there is much less than freight trains. In addition,they would move at night. By day,this will be reserved for passenger trains»" said Mr Collenette.
With the support of the Minister Collenette,the project ViaFast was put forward by the former mayor of Quebec City Jean Pelletier,of the time when he chaired the Via Rail Canada's administration board. That latter was warn the actual Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume not to request an high speed train was convinced a federal refusal.
The project ViaFast provided eight round-trip trains a day between Quebec City and Montreal with stops in L'Ancienne-Lorette,close to the Quebec City international Airport and in the Trois-Rivières and in Laval cities then reaching Montreal's Central Station and then going to Ottawa,Toronto and Windsor.
Sylvain
oltmanndSo, we are going to argue semantics? I can do that.
So, we are going to argue semantics?
I can do that.
We have no shot at ICE, AVE, TGV, etc. or anything like it in the near future. If things break just right, we might get "Acela lite" in some places. The press and gov't are GOING to call it HSR. If it's a smashing sucess, then, maybe there will be money for what's next. If not, arguing semantics might be all we have left to do (once the blame for failure has been properly assigned to the pre-designated scapegoats. Step 1A in any project plan is to identify the scapegoats, you know.)
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
KCSfan passengerfan I think I have the perfect name for American High Speed Rail. From now on we can refer to it as Snail Rail. Al - in - Stockton No go Al, the name's already taken. In my first message when I started this thread I chose Snail Rail to define todays average Amtrak speeds for use as our baseline. Mark
passengerfan I think I have the perfect name for American High Speed Rail. From now on we can refer to it as Snail Rail. Al - in - Stockton
I think I have the perfect name for American High Speed Rail. From now on we can refer to it as Snail Rail.
Al - in - Stockton
No go Al, the name's already taken. In my first message when I started this thread I chose Snail Rail to define todays average Amtrak speeds for use as our baseline.
Mark
...or we could just drop the word "High" and call it "American Speed Rail".
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
KCSfan oltmannd I think we need to define a new term. American HSR. It won't be anything like the European or Asian definition of HSR, since the existing rail network in combination with a highway network that exists in North America is pretty much unique. Since, the passenger rail improvements that are likely to come are going to leverage the existing rail network to a great degree, things called HSR by politicians and the press are likely to have 90-110 mph top speeds with avg speeds in the 70 mph range. So, maybe, we should just jump on the bandwagon and call this "American HSR" despite the knowledge that this is not what Europeans or the Japanese would call it. That is, unless you like arguing semantics just for fun! This is exactly the point I hoped to make when I started this thread. Mark
oltmannd I think we need to define a new term. American HSR. It won't be anything like the European or Asian definition of HSR, since the existing rail network in combination with a highway network that exists in North America is pretty much unique. Since, the passenger rail improvements that are likely to come are going to leverage the existing rail network to a great degree, things called HSR by politicians and the press are likely to have 90-110 mph top speeds with avg speeds in the 70 mph range. So, maybe, we should just jump on the bandwagon and call this "American HSR" despite the knowledge that this is not what Europeans or the Japanese would call it. That is, unless you like arguing semantics just for fun!
I think we need to define a new term. American HSR. It won't be anything like the European or Asian definition of HSR, since the existing rail network in combination with a highway network that exists in North America is pretty much unique.
Since, the passenger rail improvements that are likely to come are going to leverage the existing rail network to a great degree, things called HSR by politicians and the press are likely to have 90-110 mph top speeds with avg speeds in the 70 mph range.
So, maybe, we should just jump on the bandwagon and call this "American HSR" despite the knowledge that this is not what Europeans or the Japanese would call it. That is, unless you like arguing semantics just for fun!
This is exactly the point I hoped to make when I started this thread.
Good idea. Let's,just admit that we are no longer leaders and inovators in technology and accept the fact that it is easier to just buy our technology from the rest of the world.
aegrotatio What if California HSR is multiple-unit like Japanese 'bullet train'? Would that alleviate the problems on steep grades?
What if California HSR is multiple-unit like Japanese 'bullet train'? Would that alleviate the problems on steep grades?
The speed at which you ascend a grade is generally a funciton of HP, not the number of powered axles.
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/corporate/press-kit/VH-71-Brochure.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VH-71
The VH-71 is based
upon the US101 platform, the
American variant of the combatproven
and highly successful
EH101 helicopter, built by
AgustaWestland.
Phoebe Vet That is a sad commentary that pretty much describes the United States today. Some of us are old enough to remember when the US was the technology leader. Now we are falling behind even former 3rd world countries. We are even about to retire our space shuttles and pay the Russians to transport our people to and from the Space Station. If we ever do decide to invest in HSR, we will have to buy the equipment from foreign companies. It's embarrassing.
That is a sad commentary that pretty much describes the United States today.
Some of us are old enough to remember when the US was the technology leader.
Now we are falling behind even former 3rd world countries. We are even about to retire our space shuttles and pay the Russians to transport our people to and from the Space Station. If we ever do decide to invest in HSR, we will have to buy the equipment from foreign companies.
It's embarrassing.
I'm going to quit while I'm ahead before another "Amtrak vs. NASA funding" war starts..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
aegrotatio Seattle's monorail is not a maglev system. Obama seems to be against all new nuclear power. A significant and recent development is that Yucca Mountain storage facility and its fancy new 330-mile railroad have been suspended indefinitely.
Seattle's monorail is not a maglev system.
Obama seems to be against all new nuclear power. A significant and recent development is that Yucca Mountain storage facility and its fancy new 330-mile railroad have been suspended indefinitely.
I followed all of the hearings on California's HSR from day one and they are selling a white elephant that will never live up to its hype. They are claiming 2-1/2 hours from San Francisco to LA and for the first 50 miles between San Francisco and San Jose they will be sharing tracks with Caltrain and speed will be limited to 100 MPH. Once past Gilroy the trains will climb and tunnel through Pacheco Pass with grades of 3% in some places. The Japanese and French can tell California that grades of 1% are the maximum for HSR as speed drops dramatically on any grade above 1% and that 1% can only be for a short distance.
Once in the San Joaquin Valley the train should be able to attain its design speed for most of the distance to Bakersfield. Once leaving Bakers field and climing over Tehachapi Pass the grades will once again be 2% or greater. Once past Mojave the train should be able to attain its design speed once again. I would imagine they will have speed restrictions once past Palmdale for most of the remaining way to LA due to the narrow canyons and other mountainous terrain.
If the system selected had been Mag-lev the 2% and 3% grades would have little effect on the overall speed. With todays depressed real estate market the cost of obtaining all of the Right of Way has dropped dramatically from 16 Billion to 8 Billion. I would imagine that the 8 Billion saved would be enough to install Mag-Lev instead of HSR. The issue of where the power needs are going to come from have not been addressed yet.
Mag-Lev may come to fruition at some futuristic time but I don't expect to live long enough to see it. To me it'd just be another people mover akin to commercial aircraft so even if I were around it wouldn't hold much interest for me. I guess I'm too much of a tradionalist, but if it doesn't have steel wheels riding on steel rails it just isn't a train as far as I'm concerned.
How do we power all this high speed rail? During the recent campaign, Obama seemed to be either for or against additional coal or nuc facilities depending on his audience -- not surprising for a politician. I suspect his bottom line is that he is for it so long as it comes with so many restrictions that it can not be built. In this connection, it is my understanding further work on the Yucca Mountain railroad already has been suspended.
Solar and wind are fine, provided you can build the new transmission lines to get it to consuming areas. However, both have reliability issues, making them less than ideal for transportation uses.
Perhaps California will be the test case for this problem. Put bluntly, does California want HSR badly enough to allow construction of the infrastructure to support it? In this century?
As I mentioned someplace sometime ago, in a conversation I had with an Alstom VP he mentioned that there is a lot of technololgy around the world for all types of rail and transit application which we cannot use here because of American rail standards being so much heavier and more thus more restrictive. We cannot just take world technology and plop it down on our rights of way because of that. Therefore, we have to sort of reinvent the railroad. (And saying that, I don't mean Mag Lev. At least not yet in my mind.) But I am suspect of many using the term HSR are using it without fully understanding what its capabilities and shortcomings are as they build up a false expectation in the public's (and politicians') minds. Then when it turns out a train cannot achieve 200 miles per hour until it is an hour out of a metroplitan area where it has moved at an average 50mph, they have a public uprising. No, expectations have to be explained before planning.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
I agree that HSR would have to be a priority. I remember that the Interstate Highway Program was seen as important to defense as well as to safety; it wasn't promulgated just to save time on the highway for the motorist. As in the sixties, in addition to the (political, national) will we''d need some serious money from somewhere to do it.
I don't think it is in this country's interest to develop our own American set of HST trainsets and infrastructure (power, rails, etc.). In fact, I'm not sure this country has developed any HST on its own except for the Metroliner, which Budd started developing in the mid-Sixties. I know there are some jobs to be created in planning, design and manufacture, but there are so many countries that have HST's now that I'm sure quite a few of them would be willing to sell us a whole HSR route "out of the box," as Siemens can do with its LRT systems. That way we could get what we want and not have to (excuse the pun) "reinvent the wheel."
Now, if we want to stay on top of the world technologically perhaps working on a Maglev would be the way to go. But this country couldn't even build a superconducting supercollider 15 years ago, so I'm not too hopeful about Maglev. - a.s.
I do agree that it is fueled by a lack of will, but the technology is still being patented offshore.
In the not so distant past, the majority of the airlines this side of the iron curtain flew Boeing and McDonnell Douglass aircraft. Now even America's airlines are converting their fleets to European build Airbus.
The 28 new helicopters currently being constructed to fly the US President are being built by Augusta Westland in Europe.
The current leader in the bidding to build 150 new combat search and rescue helicopters for the US Air Force is Augusta Westland.
The US Coast Guard flies French made Dauphines.
The largest automobile manufacturer in the US is now Toyota.
The Dell computer on which I am typing this was made in Malaysia. Their tech support facility is in India.
My televisions were made in Japan.
I own 3 Chevrolets. One was made in Canada and one was made in Korea.
I agree that a great deal of the interstate highway right of way could be used for HSR, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. Like Mark said, We don't have the will.
We built an Interstate Highway System that was the envy of the world and we never let the costs get in the way.
Now I say it is time to build a HSR system the envy of the world by combining the Interstate Highway System with a HSR system elevated in the median of the HSR system and using Maglev. Today Mag-lev is the only system out there capable of sustained 350 mph speeds an has virtually no wear and tear on itself. Maintenance costs for HSR is astronomical where the initial costs of Mag-lev are high but once the system is in place very little maintenace is required to keep it running. It does not touch its guideway once underway and unlike hovercraft is quite capable of climbing 3 and 4 % grades without losing speed. We already own the IHS right of way so there is no reason to go out and purchase the majority of the ROW necessary. From what I have been able to glean from the information available Mag-lev uses no more electrical power than any other HSR system. Initial costs of Seattles Monorail system was high when installed in 1960 but it is now 49 years later and the system still operates for the most part reliably every day. Sure there have been a few glitches but the system is now almost fifty years of age, probably older than the majority of people contributing to this forum.
If we want to create another system that will be the envy of the world than it is seriously time to take a good hard look at Mag-Lev. Another thing that will be accomplished by building a system elevated in the median strip of the IHS is it will save hundreds of lives yearly where cars or trucks lose control and cross the median into oncoming traffic causing horrendous accidents. Can it be built and create huge numbers of jobs at the same time. The answer is obviously yes. I dare say that I see no reason that a Mag-lev system can also transport much of the nations UPS and other parcel services including the Post Office. A network of Mag-lev trains operating along the I-5, I-35, I-55, 1-75 and I-95 corridors would probably look after all North South needs. And systems operating along the I-10, I-20, I-40, I-70 and I-80 corridors would look after a majority of the East West traffic. There is no reason not to have shorter connectors where necessary. Then the freight RRs could have there tracks back to do whatever they want with them and sink or swim.
What would a system such as the above cost probably about 300 billion which is just about what we have sunk into the ISH system and Airports combined. It also would probaly create 1 million jobs during construction and 200, 000 permanent jobs. Would make a lot more sense than what I have been able to see so far regarding the new stimulus plan.
Phoebe,
I don't think we in the US are lacking in the technical cabability to achieve truly HSR, What's lacking is the will to achieve it. For at least the last 70 years we've simply been too much in love with the private automobile to want to make any significant investment in any form of ground transport other than highway, When and if HSR becomes a national priority I'm confident that entrepenures will be more than ready and capable to step up and develop the necessary technology and manufacturing capability that will be required.
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