Heh, you know I understand we have high inflation but I don't think this is all do to the inflation rate now. What on earth keeps escalating the costs of this project?
I'd expect that if they ever finally complete it the cost will be between $125B and $150B based on what has happened so far. I have read about some reasons but I'm hoping someone from CA who has followed this extremely closely can elaborate on all of the reasons. For sure, the longer its delayed the more expensive it will be be.
1) Incompetence
2) The object of the exercise is not to build a railroad, but to line the pockets of consultants, contractors and unions (and politicians, of course)
Parenthetically, the idea that it is to provide affordable, fast transportation to the masses is a joke at best - maybe just an outright lie. Going from city center to city center might be fine for the white collar crowd (the rich have their helicopters and bizjets), but what about the working class families from someplace other than downtown going to some place other than downtown? The whole thing is an elitist boondogle
Yesterday's news tells about diminished ridership on commuter lines. Perhaps as a result of the working from home situation now being experienced.
To which you can add Zoom and other brands of video conferencing to replace meeting face to face
diningcarYesterday's news tells about diminished ridership on commuter lines. Perhaps as a result of the working from home situation now being experienced.
Not everyone has returned to work yet, we just got our return to work request March 1st. I think June 2022 would me a more accurate month to check. Also, you have to take into account that a LOT of jobs retail and restaurant have been eliminated and you have to allow time for some of them to fill in more. So I think this is something you will have to check monthly for increases until most of the help wanted signs are gone from the city,
All that real estate not yet acquired is going to cost much more now.
A new problem for CA HSR once it is operational. Where is all the power to come from at high hot peak loads days? Will it have to build its own generation facility(s).
California says it needs more power to keep the lights on (msn.com)
Recuperative generatiors might be the answer as they take just 5 minutes warm up. However they do use jet fuel.
I wonder what percentage of total electricity consumption goes to air conditioning at peak use times?
Another reason to speed up HSR construction (sorry ) the work in southern California. By time this road widening is complete those desiring to avoid this could be riding Ca HSR.
I-5 project planned to address growing traffic problems (msn.com)
Forbes article . Not much new but 10% of real estate still to be acquired.
California Bullet Train Gets $4.2 Billion Green Light For First Phase While Bigger Challenges Loom (msn.com)
A u tube by someoe who thinks CA HSR is a good innvestment.
California High Speed Rail has not Failed and RealLifeLore is wrong - YouTube
Gramp I wonder what percentage of total electricity consumption goes to air conditioning at peak use times?
According to Energy.gov, air conditioners use about 6% of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of about $29 billion to homeowners. The percentage varies depending on date, time, and location.
Six percent seems low until you consider the amount of electric energy used by large commerical and industrial users. For example, my company had a lignite fired steam electric station in Rockdale, TX. It had four 525MW generators. Three of them were dedicated to producing power for Alco's smeltering operation. If I remember correctly, the plant was not air conditioned. In the summer it was like working in a steam bath.
If one drilled deeper, he/she would find that a much higher percentage of reisdential electric energy is for AC. This is especially true in TX, which is where I live.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
blue streak 1California High Speed Rail has not Failed and RealLifeLore is wrong - YouTube
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)
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)
Colonizing Mars might be cheaper..
"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.
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.
Erik_MagOne big help is ... there's no need to deal with underground utilities.
OOOPS!
OOOPS again. Sorry
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.