California's proposed bullet train

[edatoakrun]

How fast is too fast?

My fundamental conclusion, watching the California high speed rail program as a spectator (It won’t ever come within 200 miles of me) is that engineering by ballot proposition is not likely to be successful. The story below summarizes the current project status. It seems speed is energy inefficient for trains, just as for cars.

I suspect 100-120 mph passenger trains would be a far cheaper, and envronmentally responsible investment alternative, for State and Federal taxpayers.

California's proposed bullet train will need to soar over small towns on towering viaducts, split rich farm fields diagonally and burrow for miles under mountains for a simple reason: It has no time to spare.

In the fine print of a 2008 voter-approved measure funding the project was a little-noticed requirement that trains be able to rocket from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes...

The need for speed is driving a number of environmentally difficult and extremely expensive design choices, contributing to the doubling of the project's cost to $98.5 billion. Pricey tunnels and viaducts would enable the train to run up to 220 mph, faster than most high-speed trains travel in Europe and Asia.

In addition to raising construction outlays, such velocity would increase electricity use sharply, working against another mandate, that the bullet train's revenues cover operating expenses. Costs of the project are expected to come under scrutiny Thursday at a Washington hearing held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee....

Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani (D-Tracy), who wrote the 2008 ballot measure, said she attempted to give the rail authority some flexibility by inserting language requiring only that the system be "designed to achieve" the speeds.

The latest route covers 432 miles. Under that plan, the bullet train would share up to 106 miles of track with local commuter rail lines in Southern California and Northern California, where speeds would top out between 110 and 125 mph.

As a result, time would have to be made up in the middle of the state, requiring an average speed there of more than 190 mph. And that doesn't account for the roughly seven minutes it takes for acceleration and deceleration at each end...

Another issue with higher speeds is increased electricity use, one of the biggest operating expenses. Aerodynamic drag rises geometrically as speeds increase, meaning a train going 195 mph uses about 50% more electrical power than a train going 160 mph. Partly for that reason, most of the high-speed rail systems around the world operate at 180 mph or less. At that speed, the California train would fail to meet its required timetable...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullet-speed-20111215,0,1729184.story?page=1

 

[yoyofella]

How fast is too fast?

My fundamental conclusion, watching the California high speed rail program as a spectator (It won’t ever come within 200 miles of me) is that engineering by ballot proposition is not likely to be successful. The story below summarizes the current project status. It seems speed is energy inefficient for trains, just as for cars.

I suspect 100-120 mph passenger trains would be a far cheaper, and envronmentally responsible investment alternative, for State and Federal taxpayers.

California's HSR program is the cheaper and environmentally responsible alternative to our status quo (air travel and car), if you look at it with a decades long investment window. A slower train would be cheaper to build, but over the long term that initial cost saving may be fleeting as it will not be fast enough to divert the air car passengers, and therefore won't have the ridership to pay back the investment.

Remember, cost of not building a HSR infrastructure is not zero. We are on the hook to spend tens of billions of dollars to widen the interstate and add more airport capacity in the next few decades as California's population continue to grow.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

studies show that just averaging about 130 mph would make the bullet train more convenient than flying. unlike Airports, train depots are usually situated in much more suited to a "city to city" traveler.

i think the need to "make up" time thru the relatively barren Central CA area is a good idea

 

[edatoakrun]

Today's WAPO has the national view of the high-speed train crash.

Critics began panning the first leg of California’s futuristic high-speed rail network as a “train to nowhere” soon after officials decided to build it not in the major population centers of Los Angeles or San Francisco, but through the state’s Central Valley farming belt.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. Spiraling cost estimates and eroding political and public support now threaten a project crucial to a 21st-century vision of train travel that President Obama promised would transform U.S. transportation much as interstate highways did more than a half-century ago.

A national high-speed rail network would not only support tens of thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs, but it would get Americans out of their cars, revitalize struggling downtowns, and spare the environment millions of tons of carbon emissions and travelers untold hours wasted in traffic or in airport terminals waiting out delays.

Obama set a goal of providing 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years. But that lofty vision is yielding to the political gravity generated by high costs, determined opponents and a public that has grown dubious of government’s ability to do big things.

Virtually none of the projects has gotten off the ground, and the one that has is in trouble...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/plans-for-high-speed-rail-are-slowing-down/2012/01/13/gIQAngYc1P_story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Graphic of national high-speed rail proposals below:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/federal-investments-in-high-speed-rail/2012/01/15/gIQAWbAa1P_graphic.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As a resident of Shasta County, North California, I note the gap in the planning for a high speed rail corridor is more or less the same as the one on the I-5 EV highway...

 

[Herm]

You could probably line every mile* of the Interstate Hwy System with wireless subsurface chargers for less than that.

*Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, 47k miles, the right hand lane, the cruising lane... max speed 55mph

 

[thankyouOB]

it is a good idea. in 20 years it will either be brilliant or we will be looking back at a lost opportunity.
that is my view.
the WAPO has ceased to be a balanced newspaper. sad to say, sad to see.
too many of its stories start out as reporting with a premise and then prove it through anecdote and selective facts.
I agree with those who say that less speed (albeit 120 mph) would be a viable alternative.

 

[BRBarian]

If we can afford to spend $50 billion of taxpayer dollars EVERY YEAR propping up the airline systems in this country, we CAN afford a few bullet trains.

Heck.. even Spain built 6,000 miles of high speed rail... and we can't even build a much needed rail tunnel under the Hudson.

 

[derkraut]

If we can afford to spend $50 billion of taxpayer dollars EVERY YEAR propping up the airline systems in this country, we CAN afford a few bullet trains.

Heck.. even Spain built 6,000 miles of high speed rail... and we can't even build a much needed rail tunnel under the Hudson.

Uh...I was not aware that the taxpayers were subsidizing the "airline systems" to the tune of $50B per year. Can you provide some specifics??

 

[BRBarian]

Just add it up... Costs to support air travel to the FAA, the DHS, the DOT, Air traffic control, airport authorities, corporate pork and tax credits to companies that make the airplanes, fly the airplanes, and even to those that make the fuel. There's even a generous tax credit to help executives to fly around in their private jets. It all comes to about $50 billion per year (and possibly more -- did I leave anything important out?).

And the Republicans whine so bitterly if Amtrak gets even a paltry $1 billion...

We have exactly the sort of wasteful transportation system that would have been created by a bunch of lobbyists... Oh wait. It apparently was.

 

[AndyH]

Here's $12.5 billion after 9/11...

Airlines used the attacks as justification for large federal subsidies, and Congress responded. A board of federal officials, headed by Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich, has been authorized to dole out $10 billion in government-backed loans. Some $5 billion more is available in outright grants, and half of this amount has already been distributed to many airlines.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_48/b3759036.htm

Not sure about this, but here's a view of transportation subsidies from a rail perspective:

Amtrak's entire budget accounts for less than one per cent of US Department of Transportation spending---$521 million vs. $33 billion for highways and $14 billion for air, not counting the post-Sep.11 bailout of $15 billion. -Source: US Department of Transportation

http://www.trainweb.org/moksrail/advocacy/resources/subsidies/transport.htm

 

[AndyH]

studies show that just averaging about 130 mph would make the bullet train more convenient than flying. unlike Airports, train depots are usually situated in much more suited to a "city to city" traveler.

i think the need to "make up" time thru the relatively barren Central CA area is a good idea

I agree! I trained from London to Paris in the late 1980s (before the Chunnel) and the ride from the coast to Paris was fast, smooth, and relaxing. An overnight train from London to Edinburgh was also effortless. Please - bring REAL trains to the US! Riding our low-speed 'cargo tracks' is like being in an old truck on a dirt road compared with real passenger rail!

 

[garygid]

I know nothing about the actual construction part of this "Project".
Presumably it is not yet funded?

Creating essentially one train route from SD to SF does not make a "transportation system". All the feeder networks are also needed.

Each stop along the way is a delay, and the real SD to SF time grows substantially.

Proposed generalized routes are shown. Are the details known yet?

How will it serve traffic from Sacramento?

Are there feeder systems planned?

Is there sufficient parking planned at each stop?

Is this one track or two?

Are Northbound, Southbound, Express, and Multistop handled by passing sidings?

How much slowing is needed to use a siding?

How many "trains" will be built, tractor units and passenger cars?

How will the high-speed tracks handle crossing fault lines, or sand or clay soils?

How much (little) will a track have to move to "crash" a 190 mph train?

Will it be electric?

What percentage of what traffic is this system presumed to carry?

Who owns the land along the right-of-way?

Who is getting rich off this contract?

In this time of budget overruns and cutbacks in vital services, education, etc., can the state really afford to do this project?

Or, is it to be funded with even MORE future-debt (bonds, loans, etc.)?

 

[smkettner]

Or, is it to be funded with even MORE future-debt (bonds, loans, etc.)?

ALL funding for ANY significant capital project is done with debt. (both at State and Federal levels)

 

[thankyouOB]

very many good questions, and some project peripheral ones; that is to say, ones that are not part of the project, such as whether it will link to airports along the way.
as to how to pay for it; interest rates are below the rate of inflation. The US can borrow now for free. if you are the US or CA,
go for it and grow the economy.

 

[yoyofella]

I know nothing about this "Project".
I thought it had been abandoned.
why...
how...
where..

Perhaps you should do a little research before posting this litany of questions, as answers to many of your questions are posted on the HSR authority site: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

Or, perhaps, you are just trying to spread FUD. The question is not whether we should spend the billions on high speed rail. We're actually deciding whether we should spend it now on rail, or in the future on more highways, bridges, and runways.

 

[Nubo]

What disturbs me about the project is that it was already voted on and bonds approved but now it's in a terminal dithering status. I just wish they'd come up with a plan and execute, spend whatever funding they have and MOVE. I wann'a see a**es and elbows or just don't bother.

 

[palmermd]

here is a good overview...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQlUM9ClUeA[/youtube]

 

[smkettner]

What disturbs me about the project is that it was already voted on and bonds approved but now it's in a terminal dithering status. I just wish they'd come up with a plan and execute, spend whatever funding they have and MOVE. I wann'a see a**es and elbows or just don't bother.

My understanding the CA bonds issued were for the billions needed just for planning. Zip zero for actual construction, that burden is on the broke federal government trying desperately to lower taxes on the rich and high income taxpayers.

Our day of reckoning could be just a few years away.

 

[thankyouOB]

What disturbs me about the project is that it was already voted on and bonds approved but now it's in a terminal dithering status. I just wish they'd come up with a plan and execute, spend whatever funding they have and MOVE. I wann'a see a**es and elbows or just don't bother.

My understanding the CA bonds issued were for the billions needed just for planning. Zip zero for actual construction, that burden is on the broke federal government trying desperately to lower taxes on the rich and high income taxpayers.

Our day of reckoning could be just a few years away.

The federal government is not broke. It is the federal government and can borrow at less than the rate of inflation. Borrowing is free money, except the principal needs to be paid back with dollars that are depreciating.
Build, baby, build.

 

[smkettner]

Day of reckoning is when they can no longer borrow for free as you say. Could be a long way off, I hope so.