edatoakrun
Well-known member
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.
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.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullet-speed-20111215,0,1729184.story?page=1California'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...