California High Speed Rail Thread

[ardecila]

Now that I look into it, it seems the bid was derailed because SNCF wanted to serve California along the I-5 alignment, which they believed would produce higher ridership at lower cost, but would put Fresno and Bakersfield on spurs instead of on the main line.

The Holocaust thing was more of a speed bump - Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill that Bob Blumenfield pushed, and SNCF issued an apology.

Still, I expect some hysterical anti-Nazi reactions to the selection of DB.

[Pedestrian]

^^The hysteria seems to me to be among Central Valley conservatives who don't realize what a boon it would be to their constituents to have quick, frequent access to SF, LA and Sacramento even if the only reason they wanted to go there was to get to a major airport.

[Pedestrian]

Here's the new timetable for CalTrain electrification. CalTrain is a commuter line from Gilroy (south of San Jose) into downtown San Francisco (though presently to a station in Mission Bay, not the almost completed new TransBay Terminal). CA HSR will use CalTrain right of way and, at least initially, tracks for the last part of its route to San Francisco--between that city and San Jose--and electrification of the route is critical for HSR as well as the commuter service. Heretofore CalTrain trains have used diesel equipment but that cannot go through a to-be-built tunnel from the present terminus into the TransBay.

CalTrain electrification time table:


http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2...k-to-2022.html

RSD = Revenue Service Date

[pizzaguy]

Make sure to thank your local CA GOP Representative for delaying this project six months and adding $30m to the cost. Hooray for the party of personal responsibility and fiscal conservatism!

[202_Cyclist]

A 13.5-mile tunnel will make or break California's bullet train

By Ralph Vartabedian
LA Times
Oct. 21, 2017


Image courtesy of the LA Times.

"Whhen the first California bullet train pulls out of San Jose one day, a crucial part of the journey will be a 13.5-mile tunnel beneath the winding peaks and valleys of Pacheco Pass.

Trains will run at top speed along a straight and level route beneath the Diablo Range, shooting through the nation’s longest and most advanced transportation tunnel.

But the massive scope and complexity of the tunnel are at the heart of new concerns about the viability of the state project..."

http://www.latimes.com/local/califor...021-story.html

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Make sure to thank your local CA GOP Representative for delaying this project six months and adding $30m to the cost. Hooray for the party of personal responsibility and fiscal conservatism!

That's not what actually is going on I think. When people cause problems on projects like this they know they can't stop it forever so they are just hoping to drive the cost up so high that it gets abandoned.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

A 13.5-mile tunnel will make or break California's bullet train

From the article:

A Times analysis has found that tunnel construction could exhaust the $5.5-billion budget for the entire 54-mile segment from Gilroy to Chowchilla.

Some of the world’s top tunnel experts put the cost of the tunnel at anywhere from $5.6 billion to $14.4 billion, reflecting the high cost of boring through tricky geology and seismically active areas.

A 13.5 mile tunnel through a mountain with known seismic activity is going to easily exceed what is allocated for the entire 54 mile segment.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

From the article:



A 13.5 mile tunnel through a mountain with known seismic activity is going to easily exceed what is allocated for the entire 54 mile segment.

5.5 Billion for building a tunnel this long in California? Someone is living in a fantasy land.

[Ragnar]

http://www.latimes.com/local/califor...116-story.html

Cost of California bullet train jumps by $2.8 billion just in the Central Valley


The estimated cost of building 119 miles of bullet train track in the Central Valley has jumped to $10.6 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion from the current budget and up from about $6 billion originally.

The new calculation takes into account a number of extremely costly problems encountered by the state rail agency. It raises difficult questions about how the state will complete the massive effort, the largest national infrastructure project, with the existing funding sources.

The new estimate was presented Tuesday by Roy Hill, who leads the main consulting firm on the project, WSP (formerly Parson Brinckerhoff). Hill said the cost increases were mainly driven by problems including higher costs for land acquisition, issues in relocated utility systems, the need for safety barriers where the bullet trains would operate near freight lines and demands by stakeholders for mitigation of myriad issues.

“The worst case scenario has happened,” Hill said bluntly.

Who could have predicted this? Oh wait, just about everybody.

[Eightball]

They need to figure out a better way to control costs but this expenditure is not that big in the context of the world's sixth largest economy stop saying that

[DJM19]

demands by stakeholders for mitigation of myriad issues

If they could solve this, the whole project would probably be 20 billion cheaper.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Eightball

They need to figure out a better way to control costs but this expenditure is not that big in the context of the world's sixth largest economy stop saying that

$200,000,000,000 is a lot by any calculation. That's the number we're trending at right now. You think the cost overruns are bad in sparsely populated and mostly flat Central Valley? Just wait until it starts going through big cities and mountains. CAHSR will never be completed. I'm sure some segments will open up as commuter rail or what not, but the idea that there will be high speed rail from LA to SF is a pipe dream even the most ardent supporters must secretly know will never happen.

[phoenixboi08]

I’d generally hold off on even commenting before I’ve read the analysis, myself, but something about the Times’ analysis here seems off - some context is missing (for example, part of the original budget being increased to cover contingencies or increase the scope of work to be completed isn’t really an overrun, and continuing to measure % increases from the old baseline rather than the current baseline seems a bit inconsistent). That is to say, I don’t think this new information even supports what Vartabedian breathlessly continues to say - moving goalposts in the process.

Anyways, it’s been clear the decision to award the first 1-2 construction packages before they had acquired all the necessary parcels to begin construction - and anticipating they could meet an aggressive schedule in doing so - was the main issue. The authority was always rather transparent on that front and managed to dramatically improve the schedul; although, the fact that they are still behind lay with the original mistake, not the corrective measures.

The cost estimates (tentatively projecting overruns, and warning adequate mitigation be taken) have been trending down - again, clearer analysis from the article would be helpful in figuring out by how much - as have actual estimates/bids for CPs.

But if Chicken Little is what you’re after, Ralph is certainly your guy.

[Ragnar]

^^^The cost estimates have been trending down???

Not from anything I’ve seen.

As mentioned by BrownTown, this will end up being a fancy commuter rail from the Central Valley to the Bay Area.

I’m a “train guy” but this project is such a colossal, expensive boondoggle.

And for those thinking this is not that “expensive” think of what $200 billion could do for local infrastructure projects.

[pizzaguy]

Everything is a boondoggle until it's finished. Let the chicken littles have their fun.

[CastleScott]

I've been following this from the get-go and from following high-speed rail in Europe and Japan there's lots of projects where they used public-private partnerships to get er done and it worked! Don't know why California can't seem to do a similar scenario-another thing higher-speed rail would work well too-I'm sure a Brightline type of service would be a bit hit in Cali (lets do a Brightline type service from the Bay to Sacramento for a demo and I bet it would be a big hit! Btw the Siemens trains are built here in Sacramento too.). Just my 2 cents here..

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Everything is a boondoggle until it's finished. Let the chicken littles have their fun.

This.

Especially these days. Conservatives don't believe in public spending for anything unless its underneath their car tires or shoots a missile.

[CastleScott]

^ This is true because they've long been bought and paid for by the big Oil, trucking, airlines and defense lobbies..

[Ragnar]

You do realize you don't have to be a "Conservative" to think that this is a horribly managed project and huge waste of money, right?

[Busy Bee]

Would you prefer myopic?