California High Speed Rail Thread

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

3 miles for $150 million sounds pretty darn good to me. Or, approximately $50m per mile. This is relatively right in line with expectations. Granted, the additional work involves civil stuff and does not include rail or traction power.

For comparison, bored tunnels are close to $500m per mile, aerial viaduct $200m per mile, and easy at-grade at $25-$50m per mile. The latter range, from my observations, is relevant to the necessity to purchase land or not.

Only in America though. For example, the rest of the world is generally able to bore tunnel at about $2-300m per km. I think Spain does it for like $60m.

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Only in America though. For example, the rest of the world is generally able to bore tunnel at about $2-300m per km. I think Spain does it for like $60m.

So can anyone explain why that is? There has to be a reason. Perhaps standards are higher here in the US? More environmental work has to be done here than there? I mean everyone keeps saying prices are higher here, but surely there is a reason. If someone is just pocketing the money and buying Ferrari's, I would think people would have caught that by now.

[ChargerCarl]

I think this is a good overview from Stephen Smith at Market Urbanism:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...-transit-costs

[Busy Bee]

300 million/km = 483 million/mile

[202_Cyclist]

I am going to re-post these photos since it seems like they got lost with the discussion above.

HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECT BRINGING BIG CHANGES TO FRESNO COUNTY AS CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES

By Dale Yurong
Tuesday, October 18, 2016

"FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Work is well underway on the two-mile long Fresno trench which will take High-Speed Rail trains 45 feet underground and then through a highway 180 passageway. Crews are shoring up shoulder support for the project which will require a significant lane shift on 180-- possibly within a month.

"Well, what you're going to notice is a reconfiguration of the traffic patterns. So we are shifting one lane of the west bound traffic to the east bound lane," said Diana Gomez, HSR Regional Director.

Gomez is the Central Valley Regional Director for the California High-Speed Rail Authority..."

http://abc30.com/society/high-speed-...inues/1561470/


One of my friends who works for Parsons Brinckerhoff took these photos of high speed rail construction in Fresno. This important investment in efficient, modern, infrastructure is creating good jobs an will help encourage infill development in cities like Fresno.

[202_Cyclist]

Proposed high-speed rail station would travel from Burbank to L.A. Union Station

By Anthony Clark Carpio
LA Times
Dec. 5, 2016

"Representatives with the California High-Speed Rail Authority met with Burbank and Glendale residents last week and told them how the 800-mile bullet train state project would likely affect them.

During community meetings at the Buena Vista Branch Library in Burbank on Tuesday and the Adult Recreation Center in Glendale on Thursday, state officials briefed residents about the planned 12-mile section of the project, which spans from a proposed new railway station next to Hollywood Burbank Airport to Los Angeles Union Station.

Excluding some portions in Burbank, the authority is looking to connect the two stations by primarily using the railroad right-of-way currently used by Metro, Metrolink, Amtrak and freight operators...."

http://www.latimes.com/socal/burbank...202-story.html

[ChargerCarl]

• Video Link

[SoCalKid]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Proposed high-speed rail station would travel from Burbank to L.A. Union Station

By Anthony Clark Carpio
LA Times
Dec. 5, 2016

"Representatives with the California High-Speed Rail Authority met with Burbank and Glendale residents last week and told them how the 800-mile bullet train state project would likely affect them.

During community meetings at the Buena Vista Branch Library in Burbank on Tuesday and the Adult Recreation Center in Glendale on Thursday, state officials briefed residents about the planned 12-mile section of the project, which spans from a proposed new railway station next to Hollywood Burbank Airport to Los Angeles Union Station.

Excluding some portions in Burbank, the authority is looking to connect the two stations by primarily using the railroad right-of-way currently used by Metro, Metrolink, Amtrak and freight operators...."

http://www.latimes.com/socal/burbank...202-story.html

My question is this: will using this route entail an electrified Metrolink sharing tracks with HSR, or dedicated HSR tracks?

[electricron]

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

My question is this: will using this route entail an electrified Metrolink sharing tracks with HSR, or dedicated HSR tracks?

The latest news article stated using a shared corridor, which may or may not mean shared tracks within that corridor. it also stated some, not all, of the tracks will need electrification - well every track the HSR trains will use will have to be electrified. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see a mix - some dedicated tracks and some shared tracks. But I don't believe CHSR is that far along with the design to determine that yet. Golly, they're just choosing the preferred alighnment, at which point they can start designing it in detail.

[jamesinclair]

From the authority

[Leo the Dog]

California's bullet train is hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, a confidential federal report warns

California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

A confidential Federal Railroad Administration analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion.

The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority had originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk assessment estimates that that won’t happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.

Wow! Already 7 years behind schedule on the easiest segment of the route through the flat and largely rural Central Valley.

$10 billion to build a train to and from nowhere. Merced to Shafter (Where TF is Shafter?!)

Nobody saw this coming, nope!

The federal analysis shows that the state might have to come up with another $2 billion to complete the 118 miles of construction in the Central Valley, based on the new cost projection.

But the Legislature has already balked at giving the rail authority the ability to borrow against future state revenues, saying it would have to make do with existing allocations. And that was before Gov. Jerry Brown warned on Tuesday that California’s projected 2017-18 budget shows a $1.6 billion deficit.

Read more: LA Times

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by Leo the Dog

California's bullet train is hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, a confidential federal report warns




Wow! Already 7 years behind schedule on the easiest segment of the route through the flat and largely rural Central Valley.

$10 billion to build a train to and from nowhere. Merced to Shafter (Where TF is Shafter?!)

Nobody saw this coming, nope!


Read more: LA Times

This is because more populated areas DID NOT WANT IT! How can they build it "somewhere important" if they can't start it in the first place? All the while these areas that are "nowhere" happen to also be desperate for ANYTHING to help the economy.
To be along the backbone of a large percentage of the state's agriculture is a terrible idea?

[CastleScott]

^ Yeah I though the original proposal had the line running pretty much along US 101 and then the politicians got all into it (sure seems they were trying to use this as an economic development engine for central valley cities but in a weird wrong way that ticked-off the farmers). Also I thought it was a bit silly that the I-5 Tejon Pass corridor wasn't considered (sure this would have required costly tunnels and bridges but this would have been much shorter by about 38 miles and thus allowing some time savings). When you folks passed this back in 2008 I was living in my old home state of Colorado, however I've followed this project from the get-go.

I thought I'd share this: California has several corridors that could be built as "higher speed rail" similar in scope of what was built between Chicago and St Louis and Florida has the private Bright Line higher speed rail which could also work here (heck the Bright Line train sets are built right here in Sacramento by Siemens).

Just another thing I read the trade magazines Railway Gazette and Railwayage and its kinda interesting but a lot of the high speed rail corridors in Europe were actually built by public-private partnerships. If we want rail to succeed then we should cut back on subsidies to auto travel and aviation which weaker politicians can't seem to let go of (big oil and the trucking industry wouldn't allow for this either)....

[ChargerCarl]

Allegedly SNCF offered to build it for $30 billion along the I-5 corridor but was turned down for political reasons.

[CastleScott]

^ Thanks ChargerCarl.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by CastleScott

I thought I'd share this: California has several corridors that could be built as "higher speed rail" similar in scope of what was built between Chicago and St Louis and Florida has the private Bright Line higher speed rail which could also work here (heck the Bright Line train sets are built right here in Sacramento by Siemens).

IMO this is how they should have done it. Incremental improvements instead of a highly risky megaproject starting in the location that least needs HSR.

This project could very well just fail and taxpayers get nothing. If it would have started around LA or SF it would maintain momentum regardless, and eventually get finished.

Originally Posted by CastleScott

Just another thing I read the trade magazines Railway Gazette and Railwayage and its kinda interesting but a lot of the high speed rail corridors in Europe were actually built by public-private partnerships. If we want rail to succeed then we should cut back on subsidies to auto travel and aviation which weaker politicians can't seem to let go of (big oil and the trucking industry wouldn't allow for this either)....

This is another problem in the U.S. We don't have the conditions for HSR. As long as driving is cheap, and airline connections cheap and plentiful, we will never have a Europe-style system.

I'm not convinced that HSR will work in the U.S., outside of the Northeast Corridor (and even there only really works because NYC is at the center of the route and so big, centralized and transit-oriented). I think CA's highly decentralized metros will make for tough conditions.

[ChargerCarl]

It's a viable route, and it's not like we didn't have private operators that wanted in, they just nope'd the fuck out of there once they found out it was gonna be a political shit show.

[202_Cyclist]

High-speed rail: Planners pitch ‘preferred’ route around Chowchilla

Fresno Bee
By Tim Sheehan
Jan. 17, 2017


Image courtesy of the Fresno Bee.

"A potential east-west bullet-train route along Highway 152 in Madera County is being pitched by high-speed rail planners and engineers as the best option for a Y-shaped junction for the train lines near Chowchilla.

At their meeting Wednesday in Sacramento, California High-Speed Rail Authority board members will be asked to approve Road 11 and Highway 152 as the “preferred alternative” that will go through a detailed environmental analysis in the coming months.

It is being recommended over three other options for the Central Valley Wye, a junction to link the rail authority’s main north-south line from Merced to Bakersfield with an east-west line toward Gilroy and San Jose..."

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/...127087224.html

[Pedestrian]

These 5 groups want to run California's high-speed rail system
Apr 5, 2017, 6:50am PDT Updated Apr 5, 2017, 7:52am PDT
Jody Meacham
Reporter, Silicon Valley Business Journal

Five groups of companies have entered the competition to operate California’s high-speed rail system, officials said on Tuesday.

The responses to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s request for qualifications (RFQ) represent the first formal expressions of interest by commercial entities that will be expected to invest in the system as a requirement of becoming the “early train operator” of passenger service from San Jose down the San Joaquin Valley to near Bakersfield in 2025.

The consortia are based in China, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom — although three have U.S. participants — and each has a passenger rail operating company as one of its members . . . .

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...817&j=77853621

[urbanfan89]

Wait - so construction already started before they even chose a partner?