Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
I genuinely don't want to poop on progress but the Peninsula investment as currently being pursued has the potential to be a colossally shortsighted endeavor. The CHSRA should have insisted on a 4-track Caltrain/HSR row with full grade separation top to bottom. For the life of me I don't know how they are going to accommodate 12 HSR trains/hour through 2-track stations at any reasonable speed. It just seems like all these millions will likely be wasted when they realize that you can't pull off proper operation of Caltrain and HSR without a row to facilitate it which includes dedicated tracks bypassing stations and zero potential interaction w/ people or vehicles.
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The capacity of the system is limited by the 6 stub tracks in Transbay, not the Peninsula tracks. 4 platforms will be dedicated to CAHSR and 2 to Caltrains. The HSR trains each need a 30 minute slot to perform a turnaround, so the system capacity is 4 HSR trains per hour. The Caltrains commuter trains don't need any turnaround servicing so there will be 6 per hour served by just 2 platforms.
The limited capacity of the Transbay Terminal is forcing the hand of the second Transbay crossing - the long-contemplated 4-track structure that would carry two passenger rail tracks and two BART tracks.
Turning Transbay into a through station triples or quadruples its capacity since the turnaround functions (cleaning/restocking the trains) can be performed elsewhere.