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Originally Posted by Pedestrian
So you're saying 3 tracks, not the present 2 and not the initially planned 4. Got a reference for that? My understanding is that they were going to make do with the electrified status quo except for some additional sidings so the faster HSR and/or express CalTrains could pass the local CalTrains.
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I looked at it last night and didn't realize that the plan changed at some point in recent years. I recall watching animations of a 3-track ROW about 5 years ago south of the tunnels 1-4 section. From what I gleaned from a skim of the 2020 meetings it still looks like several 3-track sections, with a central track acting as a passing siding/express track, are still on the table.
Also, a citizen asked why there is no HSR station planned in Palo Alto. The engineer agreed that it made a lot of sense but responded that Palo Alto and the other cities all told HSR to take a hike about 5 years ago.
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian
Due to the limitation of platforms you mention in that terminal, some Caltrains will probably still end their runs at 4th & Townsend as now.
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The approach to Transbay is going to be a 3-track tunnel. It gets a little complicated because there is still a lot up in the air...if there is a new underground 4th/King station then it'll probably have one island and one side platform to accommodate occasions when Caltrains, for whatever reason, enters or leaves Transbay on a track that is usually HSR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian
Finally, if there was any really good reason to build BART up the Peninsula between Diridon and Milbrae, they could elevate it over the CalTain/HSR tracks of course. The neighbors would hate that, and probably sue again, but a lot of the route is elevated in East Bay towns and suburbs.
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I looked back at the history of the dilution of the 4-track plan to what is now under study and sort-of under construction and and the war against the 4-track plan stemmed from the fear that Caltrains was going to play second fiddle to HSR. First, there was a worry that HSR would be electrified (obviously) but not Caltrains - that's a ridiculous assertion, since Caltrains would need to be electrified in order to reach Transbay - but nevertheless it was an argument. Second, it was feared that HSR would fully grade separate itself but little to nothing would be done to improve Caltrains. For example, even if all four tracks were made to run side-by-side throughout much of the corridor, it was feared that overpasses/underpasses would only be built for HSR. There would also likely be a few spots where HSR would built directly over the grade crossings - sort of like how the highway crosses directly above the Caltrains Tracks north of Tunnel 1, which has grade crossings directly beneath the highway.
So to sum it up, the Blended System was a way to ensure that Caltrains would be improved to a premium commuter rail system, pretty much without equal in the United States, because the success of HSR depends on the character of the corridor.
The crazy thing, in looking back at all of the pre-engineering work that has been done, is that it's probably costing them just as much to engineer the blended system - if not more - as compared to simply 4-tracking the whole thing and not tolerating any grade crossings.
I mean, the amount of manpower going in to studying gate closing times is insane....part of the reason why they're taking so much time is trying to sync it so that opposing trains cross particular intersections at the same time. So in this perfect future two trains will pass during a single gate closure. The placement and length of the center and side passing tracks is largely dependent upon where they will be allowed to do them politically, so they're having to decide where to do battle with these ridiculous small but extremely wealthy cities.