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  #3041  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 2:18 PM
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Revised California high-speed rail plan reaffirms Central Valley segment as a priority

After a year’s delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and an uprising in the California Legislature, the head of the state’s financially strapped high-speed rail project unveiled a “revised draft business plan” today restating an initial operating segment between Merced and Bakersfield as the project’s priority.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board voted unanimously to ask the legislature to issue $4.1 billion in state bonds authorized by voters 12 years ago to get that line up and running.

Construction now underway is expected to cost $330 million more than was anticipated in last year’s first try at the plan, and track laying won’t be finished until 2023, a year later than last year’s document.

But the rail authority is investigating, as an interim cost-saving measure, whether it can begin Central Valley high-speed service with leased 186-mile-per-hour trainsets on a single-track railroad with passing tracks if it doesn’t degrade service frequency or travel times. Double tracking would have to be completed before the San Francisco Bay Area is linked to the line with 220-mph trains, officials said.

Link: https://trn.trains.com/news/news-wir...-as-a-priority
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  #3042  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 2:41 PM
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Single track high speed rail operations, does that happen anywhere else in the world? 186 mph max speeds in the interim, not the promised 220 mph max speeds? So now they will be buying and operating on "used" train sets?

Look at the map, there are huge gaps in just the environmental studies, they have not started the studies towards Sacramento and San Diego yet, and they have not completed the studies through the mountains yet. A closer look, the studies are completed as far north as Merced and as far south as Bakersfield, but the construction underway does not reach Merced nor Bakersfield. It's Madera to the north and the Kern County Line to the south, literally the county line being in the middle of nowhere.

Where do they plan to depot the initial trainsets? Merced and Bakersfield are out, how about Fresno? Have they even made that determination yet? Whoops, they are still in because the initial operating segment will include those two cities even though there is no construction underway within them, CHSR needs an additional $500 million to reach them - really? So initial operations is still years away from reality.

And this is 15 years after starting the project and 10 years after getting its' first Federal funding grants.
And we now discover that the State has been holding back over $4 Billion in bonding money voters approved 12 years ago.

This project has been over promised and under delivered for a decade.

Last edited by electricron; Feb 11, 2021 at 3:16 PM.
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  #3043  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 2:49 PM
eltodesukane eltodesukane is offline
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Those billions $ for the California High Speed Rail would be better spent on some local transportation projects, like expanding the San Francisco BART network or expanding the The Los Angeles Metro Rail.
Those would be more useful to more people.
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  #3044  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 3:01 PM
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Originally Posted by eltodesukane View Post
Those billions $ for the California High Speed Rail would be better spent on some local transportation projects, like expanding the San Francisco BART network or expanding the The Los Angeles Metro Rail.
Those would be more useful to more people.
I agree. But wasn't one of the reasons why CHSR got first crack at the money being that it could generate a profit and therefore cash to spend on the other local rail projects?
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  #3045  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 5:02 PM
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  #3046  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 8:56 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is offline
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Originally Posted by kodak black View Post
It would be amazing if the feds fully funded both the SF and LA approaches sometime in the next two years.

We just printed $5 trillion+ in 2020 without causing inflation. $100 billion for CAHSR, $100 billion for the Northeast Corridor, and $100 billion for the rest of the country would get a lot of construction happening nationwide by 2023.
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  #3047  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 9:07 PM
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Also, the NY Times' Ezra Klein unintentionally spread some mild falsehoods re: CAHSR in today's column...we all know that big money is coming the project's way, so we should expect that the Pacheco Pass tunnel if not the southern link between Bakersfield and LA is fully funded by the end of 2020:

Once you start looking for this pattern, you see it everywhere. California talks a big game on climate change, but even with billions of dollars in federal funding, it couldn’t build high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The project was choked by pricey consultants, private land negotiations, endless environmental reviews, county governments suing the state government. It has been shrunk to a line connecting the midsize cities of Bakersfield and Merced, and even that is horribly over budget and behind schedule.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/o...o-schools.html
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  #3048  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2021, 9:51 PM
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They could probably pick up used Alstom Eurostar trainsets for a song.
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  #3049  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 3:03 PM
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They could probably pick up used Alstom Eurostar trainsets for a song.
That is what Canada did when VIA bought unused and unfinished Nightstar trains and called them Renaissance cars. VIA already wants to retire them. UK rolling stock is considered wide at 9 feet, in the USA that would be considered thin.
Width of various UK passenger coaches:
Class 390 Pendolino 8 ft 11 in
Class 373 Eurostar (Alstom) 9 ft 3 in
Class 800 Azuma 8 ft 10 in
VIA Renaissance 8 ft 11 in

Width of various USA passenger coaches:
Siemens Venture 10 ft 6 in
Amfleet I 10 ft 6 in
Superliner 10 ft 2 in
Bombardier Multilevel 10 ft
Bombardier BiLevel 9 ft 10 in
Siemens S70 light rail vehicle 8 ft 8 in

Are you seeing the size differential yet, North American "loading gauge" is on average 1 feet wider than the UK. Although the old Eurostar trainsets were the widest railcars operating in the UK. Passengers will notice that thinner interior cabin with either smaller seats or smaller aisles or corridors.

They did in Canada. When VIA replaces their Renaissance cars with Ventures, watch what the reviews will write. The reviewers will notice and will sing praises to the new cars for wider seats and wider aisles.

It would be slightly better for CHSR to lease or buy European HSR trainsets that did not operate in the UK.
Width of ICE Velaro trains 9 ft 8 in (CRH3 10 ft 8 in)
Width of TGV Atlantique 9 ft 6 in passenger

Two low cost train companies are leasing the older Eurostar and Duplex sets already. As SCNF upgrades to the newest rolling stock, the retiring rolling stock are being used by IZY and Ouigo. IZY using Eurostars and Ouigo using Duplexes.
Ouigo ridership had climbed steadily since 2013, from 1.5 million passengers per year to 13 million passengers per year in 2018. Would be interesting to see what they had in 2019 before the pandemic hit. IZY just started operations in 2016, wiki does not report ridership yet.

ps, all data reported came from various wiki pages.

Last edited by electricron; Feb 12, 2021 at 3:40 PM.
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  #3050  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 3:11 PM
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My god man. You are a master at suffocating a casual conversation with a bunch of numbers. Yes I am fully aware of loading gauge. It's not like there is a huge market out there for second hand high speed trainsets. The only ones I can think of are the first-gen Eurostar and the second-gen TGV.
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  #3051  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 3:43 PM
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My god man. You are a master at suffocating a casual conversation with a bunch of numbers. Yes I am fully aware of loading gauge. It's not like there is a huge market out there for second hand high speed trainsets. The only ones I can think of are the first-gen Eurostar and the second-gen TGV.
Putting the numbers aside, do you really think the masters at CHSR will want to introduce HSR train service using cars just slightly wider than a light rail train? Have you wondered why VIA really wants to drop their newest rolling stock, the Renaissance cars, after just 20 years?
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  #3052  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 3:48 PM
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Do you really think there is a single person boarding any UK or continental train, high speed or otherwise, that is actually saying "I'm not riding this - it's no wider than a light rail train!!!" ?

Come on man. I think you're missing the forest for the trees.
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  #3053  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 5:58 PM
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Do you really think there is a single person boarding any UK or continental train, high speed or otherwise, that is actually saying "I'm not riding this - it's no wider than a light rail train!!!" ?

Come on man. I think you're missing the forest for the trees.
People do not know what they are missing if they never rode in a wider rail car. Yet, whenever European you tubers come to America or Canada and ride in our relatively huge trains, they all comment how nice it is. It is noticeable!
Do I have to provide all the links, or just name a few?
Try Simply Railway, Wingin’ It Paul Lucas just to name two.

Once you are use to a larger kit, as the British would say, that is what you will expect. Otherwise you will feel like being squeezed into a can of sardines. And that will not be a great first impression for a train you expect to charge higher fares for.
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  #3054  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2021, 8:50 AM
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Bill to Bring Billions for Bullet Train



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Fresno Congressmember Jim Costa has re-introduced a $32 billion bill to fund the completion of California’s High-Speed Rail project. “A modern infrastructure lays the foundation for a thriving economy,” said Costa in a statement about ‘HR 867: the High-Speed Rail Corridor Development Act.’ “California is leading the way by building state of the art, fast, electrified trains that will go 220 miles per hour.”

The takeaway is that 220-mph HSR trains should be running from Los Angeles to San Francisco as early as 2033, with intermediate services starting sooner in phases as more and more sections are completed. The first bullet trains will start running on the Central Valley spine, with direct low-speed rail connections to Sacramento and the Bay Area, in 2029.
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2021/02/...-bullet-train/
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  #3055  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2021, 6:32 PM
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To the other 49 states, we thank you for your contribution! Or maybe it's just us getting our own money back from being a donor state? I really can't keep track anymore. At this point, if we can get the project completed by 2033... that's a miracle.
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  #3056  
Old Posted Feb 19, 2021, 8:03 PM
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I'm fine with it as long as they finish the engineering of the segment between Bakersfield and Palmdale.

I'm worried that it will run over budget on this segment, unless the details are hashed out.
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  #3057  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2021, 12:42 AM
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To the other 49 states, we thank you for your contribution! Or maybe it's just us getting our own money back from being a donor state? I really can't keep track anymore. At this point, if we can get the project completed by 2033... that's a miracle.
You're welcome. The irony is that some parts of the country have easy topography and HSR could be built in those places much more easily, like the Texas proposal between Houston and Dallas.

Ohio would have had the first HSR system in the U.S. had the 1982 vote passed. It's hard to believe now but Texas didn't grow larger than Ohio until about 1975. Through the early 1980s, Ohio was still had a lot of high tech manufacturing and even had some computer companies:
https://microship.com/cincinnati-milacron-george

The Ohio system was going to have a 1-mile tunnel under a freight railroad yard in Cincinnati and about 20 miles of elevated construction spread throughout the state - the rest was going to be ground running for a length of about 240 miles between Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Here is former Gov. John Kasich in 2010 making fun of Ohio's 1980s high speed rail push as he gave the Obama funding back to the feds, whereby it made its way to California:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTgH8NB3Ivg
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  #3058  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2021, 2:44 AM
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Originally Posted by electricron View Post
Putting the numbers aside, do you really think the masters at CHSR will want to introduce HSR train service using cars just slightly wider than a light rail train?
Why wouldn’t they? They’re still trying to convince us that the system they’re building is truly high speed rail (it’s not) and that they know what they’re doing (they don’t).
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  #3059  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2021, 2:45 AM
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I'm worried that it will run over budget on this segment, unless the details are hashed out.
Why worry? There’s no dollar number out there that will kill this.
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  #3060  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2021, 3:09 AM
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Originally Posted by urban_encounter View Post
Why wouldn’t they? They’re still trying to convince us that the system they’re building is truly high speed rail (it’s not) and that they know what they’re doing (they don’t).
Enlighten us genius. The few that participate on this thread know the project pretty well so I suspect you're about to embarrass yourself.
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