7 ms·

Huge supporter of rail but sadly I believe there are a number of mistakes being made. This is a classic example of how projects like this in the US need to be m

by erentz 10y ago

Huge supporter of rail but sadly I believe there are a number of mistakes being made. This is a classic example of how projects like this in the US need to be monolithic, self contained, and gold plated to the hilt. The correct action would have been for CA to incrementally acquire and build railways along a number of corridors. Take the SF bay for example. There should be one agency running Caltrain, the Capitol Corridor, the ACE. It should electrify and improve all the routes. Extend reach to Monterey and other Central Valley locations. And do the same in Southern California. The incompatibility of CAHSR with other rail strikes me as a repeat of the BART mistake.

JimboOmega 10y ago
A large part of what made the shinkansen work in ways that the current US rail system doesn't is its dedicated right of way, so I think building it separately makes some sense. sharing with freight otrain slower commuter trains really reduces the value of HSR, especially on an older, slower right of way.
CalChris 10y ago
> a repeat of the BART mistake. Probably a different mistake but BART uses 5'6" rail gauge. Standard US rail gauge is 4'8.5". This means that every railcar, every everything, has to be custom made with no economies of scale. No one can remember why they did this.
- privong 10y ago
  > BART uses 5'6" rail gauge. Standard US rail gauge is 4'8.5". Interesting. When I saw this, I wondered if it was to match another standard gauge that was judged to be superior. But, looking at the list of rail gauges on wikipedia[0], 5'6" is the gauge for railways in India ("Indian broad gauge" to be specific). The initial BART rolling stock seems to have been build by Rohr, Inc.[1], which is based in California. So it seems unlikely that they were benefiting from any economies of scale from Indian rail construction. Rohr also seems to have built rolling stock for the Washington, D.C. metro, which uses a near-standard 4'8.25" gauge[2]. Perplexing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc. (you'll need manually add the period to the end of the URL, because of how HN converts this into a link) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro#System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro#System
  - mtkd 10y ago
    if, 150+ years ago, when we were building all the rail infrastructure in India, someone said - that there would be no fast line from Delhi to London in 100 years - people would think you were nuts - right now it's tricky to get from London to Berlin, India is near impossible
    - ingsoc79 10y ago
      It most likely would have happened, if the airplane hadn't been invented. Now you can fly from Delhi to London in 8-9 hours.
  - CalChris 10y ago
    There is the theory that Rohr was an aerospace company and didn't know about standards; I find this hard to believe. Some say there was a study about car dynamics. But the article I read said that no one actually remembers. The design docs are in a transportation library in Monterey and they apparently don't say. Here's a collection of theories, all plausible with no confirming evidence: http://myprogressiverailroading.com/rail_forum/maintenance_of_way_mow/f/3295/t/21974 http://myprogressiverailroading.com/rail_forum/maintenance_o... BTW, Pittsburg uses 5'6" as well. DC Metro is even more ridiculous. It's only 1/4" different from standard gauge.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - desdiv 10y ago
    >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc. (you'll need manually add the period to the end of the URL, because of how HN converts this into a link) FYI, the URL encoding for "." is "%2E", so replacing period with %2E works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc%2E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc%2E
- sumbry 10y ago
  It is pretty common knowledge why they did this. Original plans for the BART had it traveling over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County. Due to high winds across the bridge, they wanted a wider gauge to prevent trains from tipping.
  - gsnedders 10y ago
    Given standard gauge trains transverse plenty of bridges which frequently have high-winds, that seems… dubious.
  - CalChris 10y ago
    Yes, this is a popular theory but there's no evidence in the fossil record.
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      Is there evidence in any direction? This really sounds like the most plausible hypothesis, to me at least.
      - Groxx 10y ago
        With strange, custom-construction-requiring stuff like this, I tend to wonder how much of it would be explained by "help self/a buddy get rich". It's practically guaranteeing that there's going to be a single company supporting it for all time, which is a potentially-extremely-lucrative business deal. If that's the case, obfuscating the reasons for these decisions is a rational move.
        ern 10y ago
        It's a bit cynical to say this but running HSR on an incompatible network protects it against future politicians who may seek to sabotage it by merging networks.
        gsnedders 10y ago
- acchow 10y ago
  Wtf is happening? I want to believe that the different gauge standards is a bit like the proliferation of programming languages in software - they solve their slightly different problem space well. Is this true?
Animats 10y ago
What's the incompatibility? It's 4' 8.5" standard gauge with 25KV AC catenary. (BART is 5' 6" with 1KV DC third rail, both of which are unique to BART.) The construction process does seem to be insufficiently standardized. There's all that falsework and ground paving. Compare the way it's done in China, with standardized bridge sections placed on pylons by a very specialized machine.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaD2-2Ktwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaD2-2Ktwc
- erentz 10y ago
  They're insisting on a 50" above rail platform height for starters. Higher than anywhere else in the world and incompatible with all other rail in the US let alone CA. There is no comprehensive planning between the different agencies running commuter and regional rail and CAHSR to work towards common inter-operable standards. This should be state wide, if not across the whole west coast. (We really need state wide rail planning.)
  - Animats 10y ago
    50" is about normal. US northeast corridor is 48 inches; China is 49.2". Japan's Shinkansen is 49.2" EU high speed rail is much lower, requiring bogies between cars.
    - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
      > EU high speed rail is much lower, requiring bogies between cars. Can you clarify what you mean by that? Most high speed rail in Europe does not have bogies between cars. Example from Austria with 550mm platform height: * Local trains: http://blog-oebb.at/backend/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cityjet_L3C6659.jpg http://blog-oebb.at/backend/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cityj... * High speed rail: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Railjet-Oesterreich.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Railjet-...
      - Animats 10y ago
        Eurostar does, and some TGV trainsets do. But some other high speed rail trainsets in Europe don't. If the floor is below the top of the wheels, there has to be a narrow section at the car ends. The wheels have to go someplace. The lost space can be minimized by sharing a bogie between two cars. (If the floor is below the axle line, as with ultra low floor trams, it's really complicated.)
stuckagain 10y ago
Capitol Corridor improvements from Richmond to San Jose are something that could be done right now to dramatically improve transportation in the region. And all we need to do is nationalize the UPRR. Who would complain, really?
truebosko 10y ago
In Toronto and surrounding area we've seen the expansion of our suburban rail network, through incremental purchase of track, over the past decade. It's owned by one company (Metrolinx, which is a gov. Body) and it seems to be working out well. It's taken a long time (it feels like) to see progress in certain corridors but the rider ship and effect its having on the surrounding regions of Toronto is clearly identifiable. This approach has its problems too, but I do agree with you hear type of monolithic projects always become a boondoggle.
rst 10y ago
Other successful high-speed rail systems (France's TGV, for example) also have dedicated rights-of-way, not shared with older equipment, and rail physically built to different standards (specially welded). You really don't want genuinely high-speed trains (300 km/h) running on the same tracks as anything slower, in normal operation. And if you try to build a high-speed system on earlier rights-of-way, you get something like Acela, in the US Northeast corridor. It can go at ~150 mph on track that can support it, but there are only a few miles of the route between Boston and Washington can support that. Net: it's only half an hour faster than conventional rail on the same route and track -- and something like half the difference is accounted for by the conventional trains making a lot more stops.
- erentz 10y ago
  Correct. A difference is they start by thinking of (and running) the rail network as a whole system of supporting lines. Then add high speed railway segments to the network like expressways along key routes. This is what I think CA should do/have done. It's not too late actually, they could set up a "Caltrak". Develop a state wide rail plan that covered everything but urban metros, and begin buying assets/access and merging them into one whole network. What the CAHSR is building could continue, maybe with some adaptations of that plan, to just be those "expressway" sections mentioned.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    This. I know HSR is sexy, but for the money California should put in a conventional rail network first. People would take the train between San Francisco and LA, say, if speeds were comparable to driving.
- theoh 10y ago
  I had to look this up when you said "specially welded"... As far as I can tell, TGV tracks are built to vey tight tolerances, but Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) is a worldwide standard on new railway lines, nothing special. I most recently saw some thermite welding equipment just about to be used in Dublin (Ireland) during the laying of new tramway tracks. So there's nothing exotic about the welding process, though it is quite dramatic.

by erentz 10y ago

JimboOmega 10y ago

A large part of what made the shinkansen work in ways that the current US rail system doesn't is its dedicated right of way, so I think building it separately makes some sense. sharing with freight otrain slower commuter trains really reduces the value of HSR, especially on an older, slower right of way.

CalChris 10y ago

> a repeat of the BART mistake. Probably a different mistake but BART uses 5'6" rail gauge. Standard US rail gauge is 4'8.5". This means that every railcar, every everything, has to be custom made with no economies of scale. No one can remember why they did this.

privong 10y ago
> BART uses 5'6" rail gauge. Standard US rail gauge is 4'8.5". Interesting. When I saw this, I wondered if it was to match another standard gauge that was judged to be superior. But, looking at the list of rail gauges on wikipedia[0], 5'6" is the gauge for railways in India ("Indian broad gauge" to be specific). The initial BART rolling stock seems to have been build by Rohr, Inc.[1], which is based in California. So it seems unlikely that they were benefiting from any economies of scale from Indian rail construction. Rohr also seems to have built rolling stock for the Washington, D.C. metro, which uses a near-standard 4'8.25" gauge[2]. Perplexing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc. (you'll need manually add the period to the end of the URL, because of how HN converts this into a link) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro#System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro#System
- mtkd 10y ago
  if, 150+ years ago, when we were building all the rail infrastructure in India, someone said - that there would be no fast line from Delhi to London in 100 years - people would think you were nuts - right now it's tricky to get from London to Berlin, India is near impossible
  - ingsoc79 10y ago
    It most likely would have happened, if the airplane hadn't been invented. Now you can fly from Delhi to London in 8-9 hours.
- CalChris 10y ago
  There is the theory that Rohr was an aerospace company and didn't know about standards; I find this hard to believe. Some say there was a study about car dynamics. But the article I read said that no one actually remembers. The design docs are in a transportation library in Monterey and they apparently don't say. Here's a collection of theories, all plausible with no confirming evidence: http://myprogressiverailroading.com/rail_forum/maintenance_of_way_mow/f/3295/t/21974 http://myprogressiverailroading.com/rail_forum/maintenance_o... BTW, Pittsburg uses 5'6" as well. DC Metro is even more ridiculous. It's only 1/4" different from standard gauge.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- desdiv 10y ago
  >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc. (you'll need manually add the period to the end of the URL, because of how HN converts this into a link) FYI, the URL encoding for "." is "%2E", so replacing period with %2E works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc%2E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohr,_Inc%2E
sumbry 10y ago
It is pretty common knowledge why they did this. Original plans for the BART had it traveling over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County. Due to high winds across the bridge, they wanted a wider gauge to prevent trains from tipping.
- gsnedders 10y ago
  Given standard gauge trains transverse plenty of bridges which frequently have high-winds, that seems… dubious.
- CalChris 10y ago
  Yes, this is a popular theory but there's no evidence in the fossil record.
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    Is there evidence in any direction? This really sounds like the most plausible hypothesis, to me at least.
    - Groxx 10y ago
      With strange, custom-construction-requiring stuff like this, I tend to wonder how much of it would be explained by "help self/a buddy get rich". It's practically guaranteeing that there's going to be a single company supporting it for all time, which is a potentially-extremely-lucrative business deal. If that's the case, obfuscating the reasons for these decisions is a rational move.
      - ern 10y ago
        It's a bit cynical to say this but running HSR on an incompatible network protects it against future politicians who may seek to sabotage it by merging networks.
        gsnedders 10y ago
acchow 10y ago
Wtf is happening? I want to believe that the different gauge standards is a bit like the proliferation of programming languages in software - they solve their slightly different problem space well. Is this true?

Animats 10y ago

What's the incompatibility? It's 4' 8.5" standard gauge with 25KV AC catenary. (BART is 5' 6" with 1KV DC third rail, both of which are unique to BART.) The construction process does seem to be insufficiently standardized. There's all that falsework and ground paving. Compare the way it's done in China, with standardized bridge sections placed on pylons by a very specialized machine.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaD2-2Ktwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaD2-2Ktwc

erentz 10y ago
They're insisting on a 50" above rail platform height for starters. Higher than anywhere else in the world and incompatible with all other rail in the US let alone CA. There is no comprehensive planning between the different agencies running commuter and regional rail and CAHSR to work towards common inter-operable standards. This should be state wide, if not across the whole west coast. (We really need state wide rail planning.)
- Animats 10y ago
  50" is about normal. US northeast corridor is 48 inches; China is 49.2". Japan's Shinkansen is 49.2" EU high speed rail is much lower, requiring bogies between cars.
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    > EU high speed rail is much lower, requiring bogies between cars. Can you clarify what you mean by that? Most high speed rail in Europe does not have bogies between cars. Example from Austria with 550mm platform height: * Local trains: http://blog-oebb.at/backend/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cityjet_L3C6659.jpg http://blog-oebb.at/backend/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cityj... * High speed rail: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Railjet-Oesterreich.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Railjet-...
    - Animats 10y ago
      Eurostar does, and some TGV trainsets do. But some other high speed rail trainsets in Europe don't. If the floor is below the top of the wheels, there has to be a narrow section at the car ends. The wheels have to go someplace. The lost space can be minimized by sharing a bogie between two cars. (If the floor is below the axle line, as with ultra low floor trams, it's really complicated.)

stuckagain 10y ago

Capitol Corridor improvements from Richmond to San Jose are something that could be done right now to dramatically improve transportation in the region. And all we need to do is nationalize the UPRR. Who would complain, really?

truebosko 10y ago

In Toronto and surrounding area we've seen the expansion of our suburban rail network, through incremental purchase of track, over the past decade. It's owned by one company (Metrolinx, which is a gov. Body) and it seems to be working out well. It's taken a long time (it feels like) to see progress in certain corridors but the rider ship and effect its having on the surrounding regions of Toronto is clearly identifiable. This approach has its problems too, but I do agree with you hear type of monolithic projects always become a boondoggle.

rst 10y ago

Other successful high-speed rail systems (France's TGV, for example) also have dedicated rights-of-way, not shared with older equipment, and rail physically built to different standards (specially welded). You really don't want genuinely high-speed trains (300 km/h) running on the same tracks as anything slower, in normal operation. And if you try to build a high-speed system on earlier rights-of-way, you get something like Acela, in the US Northeast corridor. It can go at ~150 mph on track that can support it, but there are only a few miles of the route between Boston and Washington can support that. Net: it's only half an hour faster than conventional rail on the same route and track -- and something like half the difference is accounted for by the conventional trains making a lot more stops.

erentz 10y ago
Correct. A difference is they start by thinking of (and running) the rail network as a whole system of supporting lines. Then add high speed railway segments to the network like expressways along key routes. This is what I think CA should do/have done. It's not too late actually, they could set up a "Caltrak". Develop a state wide rail plan that covered everything but urban metros, and begin buying assets/access and merging them into one whole network. What the CAHSR is building could continue, maybe with some adaptations of that plan, to just be those "expressway" sections mentioned.
- gozur88 10y ago
  This. I know HSR is sexy, but for the money California should put in a conventional rail network first. People would take the train between San Francisco and LA, say, if speeds were comparable to driving.
theoh 10y ago
I had to look this up when you said "specially welded"... As far as I can tell, TGV tracks are built to vey tight tolerances, but Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) is a worldwide standard on new railway lines, nothing special. I most recently saw some thermite welding equipment just about to be used in Dublin (Ireland) during the laying of new tramway tracks. So there's nothing exotic about the welding process, though it is quite dramatic.