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We can do both. Put all the stations on sidings so that stopped trains do not block the main track. Trains operate point-to-point just like aircraft, with ever
by tropo 8y ago
We can do both.
Put all the stations on sidings so that stopped trains do not block the main track. Trains operate point-to-point just like aircraft, with everybody getting on and off at the same time.
This means that there is little downside to adding more stops. The trip time for other stops is unaffected. There is no energy or time wasted on intermediate stops.
- Retric 8y agoOnly if the route is unchanged. Looking at a map it’s not going to be a straight line which increases travel time for every detour. http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Newsroom/Multimedia/maps.html http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Newsroom/Multimedia/maps.html
- yellowapple 8y agoYeah, but we're talking about a train that gets people from SF to LA in a couple hours or so. That's already pretty awesomely fast.
- masonic 8y agogets people from SF to LA in a couple hours or so Only if it had zero stops, which would defeat the purpose in the first place. Every stop means deceleration, stop to offload people and freight, then onload people and freight, then reacceleration to speed.
- yellowapple 8y agoWith zero stops, it'd be about 2 hours or so in the 200-220 MPH target speed the HSR Authority's mandating. I can't find any published numbers for a proposed timetable/schedule for the SF/LA line, but I'd be really surprised if the stops added much more than another hour.
- tropo 8y agoI'm saying there should be zero stops. Privately-run transportation is smarter about stops. The airlines don't make all those stops when going from SF to LA. They do a non-stop flight. There is no reason a train has to stop, and non-stop trains are still capable of serving all those cities. You buy a ticket, board the train, and it goes non-stop to the destination city. All this requires is that a stopped train doesn't block the other trains from passing through. Put the station off to the side, maybe even a couple miles from the main track.
- kaikai 8y agoHow were you imagining that many trains running on the tracks simultaneously? Stopping on a siding and waiting for a train to pass going the other direction takes time, never mind if there were trains running in both directions for every possible combination of stops.
- burfog 8y agoYou seem to be assuming there would only be one main line, and that this is a proposed reduction. I don't see it that way at all. Assume the line is two tracks. Add two more at each station, for a total of four, but just at the stations. It's like with cars: we pull over to the side instead of just turning off the engine in the middle of the road. At a station that uses island platforms, from west to east you have: southbound through traffic, southbound stopping trains, the platform, northbound stopping trains, northbound through trains. At a station that uses separate platforms, from west to east you have: southbound platform, southbound stopping trains, southbound through trains, northbound through trains, northbound stopping trains, northbound platform. Of course, in reality the line may have sections with different numbers of tracks. It could be 1, 2, 3, or 4. There could even be gauntlet tracks.
- steve_gh 8y agoIn the UK, many of our main passenger rail lines run 4-track in commuter areas - you can run a slow local stopping service and high speed intercity services simultaneously without problems.
- XenophileJKO 8y agoIn Japan on the shinkansen lines, the local bullet train is passed by the express while they are boarding at the local stops and those are the only areas where they expand to 4 sets of rail. At least in most of the routes I've travelled, there are 2 lines.