8 ms·

Prediction: Project will take 10 years too long and results in a normal (non-high-speed) rail system connecting the two places that is too expensive for people

by bradhe 2y ago

Prediction: Project will take 10 years too long and results in a normal (non-high-speed) rail system connecting the two places that is too expensive for people to reasonably use.

pyrale 2y ago
Prediction: Project deadlines will have been shaved by salespeople and marketed as "high speed" when none of the requirements for it have been factored in the budget.
- theluketaylor 2y ago
  Brightline managed to deliver their Florida line pretty much on time and on budget. The only real challenging part of the route is going to be pass out of the inland empire where the I-15 grade is a really steep. The rest of the project is pretty straightforward, with rights of way already in place and very few expensive and complex grade crossings. They picked this city pair and route very carefully to have an excellent chance to succeed both on construction simplicity and ridership. I'm not sure they will actually open in time for the 2028 Olympics, but I wouldn't bet against 2029 operations. As for high speed, it won't be able to sustain true high speed rail velocity across the whole route (150mph / 250 kph), but it will be much faster than driving and there will be long stretches that are very high speed.
  - DoesntMatter22 2y ago
    Will be interesting to see how it goes as Florida makes these things pretty easy and California... doesnt
pembrook 2y ago
At least in this case one of the destinations could theoretically be visited without a car (assuming these are just tourists to the Vegas Strip). Whereas another certain California rail project literally transports you from [place you need car] to [place you need car]. Which I don’t think I need to explain why that is silly. The root cause of this is blue states often get Euro public transport envy — yet they don’t understand Europe has 3X the population density (and subsequent urbanization) of the US. Obviously public transport would start to make a lot more sense if you 3X’d the population in the same land area. IMO fetishizing the European way of life is a bit silly, given density comes with its own problems (ie nobody having kids). In fact, there was this German guy in the 1930s who led the killing of millions of people partly to get more “living space”, so European density does have its downsides for…shall we say…stability. In fact, Europe has roughly the same amount of people today as it had in 1939. Meanwhile the US has more than doubled.
- preisschild 2y ago
  The US definitely could embrace some of those ideas. Its not "too big". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ
  - pembrook 2y ago
    I think it's interesting that this is an emotional trigger topic for HN (along with anything having to do with right to repair, digital privacy, etc). In most things, if you post a comment with points of discussion you get a thoughtful response here. However on HN trigger topics, you get emotionally downvoted and nobody wants to engage in discussion. Instead of linking to a youtube video from the r/fuckcars filter bubble, is there any succinct points to refute why a 3X greater population density would not naturally result in greater public transportation formation? Or is it just the "dumb americans" and their "evil car culture?" With no further investigation of the first-principles reasons that culture was formed?
    - melling 2y ago
      What’s the population density of Madrid and Barcelona compared to Los Angeles and San Francisco? i’ve been using this example for about a decade. of course, that route didn’t exist 20 years ago when I took Madrid to Seville. I can’t imagine what the population density of Seville is. it would help if you give us the numbers you’re working with. I sure hope you aren’t doing the population density of the entire country. That’s a common mistake.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      HN'ers love fixed rail for some reason. It doesn't make any sense -- if there's a less progressive transportation modality I can't imagine what it would be -- but it's axiomatic. If you value your karma score you'll back away smiling and reach for the doorknob.
      - theluketaylor 2y ago
        > if there's a less progressive transportation modality I can't imagine what it would be Genuinely curious what is meant by this since if I was asked what the most progressive ideal city layout was I'd respond with extensive, highly connected, frequent metro lines with islands of density around the stations that included plenty of non-market rate housing options within easy walk of each station. When more housing is needed extend the lines and start a whole new island of density. Make sure plenty of public green space is accessible from the metros just beyond the density islands. Inter-city connections would be broadly similar, just zoomed out. Each city an island of density connected by fast and frequent rail.
whiplash451 2y ago
I'd be curious to see the predicted traffic and usage. If the need is there, this train might become quite successful. People (and businesses) value the ability to do uninterrupted work while traveling.
- kurthr 2y ago
  There's a really good breakdown by Citynerd. https://youtu.be/11Noo855zyA https://youtu.be/11Noo855zyA
exabrial 2y ago
It won’t get completed, but plenty of will get rich, who just ‘randomly’ have connections to California elected officials.
jwkpiano1 2y ago
This is a terrible prediction. This project is extremely easy in comparison to California HSR because it’s all running in the I-15 right-of-way. There’s also no reason whatsoever to think you can’t run high speed trains on this route.
- cainxinth 2y ago
  > There’s also no reason whatsoever to think you can’t run high speed trains on this route. I don't think the commenter meant this route was especially unfeasible. I think they were referring to the fact that the track record (no pun intended) of high speed rail projects in the U.S. is mixed to terrible.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    Brightline's last project took like 3-4 years from groundbreaking to moving paying passengers. The LA-Vegas line is like 20% more track, but it has some other benefits that IMO will make construction easier (fewer legal challenges, right of way in or along the freeway for most of its length, singletracked)
- CodeWriter23 2y ago
  Cajon Pass is a reason the train won’t be running at a high speed the entire route.
  - pie420 2y ago
    nuke it
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
chipdart 2y ago
> Prediction: Project will take 10 years too long and results in a normal (non-high-speed) rail system connecting the two places that is too expensive for people to reasonably use. Both takes are oblivious to the problem domain, to the point that you didn't even realize your worst-case scenario is completely irrelevant and doesn't even put any of the project's aspects into question. Keep in mind that this is an infrastructure project. The expected outcome, such as the Interstate Highway System, is providing the US with infrastructure that is of critical importance to the local, state, and national strategic interests. Taking 10 years to build is not a problem because infrastructure projects often take decades to pull through. See Switzerland's Gotthard Base Tunnel and how it took billions to build and decades from signing off until being opened to the public. Being non-high-speed is also perfectly ok. The difference between high-speed and non-high-speed in practice is the door-to-door travel time being close to 3h instead of around 1h30m. Once you start to think about it, you'll eventually realize airplanes take far longer than that to cover the same door-to-door trip as the flight itself takes less than a third of the time. In fact, it's widely established that commercial flights are only competitive with regards to high-speed trans for distances greater than ~600km, and trains remain competitive for half the distances if you have their commercial speeds. More interesting, high-speed is just a brand. The important property is commercial speed, and you can have non-high-speed lines outperforming high-speed lines. A textbook case is Britain's high-speed rail network, whose top speed is ~160km/h, which is considerably slower than France's ~320km/h, but still ensures high commercial speeds as the track layout was designed to allow trains to constantly circulate at speeds close to the top speed.
- willyt 2y ago
  Britain is max 200kph (125mph) currently although there is infrastructure designed for 225kph (140mph) on conventional lines though this is not permitted any more. It’s not correct to say that trains circulate at close to top speed a lot of the time as they share tracks with freight and commuter and there is a lot of congestion on uk lines. It’s not as bad as the US as commuter trains can also travel at 100mph and freight at 70-80mph. But it does prevent faster trains from travelling at 125mph for sustained periods. Also most routes were built in the mid 19th century and are not designed for sustained high speed running. If you look on openrailmap you’ll see there are occasional stretches of 125mph, longer stretches of 110mph but both are interspersed with 60-80mph here and there as the line threads its way round various hills that steam locomotives couldn’t cope with 175 years ago. So trains have to constantly decelerate and accelerate for curves and trains that stop more frequently. E.g the average speed of the fastest Glasgow to London train is about 90mph. British intercity trains are dogshit compared to France e.g the fastest Paris Bordeaux train at average 186mph is cheaper and more comfortable. Britain urgently needs more capacity and it might as well be high speed, but we’ve dropped the ball on that. Glasgow/Edinburgh-London should be 2-3 hours making it competitive with flying but it’s more like 4-5 hours, more expensive and as cramped as Ryanair but 6 times longer journey time. [0] https://www.openrailwaymap.org//mobile.php?availableTranslations=%5Bobject%2520Object%5D https://www.openrailwaymap.org//mobile.php?availableTranslat...

by bradhe 2y ago

Prediction: Project will take 10 years too long and results in a normal (non-high-speed) rail system connecting the two places that is too expensive for people to reasonably use.

pyrale 2y ago

Prediction: Project deadlines will have been shaved by salespeople and marketed as "high speed" when none of the requirements for it have been factored in the budget.

theluketaylor 2y ago
Brightline managed to deliver their Florida line pretty much on time and on budget. The only real challenging part of the route is going to be pass out of the inland empire where the I-15 grade is a really steep. The rest of the project is pretty straightforward, with rights of way already in place and very few expensive and complex grade crossings. They picked this city pair and route very carefully to have an excellent chance to succeed both on construction simplicity and ridership. I'm not sure they will actually open in time for the 2028 Olympics, but I wouldn't bet against 2029 operations. As for high speed, it won't be able to sustain true high speed rail velocity across the whole route (150mph / 250 kph), but it will be much faster than driving and there will be long stretches that are very high speed.
- DoesntMatter22 2y ago
  Will be interesting to see how it goes as Florida makes these things pretty easy and California... doesnt

pembrook 2y ago

At least in this case one of the destinations could theoretically be visited without a car (assuming these are just tourists to the Vegas Strip). Whereas another certain California rail project literally transports you from [place you need car] to [place you need car]. Which I don’t think I need to explain why that is silly. The root cause of this is blue states often get Euro public transport envy — yet they don’t understand Europe has 3X the population density (and subsequent urbanization) of the US. Obviously public transport would start to make a lot more sense if you 3X’d the population in the same land area. IMO fetishizing the European way of life is a bit silly, given density comes with its own problems (ie nobody having kids). In fact, there was this German guy in the 1930s who led the killing of millions of people partly to get more “living space”, so European density does have its downsides for…shall we say…stability. In fact, Europe has roughly the same amount of people today as it had in 1939. Meanwhile the US has more than doubled.

preisschild 2y ago
The US definitely could embrace some of those ideas. Its not "too big". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ
- pembrook 2y ago
  I think it's interesting that this is an emotional trigger topic for HN (along with anything having to do with right to repair, digital privacy, etc). In most things, if you post a comment with points of discussion you get a thoughtful response here. However on HN trigger topics, you get emotionally downvoted and nobody wants to engage in discussion. Instead of linking to a youtube video from the r/fuckcars filter bubble, is there any succinct points to refute why a 3X greater population density would not naturally result in greater public transportation formation? Or is it just the "dumb americans" and their "evil car culture?" With no further investigation of the first-principles reasons that culture was formed?
  - melling 2y ago
    What’s the population density of Madrid and Barcelona compared to Los Angeles and San Francisco? i’ve been using this example for about a decade. of course, that route didn’t exist 20 years ago when I took Madrid to Seville. I can’t imagine what the population density of Seville is. it would help if you give us the numbers you’re working with. I sure hope you aren’t doing the population density of the entire country. That’s a common mistake.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    HN'ers love fixed rail for some reason. It doesn't make any sense -- if there's a less progressive transportation modality I can't imagine what it would be -- but it's axiomatic. If you value your karma score you'll back away smiling and reach for the doorknob.
    - theluketaylor 2y ago
      > if there's a less progressive transportation modality I can't imagine what it would be Genuinely curious what is meant by this since if I was asked what the most progressive ideal city layout was I'd respond with extensive, highly connected, frequent metro lines with islands of density around the stations that included plenty of non-market rate housing options within easy walk of each station. When more housing is needed extend the lines and start a whole new island of density. Make sure plenty of public green space is accessible from the metros just beyond the density islands. Inter-city connections would be broadly similar, just zoomed out. Each city an island of density connected by fast and frequent rail.

whiplash451 2y ago

I'd be curious to see the predicted traffic and usage. If the need is there, this train might become quite successful. People (and businesses) value the ability to do uninterrupted work while traveling.

kurthr 2y ago
There's a really good breakdown by Citynerd. https://youtu.be/11Noo855zyA https://youtu.be/11Noo855zyA

exabrial 2y ago

It won’t get completed, but plenty of will get rich, who just ‘randomly’ have connections to California elected officials.

jwkpiano1 2y ago

This is a terrible prediction. This project is extremely easy in comparison to California HSR because it’s all running in the I-15 right-of-way. There’s also no reason whatsoever to think you can’t run high speed trains on this route.

cainxinth 2y ago
> There’s also no reason whatsoever to think you can’t run high speed trains on this route. I don't think the commenter meant this route was especially unfeasible. I think they were referring to the fact that the track record (no pun intended) of high speed rail projects in the U.S. is mixed to terrible.
- Rebelgecko 2y ago
  Brightline's last project took like 3-4 years from groundbreaking to moving paying passengers. The LA-Vegas line is like 20% more track, but it has some other benefits that IMO will make construction easier (fewer legal challenges, right of way in or along the freeway for most of its length, singletracked)
CodeWriter23 2y ago
Cajon Pass is a reason the train won’t be running at a high speed the entire route.
- pie420 2y ago
  nuke it
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

chipdart 2y ago

> Prediction: Project will take 10 years too long and results in a normal (non-high-speed) rail system connecting the two places that is too expensive for people to reasonably use. Both takes are oblivious to the problem domain, to the point that you didn't even realize your worst-case scenario is completely irrelevant and doesn't even put any of the project's aspects into question. Keep in mind that this is an infrastructure project. The expected outcome, such as the Interstate Highway System, is providing the US with infrastructure that is of critical importance to the local, state, and national strategic interests. Taking 10 years to build is not a problem because infrastructure projects often take decades to pull through. See Switzerland's Gotthard Base Tunnel and how it took billions to build and decades from signing off until being opened to the public. Being non-high-speed is also perfectly ok. The difference between high-speed and non-high-speed in practice is the door-to-door travel time being close to 3h instead of around 1h30m. Once you start to think about it, you'll eventually realize airplanes take far longer than that to cover the same door-to-door trip as the flight itself takes less than a third of the time. In fact, it's widely established that commercial flights are only competitive with regards to high-speed trans for distances greater than ~600km, and trains remain competitive for half the distances if you have their commercial speeds. More interesting, high-speed is just a brand. The important property is commercial speed, and you can have non-high-speed lines outperforming high-speed lines. A textbook case is Britain's high-speed rail network, whose top speed is ~160km/h, which is considerably slower than France's ~320km/h, but still ensures high commercial speeds as the track layout was designed to allow trains to constantly circulate at speeds close to the top speed.

willyt 2y ago
Britain is max 200kph (125mph) currently although there is infrastructure designed for 225kph (140mph) on conventional lines though this is not permitted any more. It’s not correct to say that trains circulate at close to top speed a lot of the time as they share tracks with freight and commuter and there is a lot of congestion on uk lines. It’s not as bad as the US as commuter trains can also travel at 100mph and freight at 70-80mph. But it does prevent faster trains from travelling at 125mph for sustained periods. Also most routes were built in the mid 19th century and are not designed for sustained high speed running. If you look on openrailmap you’ll see there are occasional stretches of 125mph, longer stretches of 110mph but both are interspersed with 60-80mph here and there as the line threads its way round various hills that steam locomotives couldn’t cope with 175 years ago. So trains have to constantly decelerate and accelerate for curves and trains that stop more frequently. E.g the average speed of the fastest Glasgow to London train is about 90mph. British intercity trains are dogshit compared to France e.g the fastest Paris Bordeaux train at average 186mph is cheaper and more comfortable. Britain urgently needs more capacity and it might as well be high speed, but we’ve dropped the ball on that. Glasgow/Edinburgh-London should be 2-3 hours making it competitive with flying but it’s more like 4-5 hours, more expensive and as cramped as Ryanair but 6 times longer journey time. [0] https://www.openrailwaymap.org//mobile.php?availableTranslations=%5Bobject%2520Object%5D https://www.openrailwaymap.org//mobile.php?availableTranslat...