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One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed". We may have happily referred to is as "high speed rail" 30 or 40 years ago but, given a possible co

by rsync 1y ago

One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed". We may have happily referred to is as "high speed rail" 30 or 40 years ago but, given a possible completion date of 2035 (or whatever) the 2:40 travel time from SF <-> LA is unimpressive ... and even that will not be achieved: "California legislative overseers do not expect the 2 hr 40 min target will be achieved."[1] The simple fact is that the I-5 corridor is the spine of California and should be leveraged for all additional infrastructure build-out ... which would yield economies of scale and network effects for rail, network lines, water transmission, electrical distribution and (eventually) autonomous trucking. Instead we're spending billions to build a slow, circuitous route to Fresno. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

jeffbee 1y ago
The CAHSR "peer group" which issued that quote is a political commission full of axe-grinding losers, specifically created by state politicians who want to kill the project. Nobody with a clue thinks that the 2h40m target is unattainable.
- xienze 1y ago
  LOL I bet in 2010 if someone said that by 2025 the project would be grossly over budget and only have a short segment between nowhere and nowhere to show for 17 years of work you’d have called that propaganda by axe-grinding losers (paid off by big oil, naturally). Just admit it, it’s a boondoggle just like everyone said it would be.
  - gotoeleven 1y ago
    [flagged]
gruez 1y ago
>Instead we're spending billions to build a slow, circuitous route to Fresno. Because with a big project like this, everyone wants to claim some slice for themselves. The optimal route crosses counties like Fresno, which means they can veto the project (or at least delay it). They use that as leverage to extract benefits for themselves, like changing the route so it passes through their county seat.
slt2021 1y ago
Article states that I-5 corridor skips all major towns in central valley which kinda kills the purpose of HSR connecting SF to central valley towns to LA
- GeekyBear 1y ago
  I thunk it boils down to the fact that acquiring land near San Francisco or LA through imminent domain would be both hideously expensive and extremely unpopular. Building "High Speed Rail to nowhere" in the Central Valley allowed them kick that can of political infighting down the road.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >and extremely unpopular Who's shedding a tear for some farmer getting paid above market rates (presumably) for their land? California is probably the last place I'd expect people to think using eminent domain in this case is a slipper slope to communism or whatever.
    - GeekyBear 1y ago
      Eventually you will have to build out the rail line in densely populated areas (especially near San Francisco and LA). High speed rail requires that you to avoid unnecessary curves. At that point, you're going to have to start using imminent domain. Putting it off until after you have billions of dollars in sunk costs in the Central Valley doesn't change that.
      - gruez 1y ago
        >Eventually you will have to build out the rail line in densely populated areas (especially near San Francisco and LA). High speed rail requires that you to avoid unnecessary curves. why can't you have it run slowly in built up areas? As another commenter mentioned that's how it works in France.
        GeekyBear 1y ago
legitster 1y ago
Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project. A better way would have been to build it out from the city into the suburbs first as a commuter rail project. There isn't a ton of intercity demand for this rail, but there is tons of traffic in and out of each singular city to justify even medium speed rail.
- rsync 1y ago
  "Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project." I will stipulate that that is correct at this very moment. However, it is my contention that a truly high speed rail link (sub two hour) between SF and LA would have manufactured demand as an entirely new set of trips, activities and lifestyles would have been enabled by the ability to step on a train in LA and step off at the salesforce tower 1:55 later ...
  - legitster 1y ago
    This could be absolutely true if people adapt to it, but that wouldn't happen overnight. I would also strongly doubt that even after full adoption, Bakersfield to LA in 30 minutes is going to be much more useful and heavily trafficked on a daily basis than SF to LA in 2 hours would. Even in Europe, their marquee city-to-city rail routes contribute a small share of overall rail traffic compared to their daily commuters.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      Nothing happens overnight. Except governmental upheaval, I suppose. And yes, SF to LA would be in much more demand. Not as a commuting option, but it'd make for some great weekend commerce. In a world of increasing work from home, I don't think many people would care for commuting to LA from Bakersfield.
      - ta1243 1y ago
        LA to Bakersfield is 110 miles. That's about an hour, certainly plenty of people do that journey in the UK multiple times a week. Tamworth for example is exactly 110 miles from Euston. In peak times the fast trains stop there for the commuter traffic and it takes 67 minutes. Peterborough, Gratham, Newark (100-140 miles) are all common commuter places,
DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
CA HSR actually is "high speed." The distance from LA to SF is about 665 km (following the planned HSR route). A travel time of 2:40 means the train has an average (not top) speed of 250 km/h, which is very competitive internationally. Even if we use the shorter I-5 route as the baseline, the average speed is still 230 km/h. That's competitive with the fastest French TGV lines, and much faster than most European HSR lines. For reference, the fastest lines in the world run at an average speed of about 290 km/h (e.g., Beijing - Shanghai). Calling this a "slow, circuitous route" is really not accurate at all. If CA HSR gets built as originally planned, it will be one of the faster systems in the world, and nearly as good as the best systems in Europe.
fraserharris 1y ago
Fresno / Central Valley is not the circuitous route, which is quite close to the I-5 near Bakersfield. The true circuitous detour is between Bakersfield and LA, where the route is planned to go East through the Antelope Valley with a station at Palmdale.
- trollbridge 1y ago
  It's utterly asinine, and will result in "low speed rail". Which already exists... you can take the Coastal Starlight if you aren't in a hurry. There is no market (none) for rail service between LA and Bakersfield.
porphyra 1y ago
The operating speed on the fast stretch is actually one of the fastest in the world at 350 km/h, it's just that it has to waste half an hour on the Caltrain tracks from San Francisco to Gilroy and from Burbank to Anaheim. It's kinda like how the TGV from Paris to Nice goes from Paris to Marseille super fast but then has to spend hours to go from Marseille to Nice even though the latter part is a small fraction of the distance. And yes, I agree that this "blended" design that has a lengthy slow section is very lame and bad. If only Caltrain could be quad tracked elevated viaducts.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- decimalenough 1y ago
  This is actually a very common operating pattern, particularly for new services. It took years after initial service opened for the Korean KTX to run all the way from Seoul to Busan, and both France and Japan have a number of TGV/Shinkansen services where part of the line is regular track running at regular speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-shinkansen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-shinkansen
- yongjik 1y ago
  CA should've just bitten the bullet and built the whole SF-SJ section underground. It's about 50 miles, about the length of one mid-sized subway line in many part of the world, and it would've simplified the issue of acquiring prime suburban land. Besides, I just don't see how HSR and Caltrain can share the same railway and avoid major service capacity issues. I think Caltrain is close to capacity as is, and at least a few years ago, major (an hour or more) delays were common. South Korea built its second branch of HSR reaching Seoul almost entirely underground, with a single 31-mile tunnel [1]. I guess it was faster than trying to acquire land on top of it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulhyeon_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulhyeon_Tunnel
  - stephen_g 1y ago
    That's still something that wouldn't be that difficult to change in the future. Probably easier to fund once the initial system is operational and the case for the extra expenditure is clearly demonstrable. Having it connect into Caltrain is probably something that is nice to have anyway (like if there's maintenance required in the hypothetical tunnel or whatever kind of direct bypass, so you can still run services on the slower route) so it's not a waste to have both.
nineplay 1y ago
Sheesh > First, the I-5 route avoids every major population center in the Central Valley, bypassing more than a million people who would be unserved Who the hell is has been clamoring for a faster way to get to Fresno? What a pile of shit.
- bombcar 1y ago
  It's Fresno clamoring for more ways to get out of Fresno.
nostrademons 1y ago
Once you count airport time, 2:40 is about on par with what it’d take to fly from SF to LA. It’s about half what it takes to drive between them, even without traffic.
scythe 1y ago
It would be one thing if they were just going to Fresno. There are three major cities in the Central Valley: Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento. You get Bakersfield for free; Sacramento is north of SF and has existing commuter rail. Fresno is big enough to justify a stop; it has room to grow, too. You could put a stop that's ten miles outside of Fresno, and you don't have to cut through the city too much. That's what they do with airports. Throw in a LRT while you're at it. But the plan also calls for Tulare and Madera to have stops. Now you're doing three times the work for a 20-40% increase in the population served. Then they want a line to Sacramento that goes through Merced and Visalia At this point it looks silly. Fresno is larger than Tulare, Madera, Merced and Visalia combined. Stockton already has the Altamont Commuter Express line to San Jose.
- trollbridge 1y ago
  Stops in Tulare and Visalia... they're 12 miles apart!
- stephen_g 1y ago
  Having HSR stops inside cities is one of the things that make it far better than flying for certain distances. Put the station outside the city and you're killing a lot of your benefits...
  - scythe 1y ago
    Ten miles from Fresno might be too far. I just picked a distance out of thin air. But when you have a minor stop, it's less important to build the perfect configuration. Even if you have to go outside of Fresno to get on the train, you're still in downtown SF or LA when you get off. And the traffic in Fresno is not as bad as the traffic in SF. And the flights from Fresno airport are probably not as cheap, since it's a lower-volume airport (capex per flight is larger), so you have more of a cost advantage. So I'm pointing out a false dilemma. You don't have to choose between downtown Fresno and no Fresno. You can have a worse-is-better Fresno without sacrificing the goals of HSR for the really big cities.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed" Not really an issue. The problem is first and foremost it hasn't been built. If it had been built, by now, it would have worked, even if that success were only measured in the Bay Area and greater LA area.
gaoshan 1y ago
FWIW a train I've taken a few times in China (Hangzhou to Shanghai) would do San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 2 hours (possibly 1 hour 45 minutes). This would be an express with no extra stops. With a handful of stops and the corresponding loss of speed (I'm extrapolating as it hits speeds of 350/kph but still takes about 45+ minutes to go roughly 186km) it would probably realistically take more like 2.5 hours.

by rsync 1y ago

jeffbee 1y ago

The CAHSR "peer group" which issued that quote is a political commission full of axe-grinding losers, specifically created by state politicians who want to kill the project. Nobody with a clue thinks that the 2h40m target is unattainable.

xienze 1y ago
LOL I bet in 2010 if someone said that by 2025 the project would be grossly over budget and only have a short segment between nowhere and nowhere to show for 17 years of work you’d have called that propaganda by axe-grinding losers (paid off by big oil, naturally). Just admit it, it’s a boondoggle just like everyone said it would be.
- gotoeleven 1y ago
  [flagged]

gruez 1y ago

>Instead we're spending billions to build a slow, circuitous route to Fresno. Because with a big project like this, everyone wants to claim some slice for themselves. The optimal route crosses counties like Fresno, which means they can veto the project (or at least delay it). They use that as leverage to extract benefits for themselves, like changing the route so it passes through their county seat.

slt2021 1y ago

Article states that I-5 corridor skips all major towns in central valley which kinda kills the purpose of HSR connecting SF to central valley towns to LA

GeekyBear 1y ago
I thunk it boils down to the fact that acquiring land near San Francisco or LA through imminent domain would be both hideously expensive and extremely unpopular. Building "High Speed Rail to nowhere" in the Central Valley allowed them kick that can of political infighting down the road.
- gruez 1y ago
  >and extremely unpopular Who's shedding a tear for some farmer getting paid above market rates (presumably) for their land? California is probably the last place I'd expect people to think using eminent domain in this case is a slipper slope to communism or whatever.
  - GeekyBear 1y ago
    Eventually you will have to build out the rail line in densely populated areas (especially near San Francisco and LA). High speed rail requires that you to avoid unnecessary curves. At that point, you're going to have to start using imminent domain. Putting it off until after you have billions of dollars in sunk costs in the Central Valley doesn't change that.
    - gruez 1y ago
      >Eventually you will have to build out the rail line in densely populated areas (especially near San Francisco and LA). High speed rail requires that you to avoid unnecessary curves. why can't you have it run slowly in built up areas? As another commenter mentioned that's how it works in France.
      - GeekyBear 1y ago

legitster 1y ago

Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project. A better way would have been to build it out from the city into the suburbs first as a commuter rail project. There isn't a ton of intercity demand for this rail, but there is tons of traffic in and out of each singular city to justify even medium speed rail.

rsync 1y ago
"Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project." I will stipulate that that is correct at this very moment. However, it is my contention that a truly high speed rail link (sub two hour) between SF and LA would have manufactured demand as an entirely new set of trips, activities and lifestyles would have been enabled by the ability to step on a train in LA and step off at the salesforce tower 1:55 later ...
- legitster 1y ago
  This could be absolutely true if people adapt to it, but that wouldn't happen overnight. I would also strongly doubt that even after full adoption, Bakersfield to LA in 30 minutes is going to be much more useful and heavily trafficked on a daily basis than SF to LA in 2 hours would. Even in Europe, their marquee city-to-city rail routes contribute a small share of overall rail traffic compared to their daily commuters.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Nothing happens overnight. Except governmental upheaval, I suppose. And yes, SF to LA would be in much more demand. Not as a commuting option, but it'd make for some great weekend commerce. In a world of increasing work from home, I don't think many people would care for commuting to LA from Bakersfield.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      LA to Bakersfield is 110 miles. That's about an hour, certainly plenty of people do that journey in the UK multiple times a week. Tamworth for example is exactly 110 miles from Euston. In peak times the fast trains stop there for the commuter traffic and it takes 67 minutes. Peterborough, Gratham, Newark (100-140 miles) are all common commuter places,

DiogenesKynikos 1y ago

CA HSR actually is "high speed." The distance from LA to SF is about 665 km (following the planned HSR route). A travel time of 2:40 means the train has an average (not top) speed of 250 km/h, which is very competitive internationally. Even if we use the shorter I-5 route as the baseline, the average speed is still 230 km/h. That's competitive with the fastest French TGV lines, and much faster than most European HSR lines. For reference, the fastest lines in the world run at an average speed of about 290 km/h (e.g., Beijing - Shanghai). Calling this a "slow, circuitous route" is really not accurate at all. If CA HSR gets built as originally planned, it will be one of the faster systems in the world, and nearly as good as the best systems in Europe.

fraserharris 1y ago

Fresno / Central Valley is not the circuitous route, which is quite close to the I-5 near Bakersfield. The true circuitous detour is between Bakersfield and LA, where the route is planned to go East through the Antelope Valley with a station at Palmdale.

trollbridge 1y ago
It's utterly asinine, and will result in "low speed rail". Which already exists... you can take the Coastal Starlight if you aren't in a hurry. There is no market (none) for rail service between LA and Bakersfield.

porphyra 1y ago

The operating speed on the fast stretch is actually one of the fastest in the world at 350 km/h, it's just that it has to waste half an hour on the Caltrain tracks from San Francisco to Gilroy and from Burbank to Anaheim. It's kinda like how the TGV from Paris to Nice goes from Paris to Marseille super fast but then has to spend hours to go from Marseille to Nice even though the latter part is a small fraction of the distance. And yes, I agree that this "blended" design that has a lengthy slow section is very lame and bad. If only Caltrain could be quad tracked elevated viaducts.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
decimalenough 1y ago
This is actually a very common operating pattern, particularly for new services. It took years after initial service opened for the Korean KTX to run all the way from Seoul to Busan, and both France and Japan have a number of TGV/Shinkansen services where part of the line is regular track running at regular speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-shinkansen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-shinkansen
yongjik 1y ago
CA should've just bitten the bullet and built the whole SF-SJ section underground. It's about 50 miles, about the length of one mid-sized subway line in many part of the world, and it would've simplified the issue of acquiring prime suburban land. Besides, I just don't see how HSR and Caltrain can share the same railway and avoid major service capacity issues. I think Caltrain is close to capacity as is, and at least a few years ago, major (an hour or more) delays were common. South Korea built its second branch of HSR reaching Seoul almost entirely underground, with a single 31-mile tunnel [1]. I guess it was faster than trying to acquire land on top of it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulhyeon_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulhyeon_Tunnel
- stephen_g 1y ago
  That's still something that wouldn't be that difficult to change in the future. Probably easier to fund once the initial system is operational and the case for the extra expenditure is clearly demonstrable. Having it connect into Caltrain is probably something that is nice to have anyway (like if there's maintenance required in the hypothetical tunnel or whatever kind of direct bypass, so you can still run services on the slower route) so it's not a waste to have both.

nineplay 1y ago

Sheesh > First, the I-5 route avoids every major population center in the Central Valley, bypassing more than a million people who would be unserved Who the hell is has been clamoring for a faster way to get to Fresno? What a pile of shit.

bombcar 1y ago
It's Fresno clamoring for more ways to get out of Fresno.

nostrademons 1y ago

Once you count airport time, 2:40 is about on par with what it’d take to fly from SF to LA. It’s about half what it takes to drive between them, even without traffic.

scythe 1y ago

It would be one thing if they were just going to Fresno. There are three major cities in the Central Valley: Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento. You get Bakersfield for free; Sacramento is north of SF and has existing commuter rail. Fresno is big enough to justify a stop; it has room to grow, too. You could put a stop that's ten miles outside of Fresno, and you don't have to cut through the city too much. That's what they do with airports. Throw in a LRT while you're at it. But the plan also calls for Tulare and Madera to have stops. Now you're doing three times the work for a 20-40% increase in the population served. Then they want a line to Sacramento that goes through Merced and Visalia At this point it looks silly. Fresno is larger than Tulare, Madera, Merced and Visalia combined. Stockton already has the Altamont Commuter Express line to San Jose.

trollbridge 1y ago
Stops in Tulare and Visalia... they're 12 miles apart!
stephen_g 1y ago
Having HSR stops inside cities is one of the things that make it far better than flying for certain distances. Put the station outside the city and you're killing a lot of your benefits...
- scythe 1y ago
  Ten miles from Fresno might be too far. I just picked a distance out of thin air. But when you have a minor stop, it's less important to build the perfect configuration. Even if you have to go outside of Fresno to get on the train, you're still in downtown SF or LA when you get off. And the traffic in Fresno is not as bad as the traffic in SF. And the flights from Fresno airport are probably not as cheap, since it's a lower-volume airport (capex per flight is larger), so you have more of a cost advantage. So I'm pointing out a false dilemma. You don't have to choose between downtown Fresno and no Fresno. You can have a worse-is-better Fresno without sacrificing the goals of HSR for the really big cities.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed" Not really an issue. The problem is first and foremost it hasn't been built. If it had been built, by now, it would have worked, even if that success were only measured in the Bay Area and greater LA area.

gaoshan 1y ago

FWIW a train I've taken a few times in China (Hangzhou to Shanghai) would do San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 2 hours (possibly 1 hour 45 minutes). This would be an express with no extra stops. With a handful of stops and the corresponding loss of speed (I'm extrapolating as it hits speeds of 350/kph but still takes about 45+ minutes to go roughly 186km) it would probably realistically take more like 2.5 hours.