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High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

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Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#231

Post by wapz »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #157
klinquist wrote: post #148

One thing that nobody has mentioned - autonomous cars. Close to the time this will be completed, I assume I'll be able to sit in my vehicle and be shuttled from SF to LA in 5 hrs in the comfort of my own vehicle.

Trains as mass transit beat cars on efficiency driver or not. Autonomous cars are best used locally or to deal with last mile problems

The problem is that same person can pay about $50 for gas to go from SF to LA and have the car with them in LA or pay $130 for a one way ticket (I haven't read the numbers but that's about the cost in Japan and I expect other countries with high speed rail). Then you have to get to the station which might be a little far for some.

I really love the high speed rail system in Japan and Europe but it's not cheap.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#232

Post by wapz »

pm24601 wrote: post #185
klinquist wrote: post #148

One thing that nobody has mentioned - autonomous cars. Close to the time this will be completed, I assume I'll be able to sit in my vehicle and be shuttled from SF to LA in 5 hrs in the comfort of my own vehicle.

I suppose if you regard sitting in a seat not being able to move as comfortable. But before you get too relaxed in that glorious possible future: 1) high speed trains exist and proven - no new science or engineering to figure out 2) autonomous cars are constrained by the realities of space to put the vehicles. Too many vehicles, autonomous or otherwise = congestion and slow travel. 3) At 6 hours, this is nearly twice…

I really like high speed trains but have you paid for them? They are great for business where you need to go somewhere and come back, but for a family of 4 they are extremely expensive. From Tokyo to Osaka ~350 miles, it's about $130 per person each way on the Shinkansen. For 4 of us (2 adults, a child, and a free toddler), it would be ~$650 for round trip tickets.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#233

Post by scatters »

closeparen wrote: post #183
bbcbasic wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying has lots of externalised costs - noise, pollution, requires use of fossil fuels etc.

Ever lived near a busy level crossing? Passing trains may simply make the floors shake; train horns are deafening . You don't just hear them, you feel them in the core of your body. If you building is not well soundproofed, or you have any windows open for ventilation, you have no hope of sleeping through the night. Passing airplanes are background noise, passing trains refuse to be ignored. Long/slow trains create a…

All those problems are solved by grade separation. If railways are fully grade separated there is no need for trains to use their horns. Since rail needs shallower gradients than road it often makes sense to sink it below street level, drainage allowing.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#234

Post by yellowapple »

djrogers wrote: post #195
yellowapple wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have no trouble imagining that the train can compete with flying between SF and LA. Even if the train has to stop in several backwater towns along the way." Especially if the train stops in "several backwater towns" (Fresno and Bakersfield ain't particularly glamorous, but I'd hardly call them "backwaters"; I digress...), this will automatically be more useful than just an ordinary flight between SFO and LAX for t…

That ignores the fact that there are already 6 airports in Southern California and 3 (5 if you include Central Valley airports) in Northern California. Do you really think getting to Disneyland or Pasadena will be faster if you take a train to downtown LA than if you flew to SNA or BUR or ONT?

And that ignores the fact that not all of those airports are going to have the same airline coverage as the major ones (namely: SFO and LAX) - and even if they do, certainly not with a significant selection of flights, and certainly not at readily-affordable rates. To the average traveler, they might as well not exist; even Amtrak or Greyhound are more viable.

Also, again: weather is still a major factor for any airport.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#235

Post by lispm »

closeparen wrote: post #183
bbcbasic wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying has lots of externalised costs - noise, pollution, requires use of fossil fuels etc.

Ever lived near a busy level crossing? Passing trains may simply make the floors shake; train horns are deafening . You don't just hear them, you feel them in the core of your body. If you building is not well soundproofed, or you have any windows open for ventilation, you have no hope of sleeping through the night. Passing airplanes are background noise, passing trains refuse to be ignored. Long/slow trains create a…

I have a train line ca. 1km away where the ICE high-speed train from Hamburg to Berlin passes. It's not driving there with full speed though. The train is basically not to notice. Though I hear the freight-trains or sometime the local trains (S-Bahn). Of course the ICE train is very silent and sure uses no horns - why should it - there are no level crossings. The tracks are placed higher and crossings are under bridges. The track is just next to other tracks for local trains, which then also have no level crossings inside the city.

What disturbs me slightly more are the planes.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#236

Post by te_chris »

OxO4 wrote: post #229
ghaff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside excessive and largely ineffective security screening for flights in the US (and pretty much everywhere else), a lot of European high speed trains absolutely have metal detectors, luggage inspection, and document inspection. As do many buildings. It doesn't take long to go through most of the time but then going through Pre-Check probably averages me 10 minutes. But I do leave a good buffer. It's probabl…

As a European, I've never seen high speed trains that require metal detectors and/or luggage inspection. Which country was that?

Eurostar's the obvious one, but I've seen scanners at Gare du Nord for TGV/Thalys as well, and when we caught TGV from Barcelona Sants to Paris (Gare de Lyon, I think) we got marshalled into some sort of departure lounge at Sants. Only time I've ever seen that in Europe though. Oh and changing from Eurostar to ICE in Brussels we had our ID's checked before being able to get to the platform (this was on the 23rd of December though).

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#237

Post by masklinn »

pm24601 wrote: post #174
datahack wrote: post #106

If I had known that they were going to run this through the Central Valley instead of down the coast where it belongs I never would have voted for it. It should have gone straight from la to Oakland or emeryville, turned and gone straight to Sacramento. Instead we have a convoluted mess of rail connections that take people places they don't even want to go (no offense to Bakersfield buts it's hardly a holiday destina…

Seriously - trains should go where the people are. The people are in the central valley. Between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz the population is very light and the terrain is very difficult. It wasn't until the 20th century that access to the Big Sur area was possible. And even today for over a hundred miles highway 1 is the only access. Fresno - 509,000 people Bakersfield - 363,000 people The first segment connects 1…

> Seriously - trains should go where the people are.

For HSR you want to connect large hubs, there's no point in a train which can go 200mph if it has to stop every 60mi.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#238

Post by youngtaff »

stuaxo wrote: post #226
jzwinck wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can sometimes put an airport in the middle of a metro area as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_City_Airport London presently needs more runways and one of the serious proposals (now declined) was to build them in the Thames like the above.

London city airport is a tiny airport, it would be terrible if this was a decent size. It's bad enough having Heathrow where it is, with all the planes over London. One good thing about the "Boris" island idea was that planes wouldn't have had to fly over London itself, which would have probably helped noise and pollution.

But Boris Island has plenty of downsides too:

  * more days when it would be fog bound
  * interfere's with existing flight paths for AMS and BRU
  * wrong side of London for most people
  * ship full of high explosive not too far away
  * higher likelihood of bird strikes as it's in the middle of area that's key for migratory birds
If Heathrow was to move somewhere along the M40 corridor is probably the best bet (and attach it to HS2)

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#239

Post by masklinn »

ant6n wrote: post #210
rst wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somethi…

European high-speed rail systems have some dedicated rights of way, but they definitely didn't start that way. They are systems that are integrated with regional and urban rail, and have grown to have more dedicated higher speed sections over time. Compatibility is the main reason for the success of the TGV and ICE, for example over the failed Transrapid maglev system. All track with passenger rail on it should be we…

> European high-speed rail systems have some dedicated rights of way, but they definitely didn't start that way.

TGV was most definitely started that way. It was engineered to be able to run on regular railway ("standard gauge high-speed train") so that the existing "inner-city" rails could be used to reach inside existing metropolis, but it was designed primarily to run on new specific rights of way, regular service started on the dedicated "LN1" (now LGV Sud-Est) between Paris and Lyon: the line is 409km (254mi) for a total ride distance (station to station) of 425km (264mi).

> They are systems that are integrated with regional and urban rail, and have grown to have more dedicated higher speed sections over time.

The size of the dedicated high-speed network grew over time, but high-speed trains were always intended to run on high-speed networks, there's just no point otherwise, "regular" trainsets will reach older lines's rated speed just fine.

Re: High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to kill it

#240

Post by Figs »

I was against the project back when it was a ballot measure, but since then my opinion on it has changed -- I don't care if trains ever run on the damned thing, what really matters in this project is getting the right of way to the land, because they're going to put in a MASSIVE amount of fiber optic cable as they dig out the path.
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