Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW • Hacker News Board

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:02 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #13

sfpotter wrote: post #3

Amtrak Cascade has trains that can do 125 mph but are throttled to 78 mph because of low quality tracks, as I understand it. Amtrak also recently just started running many more trains per day between Seattle and Portland. High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. Get 3 1/2 hours from SEA to PDX down closer to 2…

I think the tracks are the most expensive part though, no? Although I'm not sure if you mean the physical tracks are in poor condition or the layout. If it's the layout, that's not much easier to fix than building a HSR. They may not even be able to fix the railroad company owned tracks?

It is the layout. They had a nice bypass set up, but the first day the train derailed and it has just recently re-opened.

Sharing track with freight is a PITA: the freight trains don't care about going fast (so no really straight tracks) and they often have priority especially if the cascade is running off schedule, causing even more delays.

Not sure where they are going to build new straight-enough HSR track unless they employ lots of viaducts like china does.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#22

Post by kposehn » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:03 AM UTC

sfpotter wrote: post #3

Amtrak Cascade has trains that can do 125 mph but are throttled to 78 mph because of low quality tracks, as I understand it. Amtrak also recently just started running many more trains per day between Seattle and Portland. High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. Get 3 1/2 hours from SEA to PDX down closer to 2…

The line is owned by BNSF and has quite a lot of BNSF and Union Pacific trains running on it daily, in addition to the Cascades services. No amount of improving the tracks will fix congestion, so moving to a separate line entirely for passenger service makes a ton of sense.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#23

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:04 AM UTC

bin_bash wrote: post #15

jaggederest wrote: post #4

Extremely unlikely. The population density just isn't there. There are 12m people in Washington and Oregon combined, a substantial portion of whom are not on the I-5 corridor. The corridor in general is about 800km long. Compare to ~70m within 500 km of Paris.

and it looks like they have 7 high speed lines coming from Paris. Seems the PNW could afford 1.

Vancouver BC to maybe Salem is pretty densely populated. They won't get much density past that to get to SF.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#24

Post by rendang » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:04 AM UTC

There are now only 3 decent sized concentrations of people in that corridor, but maybe building something like this would allow a whole new 1MM person metro to develop, e.g. around Olympia or in the Skagit Valley

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#25

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #11

frankus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If done right the stations will be in locations where having a car is more of a liability than a convenience (i.e. downtowns with lots of traffic and expensive parking).

There are (at most) 2 of those locations in the entire US PNW... downtown Seattle and Downtown Portland. And frankly I'm not sure Portland counts.

Downtown Portland definitely counts. I would include Vancouver BC. Traffic is really draining up there, more so than downtown Seattle.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#26

Post by littlestymaar » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #2

It would be useful if you could drive your car onto the rail and it carried you and your car at 300 mph.

Use a bike instead of a car and you'll be there. (Ideally you can even have your bike be foldable for maximum convenience)

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#27

Post by foota » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

sfpotter wrote: post #16

foota wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tracks are the most expensive part though, no? Although I'm not sure if you mean the physical tracks are in poor condition or the layout. If it's the layout, that's not much easier to fix than building a HSR. They may not even be able to fix the railroad company owned tracks?

I don’t know the answer to either of your questions. Is track more expensive than new high-speed trains?

Construction is expensive, and purchasing right of way in populated areas is ridiculously expensive. Short tracks are more expensive because you want to do inconvenient things in order to keep them short (like tunneling and building bridges) instead of taking the path of least resistance. You need all of these things for a good high speel rail, but you need a lot of it to even improve the existing rail. There's some compromises you could make to improve the existing system, but there's not much desire for it I think since it'd still largely be a many billion dollar long term project. I think the opinion is that it's not worth spending all that unless it's transformative (i.e., the marginal benefit of a 2 hour vs 3 and a half hour train ride is small compared to the benefit of a 3 and a half hr ride to a 1 hour ride since at that point you have realistic commutes and such).

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#28

Post by bugglebeetle » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:06 AM UTC

blq10 wrote: post #19

frankus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If done right the stations will be in locations where having a car is more of a liability than a convenience (i.e. downtowns with lots of traffic and expensive parking).

Yeah see this is the problem - urbanist aesthetics demanding everyone live a very particular lifestyle, which includes a lot more than just urban living hamstringing projects.

> urbanist aesthetics demanding everyone live a very particular lifestyle, which includes a lot more than just urban living hamstringing projects.

You’re literally just describing how most of the population lives and has lived for the past 1000 years. Your “urbanist aesthetics” predate the invention of cars.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#29

Post by stuaxo » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:07 AM UTC

sfpotter wrote: post #3

Amtrak Cascade has trains that can do 125 mph but are throttled to 78 mph because of low quality tracks, as I understand it. Amtrak also recently just started running many more trains per day between Seattle and Portland. High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. Get 3 1/2 hours from SEA to PDX down closer to 2…

In the article they point out that for proper HSR you need segrated straight tracks.

Sure, for faster ordinary trains 100mph - 125 you need to improve tracks too, but a lot of that is also improving junctions implementing flyovers and extra track so that trains aren't delayed or stopped.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#30

Post by systemvoltage » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 3:08 AM UTC

I love trains but the discussions on HN have a quality of a cargo cult, anyone who even slightly slides off tracks is punished. It exhibits similar characteristics found in climate change movement or other progressive agenda. No room for nuanced discussion, only extreme conformism.

It actually has a reverse effect on me. Why is this thing pushed through without debate? It might gather more support if you allow criticism.