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Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

southseattleemerald.com

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

#51

Post by hx8 »

neilv wrote: post #10

> If a rail is built successfully, there will be an extraordinary increase in transportation abilities — saving commuters time while reducing environmental harm. This high-speed rail is intended for people getting between home and workplace on a daily basis? Edit: I'm not asking whether it can be used for daily commutes, but is daily commutes the reason for building this? Or what is the reason?

If the train have an average speed of >200mph it's likely to be a <55minute ride. It's not uncommon for people to have similar timed Amtrak rides in the North East as part of their commute. You can use a laptop to work on the train.

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

#52

Post by bombcar »

stuaxo wrote: post #29
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.

You don't even really need to get to 100-125 MPH to greatly improve travel times; usually the first step is just double tracking all the things; once that's in place you've shaved 20-30 minutes off a 3 hour trip.

Then you can worry about running faster trains.

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

#53

Post by twelvechairs »

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?

HSR can use the same rails (standard gauge) if they are in a good state (i.e. fine in most of the rest of the world, not in the USA which is far behind on rail safety). Big differences are turning radii (HSR obviously wont go around sharp corners easily) and station distance (HSR will want stops ~50-100km apart, older railways its often more like 1-5). That generally means a new route rather than using an existing one.

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

#55

Post by fasthands9 »

neilv wrote: post #46
fnordpiglet wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have several friends that commute from Portland to seattle via bus or Vancouver to seattle via car or occasionally seaplane taxi. I’m sure they would really appreciate a high speed rail infrastructure particularly if it exits at a transportation hub as they propose.

I know people with long commutes, too. Just eliciting requirements for this project, which I didn't see stated.

I've had to do Boston to NYC a lot lately. I wish it was faster but frankly not really sure how much value is added by going faster.

US cities are still fairly spread out so for someone to be able to feasibly commute on it they'd have to be a short distance (both their house and workplace) to the train station. My unsophisticated take is that it seems like better local transpo would have an easier time of finding enough people.

Obviously these aren't mutually exclusive, but the number of people that would take advantage of true HSR that wouldnt take advantage of slower rail seems small.

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

#56

Post by bombcar »

hiram112 wrote: post #17

They allocated $150M according to the article. I can't see that being enough to even break ground on a single mile of track. If California boondoggle is any indication, it will be enough to staff an army of middle managers, bureaucrats, and environmental impact and DEI staff for a year, and, of course, pay out some political kickbacks.

California's spent something like $9 billion and they hadn't a single mile of track by 2022.

Maybe we should do a crawl/walk/run instead of jumping directly to HSR.

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

#57

Post by AlbertCory »

Ironically, I just posted this on Sunday night: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36843136

it deals heavily with the California "Bullet Train" and why it's such a shitshow.

I read (or skimmed) their 80-page report. They seem to have learned the lessons of other megaprojects, but I'd call this more of a realistic meta-plan than a plan:

> The reasons for this dismal record of performance are not inherent in the technology or the environment, they are mainly due to human behavior. It is possible to build a megaproject under budget and on time. However, the ways in which people behave in the planning, development, and delivery of megaprojects, and the choices that result, render that outcome unlikely.

There are political reasons that turn projects like this into disasters. I don't know how you avoid them, except maybe by facing them upfront.

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

#59

Post by bombcar »

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.

IIRC the Auto Train is the only long-distance route Amtrak runs that is net profitable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train

It's possible other corridors could be identified that could run something like that, though it probably needs to be about 800-900 miles to make it "worth" it time wise - shorter and it's simpler to just drive.

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

#60

Post by cco »

neilv wrote: post #10

> If a rail is built successfully, there will be an extraordinary increase in transportation abilities — saving commuters time while reducing environmental harm. This high-speed rail is intended for people getting between home and workplace on a daily basis? Edit: I'm not asking whether it can be used for daily commutes, but is daily commutes the reason for building this? Or what is the reason?

I think it'd be roughly an hour between Portland and Seattle, so a daily commute would be within the realm of possibility.

But I think what they mean is say Tacoma or Olympia to Seattle.

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