Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

southseattleemerald.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 311 posts

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

#71

Post by forrestthewoods »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #42
rendang wrote: post #24

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

I sincerely hope not. Sprawl is the anti pattern maximizing human impact. The skagit valley in particular is beautiful - the last it needs is a suburban megaplex.

Huh. That’s the opposite of sprawl. It’s having dense points along the route. It doesn’t make any sense to have high-speed rail that only stops in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. For it to even possibly make sense there needs more to be more points along the way. And those points need to be very dense by transit. Aka the opposite of sprawl.

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

#72

Post by ehnto »

twelvechairs wrote: post #53
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?

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 on…

HSR really wants total seperation, zero crossings, no shared traffic. That is what ultimately allows safe high speed travel.

Otherwise you are slowing down everywhere and can only run as fast as other trains on the line, unless you also impact their services by having them pull off.

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

#73

Post by peyton »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #39
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Legally, Amtrak is supposed to have priority, and freight trains are required to pull off. But freight trains usually get priority because that's what the railway wants, and Amtrak doesn't have the political muscle to do much. But it's illegal. https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Amtrak-has-priority-o...

I highly doubt Amtrak will suddenly run on time if enough people write Congress like their video suggests. The delays are egregious. Can’t they just pay for priority?

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

#74

Post by gruez »

jmyeet wrote: post #67

The rail situation in the US is woeful and it's important to understand why: 1. Privatization has been an absolute disaster for the rail industry. Privatization has simply become a way to privatize profits and socialize losses. The advent of Precision Scheduled Railroading ("PSR") [1]. It not only decreases safety but leads to massive delays for passenger trains who can't pass the longer trains that PSR results in; 2…

>1. Privatization has been an absolute disaster for the rail industry.

Privatization implies it was previously nationalized. Was that ever the case?

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

#75

Post by jaggederest »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #6
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.

Did you know there are nice and fast trains in Europe outside of the Paris region?

Yes. I've ridden on many of them. I'm a huge HSR proponent. I just don't think it works for Eugene to Vancouver. If we had double the population it would be a no-brainer.

The math is very clear. Below about 25,000 people per linear kilometer of lines, they require massive subsidies and never really pay off. Eugene to Vancouver BC is <12,000 people per linear kilometer. Honestly I would love to be wrong.

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

#76

Post by 3finmunchousen »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21
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?

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…

Sharing the tracks is a huge problem that’s just becoming worse. Railroad’s have taken the strategy of running trains so long that they no longer sit in sidings. That means that it is now impossible for many freight trains to pull into a siding allowing other trains to pass. While Amtrak is supposed to have the right of way it’s often impossible for a freight train to do so. Additionally, railroads have shown no interest in lengthening siding or really any capital investment at all.

If you’d like to learn more about this and other issues with the way the US does railroads I’d recommend this podcast. It’s probably the least efficient way you could intake the information but I enjoyed it.

https://youtu.be/jNkYNjADoZg

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

#77

Post by jaggederest »

yurrzz wrote: post #32
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.

I'd say the vast majority of the population of Oregon and Washington is along the I-5 corridor.

Yes, that's why I said "a substantial portion". About 25% of OR/WA don't live within an hour of the corridor. I live in Oregon, along the I-5 corridor. I've been looking at the feasibility of HSR for years. The math does not yet make sense. If the population was doubled, it would be a no-brainer.

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

#78

Post by poulsbohemian »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #68

I’ve been reading about high-speed rail in the PNW for my 20 years in Seattle and I’ve yet to see a budget. And I’ve definitely yet to see how that budget is justified. I don’t see how it can possibly make sense. The cost divided by ridership can’t be a friendly number. I live in Seattle and I don’t think high-speed rail to Portland/Vancouver is a particularly interesting thing. I’m not at all a fan of 90 minute comm…

When you realize that we are just barely caught up with what Forward Thrust was supposed to bring us when voters rejected that in the 1970s (like before I was born...) it's hard to imagine any of us will benefit in our lifetimes from any significant I-5 corridor high-speed improvements. The legislature really needs to be considering the housing benefits of improved transit, not only along I-5, but also for those who might live in say Ellensburg, Yakima, Spokane, who could conceivably be just an hour or two by rail away from their office in Seattle. Maybe not as every day commuters, but certainly in a blended work model.

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

#79

Post by carabiner »

CSMastermind wrote: post #70

For those unaware allow me to present The Seattle Process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process Otherwise known as "decision making through exhaustion" where everyone tries to stop progress as much as possible until the other people get so sick of arguing with you that they give up and you get your way. The Seattle region might be the part of the country least capable of building infrastructure. I'll believe…

lol California would disagree. I am amazed at how much is being built here. I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle is the fastest building urban metro area in the US. I still think WA has a libertarian streak (hence no income tax) that moves things along.

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

#80

Post by jaggederest »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #8
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.

Now compare to Spain.

Spain has double the population density of OR/WA, much less if you include BC. What's your point?
Post reply on HN