Fully on agree on trying to get costs down to Spanish-levels and other developed world costs, and building everywhere while saving money.
But the reasons for the dysfunction are pretty straight forward: there is group of engineering consultancies and construction firms (Parsons, Bechtel, HNTB, AECOM, and other non-household names) that have captured the system and profit handsomely from the status quo. All those billions of taxpayer money is going somewhere, and it's their bank accounts.
Caltrain electrification project is independent/notdependent on CAHSR and also not dependent on grade separation projects, which seem to be tackled individually/ad-hoc in partnership with the city it's in. Everything I've seen suggests Caltrain will still have at grade crossings for the foreseeable future due to the high cost of grade separations (hundreds of millions each), while overhead electrification is slowly approaching completion including over existing at-grade crossings. Nothing prevents a high speed train from using an at grade crossing, albeit at appropriate speeds.
While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic. It only makes sense if road money pays for it, rather than more limited rail money.
Nothing prevents a high speed train from using an at grade crossing
Well…
albeit at appropriate speeds.
Then you've just removed the "high speed" from "high speed rail". That's why HSR funds are paying for some of the cost of grade separation. Grade separation is hugely important (and hugely important to get right -- look at the consequences of the shit design of BART's Oakland Wye).
While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic.
There's significant value in not hitting pedestrians or automobiles. There are also ways to reduce the cost of grade separation.
I'm well aware of (and have personally suffered) all of that: BART's Oakland Wye delaying trains, suicide-by-train, the value of grade separations, and of Clem's Caltrain-HSR blog that I've been reading since the beginning and have learned a lot about railway engineering from it and technically informed commenters.
I would love for Caltrain to be fully grade separated (and electrified and modern Signaling and Train Control with Automatic Train Operation), but this costs a lot of money and there's an opportunity cost with that. Even with cost optimizations that Clem's blog discusses we are still talking billions of dollars and many years to grade separate the dozens of remaining crossings in the Caltrain corridor. Not to mention the ~210000 road-rail grade crossings across the USA, ~100000 in Europe, [0][1] and however many else exist in the rest of the world.
That is the scale of the problem. It is not affordable or realistic to eliminate all of them, we have finite resources and have to pick and choose our spots based on an objective analysis. And the benefit of that primarily goes to road users who should be the ones to pay for it or taxpayers at large, rather than rail users and more limited rail funds.
While loss of life is obviously tragic, in almost all case these are the result of illegal actions of people trespassing or committing suicide-by-train. I dislike characterization of "trains hitting people," as if it were the fault or malicious of the train. Trains operate on rail tracks which are fixed to the ground. Trains don't go anywhere all willy nilly like cars can, including right into people's houses (which has happened to a relative and a neighbor). It is not reasonable to compel a rail organization to spend billions to "fix" this problem, if it even can be. I've even endured a more than hour long Caltrain delay, because someone drove a truck into a structural support column of a Caltrain grade separated overpass, and we were not cleared to cross until structural engineer could come out, inspect it, and give the OK. So let's not act like this is some panacea.
HSTs are never going to operating at 200+ mph on the Caltrain corridor. It's going to be limited to "standard speeds," which can still be 100+ mph. Last I checked the US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) allows up to 110 mph with grade crossings, and up to 125 mph with specialized upgraded crossings. This is plenty fast, and common in urbanized areas in other developed countries like Germany and Switzerland.
> While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic. It only makes sense if road money pays for it, rather than more limited rail money.
Devil's advocate: at-grade crossings sound like a negative externality for rail that impacts other parts of society (road users, noise pollution for local residents, etc).
Why should rail not bear some of the social costs in addition to its direct costs?
Let me be a devil’s advocate against your devil’s advocate: Pedestrian, bicycle and even bus-only crossings costs a fraction to grade separate compared to car crossings. It is much easier for cars to take a significant detours then other transport modes. It is always a much cheaper option to simply close the road for cars and force them to cross at the nearest crossing that is already grade separated, and build a ped/bike-only bridge/tunnel over the tracks.
Cars are the reason this negative externality is so expensive to mitigate. Why should funds from other modes be diverted to it?
> Why should funds from other modes be diverted to it?
If the city's been built and is already car dependent, wishing away the existing uses and the massive amounts of capital dependent on them isn't an option. That is, we have to consider costs at the margin from where we are now.
Since you answered my second order devil’s advocate, I should answer your first order devil’s advocate:
> Why should rail not bear some of the social costs in addition to its direct costs?
The social costs created by private cars dwarfs those created by train, and is seldomly actually mitigated with funds diverted from car infrastructure. Historically this has been an unpopular political choice, made without considering the local communities. Now California is prioritizing a different mode with the hope of reducing car dependency. Why shouldn’t car infrastructure now bear the defunding that other modes have historically suffered in order to accommodate cars historically, infrastructures which has historically created social costs to local communities?
I see this as a way to fix historic wrongs. Rail does not need to bear the social costs of its infrastructure because car owes us a bunch. We should collect on those debts owed by cars.
> Why shouldn’t car infrastructure now bear the defunding that other modes have historically suffered in order to accommodate cars historically, infrastructures which has historically created social costs to local communities?
Because it devalues a whole lot of land and capital that have seen substantial investment under the prior equilibrium.
Fixing historic wrongs or not, churning our transport infrastructure incurs a whole lot of external costs and can't be just considered in terms of "road costs" vs. "rail costs".
I’m confused, are you still playing the devil’s advocate, or do you actually hold this believe?
In the case of the former, then I’ve already answered why it is totally fair for car infrastructure to pay for social externalities of other modes meant to relief car traffic.
In the case of the latter, I don’t know what to tell you except that you are wrong. I didn’t mean defunding as in let existing things churn, I meant removing car lanes and forcing detours so that train infrastructure can be cheaper. The overall effect is better transport for everybody except cars (which already have it plenty good).
Also are you sure that removing car lanes actually devalues land and capital. I’m not so sure that is true. And even if it was, good. Housing in the Bay area is plenty expensive as it is, if cheaper train infrastructure means cheaper housing, then I’d say we’ve succeeded on two fronts.
I hold a pragmatic set of views. I would like us to become less road dependent, but I don't think you can ignore the degree of investment that has been built on the existing road system. Breaking and devaluing existing uses is a social cost incurred by a change in modes of transport.
I wish we had rail, including HSR, everywhere but the real world comes with financial constraints. While a Central Coast trunk alignment would be nice, any reasonable analysis indicates it really should be lower priority than the Central Valley trunk. It's something that would only be built in addition to and after the core system is running through the CV; to add additional capacity, redundancy, and to serve the Central Coast communities.
The Central Valley has millions more people and is projected to add millions more in the decades to come, which matters for ridership and the viability of the system. On speed, the Central Coast is only faster as the crow flies. It may not seem like it, but CV is actually is faster and more direct than the Central Coast on the ground. There's a reason people drive I-5 rather US-101 or CA-1/PCH when doing the NorCal-SoCal trip, unless they're intentionally taking the slower scenic coastal route [0]. There are formidable Coastal Ranges on Central Coast (and much California and Pacific coast of North America) [1][2]. This results in an alignment that is slower and more expensive due to more curves, elevated viaducts, and tunneling. It's also much more vulnerable to erosion, landslides, and flooding. [3][4] CalTrans and local DoTs struggle to keep roads open after winter storms.
I agree with your post thread. A lot of people uninitiated in railways think of HSR as an airplanes on rails. HSR =/= Airline.
Trains have a number of advantages, one of which is a small time penalty for stopping at a station relative to aircraft (2-3 minutes vs ~45+ minutes on average), and the aircraft requires a lot personnel/all-hands to turn around quickly (see: Southwest Airlines). A commercial aircraft is simply not designed for lots of really short hops in rapid succession. There needs to be a new preflight check, refueling, unload/load belly cargo, some maintenance items are based on aircraft takeoff/landing cycles (tires, cabin pressurization, etc.) Trains stopping at station and continuing is trivial by comparison.
A rail operator wants to collect fare paying passengers along the route they are planning on operating, it’s an easy way to boost ridership and revenue. It is a balancing act to have station stops, but not increase end-to-end trip time excessively. Basic rule of thumb: Does stopping add more riders than it costs due to the stopping time penalty? If the model/data say yes, make the stop; otherwise do not.
And just because we have a station, doesn’t mean every train has stop there. We can have local, limited, and express trains. We can passing/siding tracks at stations to prevent local stopped trains from blocking the mainline for limited/express trains. We can have cross-platform time transfers between different train types and destinations. We can have multiple mainline tracks. These things do cost a bit more upfront, but it’s more about good planning and what kind of service to the public is the goal.
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The Tokaido corridor (Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka) is extremely dense, both the Tokaido Mainline and Shinkansen line are effectively at capacity (which is also part of impetus for the Chuo Shinkansen). Running at very high speeds with fews stops, consumes a lot track capacity. Which is why JRs prefer running more local and limited-stop service trains, and less than “non-stop” express trains. It’s what a capacity constrained operator should do to optimize operations and maximize capacity subject to those constraints.
Likewise a California HSR program, should find a way to cost effectively serve cities like Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, etc. as part of a larger HSR network.
You don’t provide enough specifics about your local situation, but it’s been long noted that airport rail lines underperform. The author Alon Levy’s blog and others in the transit space have covered this. TLDR: They fail serve the local riders well, in an attempt to serve less frequent airport riders who are more likely to pay for a taxi/rideshare, rent a car, get picked up/dropped off, etc. There are often poor airport connections, like people movers or airport connectors, getting to the right terminals, etc which creates more friction and confusion.
>neglected neighborhoods that never got the rush of development and gentrification rail was supposed to bring
Rail and transportation infrastructure generally is an enabler for re/development and land use, but not a guarantee of it. Necessary but not sufficient by itself.
CAHSR’s mainline is intended to be SF-LA via the Central Valley, and connect the major cities along the way. Some of those valley have around a 1m+ people or will grow to that over time, making them viable to connect. Think “pearls on a string.”
>Only if people routinely travel to those cities rather than further away cities.
They do. People naturally travel more to places closer to them than further away. There is a strong correlation here. When you’re hungry and want to go out, do you go to a food place 5-10 minutes away? Or a place hours away? Or 3 Michelin starred place on the other side of the planet.
The regions targeted for HSR often have significant auto traffic on the highways connecting them, and short haul flights between their airports. HSR hits a sweet spot for trips that are long drives and short flights. Cost and time competitive, while also being more comfortable.
> Cost and time competitive, while also being more comfortable.
This is only true in a vacuum without our political and legal environment. If you could make the project immune to CEQA, eminent domain challenges, and union pressure, then you have a much more viable railway. If you could at least brush off two of those three and one of them was the union pressure, then it might actually get built in the manner it was intended to be linking San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego. At this point we’ll be lucky to get a line that doesn’t share tracks with freight between SF and LA.
They’re not but they’re already built and therefore are already an ongoing concern. CEQA and a lot of the more asinine pro-labor and tax policies that exist today throughout the State postdate the established right of ways for most of the highways.
I've noticed this too in China and the B&R rail projects, and while it would be nice to have double stack containers, consider Chinese engineers are making a reasonable set of tradeoffs. China is moving more containers than anyone else in the world, and this may actually more efficient in other ways:
1) Loading/unloading. Double stack requires cranes of some sort and is inherently dangerous when lifting large heavy mass into the air. Single stack could be more loaded/unloaded cheaper, faster, safer with less equipment, and keep trains moving and making money rather than sitting around being loaded/unloaded.
2) Maintenance cost and wear/tear on rail infrastructure. Wear and tear on rails (and roads) is proportional to the axle load to the power of 4 based on AASHTO testing [0]. Double stacking containers will roughly double axle loads, so damage and maintenance cost increases by ~16x. Keeping axle loads down keeps costs down. As an aside for roads, that means a fully loaded semi trailer (80000 lbs) is about 9600 passenger cars (4000 lbs) worth of road wear [1].
Re Longer trains: they are generally better, but there are practical limits. Trains have to be assembled and disassembled in rail yards. If the train is extra long it makes things more complicated and time consuming. If there are grade crossings on the route (there usually are), extra long trains result in long gate down time (5-10 mins) which can constitute a public safety risk (emergency vehicles not being able to cross tracks), and generally frustrates all other road users including pedestrians and cyclists.
Older railway axle counters used for train control and signalling systems in Europe and elsewhere had 8 bit integer logic controllers. That's 256 axles per train, or 64 rail vehicles assuming 4 axles per vehicle. Any longer and it will overflow, and the train might not be detected. So that is a hard limit without upgrading those systems or risking a catastrophic failure on a safety-critical system, that prevents 2 trains from occupying the same section of track at the same time [2].
There are overhead electric rail lines supporting double stack freight in the NEC USA, China, India, and possibly elsewhere. There are YouTube videos and images on web. AAR Plate H (20’ 2”) is the North American rail loading gauge for double stack containers, so 21’-23’ for the electrical lines is enough clearance. Nothing unusual here, straight forward for new lines, but as you noted potentially a lot work/cost on existing lines to create enough clearance due to raising overpasses/structures and/or undercutting them and tunnels.
That's tight. Here's a document from Network Rail on the practical problems of trying to increase the loading gauge in the UK so containers can fit on electrified lines.[1] That's just to make room for single height containers. In the UK, the catenary clearance is sometimes reduced to get under historic bridges, but that requires slowing trains way down.
Sometimes the rail bed is lowered, but that creates drainage problems. Raising historic masonry bridges is even harder. This document has good pictures of all the problems.
Indeed, Chicago and the Mississippi River is the dividing line in the North American rail network. UP and BNSF dominate western US, CSX and NS the eastern US, CN and CP dominate Canada, and large regionals like KCS, the Mexico side is similarly or more abysmal.
Unfortunately they don’t integrate that well together to form a cohesive network. CP is attempting to buy KCS/KCSM to create something of a NAFTA/USMCA railroad, but it’s not clear it would deliver those benefits without harming competition in the existing setup. Ideally the rail infrastructure would be publicly owned and invested in, and any train operator could transport from any location to any location on the North American rail network.
This is true by approximate order of cost, but it does not show how large the differences are. Trucking can be up to 10X, an order of magnitude, more expensive than train by unit of mass. Air freight can be another similar jump in costs. The cost difference between maritime and rail is marginal by comparison, 10s of percent. Maybe.
This also doesn’t take into account that rail can be easily electrified and even fully automated with limited labor needed, which would radically alter the operating cost structure. The technology to do this has existed for a long time (over a century in the case of electrification), it is a solved problem, but it requires prioritizing and making public investments just like the other forms of transportation.
There are also big differences in the average speed of the different modes. Ships are the slowest by far, taking about a month to cross oceans. Aircraft are the fastest on long distances. Trains and trucks are in between, but are inherently land-based so generally aren’t comparable to the others for intercontinental shipping, except for this Eurasian shipping case. Rail can occupy a unique Goldilocks sweet spot in mechanized transport, with costs competitive to maritime, yet offering performance competitive to roads and air.
Re Airships: I agree this is an area where government and industry has sorely neglected. After the crashes of the Hindenburg, USS Macon, and USS Akron in the 1930s, govt/industry just gave up on it despite our understanding of aeronautics and materials science being far more advanced. There is the Airlander airship project in Britain, but I’d like to see a lot more research and investment in this area.
It seems theoretically possible to create a Lighter Than Air (LTA) aircraft with helium (possibly hydrogen), cover it with flexible lightweight solar panels, battery pack, and distributed electric thrusters. It could have all electric power and propulsion systems with extreme endurance and range, theoretically unlimited minus scheduled maintenance, if the performance curves of those core technologies continue to improve. In addition to cargo, it could be a platform for telecom (cell tower in the sky), air cruises, various defense/security use cases, various atmospheric/oceanic and climate/metrological and earth observation/remote sensing use cases, etc.
I like this solar panel idea as you might be able to cover quite a bit of thrust energy required. Batteries add a lot of extra mass however, perhaps this would only be functional for day-time flight and then switching over to a chemical fuel source during night.
I'll see if I can still edit my comment to account for the much greater steps up in cost as you are correct.
But the reasons for the dysfunction are pretty straight forward: there is group of engineering consultancies and construction firms (Parsons, Bechtel, HNTB, AECOM, and other non-household names) that have captured the system and profit handsomely from the status quo. All those billions of taxpayer money is going somewhere, and it's their bank accounts.