Iowahawk has the scoop on the vice president’s plan to jump the Grand Canyon with Amtrak. Speaking of which, Ray LaHood showed up at the Commercial Space Transportation Conference on Thursday. The topic of his speech? High-speed rail.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
There’s a movie about high speed rail opening on April 15th. That’s pretty much perfect timing.
Also, check out what Ann Althouse has to say about LaHood.
hmm link didn’t work. It’s a post from Feb 12 2011.
Well now we know where 7.289% of the stimulus went.
Iowahawk is brilliant, but I’m afraid the real givernment may have him beat on this one;
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/11/29/2177233/dan-walters-california-may-build.html
California, which is broke, is going ahead on plans to build a 5 billion segment of high speed rail… where? From Madera, CA to Corcoran, CA (two small towns near Fresno). Oh, and they want the rest of the country to help, too…
It’ll be quite a system… Shiny high-speed trains… oh, wait, this is just for track; they won’t be building any trains or stations. I guess that’s a plus on the maintenance side… So, it’s not really a train to nowhere, just track from nowhere to nowhere.
If the rest of the system is ever completed, the rail line would carry passengers from LA to San Francisco. Only, they cooked the books, and divided the train’s presumed top speed by the mileage. to get a transit time, saying it would be faster than flying due to having to spend hours at the airport. I guess this means they teleport you to the train when you arrive at the station and it departs instantly… Oh, and don’t forget, this will have “airport grade security screening” so there goes that time advantage…
Also out of the time equation; there will be station stops en route, and it also takes time for a train to accelerate. Oh, and some of the route will use existing freight tracks, so won’t be going fast there, either.
Ticket price? my guess, more than flying.
You just can’t satire that…
Jump the Grand Canyon? Dunno, but Biden sure jumped the shark. 🙂
Reminds me of when the mayor of Tucson got up in arms because the Tucson airport was going to add some prop commuter service to Phoenix. The mayor and others complained that Tucson was a big city and deserved jets. So they got jets, going to Phx, at higher operating cost and no savings in time.
“Only, they cooked the books, and divided the train’s presumed top speed by the mileage. to get a transit time, saying it would be faster than flying due to having to spend hours at the airport. ”
Seriously, now, did they do that? I went to their Web site where they quoted some optimistic travel time from Fresno to Downtown LA (why I would want to travel from Fresno to LA, I don’t know, but supposing I wanted to make that trip, it would be pretty quick according to their travel calculator). It is that I never crunched the numbers regarding acceleration and braking, speed reduction inside city limits on account of noise abatement, etc., and pretty much took them at their word.
When I read this I immediately had visions of Biden sitting on the top of the train, waving a cowboy hat as it plunged into the canyon, Slim Pickens style.
Our Betters in the government are determined to recreate that glorious summer when their parents gave them a ticket to Europe and a Eurailpass as a graduation present. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that they don’t start a committee to build hostels where everyone sleeps ten to a room in bunk beds and there is only one communal toilet per floor.
“I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that they don’t start a committee to build hostels where everyone sleeps ten to a room in bunk beds and there is only one communal toilet per floor.”
I did that! It was called Basic Training. It involved no trains.
“. . . speed reduction inside city limits on account of noise abatement, etc. . . .”
None of this 100 mph through downtown anymore, a la Atlas Shrugged and the first trip on the John Galt Line.
Paul Milenkovic said;
“Seriously, now, did they do that? I went to their Web site where they quoted some optimistic travel time from Fresno to Downtown LA (why I would want to travel from Fresno to LA, I don’t know, but supposing I wanted to make that trip, it would be pretty quick according to their travel calculator). It is that I never crunched the numbers regarding acceleration and braking, speed reduction inside city limits on account of noise abatement, etc., and pretty much took them at their word.”
Just for fun, I ran some numbers, and if the distance is as quoted, 255 miles, and the time is 1:24, That’s about 180mph (the train is supposed to do 200, I think) but that assumes zero time for acceleration, deceleration, and the station stops on the way. (I’m assuming they won’t just throw the passengers out as they roar through at 200MPH)
The route goes through two mountain ranges and a big chunk of Los Angeles. It won’t be flying along at 200mph in those areas. In the mountains, it can’t. From the San Fernado Valley in LA to Palmdale is almost all mountainous, and the route runs via Acton, and it’s twisty.
(Google Earth shows rail lines, and the existing one is very sinuous, as will be the high speed one on those areas)
From Palmdale up to Mojave, it’s flat and straight for about 40 miles, then you get the Tehachapi Mountains, and the Tehachapai Pass. Railroad buffs know it well; that’s the home of the famous “loop”, where the rail line goes through an enormous loop, crossing over itself, in order to keep the grade feasable. It’s a very twisty line, for almost the whole way from Mojave to Bakersfeild.
That brings me to distance. They say 255 miles, but… if I plot this by road, from Union Station in LA, via palmdale, to Fresno’s station, it’s 269 miles. By road. A rail line in the mountains (look at the existing ones on the route for an example) is longer than the roads because of having far more curves to keep the grade shallow. If that planned line ends up being under 280 miles, I’ll be astounded.
And at 280 miles, we are spot on for 200mph (200mph for every second of the way). No acceleration, no deceleration, zero time allotted for the station stops in Burbank, Sylmar, Palmdale, and Bakersfeild, plus roaring through the LA metro area and the mountains at 200mph.
So, that’s why I think they cooked the books… or, they’re planning on having the legislature make some changes to the laws of physics .
CJ 🙂
Unless you have some seriously banked tracks, you aren’t going to want to go around some of those curves at 200 MPH. Even if you have banked tracks, the G loads might be a bit on the uncomfortable side unless you sell it as the world’s longest roller-coaster ride.
“I did that! It was called Basic Training. It involved no trains.”
Yeah, but did you sit up all night smoking hash and talking about Godard movies, totally fooling yourself that you’d impressed that hot French chick?
Arizona, I imagine that they are severely discounting some serious engineering projects, particularly, long tunnels, bridges with turns, and moving a few hills around. The distance 255 miles, indicates that they think they’ll be going through some obstacles that those roads and rails go around.
@Karl Hallowell: I assume the Evironmental Impact studies will be waved? LOL
‘airport grade’ security, eh? No thanks, I’ll keep driving.
@Karl Hallowell
The problem is, it’s not feasible to do as you suggest and mitigate the terrain via engineering,.
Trains are limited to both curves and grade. Even assuming that the high speed train has fewer restrictions as to grade, (and it is unarguably more sensitive to curves) we’re still looking at an engineering nightmare if they try to bypass the main problem areas. They’d have to burrow under the entire Tehachipi range, so that’d be a tunnel in excess of 30 miles long, through several active (some very active) faultlines.
For Palmdale to Sylmar, you’re looking at either a tunnel of similar scale and problems, or trestle for most of that length. Also, the route makes no sense at all if they’re going to rely on mega-engineering on that scale; they could shorten the run (and eliminate one of those two obstacles) by roughly following I-5, with a tunnel-trestle system in the mountains.
Is it possible they could use engineering on the scale you suggest? Sure, but it would be risky (due to the faults and geology) and even without that, costly beyond belief, and no way do they have room in their claimed budget for it.
I’ve seen a lot of boondoggles, but California’s “High speed rail” scam ranks at the top. It’s never going to work, even if built; their ridership projections are as unreliable as their time estimates, and they’re relying on private funding via bond sales for a big chunk of this. I don’t think they;ll find many investors willing to be a part of this fiasco (It’s even more likely to default than the Las Vegas Monorail was, and it’s already done so), nor do i think the current congress, which has to deal with unsustainable debt, would be inclined to flush billions taken from the rest of the country on this mess. In a rational world, this would be a canceled project.
I assume the Evironmental Impact studies will be waved? LOL
Wouldn’t be the first time that a “green” project has gotten extraordinary latitude. They better make sure they kill all the spotted owls or whatnot while they still have the EPA waiver though.
Arizona, I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought the California high speed train was realistic in any way.
“Slim Pickens” seems apt for this veep…
Carl Hallowell said,
“Arizona, I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought the California high speed train was realistic in any way. ”
You didn’t. 🙂 I just tend to get on a roll on this issue, and keep flapping my jaw. 🙂