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High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby evilgenius » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 13:28:13

vtsnowedin wrote:The cost of a charging station being much less then the EV itself I see no problem matching the number of charging stations to the number of EVs sold. There are already multiple installed at interstate rest areas most sitting unused at present.
Urban parking problems will remain as always difficult, but there is no reason charging stations can't become as ubiquitous as parking meters are now and technologies like self driving Uber cars (EV of course) may dramatically reduce demand for urban parking of all types.

That's not going to be the case when every car is an electric car, and they take hours to charge. There won't be any gas station like solution, unless the solid state lithium ion battery that is coming can charge far faster. As it stands now, without faster charging technology. Every car will need to charge almost every day. People with shorter traditional commutes won't need to, but they will still need to park somewhere. Simple parking will contend with metered charging spaces also, as the dynamic of risk/return on investing in those accelerates. When you don't need to charge you won't be able to simply park at a charging spot without paying something because they could be selling electricity.

What we are facing is the adoption of class centric ideas along with a new technology. In this case, it is the ideal of the rich middle class, probably white, person who has a big house and lots of space. We expect electric cars to recharge at the back of a spacious two or three car garage. But electric cars will have to be widely adopted. That means they will be driven by people who live in crowded places. Is every over subscribed house going to have cables running out to the street, one set for each car? Fancy mowing the lawn and getting around those. Apartment buildings already charge for parking, now they can for electricity, but most are too cheap to build that out. There will be demand for places to live where parking spots have charging, but there will also for bargain living places, where people find some other way to charge their cars. People will wind up paying a premium to charge where they live, if they live in an apartment. There will be incentives to view charging spots as somebody else's problem.

There will be a huge incentive to adopt the fleet model, over that of individual ownership. Perhaps we shouldn't care one way or the other, but if we want to preserve individual ownership, the involvement of rail would make sense. We could go for building lots near enough to where people live with charging capacity, to which self-driving cars could go when they are low on charge because they were near enough. The problem with that is I can't think of whose house we should sacrifice in order to have those. You know that people will rise up over the eradication of parks and green belts. Rail could take your car outside the city to get charged. You wouldn't have to think about which lot your car went to, just that it went into the system.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 13:40:43

1/2 mile was the figure they proposed and also the width of ROW that was "eminent domained" for the initial HSR project phase. Note that sabotage is a real concern in California, and the Greenies are opposed to HSR. Heck, the Greenies are opposed to CALTRAIN - a few months ago somebody waited until the train was less than a half mile away, traveling at speed, and then placed a large tractor tire on the tracks. This resulted in an outage that lasted 18 hours, as CALTRAIN chose to use the second track to run 1/4 of the scheduled trains in both directions. In the wee hours of the next morning they brought in a crane on the second track and removed the disabled train.

The Greenies beef: CALTRAIN was supposed to electrify the commuter train and eliminate the diesel locomotives. That upgrade no longer has a schedule. CALTRAIN ROW is already mixed passenger and heavy frieght service, the frieght trains in the wee hours of the morning.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby jedrider » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 14:47:33

KaiserJeep wrote:
lpetrich wrote:-snip-

I fully concede that much of the US is not very well-suited for HSR development, like most of the area west of I-35. But much of it is, especially the Acela Corridor (Northeast Megalopolis, Bos-Wash Corridor), after the US's closest approximation to the high-speed trains of elsewhere in the world. Of the area west of I-35, California and the Pacific Northwest are also good for HSR development.


What exacly do you mean by "good for HSR development"? The California HSR system was taking a half-mile wide swath of California's Central Valley and turning this valuable farmland into scrub brush behind a fence. Doesn't sound like much, and I appreciate the need for security as much as anyone. But then think about a piece of land a half mile wide and 800 miles long. That is 400 square miles of farmland which ought to be used for growing food for people. That is a huge and ongoing cost nobody is putting a price on.


Last I looked, even though they grow vegetables right next to the I-99 interstate, that there was actually plenty of land to do the same. I think most of the land is water limited rather than square-footage limited.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 15:13:22

evilgenius wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:The cost of a charging station being much less then the EV itself I see no problem matching the number of charging stations to the number of EVs sold. There are already multiple installed at interstate rest areas most sitting unused at present.
Urban parking problems will remain as always difficult, but there is no reason charging stations can't become as ubiquitous as parking meters are now and technologies like self driving Uber cars (EV of course) may dramatically reduce demand for urban parking of all types.

That's not going to be the case when every car is an electric car, and they take hours to charge. .

The average USA commute distance is 16 miles each way so most of the available models will only need to charge once a week. Also commuters spend more then ten hours a day at home eating and sleeping and the car can top off every night. Of course commuters with short commutes and garages or car ports at home will be the first adopters but there are about fifty million of those to build cars for before you start on the harder half. As I said there are already factory parking lots with solar panels over the parking spaces with some charging stations provided.
In total it is a big project and expensive but well within American industries abilities to provide as and when needed.
At present there is not the cost incentive to switch but let gas get above $6.00/gallon from carbon taxes or oil becoming scarcer and just a few years might make American highways majority EV.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Zarquon » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 17:03:29

vtsnowedin wrote: They might need 200 feet for fencing and service roads etc. but certainly not 500 feet or a half mile. Whoever put that figure out there is trying to poison pill the project.


Or... cough, cough... has a second cousin with buy options on a few thousand acres of scrub land. It makes public projects much more palatable. Just sayin'.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 17:32:05

Zarquon wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote: They might need 200 feet for fencing and service roads etc. but certainly not 500 feet or a half mile. Whoever put that figure out there is trying to poison pill the project.


Or... cough, cough... has a second cousin with buy options on a few thousand acres of scrub land. It makes public projects much more palatable. Just sayin'.


Well one hand washes the other you know. How was cousin Vinny to know the future when he took that useless old farm land off the hands of those little old ladies.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 18:56:04

You might find these ROW across sections interesting. Nothing indicating the vast ROW noted earlier. But it also doesn’t show security fencing and access, so maybe.

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/sta ... 4_8_10.pdf

And another Technical Memo

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/eir ... _21R00.pdf
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 19:08:31

ROW also must include service roads and security fencing. Those documents reflect only the HSR trackage and auxiliary equipment.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 28 Feb 2019, 20:14:53

KaiserJeep wrote:ROW also must include service roads and security fencing. Those documents reflect only the HSR trackage and auxiliary equipment.

Actually the at grade cross sections show the fencing one foot inside the right of way.
Elevated and tunnel configurations of course don't need a fence.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Cog » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 05:58:00

How long before homeless encampments are built inside the ROW fence and a judge in Hawaii says they have the right to be there?
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 10:11:30

vtsnowedin wrote:
KaiserJeep wrote:ROW also must include service roads and security fencing. Those documents reflect only the HSR trackage and auxiliary equipment.

Actually the at grade cross sections show the fencing one foot inside the right of way.
Elevated and tunnel configurations of course don't need a fence.


Elevated require an egress walkway, someway to get off the ROW. So you have a walkway with handrailing to a stairway. Then the stairway will frequently lead to an exit only door of some type, but I’ve also seen an enclosed compound. Didn’t like that.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 10:14:00

Cog wrote:How long before homeless encampments are built inside the ROW fence and a judge in Hawaii says they have the right to be there?


4 years 57 days 7 hours 2 minutes 12 seconds, from ..... NOW!

Silly post Cog. You bored again?
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 10:37:58

Newfie wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
KaiserJeep wrote:ROW also must include service roads and security fencing. Those documents reflect only the HSR trackage and auxiliary equipment.

Actually the at grade cross sections show the fencing one foot inside the right of way.
Elevated and tunnel configurations of course don't need a fence.


Elevated require an egress walkway, someway to get off the ROW. So you have a walkway with handrailing to a stairway. Then the stairway will frequently lead to an exit only door of some type, but I’ve also seen an enclosed compound. Didn’t like that.

The walkways are shown in the cross sections and the escape stairwells would all fit inside the 152'-6" TCE limit shown. Some of the elevated sections do show five foot fence beside the walkways where others show the retaining wall being higher and acting as the fall protection. There is nothing in those standard sheets that show a need for 500 ft ROW and certainly not a half mile. Stations and parking lots are not a standard section but consume minimal acreage compared to the ROW between them.
All a Moot point of course because the project is canceled.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 12:10:11

VT,

Lighter but far faster and the cargo is sensitive to shocks and impacts, kinda delicate.

Not moot because they are going to build a HSR to carry the hoarss of commuters from Bakersfield to Somewhere Important.

If it was cancelled the Feds would need to get their money back.

Frigging boondoggle. Maybe they are just hanging on to get some GND Greenbacks.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 12:20:17

Newfie wrote:VT,

Lighter but far faster and the cargo is sensitive to shocks and impacts, kinda delicate.

Not moot because they are going to build a HSR to carry the hoarss of commuters from Bakersfield to Somewhere Important.

If it was cancelled the Feds would need to get their money back.

Frigging boondoggle. Maybe they are just hanging on to get some GND Greenbacks.

This is all proven technology as in the Japanese bullet trains and instead of reinventing the wheels they should just buy some train sets from Japan and build the tracks to their proven standard. Those trains are already built to American standard gauge (4'-8.5") so what's the hold up and excuse for over runs?
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Cog » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 13:02:03

Newfie wrote:
Cog wrote:How long before homeless encampments are built inside the ROW fence and a judge in Hawaii says they have the right to be there?


4 years 57 days 7 hours 2 minutes 12 seconds, from ..... NOW!

Silly post Cog. You bored again?


Its a just a logical extension of the argument that homeless people can camp out on public sidewalks and you can't remove them. San Francisco and Portland comes to mind.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 13:07:50

Probably stuck with Buy America clauses. But we see the talking about the train sets, we were discussing the track system.

https://www.hsr.ca.gov/Programs/trainsets/index.html

Apparently they haven’t picked a vendor yet. That strikes me as VERY odd. There are a lot of reasons you want the trainset vendor on early. Freight is different.

From Wiki.
. In January 2015 the California High Speed Rail Authority issued a request for proposal (RFP) for complete trainsets. The proposals received will be reviewed so that acceptable bidders can be selected, and then requests for bids will be sent out. The winning bidder was projected to be selected in 2016, but plans have not yet been finalized.[citation needed]

It is estimated that for the entire Phase 1 system up to 95 trainsets might be required.[60] Initially only 16 trainsets are anticipated to be purchased.[61] Trainset expenses, according to the 2014 Business Plan, are planned at $889 million for the IOS (Initial Operating Segment) in 2022, $984 million for the Bay to Basin in 2027, and $1.4 billion for the completed Phase 1 in 2029, for a total of $3.276 billion.[62]

In February 2015 nine companies formally expressed interest in producing trainsets for the system: Alstom, AnsaldoBreda (now Hitachi Rail Italy), Bombardier Transportation, CSR, Hyundai Rotem, Kawasaki Rail Car, Siemens, Sun Group U.S.A. partnered with CNR Tangshan, and Talgo.[63]


Note I don’t see Shinkansen. But ALSTOM, TGV builder is listed. Talgo, Spanish? Has some experience. Bombardier is way out of its league here. From the little I know Hyundai Rotem and Kawasaki are both Street car providers, might be wrong. I think there are really only 3, maybe 4 real contenders in the group.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 13:58:55

Writing a RFP so that only your preferred lobbyist and campaign contributor is a contender is an art that is highly refined in Washington DC and I presume Sacramento.
Too bad as it costs the taxpayers /users of the system billions and outright prevents good projects from being built.
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 17:17:16

While what you say is true Buy America is simply Federal Law. Street car and light rail companies set up assembly shops in the USA to meet goals. I’ve known people who have lost their jobs over shaving the rules.

https://m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/ ... 706675.php
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Re: High Speed Rail: Pros and Cons

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 01 Mar 2019, 20:19:08

Newfie wrote:While what you say is true Buy America is simply Federal Law. Street car and light rail companies set up assembly shops in the USA to meet goals. I’ve known people who have lost their jobs over shaving the rules.

https://m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/ ... 706675.php

Understand that buy America rules and other clauses included in federal funding legislation are a corruption of the system and serve no one other then the lobbyist and their clients that "helped" write the legislation. Get rid of all of this crap and you could have better roads bridges, airports etc. for a half to a quarter of what we are spending now.
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