STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2020 9:33 am
So for this morning, I traced the most likely route using existing track, LAUS to the old station in Las Vegas (where there's now City Hall parking, but the platforms are there).
It is roughly 400 km to fly from LAX to Vegas, accounting for LAX's "over the water" exit traffic pattern. It's roughly 520 km to take a train from LAUS to Amtrak Vegas. I had to route through Metrolink territory.
At 79 MPH going non-stop (127 kmph), that's a little over four hours -- minimum! And that's making a lot of assumptions. I would guess more six hours given Metrolink and all the curves through the mountains. I think maybe three to four round trips, maximum, using four consists with a dinette car.
To go even faster, I would say:
- Route to get out of LA ASAP!
- Lay down more track for 125 MPH access
- TUNNEL THROUGH THEM MOUNTAINS!
- ELECTRIFY!
The route would be:
- LA Union Station
- Burbank
- Burbank Airport
- Pasadena
- Mojave (train reverses here -- new track between Mojave and Barstow)
- Barstow (new track between here and Los Vegas)
- Los Vegas Strip
- Los Vegas Center
Assuming 520 km for the trip, but also 75% of it at 125 mph (201 kmph)... it works out to a rough 3 hours. That's more like NEC speeds, and that's bloody competitive!
It's usually a good argument when people include time, distance, and speeds. Even Acela trains on the NEC can not achieve 125 mph average speeds even though they can travel as fast as 150 mph.
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... 010220.pdf
A tale of two different Acela trains between New York City and Washington D.C. Train 2103 normal and Train 2401 non-stop. the normal Acela takes 2 hours and 55 minutes to travel 226 rail miles, the non-stop Acela takes 2 hours and 33 minutes per the published Amtrak schedule linked above.
226 miles / 175 minutes x 60minutes / hour = 77.5 miles/hour average.
226 miles / 153 minutes x 60 minutes / hour = 88.6 miles/hour average.
I chose the southern half of the NEC to avoid the 79 mph speed limited New York City to New Haven tracks, even though Acela train speeds reach a maximum of just 135 mph. Never-the-less, Acela does not even come close to achieving an average speed of 100 mph. I'm sure the reason for the slower average speeds can be attributed to traffic congestion on the tracks with all the NJT, Septa, Marc, and other Amtrak trains also running on them.
Hopefully, the LA to LV trains will not have as much traffic congestion on the tracks running so much in a wide open desert once the trains leave the LA basin. Virgin (XpressWest) plans of grade separated and dedicated tracks guarantees no traffic congestion from other trains and vehicles.
To often discussions about LA to LV ignore elevation changes. There's a reason why Metrolink takes around 2 hours to travel around 62 miles between LA and Palmdale, averaging around 30 mph. The elevation of LA averages 285 feet, the elevation of Palmdale is 2657 feet. The elevation of Las Vegas is 2030 feet. Let's calculate some average slopes, just for fun, because to calculate the real slopes will require far more data points that just these three.
2657 - 285 = 2372 feet; 62 x 5280 = 485,760 feet; 2372 / 485760 x 100 = 0.488%
2657 - 2030 = 627 feet; 237 x 5280 = 1,251,360 feet; 627/1,251,360 x 100 = 0.05%
But this little bit of fun shows the grade climbing up to the high desert from Los Angeles to Palmdale is at least 10 times larger than the grades between Palmdale and Las Vegas.
Ever watched cross country trucking videos on YouTube climbing and coasting on mountain grades? They do not zip up or down at full speed, they slow down climbing up and braking down the hills just to maintain control. Trains do the same.