California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) System

Per https://meethsrsocal.org/wp-content/upl ... -House.pdf, they are following the cheapest route and the route that has the least residential disruption in Burbank. It seems the straightest, shortest route would exit the mountains straight into a residential area, while the currently proposed route follows Metrolink through Burbank.

David Benton wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 6:35 pm most other long tunnels I've seen , straight as an arrow.

Gotthard for one is not straight.

RandallW wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 5:22 am The ACE Valley Link project to extend ACE to Merced is expected to be open by 2030, which would provide an SF-area commuter/regional rail connection to the CAHSR initial operating segment. (And since San Jose has a larger population than the city of SF, that's a more important part of the SF area to reach).

Sometimes it's ok to just say you were wrong.

ACE has a weekday ridership of 2500 people on the entire system. They run 4 roundtrips per weekday with no weekend service. This is the system that you're proposing as the solution to CAHSR supposedly being built in the wrong place right now?

It's also nowhere SF, SJ, or anyone who would be the hypothetical target market for an SF to LA train.

Valley Link is a project to connect Livermore BART to Mountain House, a development on the west side of Tracy that's nowhere near Merced. You're talking about Valley Rail, which was supposed to be in service "no later" than 2023 (lol), and has an end to end travel time from SJ to Merced of 3 hours (if you're coming from SF, don't forget to add another hour). I guess then you get on an electrified Amtrak train that doesn't exist yet that takes you to a tunnel that's over 170 miles further south, then through the tunnel, and then dumps you into Palmdale, where I guess you switch onto a diesel train and then travel another 2 hours to get into downtown LA. Good luck getting BNSF and UP to let you install catenary anywhere remotely near their tracks, and assuming regular 79 mph service on those existing tracks and absolutely no stops (and no conflicts from the freight trains, lol), you're looking at an 9-hour ride with two transfers after having spent untold billions of dollars. Conveniently, Amtrak offers you that trip today on a Thruway bus with no capital expenditures at all.

And this is supposed to be the better option?

As stated previously, the location of the construction was predetermined based on a) where environmental clearance had already been achieved, b) where they claimed that they could start construction asap, and c) where the DOT told them they have to do construction if they want to receive the funds.

The question you should be asking isn't why they didn't tunnel through a bunch of mountains first, but rather why it has taken them over a decade to build 120 miles of track on flat land.

A more positive view: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/ ... al-valley/

From ‘train to nowhere’ to Fresno’s dream: What high-speed rail means for the Central Valley




In five years, Fresno’s core will be transformed into the first major hub on America’s most ambitious active infrastructure project: a 500-mile bullet train shuttling people 200-plus mph from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours. But unlike Interstate 5, the state’s north-south connector, it’ll run through the heart of the Central Valley.

If you listen to California’s political class, the high-speed rail project sounds like a textbook boondoggle – over-budget, delayed and larded up with waste. Yet in communities across California’s farm belt, the discourse is refreshingly different.

It’s a symbol of transformation for a region that’s already bursting with activity. As the population declines in much of California, the Central Valley is growing, and forecasters say it will welcome 5 million new residents by 2060.
...

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 6:13 am A more positive view: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/ ... al-valley/

From ‘train to nowhere’ to Fresno’s dream: What high-speed rail means for the Central Valley
If you listen to California’s political class, the high-speed rail project sounds like a textbook boondoggle – over-budget, delayed and larded up with waste. Yet in communities across California’s farm belt, the discourse is refreshingly different.

It’s a symbol of transformation for a region that’s already bursting with activity. As the population declines in much of California, the Central Valley is growing, and forecasters say it will welcome 5 million new residents by 2060.
...

5 million more Californians by 2060, how much of that is a direct result of having HSR trains zooming around the central valley or not?

Eh? The article is saying the Central Valley will have that many residents, and it sounds like many of them might be coming from other parts of the state.

I doubt any of them will be there due to HSR, but having HSR functioning (I would hope! by 2060) would certainly make their lives better.

Regarding the long time to construct: the most recent (and I think the last, but don't know) lawsuit I can find concerning if CAHSR can take land for the railroad ended in 2021 (note this wasn't about the value of the land taken, but about if the taking was legal). I have of presume that lawsuits alone slowed construction significantly.

Definitely, though this seems to have been awfully mismanaged as well — all because they didn't want to miss out on those ARRA funds. You'll find an article linked somewhere in this thread where the construction contractor was complaining that the authority, even after awarding the contract, still did not have deeds to the entire right of way.

Imagine someone starting to build a home on land they didn't even own yet?

Central Valley Stations: SFYimby.com

CA High-Speed Rail Authority Reveals Plans For Central Valley Stations

California’s High-Speed Rail Authority has revealed detailed plans for four stations along the Central Valley segment. While High-Speed Rail remains a distant prospect for the Bay Area, construction on the 171-mile portion winding through the San Joaquin Valley shows steady progress. Previous statements by the Governor suggest that work connecting the Bay Area with the central line will not start until after the Central Valley tracks begin operating in the 2030s.

Foster + Partners and ARUP are responsible for the design and engineering. The canopy for all four locations is nearly identical, providing a recognizable architectural vernacular to be shared across the region. Beyond that, distinct treatment has been given for each of the concourses and main entrances. The Merced station is particularly noteworthy, where the grand stairwells will be bookmarked by large cobblestone walls capped by open wood roofing.

The four station plans shared include Merced, Fresno, Kings/Tulare, and Bakersfield. Each station will have an 80 to 90-foot-tall metal canopy covering the superstructures. Three stations will have raised platforms where riders board the trains, with Fresno as the outlier. Kings/Tulare and Bakersfield will have their entire station and concourse beneath the platform. In Merced, the station will be immediately next to 15th Street, while an elevated walkway over ACE and freight train tracks will connect to additional waiting space and bus depot functions along 16th Street.
...

Why are these so gargantuan?

What is the purpose of 80 foot canopies? It'd be one thing if they actually provided some kind of cover from the elements (I guess the designers have no idea how hot it gets in the central valley in the summer), but as it stands, it literally looks like an architect attempting to justify their high price tag and an authority that wants to justify its project's high price tag.

I guess when you're looking to spend over 100 billion dollars, a few useless metal pillars here and there won't make much difference.

Low ceilings that trap hot air where people feel it is significantly less than ideal in outdoor areas in hot locations like the Central Valley. In places like that high ceilings are preferable as they allow hot air (generated by passengers no less).

As the entire station is under the canopy (either above or below the tracks) except bridges in/out of the station over adjacent freight tracks, allowing air to rise under the shade and keeping air conditioned areas of the station under shade does help keep outdoor spaces cooler and reduce air conditioning costs for indoor spaces since the A/C is not cooling a box directly exposed to the sun (i.e., I think the operating costs of the stations would be more if they skimped on the construction costs).

What are you talking about? The canopy is completely open air. The platform is not enclosed. There is no shade. The average high in Merced from June through September is above 100 degrees.

At Merced, the peak of the roof is 47' above the platform, and the station has 5 tracks and three platforms (one side and one island). The station interior areas under the tracks have a 23' ceiling.

What I'm talking about is that, unless in a completely enclosed and well air conditioned space, higher ceilings are cooler than lower ceilings, especially in a station with diesel trains (one of the platforms under the canopy at Merced is for the San Joaquins service). If that station was built with just a 15' ceiling above the platforms (a la the NEC stations), the heat from diesel exhaust would be redirected onto the platforms and heat from other sources wouldn't be able to rise off platforms -- they wouldn't cool without forced air, but since they have higher roofs, heat can rise away from the platforms without needing to run forced air systems.

This echos the three deployments I've had to the Persian Gulf and two others to the other deserts: open sided tent structures with high ceilings were always noticeably cooler than ones with low ceilings, and the energy use of shelters (enclosed spaces for equipment) was much less if the shelter was under an open tent or canopy elevated above well above it (heat from the shelter could dissipate upwards, but the shelter was not exposed to direct sunlight that would heat the surface of the shelter).

That's been the case for centuries, and the laws of physics haven't changed. You need high ceilings, shade, and air circulation. I remember grade-school classes in the 1940s when classrooms had high ceilings, windows with upper and lower window frames, and a long wooden pole with a hook on the end which the teacher used to lower the upper frames while raising the lower ones so that hot air, having risen, could exit at the top. That's all there was in those days. Today, even with air-conditioning, there's no reason to make air-conditioning fight against an enclosed baking-in-the-sun box with low ceilings and sealed windows.

Three platforms and two runthru tracks?

That's the waste we should be discussing. I doubt Merced has ever had a need for more than two trains at any given time, and likely never will.

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