He has been working on his Shasta-Route pages for some time, and it still has some unfinished parts. But the parts that he has finished contain lots of stuff on differences between US and European railroading, why the lines were built the way they were, etc. The US has much more inland freight service than Europe, which depends rather heavily on its waterways, and that has biased US RR construction toward being more friendly to low-speed heavy freight service and thus less friendly to high-speed passenger service.
He evaluates in it the the possibilities for improved Shasta-Route passenger service. This would be a link between the proposed HSR systems of California and the Pacific Northwest, running between Sacramento and Eugene. Since the Sacramento-to-Redding part is relatively easy, HJZ talks only a little bit about it, and I will also.
HJZ considers high-speed rail and decides that it is impractical; he even shows us a population-density graph of the US West Coast -- there is a big gap between Sacramento and Portland. Populations of metropolitan areas:
Portland: 2.2m
Eugene: 340k
Redding: 180k
Sacramento: 2.1m
Distances from Amtrak's Coast Starlight schedule:
Portland - 123/198 - Eugene - 355/571 - Redding - 159/256 - Sacramento -- Total: 637/1025 mi/km
The distance along I-5 is 580/934 mi/km
So I agree, outside of a massive investment in viaducts and tunnels that even a super porkmeister would have a hard time pulling off.
HJZ then discusses in existing routes and possibilities for improved service in them. The first of them was the Siskiyou Line, completed in 1887. It roughly parallels I-5, and it is a slow, winding route with grades up to 3.3 percent. This route was unsatisfactory for rather obvious reasons, and in 1926, the Southern Pacific built a second one, the Natron Cutoff, between Mt. Shasta and Eugene through Klamath Falls and Chemult. It does have some twisty mountainous parts with grades as much as 1.8 percent, but it has relatively straight, flat routes near Klamath Falls. That route is what SP, its successor UP, and Amtrak still use; the Siskiyou Line is now owned by a shortline, the Central Oregon & Pacific (CORP).
He proposes that the Natron Cutoff could be good for overnight trains, since they do not have to be especially fast; that sort of service is more or less what the southbound Coast Starlight does.
But he left off in the middle of a detailed evaluation of the Siskiyou Line; he did not get to a similar evaluation of the Natron Cutoff.
He evaluates in it the the possibilities for improved Shasta-Route passenger service. This would be a link between the proposed HSR systems of California and the Pacific Northwest, running between Sacramento and Eugene. Since the Sacramento-to-Redding part is relatively easy, HJZ talks only a little bit about it, and I will also.
HJZ considers high-speed rail and decides that it is impractical; he even shows us a population-density graph of the US West Coast -- there is a big gap between Sacramento and Portland. Populations of metropolitan areas:
Portland: 2.2m
Eugene: 340k
Redding: 180k
Sacramento: 2.1m
Distances from Amtrak's Coast Starlight schedule:
Portland - 123/198 - Eugene - 355/571 - Redding - 159/256 - Sacramento -- Total: 637/1025 mi/km
The distance along I-5 is 580/934 mi/km
So I agree, outside of a massive investment in viaducts and tunnels that even a super porkmeister would have a hard time pulling off.
HJZ then discusses in existing routes and possibilities for improved service in them. The first of them was the Siskiyou Line, completed in 1887. It roughly parallels I-5, and it is a slow, winding route with grades up to 3.3 percent. This route was unsatisfactory for rather obvious reasons, and in 1926, the Southern Pacific built a second one, the Natron Cutoff, between Mt. Shasta and Eugene through Klamath Falls and Chemult. It does have some twisty mountainous parts with grades as much as 1.8 percent, but it has relatively straight, flat routes near Klamath Falls. That route is what SP, its successor UP, and Amtrak still use; the Siskiyou Line is now owned by a shortline, the Central Oregon & Pacific (CORP).
He proposes that the Natron Cutoff could be good for overnight trains, since they do not have to be especially fast; that sort of service is more or less what the southbound Coast Starlight does.
But he left off in the middle of a detailed evaluation of the Siskiyou Line; he did not get to a similar evaluation of the Natron Cutoff.
