Late last night, I got a phone call from a reporter for the Santa Barbara Newsroom (that site in itself has an interesting story) - she said she was writing a story about Santa Barbara’s plans for commuter rail and Union Pacific and wanted to use one of my pictures on their site. I said, sure, go ahead, and this is the result.
However, the real story is what she says in her article (Commuter Rail to Santa Barbara Faces “Huge Obstacles”): Santa Barbara would like to set up a commuter rail service to Ventura County (Oxnard), but Union Pacific does not want to allow this without double-tracking the line. In fact, they said “Commuter trains on the single-track section between the San Fernando Valley and San Jose might degrade the freight service that Union Pacific is committed to.” Did you notice that? Not “between the San Fernando Valley and Santa Barbara“, no, they said “between the San Fernando Valley and San Jose“. So not only do they not want any new passenger rail service to Santa Barbara, they do not want any new service on the whole Coast Line!
Over the past week, there has been quite a lot of press and also comments by otherbloggers about this new speed record. Here are a couple additional notes/comments.
Peet (in German) points to the one video clip that is the most interesting in his view, i.e. this one here. Looks like it is a direct reproduction of the onboard recording - with no added commentary by a TV reporter or some such. You can however hear the audio from the onboard intercom, i.e. between the driver and the laboratory, etc.
Philippe Herisse gives an interesting eye-witness account on his blog (in French). Philippe is an engineer with SNCF and writes articles for the French publisher La Vie du Rail. He was onboard the record-setting train.
Alstom/RFF/SNCF have set up an official site to document the record.
Somebody posted a curve showing elapsed time/distance vs. speed on the French forum “Trains en Voyage” - see this thread here (in French, registration required). Quite interesting …
Also, this record seems to have revived interest in high speed rail in California - it probably created more public and press attention for the ailing California High Speed Rail project than years of rail advocacy. Maybe we should all thank the French for inviting those lawmakers… Hmm, I wonder whether it was a coincidence that this record attempt took place in the same week as the California legislature’s spring break … After all, the CAHSR project potentially represents big business for Alstom.
With all the articles that appeared in the press, I noticed one thing: what’s it with this animosity towards the French? I often saw phrases similar to “… the French of all people …” used when talking about this record. Why would that be so surprising? Or is it just that Americans don’t like the French? I can see why the Germans would be jealous, but why should America care?
Then there was the usual Maglev vs. HSR debate: Maglev supporters were quick to point out that the Maglev record hasn’t quite been beaten (nobody claimed it was). Just to make it clear - I’m not a big fan of Maglev. Sure, it sounds interesting and is certainly intriguing from a technology point of view, but to me, it seems that Maglev is still very far from being a proven technology. Conventional High Speed Rail is proven technology, in use in multiple countries with thousands of miles of track in service and multiple manufacturers of equipment, etc. HSR today can basically be considered as being available off the shelf - just call Alstom or Siemens (or Bombardier/Talgo) and ask for a quote. Also, HSR is compatible with existing rail lines, Maglev is not (admittedly, this is less the case here in the US than in Europe, since most US rail lines are not already electrified. But that’s a minor point, compared with the fact that Maglev is a completely separate system).
Came across this page today while searching for old SP Passenger train timetable information - quite interesting to see what rail passenger service was like in California 50 years ago …
I’m working on a little scheduling exercise and am looking for approximate schedules of the BNSF hotshot intermodal trains (UPS) over Tehachapi pass (especially, departure/arrival times at Bakersfield and Mojave). Does anyone happen to have an idea or can maybe point me to a page that has that info? I googled it, but couldn’t find anything … Thanks.
According to a report published by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (of the California State Assembly) was one of the selected few passengers aboard the record setting TGV earlier today. She was visiting France together with a delegation of California Legislators led by Assembly Speaker Nunez, but was the only one actually aboard the train.
Ma was among a handful of handpicked passengers on the V150 that set a new bullet train speed record by hitting 357.2 mph. The previous record was 320.2 mph set in 1990.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has published a promotional video on their website that touts the benefits of a High Speed Rail system - I hope this will help to get this into people’s minds - there is a limit to how many freeway lanes one can practically build and at some point, one has to look for other possible solutions for the transportation problems. I don’t know about you guys, but Downtown Los Angeles to Downtown San Francisco in just a bit over 2 1/2 hours sounds pretty damned good to me …
This video describes the HST project and includes state-of-the-art 3-D computer simulations illustrating how high-speed trains will fit into California’s landscape and how the system will be integrated with existing transportation systems.
More information and also a higher resolution version of the video is available on their website.
Start thinking about how you can make sure that this year’s state budget ensures that the high speed rail project keeps moving forward. I’d like to see the train finally make it into the station someday.
Wait, don’t look - did you know where it is, the oldest passenger railroad station in California?
This is California Registered Historical Landmark No. 955 and it is listed here:
“NO. 955 MENLO PARK RAILROAD STATION - This building, constructed in 1867 by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad Company, is the oldest railroad passenger station in California. The Victorian ornamentation was added in the 1890s when the station was remodeled to serve the newly-opened Stanford University. The extension on the northwest was added to accommodate increased traffic generated by the establishment of Camp Fremont nearby during World War I.
Location: 1100 Merrill Ave, Menlo Park”
It looks like it has been a bad week for Capitol Corridor riders, due to the fact that Union Pacific had to undertake some urgent bridge replacement work on that route. Here are a couple extract from Gene Skoropowski’s “Message to Riders“:
Then the bottom fell out of the plan. Union Pacific engineering forces discovered major deterioration of two bridges in the middle of the planned tie renewal work area. (…) So, this week, UP bridge forces undertook a major effort to get the bridges replaced. (…) Due to the ongoing bridge replacement, this week has been a colossal mess, especially on the later morning trains and the early afternoon trains. Throw in a few signal problems, a drawbridge opening or two, a couple of vehicles and assorted debris intentionally placed on the tracks, a freight train with a crew that reached its legal ‘hours-of-service’ limit (federal law says the freight train stops when the crew uses up their allotted work hours, and the train then sits on the track until a relief crew can be found and sent out by van, taxi …or helicopter…!!) and we have the basic ingredients for the collapse of service.
I am really amazed by all this. I mean, seriously: do bridges just suddenly go bad from one day to the next (short of something like a washout)? Aren’t they (Union Pacific - they own the track) doing some sort of ongoing maintenance and checks on their trackwork? Shouldn’t they detect issues like that early on? And also, how can a crew just ‘die’ on the road? Shouldn’t the dispatchers, etc. know about this? Wouldn’t it be way more efficient to run all trains in a scheduled manner? They’d be much more predictable that way.
This almost seems like an impossible task for Amtrak and the Capitol Corridor folks: they are trying to run a frequent, scheduled, reliable service, but they have to do that in an environment that is completely unstructured (it appears), unscheduled, unmaintained and thus unreliable.
I also wonder if Amtrak and/or the State of California receives some kind of compensation (at the very least refunds of track usage fees, better would be some kind of money to reimburse for damages) in cases like this? I mean there must be a contract in place that has certain incentives for Union Pacific not to let this happen … I’d be very curious to see this contract …
