San Jose is striving to redesign and expand its Cahill Street station, named for the (still living) former Santa Clara County board of supervisors chair Rod Diridon, to meet the needs of future rail service including BART and high-speed rail. The station's context was discussed here in 2017.
The process led by the Joint Policy Advisory Board, made up of representatives from the city and relevant transportation agencies, has now reached the key juncture of presenting a small number of alternatives to the public. Before we dig into this, let's pause to consider an alternate plan.
The HSR Environmentally Cleared Project
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| This design is already environmentally cleared. |
The Diridon JPAB Alternatives
In any public alternative evaluation process, it is important to carry a sacrificial alternative. This serves the same role as an unlikable character in a movie, whose demise is heavily foreshadowed and brings relief to the viewer when it occurs. The sacrificial alternative can be eliminated in an overt display of due diligence, reassuring the public that the authorities are being thrifty and mindful of the interests of riders and taxpayers. In this case, the "stacked" alternative seems to serve this purpose, and warrants no further discussion because it will shortly be eliminated.
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| Note similarity of elevated and at-grade options. |
Things to Watch For
The effectiveness of a station modernization project should be measured by its operational efficiency. The primary focus should be on shaving seconds off travel times, to include:
- Removing slow zones in the station approaches. On the north side, this means removing the CEMOF double reverse curve, a self-inflicted obstacle added in 2005 that limits all trains to 40 mph over a mile before the station. Main tracks MT2 and MT3 should be restored to their former alignment on the west side of the maintenance facility, with a flatter curve allowing trains to pass the facility at higher speeds. On the south side, this means greatly increasing the speed limit between San Jose and Tamien, currently just 35 mph, and providing at least two electrified tracks.
- Re-configuring the layout of north and south station interlockings (a.k.a. "station throats") to enable swift and parallel train moves into and out of the station, on turnouts rated for much higher speeds than 15 mph of the current layout. Nobody in Europe or Asia would accept a train crawling slowly along a platform while dinging insistently; trains arrive and depart swiftly and quietly.
- Ensuring that all Caltrain traffic will shoot through on just two platform tracks and one island platform. Despite the "south terminal" school of thought still prevalent at Caltrain headquarters, San Jose Diridon should become just another intermediate stop on the way to further destinations in the greatly under-served but densely populated southern parts of the city, which the BART-fixated county agency seems to have completely forgotten about. A great way to sell this extension would be as a "South San Jose to BART Regional Connector Project." Cutting Caltrain's footprint to just two tracks and one island platform will free up ample space for other operators.
- Providing excellent vertical circulation, which means short vertical circulation. This is one benefit of putting the concourse under the tracks: people are shorter than trains. Architects should resist the urge to make the ceilings in the passenger concourse vault too high because this needlessly extends the reach of stairs, escalators and elevators. Likewise, structural engineers should resist the urge to put the tracks on top of enormous concrete box girders. The early concept renderings show 15-foot ceilings with 9-foot structure depth, while 12-foot ceilings and 3-foot structure depth (using through-girders) would bring the entire structure 9 feet down. This saves every single passenger ten seconds of vertical transport, worth an hour per year for each commuter! Don't go for drama, go for ruthless efficiency: form must follow function.
- Providing a straight-shot escalator / elevator ride from the north end of the Caltrain platform to the west end of the underground BART platform. This simple shortest-path connection avoids a long and circuitous walking detour through the main BART entrance, located outside and east of the station footprint. Please don't let agency turf lead to lengthy and confusing transfers.
The unifying theme here is to save passengers time, whether on the train or in the station. Every second of the San Jose travel experience matters. A counter-intuitive fact about high-speed rail is that the best way to save time is to relentlessly focus on speeding up the slowest bits, like station approaches and escalator rides. In terms of capital costs, those are by far the cheapest seconds to save. California has already committed to the enormous expense of building a 220 mph system, and San Jose is not the place to wastefully undo those hard-won time savings.
If operational efficiencies are not realized in San Jose, and the opportunity to bring the station into the 21st century is not captured, then we'll end up with a new multi-billion dollar train basement that does little to improve regional transportation.
just incredible amounts of time and money being wasted in san jose, fantastic excess. Boris Yeltsin's heart would simply burst. san jose politicians should first confront the idea that there is too much surplus labor to go around and then rid us all of themselves and head directly to the nearest field to pick garlic. build the cleared project, next please.
ReplyDeleteOn a related topic, they seem to be fading on the idea of a "San Jose International Airport to BART Regional Connector." Maybe because no one branded it with that name.
ReplyDeletehttps://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-officials-question-feasibility-cost-of-autonomous-transit-airport-connector-sjc-diridon-train-station/
A fixed-link contraption to Mineta International will have a fraction of the ridership that the BART-OAK contraption currently has.
DeleteThank you, thank you, thank you for telling more and hopefully informing part of that vast herd who doesn't know a lot already known about the Diridon follies.
ReplyDeleteThe connector that AG refers to is easily met with a people mover, albeit along a distance of just over 3 miles (or a 5 km run), and it has been said already that it could have one to a few intermediate stops along the way to serve whatever is actually built there, if anything, to give such a system more value to more people. Don't even count on that. Meanwhile, it's nothing some short rides in cars or as has been noted, simply changing and adding buses by VTA (that great organization) is much cheaper.
It's amusing to see some in charge suddenly become aware of "concerns" with their little junior gadget-bahn, complete with a dedicated lane provided for it.
Now if only the feds, whom the VTA is begging for money again while placed so cleverly at the Santa Clara end of its tunnel, tell VTA that Diridon should be the end instead. Or if the feds just say no. Why isn't Sacramento solicited?
Then there's the PR marketing-manipulation and another San Jose blunder:
ReplyDeleteIn any public alternative evaluation process, it is important to carry a sacrificial alternative. This serves the same role as an unlikable character in a movie, whose demise is heavily foreshadowed and brings relief to the viewer when it occurs. The sacrificial alternative can be eliminated in an overt display of due diligence, reassuring the public that the authorities are being thrifty and mindful of the interests of riders and taxpayers.
Who says a "lite" variation on straw man argumentation, fallacious as it is, doesn't work on many, as with other logical fallacies, more than ever lately?
Remember, too, this tactic isn't limited to early in a project, but is also a way to save a project that otherwise looks doomed, can even be held in reserve for that.
However, San Jose had the chance to do this with the stupid and wasteful single-bore tunnel design with deep stations, replacing it with the conventional tunnel and related station designs used elsewhere by BART already, that sane persons expected. But it didn't do this. Big egos actually wanted big tunnel and big stations to assuage that small-city complex of theirs, as with wanting a subway service, period.
Thanks for this post.
ReplyDeleteA few comments:
Note that the graph showing expected passenger flows interchanging between different modes have the highest number for HSR-BART but that is showed with a narrower thingie than the second highest number.
Re the airport link: The hot take is that the airport should be moved. Place it anywhere near the existing rail line south of San José, at a place with almost no population. This would make it easy to run Caltrain trains terminating at the airport. Possibly even run some sort of shuttle. The current airport location seems to be a place with really high land value (if it weren't for the airport itself...) and would be a great place for mixed use high density urbanism/walkability development. I bet the income from selling of land where the existing airport is would be larger than the cost of moving the airport including land acquisition and also building a rail station. The best choice would be to build the airport so that a rail station could be integrated in the large passenger hall, with the hall built on top of or under the existing rail line. (Box in the cargo line so any diesel exhaust isn't emitted into the passenger space).
Re the alternatives: It's weird that the HSR already approved alternative isn't in as an "alternative zero", i.e. the "do nothing" alternative.
I think it's weird to not provide both tunnels and bridges to connect to the tracks given that it's a large station. They have their pros and cons, and especially simple cheap bridges aren't that expensive to build while anyway building a station.
Re time to change trains: The "villain", stacked tracks, would of course be fastest if the tracks are stacked in an efficient way. (The most efficient is if the upper and lower level are at an angle making it possible to have a single stair between each combination of upper and lower level platform, but this isn't possible here).
Also: I think that they should consider rerouting the VTA to have an underground station perpendicular to the rail tracks. A great layout would be to have two tunnels under the rail tracks, where both acts as concourses but also as platforms for VTA and the proposed BART extension. (Admittedly a problem is that BART has ticket barriers, and in this case a super long ticket line with gates spread out along the full platform length would be required, and a separate set would be needed for each track/platform edge. IMHO it would still be an improvement).
Also tunnels make way more sense if they contain spaces to rent out to shops, fast food places and whatnot. Rent income from such spaces could pay for a part of the operational cost.
Also: A separate pedestrian+bicycle tunnel, connecting without stairs at each end, would be a great addition. Have stairs to the platforms on one side of the tunnel, and put small barriers to stop pedestrians from veering off into the bicycle part of the tunnel, but keep the barrier low enough that anyone can jump over it (or climb through it).
First - I agree on moving the CEMOF - they need to relocate it and I think the ideal site would be roughly the Stevens Creek Quarry / San Jose Flea Market site which is next to the Capitol stop, which would have the dual purpose of also increasing service in that area of South San San Jose. This aligns with your point about keeping San Jose as a through-running station. Buying up enough land for storage for ACE/Capitol Corridor and maybe a few HSR trains would also be a prudent move here instead of the weird tail tracks at Tamien.
ReplyDeleteSecond - good point about people -under- the tracks. They should raise the tracks (not significantly) but enough for a nice concourse underneath with short escalators, etc and improve circulation through and across the station. This would also have the advantage of bringing Santa Clara Street to a more reasonable grade to improve station access and walkability. The elevated vs at grade options are nearly identical - they could really just dig out more space under the platforms, raise the tracks 5-10 more feet, raise Santa Clara a bit, and the station would be perfect IMO.
One addition to consider: how would the station design or alignment affect points south, especially when considering speed? I know there were a few ideas floated to raise the tracks over 280 & 87, grade separating Auzerais and West Virginia street but I'm not sure how to unfuck the alignment between Tamien and Diridon without costing a stupid amount of money!
If you're referring to the high-speed trains wrongly diverted from a good Altamont route to San Jose, then worse, run south to Gilroy on a route to Pacheco Pass to force trains through San Jose:
DeleteSouth of San Jose there is no separate high-speed rail segment planned any longer. For six years now the high-speed trains will use the same Caltrain tracks as is to be done between San Jose and San Francisco. 110 mph is (ever so optimistically) foreseen.
It's shown in the first part of this lovely inspirational video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt_WBGupfaA
Glad that the sensible option to just leave the tracks alone for another day survived.
DeleteInstead, spend your money on making it a pleasant place for passengers. Over the last few decades, the designs of airports and new trains stations have converged into a similar feel spread across restaurants, concessions, and ticket areas. Brightline figured that their airy, clean, but efficient station, and building such things is easier if you're going above ground, as your ceiling height is pretty much unlimited.
Isn't one of the rules of this blog to not talk about Altamont??? Hahah I think maybe best not to relitigate it, and for what it's worth, ValleyLink just may be a backdoor into getting Altamont done, we'll see.
DeleteAlso I'm not sure that exact alignment and exact video is entirely accurate, and that video is from 2 years ago. For example - San Jose just got money for grade separations for the Branham and Chynoweth crossings, so that part will be different. There's also been chatter along with this new station about figuring out grade separations for West Virginia street and Auzerais street.
From what I know, there are negotiations ongoing right now between UP, Caltrain, and CAHSR, and they're likely to use the same corridor, but with a retaining wall between the two Caltrain/HSR tracks and the one UP track, like they have for the Central Valley sections.
What's more - grade separations are typically the responsibility of the city, so for the points south of San Jose, it would be up to Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy to grade separate their tracks.
My guess is that once the negotiations complete between UP, Caltrain, and CAHSR, we will have a better picture of what will happen. Taking a look at the corridor between Capitol and Gilroy, it is extremely straight and probably can support at least 150mph as is, meaning the only thing they'd really need to do once the cities do grade separation is put up catenary and fencing. Doing some back of the envelope math, upgrading the corridor from Tamien or Capitol south to the Gilroy station for 160-220mph operation would save about 10-15 minutes off the overall time between SF and LA. LucidStew on YouTube has estimated this to cost about $10B, but if the cities, state, feds, plus CAHSR share the cost, that's very doable if you have a phased strategy (e.g., work from Gilroy northward over 10 years).
If they can fully grade separate the peninsula and have it at mostly 125mph, which should happen at some point, that saves another 10-15 minutes giving us a time savings of about 20 minutes. This could then be a superior alternative to Altamont because as soon as trains get past Tamien, they can hit 125mph, then 220 past Capitol all the way through Pacheco (sorry to relitigate Altamont lol).
Martin: Underground spaces / tunnels can be pleasant too.
DeleteUnfortunately it seems way too common to clad the walls with tiles that make everything look like a worn down public restroom, that someone pressure washes every now and then to keep the worst grime out.
I agree though that it's a good idea to spend some money on making a station pleasant and functional. The next opportunity to do so will most likely never happen while any of us are still alive.
I had to do a double-take when I saw "CEMOF relocation" on one of the pages!!!
ReplyDeleteSeems like with level boarding at 4', the difference in the number of stairs climbed for an overpass vs underpass option isn't as great anymore.
1. Moving the CEMOF to the San Jose area might help address the city of Brisbane's complaint and caution that the Bayshore site is an old, pre-modern garbage dump with who knows what layered underneath it, and not "empty land." It may also give them a little more flexibility to deal with settling, so that the storage yard there doesn't end up undulating like adjacent Tunnel Road, or the raggedy tracks that Caltrain started their EMU testing on. 2. San Jose' renderings of how they propose to integrate the new station with the old one don't fly with me. Lower the entry a story, cut a hole in the old floor, and you preserve the old waiting room with no sense of proportion or dignity; like looking up from the Ferry Building food court with the old, grand waiting hall reduced to balconies. Face the new entry in fieldstone and it looks like a Cheesecake Factory, or a Bass Pro.
ReplyDeleteLooking at these renders, am I correct that there is STILL no provision for Caltrain level boarding ever??
ReplyDeleteOh and they're expecting 12 Caltrain and 4 HSR per hour at peak... are they unaware of the DB study that found 12 total is the max if Salesfarce is a pure terminal? Or are they counting on Link21 being done before either Caltrain scales up that much or HSR exists at all? What gives?
DeletePlatform height decisions would likely not be within the scope of this? I.E. they would build the station in a way that allows for increasing the height in the future.
DeleteI for sure think it's one of the stupidest things ever in the history of humanity that Caltrain doesn't have level boarding.
Re capacity - it would be a bad idea to not build this station to cope with any forseable future capacity northwards.
Great that you mentions capacity though. I didn't think about that initially, just assumed that they had made a correct calculation. Here are my thoughts:
Given that most trains will be through running, I think the number of platforms is excessive. Two platform tracks in each direction for Caltrain and 12 trains per hour means that the trains can have a dwell time of almost 10 minutes each.
4 HSR trains per hour in each direction, with one and a half platform (one shared for both directions) allows for almost 20 minutes dwell time.
Had this been a station in Europe there would had been six platform tracks in total. Two for Caltrain, two for HSR, and two for ACE and Amtrak. Caltrain and HSR would share platforms, one platform for each direction, to make it easy to travel between the Caltrains stations north of San Jose and the HSR. ACE and Amtrak would require changing platforms.
Given that afaik there are no planned different stopping pattern services for Caltrain south of San Jose there is no need for four platform tracks as there is no need for faster trains to be able to overtake slower trains.
The configuration with a third HSR platform track might be usable though in a future scenario where the tracks north of San Jose is at capacity while HSR of course would have capacity left, and that third platform allows some HSR trains to terminate/reverse at San Jose. (With HSR I refer to all trains running on the HSR line, no matter what speed / stopping pattern it has. A train that terminates at San Jose would probably be a train that stops at all stations along the HSR line and possibly don't go all the way to LA).
What are their intentions with all those platform tracks? I would say that 2-3 minutes for Caltrain and 5 minutes for HSR are reasonable times. Amtrak might need way more time as I assume that those trains have a quite ineffective door arrangement in this regard, as they are "older-school" long distance trains. Don't know what frequency ACE has and what dwell times are reasonable.
Yeah, I guess they gesture at platform height changeability by depicting the filled-in area under the high tracks in a lighter color. Hopefully it would actually be built that way.
DeleteAgreed that they should build for reasonably foreseeable future traffic. But I wouldn't be surprised if they just don't know that Caltrain+HSR together will never exceed 12 unless/until Link21 gets built...
Definitely, the number of platform tracks is excessive in any scenario, as nothing should ever lay over here except maybe ACE. Or HSR in an Altamont world! (still, why not run those out to a yard to the south?) I think you're right about six tracks. Or at most 7-8 as a contingency. 11 is ridiculous and reflects stone-age operational planning.
I think terminating additional HSR at San Jose (an idea they've kicked around before due to Salesforce dumpster fire) should be avoided at all costs. Link21 would fix this. Altamont-Dublin-Link21 would fix it better (and make literally everything else better).
Even the straight-outta-the-1800s Coast Starlight only timetables 8 minutes at Diridon! There really is no excuse for all these platform tracks.
Thinking about it a bit more, if we kind of see it as a matter of milking out as much money as possible, and any money saved on the station build won't go to anything else transit related, it might be a good idea to have an overbuilt station after all.
DeleteMy idea of HSR trains terminating at San Jose would be additional trains that would otherwise not run at all (due to there being no more capacity north of San Jose).
On the other hand, if we look long term, electrification northeastwards would make it possible to divert future additional HSR (and Caltrain?) services to where ACE+Amtrak currently runs. That is in a long distant future but well within the possibilities of the lifespan of however the San Jose station would be rebuilt.
So it might be a good idea to build it with enough platforms to both support what Link 21 can handle and also about the same amount of trains towards the current ACE/Amtrak route.
@Bryan: there is currently no evidence that Caltrain understands its pressing need for level boarding. Studying this seems to be a job given to a summer intern. If you parse their actions (not their words) they seem to think that they can "brute force" their way to a 75-minute all stops local timing from SF to SJ without doing anything about the stations. We'll see in a few months how that pans out in practice; I have my doubts that they can pull it off reliably especially in the rainy season.
DeleteSide track: If only some authority were more, eh, authoritarian re level boarding.
DeleteIn particular it would probably be great if someone like the FRA and/or CalDOT just decides that whoever of Caltrain, ACE, Metrolink, Cali HSR or maybe Brightline West orders new trains with level boarding first gets to decide the standard for platform height and distance from the center of the tracks, kind of, and everyone else in Cali has to follow whatever the standard ends up being :)
@MiaM:
DeleteThe money saved on the station probably would go to other transit projects, as it would mostly come from some combination of transit-specific state/federal grant programs and transit-specific local taxes.
Capitol Corridor's (unfunded) wish list does include electrification and route improvement, so I like the idea of sending any additional HSR to Oakland which can't fit in Salesforce in a non-Link21 future. Definitely better than terminating in San Jose.
The level boarding standard should've been 48 inches, same as the east coast (for rolling stock economies of scale), but now Caltrain has these bilevels with doors at 51 inches (I think), so CAHSR and Brightline need to match that.
@Clem:
Yeah, it will be something to see if they really try to commit to 75 minutes. The fact that they still haven't announced a full timetable makes me think probably not.
The number of platforms feels just right to me. Remember, that for southbound Caltrain, Capitol Corridor, and ACE service, the standard deviation of the arrival time will be highest in San Jose, so while the signaling system might allow a train to arrive every 2-3 mins, the train might need more time to unload, clean, and load passengers to prevent delays from cascading into the next departure. I find it annoying to wait on the plane for the gate to clear, and it's no different waiting on a train for the same reason.
DeleteThere might be a similar variance for northbound HSR trains, so ensuring available platforms will prevent HSR for causing delays to Caltrain and vice versa.
Lastly, more platforms allows for Clock-face Timetables to work better, as it permits a train to hold a few extra minutes to give enough time for passengers arriving from a slightly delayed train.
Similarly
@Bryan: Re. "Altamont-Dublin-Link21" and obvious improvement to plans as-is for HSR, that's not Altamont with Valley Link but Altamont with a new tunnel and likely more route changes. Both the current Altamont Pass and Niles Canyon passages are old (and Valley Link through Altamont, truly old) and winding, very slow. A new tunnel or tunnels in the Altamont Pass area and additional route work are in order (to connect better to Dumbarton as well as to Oakland). In the early 2000s, Quantm was put to work by the HSR folks to find routes over the southern mountains plus near San Jose and over Pacheco Pass, but Altamont routes were conspicuously excluded. The state needs to follow up on SETEC to get more route candidates found for Oakland as well as toward Fremont, to use Dumbarton and Redwood City. [scowling] Even San Jose could be included, but a San Jose northern terminus is worse than running all trains through there.
DeleteYou may recognize Quantm to this day in HSR documents for the Bakersfleld-Palmdale section. Its use wasn't limited to testing it and initial route considerations, including (yes) the 31-mile base tunnel from San Jose.
Look here, for example:
https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/BP_Final_EIRS_Vol_1_CH_2_Alternatives.pdf
Bryan:
DeleteThanks for the clarification on where the money would likely otherwise go.
Also, given that a full quad tracking SJ-Salesforce seems to not happen within a foreseeable future, I would think that the HSR line south of SJ would still have more capacity than the line towards Salesforce even if Link21 gets built, so even with Link 21 built some trains could still be sent to Oakland.
It's unfortunate that trains have to be cleaned, toilet sewage emptied, water filled and whatnot, otherwise HSR trains could even run (HSR route-)SJ-Salesforce-Oakland-SJ(-HSR route) and vice versa. In practice that would likely not be a good idea. However with electrified tracks it would seem more reasonable to run a local/regional train (combination of Caltrain and whichever agency seems appropriate on the east side of the bay).
Btw, re "whichever agency..." I wounder if it might be a good idea to combine a bunch of agencies/train systems in the area? "Norcaltrain" for all local/regional trains?
Martin: I had assumed that the idea was that most Caltrain trains would terminate and reverse south of SJ?
In general if there is space (both time table wise on the rail line, and physical space to build a station to terminate trains) it is most likely better to do that at some place out in the boonies rather than in a central area. Less people intend on getting on/off at the termination station, and the few who missed their exit could even just remain in the train while it's being cleaned and whatnot, and continue back to where they intended to get off.
Thinking about this a bit more, maybe the "villain" isn't the worst alternative after all?
DeleteWith two routes northwards, the "Caltrain" route and the ACE/Amtrak route, there is a need for flyovers to have full efficiency. Those flyovers could just aswell be part of a two level station.
Also: With as much space taken up for roads, IMHO it's reasonable to at least reserve space for 8-9 tracks northwards from SJ. I.E. quad track to the "Caltrain" route, quad track to the "ACE+Amtrak" route, and a separate track for cargo trains.
That many tracks would absolutely not be necessary any time soon, but planning for the future is a good idea and it's a great idea to not have to rebuild the station yet again and/or build more infrastructure elsewhere if it can be avoided.
Also: If the positive trend for public transit continues, it might be reasonable to have increased frequency on the Amtrak/Zephyr route, which in turn creates more demand at SJ.
The only distant-future-question is what possibilities are there to increase the capacity between SJ and Gilroy?
I agree that they should think about consolidation of CAHSR/San Joaquins/Capitol Corridor and split some trains from San Jose to Oakland and maybe there on to Sacramento. You could run this in reverse, too - Sacramento - Oakland - San Jose - Pacheco - Bakersfield. It all depends on electrification, and if CAHSR will allow other types of trains on their tracks. If they allow the newer San Joaquins (Chargers) on CAHSR tracks, you could even have trains that go from Bakersfield on the HSR tracks to San Jose, then Oakland to Sacramento or Sacramento - Merced - Bakersfield without a transfer at 125mph. You could also run a consist with a dual mode locomotive or a Charger + electric loco. I'd also seriously consider some sort of split in the train after Oakland - half go to Sacramento, half go the San Joaquins route to Merced, and potentially run on the CAHSR tracks.
DeleteHopefully, the state and different agencies can seriously consider purchasing tracks and lines from the freight railroads - e.g., the Coast Subdivision in the East Bay, the current Capitol Corridor route and move freight to that disused rail line to Sacramento, the SJ - Gilroy segment, etc. If they can purchase enough trackage and move freight to other lines, they may be able to run CAHSR trains across the entire Northern CA megaregion + the Central Valley, connecting Sacramento, Oakland, SF, SJ, Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, etc and even Salinas all much sooner, then the HSR authority would only need to slowly upgrade the tracks over time to meet the Phase 2 goals. Having some additional initial service would also help build ridership and political support - the train would actually make it to the Bay Area!
I would also hope that Metrolink is seriously thinking about upgrading the Antelope line and the rest of their lines that they totally own to electrifed so that once CAHSR and Brightline West gets to Palmdale via Techachpi and via the High Desert Corridor, we have a (slower) one stop ride between all of the large cities in California except for San Diego. If LOSSAN electrifies and builds tunnels to get off the coast line, then CAHSR could through-run also. While it'd be an hour or two slower, it'd also build political support for the base tunnels, new alignments, etc.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if local agencies and the state start seriously investing in purchasing track and upgrading it, we could have 75% of the CAHSR network for 25% of the cost but at 50% of the speed. That'd be a great place to start IMO because the end goal is a broader consolidation of the rail network (from a customer perspective).
Related to that - SJ and Gilroy is honestly very low-hanging fruit if the state is serious about HSR. That section of track is not used very much for freight and even at maximum service levels, SJ-Gilroy would still not see very much Caltrain traffic. The line is largely straight and could support very fast speeds - 125mph to 220mph if grade separation and electrification are done. That'd be roughly a 15 minute time savings (220mph = 12m; 185mph = 12m; 125mph = 19 minutes; 110mph = 21 minutes; 79mph = 30m). That would give us a super-express time of as fast as 2h15m between SF and LA. This 15 minute time savings for purchase or agreement for the ROW, electrification, doubletracking, and grade separations would likely pencil out as to be worth it if done incrementally, especially when the cities are leading efforts. The majority of the problematic grade separations are immediately around the Morgan Hill and Gilroy stations which will be grade separated anyways for high future service levels from CAHSR. The corridor would just need a few passing segments, and pass mostly at stations for when Caltrain stops at Morgan Hill.San Martin/Gilroy. I'd say they should start with electrified 110mph quad gate operation, but add in grade separations over time and slowly raise the speeds because more and more of the line would be entirely sealed.
One addition to splitting CAHSR to Oakland - this plan should probably also be looked at again: https://www.bayrailalliance.org/caltrain_metro_east/
DeleteThere just are not enough accidents or bottlenecks between Gilroy and San Jose to warrant more improvements at the level that's happening north of San Jose. You probably only need to build one more grade separation south of San Jose to Hwy 85, as the remaining can be closed due to close proximity to full grade separations and that will give you 125 mph speeds for part of the way to Gilroy.
DeleteYou'd certainly want quad-gates on all those crossing, do some extra grading so that semi-trailers do not bottom out and get stuck, and close many of them.
Does anyone know how long a grade separated railway segment need to be for 125 mph operation to be allowed? It's about 8 miles between Diridon and Sunnyvale where the first at grade crossin.
Other Anonymous July 10 and Martin --
DeleteAside from failure to proceed with grade separation and more capacity (to add at least a third through track) along the Peninsula "to support high-speed rail service operations," the downgrading of SF-Gilroy from high-speed support to today's conventional, or slow intended Peninsula extension service as of the 2018 business plan was an indication not only of cost-cutting but perhaps of cannibalizing local-regional slower service to support faster trains elsewhere.
Realize, though, first that what could be done with SF-Gilroy includes not only now but later, when it is more developed, same as with any Altamont route that would go through Tracy or Manteca to a wye with the trunk route, outside the Bay Area, but in the developed and developing eastern part of the region that also would see regional service and Sacramento-oriented service.
Meanwhile, SF-Gilroy south of Coyote Valley is likely to be more developed eventually with housing, notably around Gilroy, but not limited to it where we already anticipate more warehouses. Where it is developed it's likely to see trains limited to around 125 mph, though it might be raised somewhat, despite grade separation being required only for speeds in excess of 125 mph now.
Expect most trains not to be express or limited-stop trains but serve more when not all stations, including Gilroy. How long not just in time but also with distance does it take to accelerate and also to decelerate normally for even the fastest trains? Realize it's only about thirty miles between San Jose and Gilroy.
That's where the last problem is. More trains interfere with existing crossings south of as well as north of San Jose, Morgan Hill people particularly have concerns, and crossing closures are out of the question ordinarily. Just as it is cavalier to expect bicycles to go a mile or more out of the way, each way, to get somewhere, it's similarly so to expect motorists to accept fifteen miles or more. In fact, where the high-speed line is being built, one gripe there is the much greater distance needed now to get from one part of farm properties to another.
Anonymous:
DeleteThe downside of running trains through existing rails between the initial HSR central valley part and both SF and LA is that in the mind of the general population the cost-benefit of actually building the relatively expensive HSR lines "Merced"-Gilroy and Palmdale-LA decreases.
Also even though the risk is really low I think it's a bad idea to run trains on HSR lines with diesel fuel on board (or for that sake any other material with a high enough heat energy when combusted, i.e. hydrogen thingies and whatnot). I've already mention it in some comment on this blog, but a repeat of the Santiago de Compostela disaster (in Spain) would be very bad PR for rail in general and HSR in particular.
I agree that Gilroy - SJ is a low hanging fruit. Could it be a situation where all three of HSR, Caltrain and Amtrak, and maybe also UP, tries to wait until one of the other decides to spend the money needed?
Re buying the private owned freight railways: Is it technically possible/legal for the state of California to impose a tax on private owned railways so that they for sure will go bankrupt? If so that possibility should be explored as a means of buying the lines for a good price.
y'all I'm begging you to just pick a silly nickname or something instead of being the 10th anonymous on the thread
Delete@Martin: I don't think there's any need for Caltrain/regional trains, or even HSR, to stop at San Jose for that long. Cleaning for Caltrain/regional should be done at a base of operations somewhere to the south (Lick Quarry? Past Blossom Hill? Idk but not on this valuable platform space). HSR northbound similarly will continue onward and not stop here for longer than needed.
Swiss-style clockface timetables with long dwells are crucial when you have a saturated network with many branches (so no one service can have really high frequency), but here there are not that many directions to go. Frequency is the answer, not long dwells on a ton of platforms.
@Anonymous July 9: by "Altamon-Dublin-Link21" I mean a new Altamont tunnel, an arrow-straight shot through the Tri-Valley along the freeway ROW (whether on the north side, south side, or median) where train noise is dwarfed by the freeway so you can go fast, almost certainly a new Dublin Canyon tunnel (could also reuse the BART surface route, but rather not), BART transfer at Bay Fair, approach Oakland on the Niles Subdivision, BART transfer in central Oakland north of Howard Terminal (I believe there's just enough straight-and-flat space on the BART line before the Oakland Wye for a new station), Link21 tunnel to Salesforce, done, never send HSR south of there except maybe the odd off-peak train to Millbrae. That is the fastest, most direct way for HSR to get from the Central Valley to the places where people actually are (city centers of San Francisco and Oakland) and avoids asphyxiating Caltrain with HSR traffic. If this route was chosen, a Dumbarton/San Jose branch via the East Bay could be added later.
@MiaM: I agree that this "loop" pattern would be a very efficient use of the capacity in a Pacheco-Link21 world, effectively doubling HSR capacity to the two places that matter (centers of SF and Oakland) and never terminating in San Jose. Why not figure out how to clean toilets on the fly and resupply at the SoCal end for a round trip? Seems worth exploring at least.
Definitely there should be one electrified regional rail operator for Northern California.
I don't think the two-level station is needed for a flying junction to the East Bay, because the junction is so far away (beyond Santa Clara). Plenty of room to get up and over.
@Anonymous July 10 #1: The fastest way for HSR to do Bay-to-Sacramento is via Altamont. Preferably Link21-Dublin-Altamont. And Bakersfield-to-Sacramento should go direct, via Stockton, never leaving the Central Valley.
HSR to LA via Palmdale without even digging the San Gabriel tunnels is the worst of all possible futures, please please just build Tejon (http://www.tillier.net/stuff/hsr/truth_about_tejon.pdf). Regional service is another story--I agree that buying (by which I mean forcibly taking at fair value, not paying whatever made-up number the railroads say) many regional rail lines is a great idea. That's what Palmdale actually needs: effective regional rail.
Caltrain East was meant as an alternative to BART-to-SJ and thus used the ROW which has now been used by BART. A future East Bay mainline should instead go via an improved Alviso route (floated in Capitol Corridor's vision plan), probably linking up with BART at Union City, Bay Fair, Coliseum/Airport, and downtown Oakland, then Link21 to SF. That would be a really effective express line for the East Bay to supplement BART's local service.
@MiaM: High-speed trains typically can and do "blend" (to use a word used in a groaner way by planners in this state with Caltrain and HSR operations) at each end of inter-city trips. That's an advantage of high-speed rail versus maglev and other things instead, that require their own infrastructure end-to-end, in addition to rail being cheaper than these alternatives, for example. The one assumption that is reasonable to make is that any terminal portion serving HSR will (also) be electrified, which is higher-cost but needed.
DeleteAs for Diesel trains of UPRR, that railroad wants passenger traffic with high-speed rail physically separated along the right-of-way, with a crash barrier. (If you're an HSR fan and/or UPRR cynic, note who is expected to pay for it rather than UPRR.)
It's fitting in the state and many of its communities today, yes, but it's immoral and wrong for the state to force UPRR into bankruptcy to get what the troubled HSR project could use here more or most cheaply, and better metro and regional travel, too, even if neighbor Big Tech is well-known now for low to AWOL morality.
By the way, what happens if many communities in the Central Valley are struck with actual non-stops or skip-stops someday (so far, not on the agenda, to help keep political support stronger) and cities through which the trains run want the trains reduced to 125 mph max for noise control, too? Or for safety in stations?
@Bryan: Manteca wye to Oakland station and Bay crossing site as you identify along the freeway and through Dublin Canyon, yes, and it should have been sought that way from the start of the project in the mid-2000s with earlier work directed at that as an expectation, with regional as well as inter-city scope. Dumbarton could come later and provide even the chance at an occasional loop with stop at Redwood City for proper inclusion of San Jose a more correctly fitting way it should be included.
DeleteUnderstand it would also be used for regional (cross-metro, Bay Area and Sacramento area) traffic as well, much better for commuting and all the rest, and going through developed or later developed places would be speed-limited to control noise as on the Peninsula or south of it later if not now.
An electrified standard-gauge rail crossing of the Bay is long overdue if any kind of transport other than cars is to be addressed seriously. The real problems other than the nature of horrid MTC and the like are found at the San Francisco landing site by Salesforce to connect to the Peninsula route, namely accessing it, the design problems with Salesforce, the connection to the Peninsula line where it is now by whatever name it might be given by that time.
@MiaM:
DeleteLooping or "threading the needle" in the Bay Area, in both directions (clockwise and counter-clockwise) by trains, is possible with a Dumbarton route and a Redwood City stop in addition to a Bay crossing farther north along the main Dublin Canyon route if we were discussing better options than what's being sought now. I suspect more trains would run the main route involving Oakland, which is the center of travel for the Bay Area, while some could serve Redwood City, which serves San Jose well enough and makes much better sense, serves the region (Bay Area-Sacramento) better. Pacheco only serves south of Redwood City better. It would be different including for strategic planning were the Monterey Bay area fully developed into another national-class metro area comparable to San Diego, through Salinas with a modern connection from there to Gilroy. (The alternative connecting route would involve Watsonville.)
Dumbarton and Redwood City? The centroid of the tech "industry" has moved, and the industry effectively "sprawled," from the old Santa Clara-Sunnyvale location when there was real industry in the South Bay including tech manufacturing, to the southern Peninsula best associated with Palo Alto these days. (PAMPA including where execs and owners live)
A larger loop involving San Jose ("around the Bay") should be possible and would serve a larger market, certainly be better. However, San Jose or South Bay interests have militated against Altamont in favor of Pacheco for the northern mountain crossing to force trains through San Jose, despite a new San Jose Altamont rail route serving South Bay commuters and new business as well as typical housing coming to San Jose, be the way to go between San Jose and Sacramento. (Acting against the city's and South Bay's own interests to give priority to a little city complex) The challenge is creating that new local, regional, and potential inter-city Altamont route from and to San Jose, with BART taking some of it already, as it already long ago took what would have supported better passenger rail along the central East Bay route to Oakland. (old WP line)
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/37.4375/-122.0269&layers=T
Anonymous:
DeleteWould a full loop be desirable though?
By that I mean that from a passenger point of view, in a vacuum where you don't have to care about capacity and other things, it would probably be great.
But with a given available capacity Redwood-SF it might be better to use that capacity for HSR and Caltrain trains to SJ, i.e. what the current plan is?
Although if the Dumbarton bridge would be rebuilt and if it would get a junction with flyovers and allowing trains in all three directions it could be possible to both run the "inverted drop" loop via SJ that I suggested and also a criss-cross version of this, where a train starts at SJ, goes to Palo Alto, then via the Dumbarton bridge up to Oakland, then into SF, then Redwood, then the Dumbarton bridge again and finally back to SJ. Of course services would run in both directions. Those who want to "loop" could change at an intermediate station along the Dumbarton bridge route. I doubt that a service like this would really be popular, but it's probably one of those that would get enough usage to warrant running the trains if the infrastructure is already in place. (The other alternative would be to just let a rebuilt Dumbarton bridge route end in Redwood peak hours as the Caltrain route SJ-SF would already be full in peak hours, but maybe let Dumbarton trains continue further on outside peak hours).
Worth at least giving a thought would be to maybe run BART on a rebuilt Dumbarton bridge route, maybe?
Re Pacheco v.s. Altamont:
Seems like HSR is already so far along the decision chain that it might be hard to change things. Also I think that Altamont is too much of a compromise. Not only would HSR trains from LA have to choose between going to SJ or SF if/when Link21 gets built, and before Link21 the SF-LA travel times would be slower than via Pacheco.
Sure, SF-Stockton-Sacramento will be slower via Pacheco than via Altamont, but I think that once HSR is up and running and Caltrain gets it's new electric vehicles the opinion will swing towards rail making it feasible to create another "decent-speed" route SF-Stockton, connecting to the HSR route in Stockton (for continuing to Sacramento).
It's unfortunate that what I assume used to be a rail route was converted to Iron Horse Trail, as that would otherwise had been a great way to link the current Dublin BART route to the current ACE route through Altamont. BART only has one station next to the junction to it's other route, and two stations in Dublin, so replacing this with some sort of "Norcal regional" train route would probably be fine. About 10 miles of the route could really use a straightening with tunnels/bridges or whatnot, but otherwise it's fairly straight.
If we look at what might be possible to get federal funding, how about a HSR line Richmond-Martinez, or maybe rather Oakland-Martinez? That would improve the speed for the Capitol Corridor greatly, and with some further improvement it could reach HSR style speeds Oakland-Sacramento. But also from Martinez the existing San Joaqins route is fairly straight all the way to Stockton, making it suitable for higher speed trains too.
This route would likely be more suitable for federal funding than Altamont as it would improve services both to the northwest and also eastwards across the country. If this option is selected I think that Stockton needs to once and for all have some sort of station consolidation, and I think that would need to at least be planned soon as there are already plans to grade separate the "Stockton diamond". Not sure what would be the best here, but how about move the two current stations to where the diamond is, with platforms both north-south and east-west?
P.S. is the openstreetmap link supposed to show something in particular, or "just" the current train lines and services in general?
@MiaM: The OpenStreetMap link is to a Bay Area image featuring the South Bay, that includes the rail line between Fremont and San Jose through the Mission San Jose area that includes the Warm Springs District that is identified, where the East Bay transitions to the South Bay's eastern side. On it you also can see other things of obvious interest and scrolling or zooming in or out reveals more, which is of use with some questions you have.
DeleteE.g.: If you look at OpenStreetMap you'll see a teeny-weeny wye beside Caltrain near Redwood City, by where Woodside Road meets El Camino Real that's probably not what you're thinking of; elsewhere there is long-standing development in the way of a bigger, more direct leg with a wye by the bridge landing (and Meta) reaching Caltrain by Palo Alto, and no plans to rebuild and widen Willow Road (and remove some homes) that might include it.
Pacheco vs. Altamont is done insofar as the state HSR project is concerned, though if someday there is decent regional service through a new Altamont Pass crossing (not Valley Link that's no better than today's Altamont Pass route -- see OpenStreetMap), it's crazy not to include a San Jose connection, and that's where HSR trains should begin operating sometime if that ever happens, and I'm not thinking only of Sacramento.
Some kind of loop is useful no matter where in the Bay Area to serve more people and that can include San Jose if pulled off correctly. Don't forget local or metro service employing a loop of whatever kind or kinds, too. Were it not for more than one train type it could apply to an expanded BART (ethereally saying) since the Antioch and related area is developing toward Tracy and Mountain House already.
Terrain interferes with HSR Richmond-Martinez-Sacramento and the Franklin Canyon improvement sought doesn't do it, either. A "grand" addition for heavy rail would be a new tunnel and an eastern Contra Costa County connection from Oakland, but good luck with that.
The southern part of the old SP San Ramon line that is now the Iron Horse Trail would have been part of a good connector between the Tri-Valley area and eastern Contra Costa County at Walnut Creek, and it was even on BART maps for a while. The northern part would have been in the center of I-680 (the rail route is west of it, through residential areas; cyclists long have used the existing main road, the old "trunk route" there instead of the rec trail so often) but that's not possible the way it's configured now.
Anonymous:
DeleteI agree that it would be hard to find funding for a tunnel Oakland-Martinez, but on the other hand it seems like the distance Richmond-Martinez is only about 15 miles or so.
Seems like the Capitol Corridor takes about 25 minutes
https://www.capitolcorridor.org/schedules/
while San Joaquins takes 31 minutes
https://d34tiw64n5z4oh.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/JPA17915_TimetableEdits_September_V2.pdf
Maybe the time can be reduced to say 20 minutes with more traction power / faster acceleration with modern electric trains. Sure, including the time Oakland-Richmond makes this section take quite a long time. But I would think that the rest of the lines, both the San Joaquins route and the Capitol Corridor route, can for the most part run at really fast speeds with relatively small upgrades.
TBH these routes seems like a better way to spend money than the HSR phase 2 routes south of LA. Like they seriously suggest HSR to build two separate routes partially due to a NIMBY county won't let the direct path be built.
When CHSRA started detailed planning around 2010, San José insisted that the site of their future ballpark (immediately south of Diridon Station on the east side of the tracks) not be infringed upon AT ALL. Later on, CHSRA looked to place their alignment on a large arc north of Diridon, going through part of the arena parking lot and, to raise speed considerably around CEMOF and into the station. San José said the surface parking at the arena was sacred, even refusing to consider a replacement parking structure for any lost surface parking. Now San José will demand nothing intrude on any part of the Google Village, another project that now looks as likely as the A's moving into a San Jose ballpark.
ReplyDeleteThe site has a lot of potential flexibility that could be used to simplify and expedite construction phasing. But since (capital) money effectively grows on trees around here, it's likely that they don't mind doing it the expensive way with maximal engineering constraints and a longer schedule that "creates more jobs." The SAP parking lots as well as the large industrial warehouses on either side of Cinnabar St seem ripe for redevelopment, and as you point out this presents another way to resolve the approach speed issue to/from the north. The entire station could then be pulled northwards (centered over Santa Clara St) and clocked slightly to the northeast, with the northern throat in the SAP parking lots. This would pull most of their concourse out from the footprint of the existing tracks, greatly simplifying construction phasing.
DeleteBonus: since the station platforms can have as much as 0.25% longitudinal grade (HSR standard, which is more restrictive than Caltrain's), the tracks can rise from their current elevation of 100 feet at San Carlos Ave to 105 feet at Santa Clara Ave, where the current track elevation is 95 feet (the existing station is on a 0.25% downgrade to the north.) This gives a free ten feet of track elevation without causing any issues for existing grade separations. If they don't blow that vertical budget on ten-foot-deep box beam girders for their elevated tracks, there could be room for creative designs.
DeleteHere's a link to someone's copy of the beautiful document produced by the CHSRA working with the City of San José and community groups to define the visual guidelines for the HSR through the entire city. I don't know if it was ever officially released. Scroll to page 36 and you'll see a clear map of a graceful curve north of Diridon Station. Bonus- also includes the wacky inverted horseshoes suspension span over the 280-87 interchange.
Deletehttps://www.wgbackfence.net/temp/HSR_VDG.pdf
@Michael thanks for linking to this document. This seems to mostly about the old plans for an elevated HSR alignment which has now been discarded in favor of a blended approach at grade in the existing rail ROW.
Delete@Clem I think the biggest issue for elevating the north end of the platforms is the grade and vertical curve of the freight track from the warm springs wye to Santa Clara St. which is already close to the freight maximum. Any elevation of the freight tracks through Diridon probably needs to eliminate the southern leg of this wye which, although lightly used, would require $$$ from UP. Similarly, access to the lightly used Vasona Branch to the south also impacts elevating the station platforms.
IIRC the plant/quarry that Vasona serves is slated for closure very soon, so that track is soon to be defunct. I think San Jose / VTA should look into acquiring the track and reusing it for transit.
DeleteVTA owns the right of way as far south as Vasona junction. They have stated that they do plan to double track the existing light rail once both freight customers (there's also a lumber company near Winchester station) have ceased service. Further extensions are up in the air, especially since they iced the phase 2 extension of the Vasona branch, but there was some recent talk of serving the rest of the line with battery trams, though it remains to be seen if that ever transpires.
DeleteIt is difficult to imagine a viable transit route along the Vasona branch, it doesn't pass through any transit-conducive areas.
DeleteVTA has contemplated adding transit lanes with median bus stops on Highway 85. At one point, a board presentation stated that, if the project were to be built, the bus lanes would be reserved for employer shuttles because there is insufficient demand for scheduled service along the route. The Vasona Branch traces approximately the same route, so why would there be demand there?
I have no knowledge about that place in particular, but if a quarry is about to close (and it is a stone/rock quarry rather than say a bauxite quarry, i.e. nothing that has caused long term ground pollution) then maybe the site is ripe for redevelopment to something that actually warrants transit?
DeleteIt was game over for any non-disastrous San Jose Cahill Street rebuild when the City of San José, knowing exactly the problems and expense being caused, approved the the condo building at 130 Stockton, exactly where even the stupidest human being can see that approach tracks had to go, for the most obvious geometric reasons, in March 2016.
ReplyDelete"ORD. NO. 29698 – An Ordinance of the City of San José rezoning certain real
property of approximately 1.72 acres situated at the Northeast side of Stockton
Avenue, approximately 300 feet North of West Santa Clara Street (106-120 and
138 Stockton Avenue) from the CG Commercial General Zoning District to the
A(PD) Planned Development Zoning District."
Of course this was all "in accordance with" whatever idiocy Caltrain staff and CHSRA staff felt obligated to mouth at the time, just as they continue to lie today, as more more gasoline is poured on the dumpster fire.
The sooner the world is free of humans the better. We just aren't remotely intelligent enough to be allowed to continue to incinerate the planet, or to place condo buildings on obvious non-negotiably necessary rail rights of way, again and again and again.
And no, the hockey arena parking lot isn't going to save you. Imaging it might be so doesn't affect basic geometry.
All you have to do is just look! Even just look at a boring old 2-d black and white map. The westernmost third or even half station site (= platforms) has been fucked. It's obvious, it needn't have been so, it was done deliberately, and we truly live in the worst timeline.
Richard: Is it possible, and if so how hard/easy, for an "outsider" to A) keep track of what permissions and permits are applied for and granted in a specific area, and B) appeal such permissions and/or permits?
DeleteIf possible it would probably be a good idea for transit interested people to kind of divide up different areas of interest to watch out what the local government and whatnot does and appeal things that would hinder transit development.
@MiaM there are a whole lot of permits applied for land use in the vicinity of the Caltrain tracks covering many juristictions. Unfortunately, it's not always possible for a city to legally prevent a property owner from developing their own property in way that does not impact future projects that might need that property. It is up to Caltrain or the city to acquire that land when it becomes available if they can see that potential future plans might need it.
DeleteFor example, San Jose did not acquire the property at 130 Stockton that was subsequently developed into the Vespaio multistory development. As Richard points out, this is a major impediment to improving the Diridon station approach.
However, San Jose did recently acquire the property just south of this at 32 and 60 Stockton that had been approved for the Apollo Multistory Development since they could clearly see that it would prevent the Diridon Station Concept plans as currently proposed, so perhaps they are learning.
Unfortunately, a project that could impact the feasibility of relocating CEMOF to Lick Quarry is the GraniteRock site next to Capitol Station. An EIR to Modernize and expand this site was recently approved. As described here.
jpk: Thanks for the explanation.
DeleteIs it possible for the city to change the zoning on existing properties? I.E. change it to "railway corridor" (not sure what that would technically be called)? And if so would the city be liable for compensation the owner(s) due to decreased property value (I.E. that property, or part of it, has no long term future use for the owner, except for selling it to whoever will build said rail corridor)?
As an example how things are done elsewhere, here in Sweden we don't have zoning but areas are kind of designated for different uses anyways and except for rural areas you always need a permit to build any permanent building (with the exception of one small outbuilding of 15m2 (approx 150sq ft?) per plot), and you will likely not get your permit approved if there are longer term plants for other usage of the plot. Also neighbors and whatnot are eligible for appealing at least what is similar to zoning. (On the other hand if a building and a plot is already approved for some specific use then there is no way to appeal even it hasn't been used for that in decades. A great example is that the tramway in Gothenburg needed more storage for trams, and next to one of their routes there was a building that up to the mid 1960's was used as a loco/train shed for a railway, and the place was still planned for rail usage, and the building/plat was owned by the city (then used for parks maintenance), so they just relaid rails, did some refurbishments and even though some neighbors (across a city highway....) complained, there was no legal grounds for appealing and thus it was a really short process from decision to being in operation. "Fun" fact: The main reason for needing additional space was that the then new AnsaldoBreda class M32 trams sucked so hard that they had to keep the 1960's trams for a while more while sorting out the then new trams. I haven't kept track of things for a while but afaik the plan is to scrap the 00's AnsaldoBreda trams soon, while keeping at least the 1980's ASEA (that later became a part of ABB and then Bombardier) trams, and maybe also keep the early 1970's trams too.
Side track re this side track: When calculating the cost of operating different vehicles, it's worth doing separate calculations for different amount of use. If you need more vehicles during peak hours than the rest of the day, it might be worth keeping older vehicles for peak hour usage as although the maintenance cost per mile might be higher, there is no fixed interest rate and whatnot and thus if you use the old vehicles more lightly than the newer vehicles they might still have a better cost-benefit ratio than the newer vehicles.
Not sure if this translates to anything useful for Caltrain or others in the bay area though.
The challenge is that agencies are reluctant (or not allowed) to buy land without a full plan in place. It would have been great to straighten out the curve at San Bruno from 60 mph to 90+ mph, but no one wanted to use eminent domain to buy out the roughly 11 million worth of houses there. One could also imagine that Caltrain could have slowly purchase those properties over time in order to benefit future projects, but I have never heard of an agency doing something that forward looking.
DeleteMartin:
DeleteAh. Are there any rules against changing the plans after acquiring properties, and/or rules against actually performing what the plan says extremely slow? If not then it might be a good idea to just put in some rough plans to legally be able to acquire properties where rail will likely end up in the future.
Some agency has to be the first to proactively buy properties in advance. (This btw is a thing here in Sweden since iirc at least the 90's or so, but mostly this happens with properties that might otherwise have legal grounds to force the railway to reduce noise levels and whatnot).
A question is if a transit agency can legally act as a landlord and rent out properties it has acquired while waiting for the right time to actually put it's plans in place?
There was a case where CalTrans owned apartments in LA south of Pasadena, but those were bought in a different era. My point was based on the observation that recently, agencies haven't been pre-buying land until the project is well far along in design. Most recent case was this one where someone saw the plans for the new terminal, and decided to quickly start construction in order to get $50 for land he paid a few million for.
Deletehttps://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/san-francisco-transbay-settlement-set-at-58-2567217.php
@Martin:
DeleteOh, that's terrible.
Seems like a mistake not having the city rezone before the transit agency starts buying properties.
Rezoning way ahead, and only even consider transit expansions among routes that are correctly zoned, seems like a good idea.
Another side track:
A thing that happens in Sweden is that a specific area is redesignated for some other use and at an undefined point of time in the future the plots will be acquired through eminent domain. Or perhaps more common the plots are acquired and then rented out with a special form of contract that can be terminated at any point in time specifically if the planned other land use goes ahead.
The CEMOF curve thing, while another 100% self-inflicted disaster, at the behest of the City of San José (how's that Lick Quarry working out for you, San José, Capitol of Silicon Valley?) isn't really too fatal. Look at me! Glass half full man!
ReplyDeleteIf (if!) the obvious industrial and warehouse parcels are taken (as they would have been, rather than given away to Google for nothing but vague impossible promises of nothing, nothing at all) it's quite possible to ease around the entire CEMOF footprint with an inner track radius of 800m, which is OK at this distance (~925m) from the end of where the Cahill Street station platforms should go.
There's also a bit more ROW taking needed in slivers to the north of CEMOF (across Taylor Street) but that's a given anyway if you're talking 6 tracks (4 Caltrain, 2 UPRR) or even 5 through here, as you ought to be or just give up and go home. (1000+m track radius works here, for those keeping score at home.)
Anyway, I've as white-hot an incandescent rage about CEMOF as anybody could have, having watched the disaster unfold in real time in the 1990s, and having seen every negative prediction come to pass (here as everywhere else on everything related to Caltrain), but objectively it isn't a huge obstacle in the San Jose to Santa Clara scheme of things, and it can just stay where it is, just where it should never have been. It's not fine, but it can be tolerated.
(Lessons learned: less than zero.)
CAHSR's status quo plans for the CEMOF curve are on page 7 here, if anyone would like to compare (I'm sure Richard already has this)
Deletehttps://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Final_EIRS_JM_V3-18_PEPD_Alternative_4_Book_4_A_Composite_Plan_Profile_and_Cross_Sections.pdf
404 Page not found
ReplyDeleteIf you are referring to InfrastructureWeak's CAHSR map, I successfully copy-pasted the URL and got through (Mac OS, Firefox). It didn't bring up a page, it sent a PDF to my download folder. Try again with the whole link and see what happens. - Ben Pease
DeleteIn my case the pdf was displayed directly within the browser (also Firefox, but Linux)
DeleteNow working ok.
Delete“using the newly established standard height of 48 inches above top-of-rail and lateral offset of 73 inches from the track center.”
ReplyDelete48 inches is good (same height as North East Corridor) but why 73 inches?!?! Amtrak’s guidance for 48 inch platforms is 67 inches (AAR Plate standard 10’8” wide train plus 3” either side for clearance/ADA max gap). Why is CAHSR going with an extra 6 inches? Is it to maintain oversize/DoD freight clearance (12’ plus 1” each side)? Did CAHSR decide on wider-than-Shinkansen vehicles?
“12.3.19 Clearances” of “Exhibit B Schedules to the General Provisions.pdf” of the CHSR train RFP shows the train width is to be 5.542 feet from the track centerline … and so at 11.084 feet wide, much wider than Caltrain’s 3,000 mm wide (9.84 ft) KISSes
Delete(5.542 feet x 2) * 12 in/ft * 25.4 mm/in = 3,378.4032 mm
Interesting. According to Caltrain's latest Captial Project Quarterly report, their level boarding planning project is proposing a 5' 4" offset for level boarding platforms at the EMU low floor height. They have asked UPRR and CAHSR for comments on this proposal.
Delete@Reality Check I am surprised the CAHSR train RFP is so prescriptive on train width since they don't have any platforms built yet to be compatible with. I was assuming they would be using the Siemens American Pioneer 220 like Brightline which, as a variant of the Nova Valero is likely only 2880 mm wide.
Normal Shinkansen cars are 3380 mm (11 ft 1 in) wide with 3+3 seating. Mini-Shinkansen cars (those that operate partly on traditional ROWs) are 2945 mm (9 ft 8 in) wide with 2+2 seating and flip out filler plates to interface with regular Shinkansen platforms.
Delete@jpk122s the American Pioneer 220, according to a Brightline press release, "features an ultrawide carbody designed for unparalleled passenger comfort."
DeleteI will note that the high doors (delivered with plugs) on Caltrain's EMUs are compatible with the 48" x 73" standard when fitted with the intended bridge plate mechanism.
It's certainly interesting that Caltrain appears to have selected a solution before doing the trade study. Cart before horse, anyone?
...also, more details: RFP No. HSR23-18 dated 4/16/2024, Exhibit B, Schedule 1 Performance Specification, section 7.2 Trainset Product Platform, states the following:
DeleteThe Trainset width shall not be less than 3300 mm (10.826 feet) and shall be no greater than 3378.40 mm (11.084 feet). When in motion, the Trainset shall not exceed the maximum allowable width as defined by Authority’s DCM Chapter 8.2.2.2 – Vehicle Body Envelopes and Section 12.3.19.
(...)
The Trainset floor height, as measured from the top surface of the door threshold, shall be 1200 mm (47.2 inches) to 1295 mm (51.0 inches ). Contractor shall submit the Trainset floor height for Authority’s SONO. Once the floor height has been selected , it shall be maintained at ±3.2 mm (±0.125 in) above top of rail when the train is stationary at a platform.
The Trainset shall interface with a platform having the following characteristics:
a) Platform edge from track centerline will be 1854.2 mm (73.0 inches); and
b) Platform height from top of rail will be 1219.2 mm (48.0 inches).
An automatic gap filler shall be installed at each door of the Trainset to achieve level boarding with Authority’s platforms. Refer to Authority’s Notice to Designers 02 – High-Level Platforms and Track Centerline Offset, dated June 27, 2023, and attached thereto FRA Letter from FRA’s Mr. Gibson, dated June 12, 2023, for details pertaining to the provision of an automated gap filler (Attachment 3). The Trainset design shall provide the gap required between the carbody side and platform edge to accommodate pass-through operations at 201 km/h (125 mph) on track that is adjacent to the platform. The Trainset design shall also provide the gap required between the carbody side and the edge of the 1219.2 mm (48 inch) high emergency walkway for pass-through operations at 354 km/h (220 mph) inside Authority’s tunnels.
@Clem Thanks for this information. I didn't realize that the AP220 was going to be "ultrawide" - which I guess means it exceeds the 10'8" AAR freight plates by up to 5" based on those RFP specs. I wonder if the envelope at 550mm height will allow for Caltrain's 5'4" desired platform offset. I guess they will find out when CAHSR gets back to them.
DeleteWe have another fifty years or more, two generations or so, before the state's own high-speed project can offer us something meaningful, the way it has transpired and is now, but at least part of the system might see operation sometime before that, and it could be that period's same or other derivative of Velaro Novo, too, or its more efficient successor. (More efficient rather than slightly faster given how things look in the state now and in the future) It's interesting that with the Party Car the high-speed prospect for this country's HSR can include a nice lounge car. (Keep it sedate and civilized, pleased, a larger step up from a decent bistro car, not the more likely Greyhound-Southwest food court with bar thanks to the subsidized fares everyone anticipates.)
DeleteWill there ever be level boarding at an agreed height, and suitable car widths among all passenger trains, ever?
Well, both Caltrain and the HSR people can be ahem, insular as well as independent. As for Brightline West, the group running Brightline keeps to itself a lot, too. Did it make the rolling stock selection independently in a communications vacuum insofar as the state and Caltrain are concerned? It's a Brightline project, not the state's, even if the state may be involved.
Delete"Will there ever be level boarding at an agreed height, and suitable car widths among all passenger trains, ever?"
DeleteI have stated several times that Congress needs to step in an dictate that to receive funding all commuter/mainline/HSR projects need to adhere to "Amtrak Gauge" - i.e. the standards used by rolling stock on the North East Corridor between Washington DC and Boston:
Standard gauge track
AAR Plate B (Plate F if you want bilevels/Superliners)
3.25m/10'-8" width
12.57m/41'-3" truck centers
1220mm/48" platform height
26m/85' long cars
Type H Tightlock coupling
25kV overhead catenary
There will always be more ridership and more railcars on the NEC than anywhere else in the country (to include greater potential for future ridership if HSR were built, service extended to Long Island, etc.) If everyone else adheres to those standards, then they can more economically procure rolling stock by buying some of what Metro-North or Long Island Railroad already bought hundreds or thousands of (Denver did this with SEPTA and Silverliners). Conversely, if someone elsewhere leaps ahead in technology like the AP220, then it can be adopted on the NEC off the shelf, benefitting millions.
Congress failed to do this when funding the 'Great Society Subways' in the 1960s, so instead of virtually every subway in the country using equipment that would work on the NY Subway B Division, we have a situation where DC Metro and Atlanta MARTA use the same third rail power, DC and BART have the same platform height, and BART and MARTA have the same width trains. Three systems opened a few years apart who must each go through the time and expense of bespoke train orders every time they renew their fleet instead of being able to skip R&D costs or share economies of scale on a joint order.
Back to my original question, so is the 9" gap necessary to allow the 200kph passing of platforms? I honestly don't know how other HSR operators do it and perhaps there is a valid reason for the wider gap and required gap filler instead of ADA compliant 67" platform offest.
The federal government (FRA) has been involved in coordinating all of this. Brightline and California HSR will be 100% compatible, and without the need to conform to 19th century Pennsylvania Railroad standards. Caltrain could be as well if they wanted to (but they clearly don't, because everything flows downstream of that on-board toilet on their EMUs).
DeleteAs for "ADA compliant" that can mean many different things-- in California it will be step-free, assistance-free level boarding. On the NEC, the 67" platform offset requires train crew assistance to use a manually deployed bridge plate, as the rolling stock to platform gap is otherwise excessive. This is indeed "ADA compliant" but it sucks and should not be emulated.
Nowadays, making cars in different widths and heights is not a major cost driver. For example, the Stadler KISS comes in at least five different cross sections for different loading gauges and platform interfaces. The notion of a completely "standard train" doesn't bring any material benefit; what is standard is the product platform (traction, systems, software, etc.) for example shared between the AP220 and the European Velaro.
In addition to requiring a standardized platform height and distance from center, be it what Cali HSR and Brightline West have decided on or what is used on the NEC, it would be great if federal funding also requires way wider space above platform level.
DeleteThat makes it possible to have trains that are way wider above platform level, which obviously makes them more spacious.
An example is the Swedish "Regina" class X50-X55 regional / long distance trains, made by Bombardier (partially based on what ASEA/ABB made before becoming part of Bombardier). Their width is 3,450 mm (11 ft 3+7⁄8 in) which makes 2+3 seating about as comfortable as 2+2 seating in regular narrower trains. Also a bonus of having 2+3 seating is that the train can be filled up to 60% of it's seating capacity before strangers have to sit next to each other, while with 2+2 seating you can "only" have 50% of the seats filled before people have to sit next to each other. This might not be an issue i California, but it for sure is appreciated by people in Sweden :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Regina
(click my name for a clickable link)
@Onux: The Northeast including the Corridor is old compared to California but yes, natural for HSR if the route ever were truly improved. A bigger, better-future NEC is Portland if not Augusta, Maine, to the Norfolk, etc., area and Virginia Beach, a place that's big already and set for future growth in addition to the DC portion of Virginia.
DeleteJust get Boston North and South Stations connected.
It's not high-speed rail any more than Brightline in Florida, but among the most interesting projects with rail now is the Raleigh-Richmond Rail project, connecting Petersburg (and Richmond from that, i.e., to access the NEC) with new rail developments hopefully to come deeper in the southeastern USA. There is no West Coast equivalent -- there are mountains in the way and it's too far.
Yes, the feds need to attach more strings to funds it gives, when the funds aren't being used well or "right."
Onus as written, or Onux the name used by someone frequently, whichever is correct
Delete@MiaM “That makes it possible to have trains that are way wider above platform level”
DeleteNo, not in the slightest. If a train is wider then the platform that means you don’t have level boarding, which is terrible because level boarding is among the most important things to have for passenger ease, disabled accessibility, speed of boarding and reliability. You never give up level boarding for anything. Also as a practical matter if the train is wider then the platform you might as well just make the platform narrower since it is not as if people can use the part of the platform below the train.
You have a good point about wider trains being beneficial, but from the perspective of Caltrain’s current Bilevels (and unfortunately future KISSes) at 3000mm wide, the NEC standard of 3251mm IS a wide train. It’s not quite as wide as a Shinkansen at 3380mm or the 3450mm Swedish, but it’s wide enough for 2+3 seating if desired (NY does this) and more than generous for any use.
@Clem
Delete“On the NEC, the 67" platform offset requires train crew assistance to use a manually deployed bridge plate, as the rolling stock to platform gap is otherwise excessive.”
I don’t understand. I thought ADA required no more than a 3” gap, so a 67” platform offset with a 10’-8” train would not require bridge plates. Is there something I’m missing? ADA compliance without bridge plates or gap fillers is certainly possible (heck, even BART does is thousands of times a day) but I fully acknowledge that if a wider offset is required for HSR to pass at speed (actually required, because of physics, not US consultant requirements-how to Japan and France do it in those “train blow through the station videos”?) then plan for that and deployable bridge plates everywhere.
“Nowadays, making cars in different widths and heights is not a major cost driver.”
The incremental cost of building a 3000mm vs 3280mm car may not be large, but there is absolutely a cost for a manufacturer to design, detail and set up jigs for a different size train. Economy of scale is also a big factor. If MBTA or SEPTA are buying hundreds of cars, it will absolutely be much cheaper for a smaller operator to add dozens to the order, rather than issuing their own RFP from scratch.
There is also a compatibility issue. It’s feasible to see a continuous rail network from Boston to Atlanta, perhaps to Miami (continuous as in good integrated rail service not as in Amtrak trundles a Crescent or Silver service once a day on freight track; continuous could also mean overlapping services not that a train goes the whole route). If some platforms are at 67” offset and others at 73”, then either you’re limiting speeds of your HSR in places or some of your commuter routes are not level boarding without those bridge plates. CAHSR and Brightline got together? Great, what about Caltrain at one end and Metrolink at the other? What about interchanges with Amtrak’s Surfliner or Capitol Corridor? This entire blog has been about the importance of compatibility when sharing tracks and platforms (for benefit to train operations and to passengers). This compatibility shouldn’t just be between the two HSR operators but among the whole system.
Even if CAHSR and the NEC never connect, there needs to be a standard that all trains follow so that all operators (intercity, regional, commuter) can benefit from the same compatibility and economies of scale in procurement.
@Onux:
DeleteNo, the doors on that Swedish train are curved as seen from the side, with the train having it's floor behind the doors at the same height as the platform while still being wider higher up.
Side track: This train might not be a great example though as most of it's floor is higher up, and at one door pair the floor forms a circle that acts as a combined 90 degree rotating turn table and lift to allow wheel chairs to enter/exit without needing any lift or so outside the train. These trains was built for regional service (perhaps thus the nick name "Regina"?) with say 5-10 trains per day and stations at a distance of say 20-40 minutes of travel time or so.
I wouldn't recommend building trains this way, but it for sure was a great improvement over the previous 1960's and 1980's loco hauled cars that requires an external manually operated wheelchair lift that is supposed to be parked at each platform at relevant stations and train staff are supposed to have the correct key to unlock a padlock, and there have been numerous of stories of people being stuck on board a train having to continue whereever the train is going :/
Anyway, it still works as an example of it being possible to have the same height for platform and train floor while still having a wider train body. If all floor inside the train has the same height then the seats next to the walls might be a bit uncomfortable with limited leg space (I sometimes ironically say that those seats are for people who have had a leg amputated...), but I think it's still better than cramming in people in a narrower train.
Btw I fully agree that it's desirable to have the same platform height and distance from rail center to platform in all of USA, and I'd like to add Canada and possibly Mexico to that equation too.
It would be bad if we end up with one west coast standard and another east coast standard, but that would still be better than various different standards.
As Cali HSR trains must be able to use Caltrain tracks and I assume share the same platforms (anything else would be stupid) the platforms has to in some shape or form be compatible. Seems stupid to have an automatic bridge that folds out from the trains (we have (had) those in Sweden, and while they work, they aren't great).
In general it seems like smaller transit agencies will choose whichever standard makes most sense out of what the larger agencies choose, and tag on to their train orders. So the extra cost is kind of mostly minor for the larger agencies when they order new trains, and for the smaller agencies in that they "need" to buy trains approximately at the same time as the larger agencies.
Btw are there any real plans for new trains and higher platforms for LA Metrolink?
Btw re standards: Super long term in a far far distant future it would probably be a good idea to regauge BART to standard gauge, as that would allow future shared tracks both between BART and trams like MUNI, VTA and whatnot and also between BART and heavy rail. Sure, it's a bit of a challenge to combine AC overhead electrification with DC third rail electrification as you kind of need to electrically isolate so that a DC powered and an AC powered train isn't on the same electric section of the rail at the same time (at least not drawing current at the same time), but that is "just" a matter of slightly higher cost and/or needing to signal it so only one train type uses the shared track at any given time. Sharing the same track with DC third rail and DC overhead wire is no technical problem at all. Not 100% sure where this would be suitable in the bay area though, maybe on a reinstated Dumbarton bridge?
@MiaM As can be seen in this photo: https://trainspo.com/photo/137047/#
Deletethe outward curve does not add that much, maybe a several dozen mm (I tried to find a cross-section or schematic but could not). As you note to get five across seating you ultimately need the width at the floor level, the outward curve might just be making the wall armrest nicer. Capacity of your train is set by floor width/platform level so build around those and don’t bother with “wider above platform” gimmicks.
Note, my non-exhaustive search could not find any pictures of a Regina docked at a platform with level boarding.
@Onux:
DeleteSeems like it looks different in different photos?
Here it's obvious that the doors are really curved:
https://www.mostphotos.com/sv-se/12266958/upptaget
Thinking about it I think that it's only the wheelchair accessible door pairs that are that low, and the other doors sit higher up which makes those doors less curved.
Here is an example with a Regina train at what looks like the correct platform height. Interestingly it uses foldable/retractable gap bridges even though it's supposed to use the full loading gauge
https://www.dagensinfrastruktur.se/2017/09/27/ytterligare-ett-steg-mot-nya-tag-i-upptagstrafiken/
And we for sure have problems with different platform height. Here is a Regina train, intended for the "general" platform height, at a platform with "Stockholm commuter train height", where you have to take a step upwards to exit the train :O
https://www.slinfo.se/documented_norrlandsresa_2008_8.htm
Eventually they extended the Stockholm commuter trains all the way to Uppsala which solved this silly platform height issue.
Anyways the Regina train isn't a great example, it's just the example I could find while digging through my memory :)
Also I'm not suggesting a super wide train, just slightly wider higher up. As you say, that allows for a nice armrest (and good insulation in the walls).
What I'm strongly suggesting though is to make sure the loading gauge allows wider trains for any future rolling stock. In particular I think wider trains would be great for night trains / sleeping cars, allowing for full length beds "sideways". (Swedish night trains/sleeping cars are this way even though they don't use the full loading gauge, while most such trains in most other parts of Europe have the beds the other way around to be able to have full length beds, or possibly there might be trains with uncomfortable shorter beds).
I'm not sure what the ADA requirements are, but for a sleeping car to allow full wheelchair access to all compartments, rather than just some specialized compartments, I would think that you would need wider bodies to allow for a wider hallway for for example larger self propelled wheelchairs and whatnot. Not sure if it would be desirable to have all compartments wheelchair accessible, but it seems like a good idea to once and for all decide to have enough loading gauge to allow this.
After failed attempts at Dumbarton Rail, SamTrans board OK’s launching Dumbarton Busway Project to build a busway from East Palo Alto’s University Avenue to Redwood City’s Caltrain & SamTrans bus station along the SamTrans-owned mothballed rail line by 2032:
ReplyDeletePresentation - Introducing Dumbarton Corridor Busway
Deserted Dumbarton rail line could see transit revival
DeleteBus & bike lanes may connect Redwood City Caltrain to Dumbarton
Conversations over a new bus-only road connecting the Dumbarton bridge with several cities in the south Peninsula are being revived, hoping to take advantage of a railway corridor that's been unused for years.
Rather than reopening the corridor to expand rail service — which doesn't have as much estimated demand — the effort would likely create a dedicated bus-only lane parallel to the existing railway.
"Busways are a proven technique to provide high-quality transit service in a very cost-effective manner, especially when compared to a rail service," SamTrans Strategic Planning Manager Chelsea Schultz said. "The project itself would be flexible by allowing for future rail if that becomes an option."
The busway would connect the Dumbarton Bridge to Redwood City, passing through several localities in between, such as Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks.
The Peninsula's Dumbarton railroad was built in the early 20th century, but hasn’t been in operation for several decades, and discussion over its potential use has been discussed on and off for years. Prior to most recent discussions, a public-private partnership was underway between SamTrans and Meta, potentially using the railway to connect the Redwood City Caltrain station to the Union City BART station. But the project was scrapped around 2021, and the latest projections, which do not include Meta anymore, show that a busway would be more cost-efficient and have higher ridership. Average daily trips between East Palo Alto and Redwood City have increased by about 30% since 2019, according to the staff presentation.
"There's currently insufficient market to support the cost of a transbay regional rail project, and that’s currently estimated at $3.6 billion," Schultz said. "A lot of the demand that we found in the study is actually on the Peninsula side, so between East Palo Alto and Redwood City."
This wouldn't be the first such endeavor in the state. In Los Angeles, the G line uses part of the Southern Pacific's former Burbank line to connect to other rail services and also includes a bike path. In Monterey, a planned 6-mile bus-only road is expected to be completed by 2027.
Most SamTrans Board of Directors vocalized support for the efforts, citing the importance of mass transit, as well as bike and pedestrian-friendly lanes.
"When you go down to Dumbarton corridor, it's a weed-covered branch line, and some folks probably think, 'What good is this?'" SamTrans Board Member Peter Ratto said. "Well, it's a very wide corridor. It can accommodate bus lanes, it can accommodate a rail line as well, even a bike lane. This is an asset that we have that cannot be replicated."
Based on current project plans, the railway corridor would still be preserved for potential future use, and options for a pedestrian or bike pathway are also tentative. The board approved $5 million for a feasibility study, with construction potentially starting around 2030. Total estimates for the project are about $150 million.
Banks Rail has a video about this, probably about the same content as above, but with a lot more history and whatnot.
Delete(my name should be clickable, leading to the video, otherwise use this link:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaI_bLzQkg
OK, to go through some of this stuff, since I thought a great deal about this stuff (in millimetric detail) a decade ago (I see the alignment sketches I made have a last modification date of December 2011 ... my how the world has changed and improved since then ... NOT.)
ReplyDelete* First, the idiots involved in this "visioning" throw the buses under the bus. Always. By definition. They're just hateful losers who hate human beings and hate anything useful to actual human beings. Cahill Street Station, San Jose, doesn't need a Pedestrian Celebration Mall creating a Sense of Space, it needs a way for people to get from trains to buses quickly and pleasantly and conveniently. I just can't even. Just loathesomeness and hostility form beginning to end.
* The platform count is bonkers. 10 or 11 platform tracks, inflexibly and permanently split 3/4 for HSR (with one obviously permanently dedicated to in-station turnbacks for trains that must not must not no no no no reach the Great Satan of San Francisco), 4 for Caltrain, 2 for steam trains. 6 (split 2 for steam trains, 4 shared Caltrain/HSR) would work, 8 (just) fit the site, and, sure, why not.
* The idiots don't know and don't care anything about passenger circulation, and are permenently stuck in concourse herp derp waiting room airside/landside wait for your boarding call fucking Penn Station New York kicking you in the face forever and ever. The platforms ARE FAR TOO NARROW, and of course they don't think about vertical circulation at all. Another Transbay Terminal level disaster from the same cast of clowns.
* CONCOURSE DISEASE JUST SAY NO.
* If they really were building the Grand Central Station of the Nation for the Capital of Silicon Valley, or even if they were building a 10% functional train station for the tumbleweed capital of delusional sprawl, the platforms would be 9m to 12m (12m is what one typically sees at real new serious passenger stations for actual passengers) wide. The good news, such as it is, is station site is (barely) wide enough for accommodate 4 9m wide island platforms (1 for steam trains, 3 for the rest) -- 4x9m platforms plus 8x1.7m platform-track plus 3x5.2m (even wasting and extra 0.7m for Caltrain's stupid pointless inter-track fence on top of standard plenty-adequate 4.5m track separation) plus generous 2x4.5m on the edges comes to 74.2m of 243.4 feet, which pretty much matches (and packs to the brim) the 240 feet of advertised ROW between the old brick station building on the east side and the stupid pointless VTA toonerville trolley tracks on the west.
9m wide island platforms are the minimum that should be considered anywhere with non-trivial passenger flow aspirations. (Or high passenger flow delusions.)
4.5 | 1.7 9.0 1.7 | 5.2 | 1.7 9.0 1.7 | 5.2 | 1.7 9.0 1.7 | 5.2 | 1.7 9.0 1.7 | 4.5
Now whether one can build *usefully configured* train tracks to actually reach those platforms is another question ... and one the cretins at CHSRA/Caltrain have never even thought about for a millisecond, as their "plans" and their past "achievements" demonstrate. My God, Transbay Terminal, the horror, the self-inflicted inexcusable horror.
* 700 foot dedicated Caltrain platforms are inadequate. Another short-sighted deliberate inexcusable self-inflicted shooting in the foot.
DeleteCaltrain should and must be designing for minimum 310m (2x coupled 6 "car" trains) platforms everywhere, and 420m (2x global HSR standard 200+m) at the major stations. Off-peak can't ever justify the uniform 200m (8 "car") trains Caltrain's idiots can't see beyond, which self-inflicted track capacity crunches mean that at peaks-of-peaks longer (2x150m) coupled trains are really the only feasible choice.
The good news is that one can indeed squeeze 3x 420m platforms into the Cahill Street site, so there is no need at all to permanently and destructively bake in too-short Caltrain to wrongly-located (flanking, not central) platform tracks. ALL PASSENGER SERVICE PLATFORMS IDENTICAL, ALL INTERCHANGEABLE.
(Even better news is that if you place a scissors crossover at the mid-point of 420m platform tracks you get 4 quasi-semi-independent 175m train platforms, not just two. Spain is huge on this for new construction. Plenty to see all over The Netherlands too. Just Do It. Zero cost!)
The not-as-good news is that the pair of isolated independent steam train tracks on the east side are hemmed in by the PG&E substation, and a 400m platform doesn't fit. But a half-length 210m one does, and that's adequate for whatever Amtrak type crap anybody hallucinates might exist in the future that we'll never see.
* Speaking of turnbacks, herp derp somehow half the HSR service that won't be allowed to proceed to the the Great Satan of the North is somehow going to reverse somehow. Interesting theory. (Mu theory is that the Santa Clara County VTA already owns a huge rail yard THAT IT HAS LESS THAN ZERO NEED FOR just a couple miles north, just south of Santa Clara station, and you can park or clean or whatever the 20tph HSR or whatever San Jose thinks are going to be dedicated to connecting the Capital of Silicon Valley to Los Angeles via Los Banos and Palmdale.)
HSR, like "fast" trains everywhere along the corridor (FSSF FSSF FSSF!), should preferentially be on the outer, flanking tracks and platforms. Caltrain will always run far more service and always be able to use far more turnback capacity, so preferentially it should be centrally located in San Jose. It's Just Science.
Maybe some small number (1tph? 2?) of HSR or regional service from the south do turn at SJ Cahill Street. Maybe! But there are four platform tracks for you, and there's a gigantic wide-open Santa Clara turnback site just waiting for you!
Delete* As Clem states, the "stacked" alternative is the usual sacrificial joke to which nobody, aside from the people paid millions of your tax dollars to create jokes, would pay any attention.
But beyond that, the "at grade" thing is bat shit insane -- seriously the proposal is to rebuild all the station tracks and all the platforms and all the approach tracks, and put all the station tracks and platforms up on bridges above your must-never-be-questioned Concourses, and this somehow saves something or improve anything by throwing in massive, full-site excavation solely in order to create a deep level for your station-long train bridges to bridge? Utterly bonkers! (300m long by 70m-ish wide by 3m-ish deep is a LOT of totally gratuitous (and bonus super contaminated, industrial) excavate soil. $$$$$$$$$$$)
And just look at the fucking awful disasters that the Belmont and San Carlos Caltrain stations for what this batshit "split" grade separation gives you. No no no no no no no. Never anywhere. Never.
Here at Cahill Street, as nearly everywhere else along the Caltrain line (aside from 16th Street in San Francisco, which trains go under), the only acceptable solution is to fully elevate the tracks above the existing human (aka street) level, with the bonus of restoring the traffic sewer underpasses (here in SJ Santa Clara Street and Park Avenue) and overpasses (San Carlos Avenue here; Mathilda Avenue, San Antonio Road, Page Mill Road/Oregon, Woodside Road further north) to or near-to surrounding grade.
Also it's not as if the existing road underpasses, especially Santa Clara Street to the north, are re-usable. Less-awful approach tracks require wider and better and new rail overbridges, so just build them at the correct height, which is above human grade, not just above disgusting inadequate existing road underpasses.
* And as for the "environmentally cleared" use-the-existing (unusable! crazy narrow! barely accessible!) platforms and whack some ridiculous tall and ridiculously slow-to-traverse aerial crossings on top? Doesn't pass any laugh test. Real money ought to be spent at Cahill Street, even without never-happening HSR, and what it ought to buy is useful platforms and usefully configured tracks fully elevated above the level of the existing useless and not-reusable tracks and platforms.
I fully agree that none of the Diridon plans proposed so far makes any sense in terms of providing any transportation benefit. Personally, I think the station works just fine as it is and they should defer any improvements until there are actual capacity limits being reached with the current platforms.
DeleteEverybody likes the idea of elevating the tracks, but is it really worth the huge costs when the streets are already grade separated? I bike under Santa Clara St. and Park Ave regularly and they work just fine. The San Carlos overpass is the biggest issue and probably should be rebuilt.
The first priority should be to add a third track south of the station and electrify south to at least Capitol (preferably Blossom Hill if UP co-operates) Adding a new 2-track EMU-only bridge over 280 at Auzerais (leaving the existing 2 tracks at grade for freight), descending to grade under the San Carlos overpass (rebuilt as needed) would need >2.5% grades but should be possible I believe. Adding train storage at Lick quarry is still possible as phase 4 of the communications hill development zones the former quarry for industrial use. Access to this new end-of-line station and train storage could branch off the mainline at CP lick and avoid the need to pay $$$ to UP.
p.s. @Richard you had some great ideas for this grade separation in replies to a post on this blog last year, but the link appears to be broken. Any chance you can revive it?
http://www.pobox.com/users/mly/Caltrain-Grade-Separation/all.html
@Richard:
DeleteFences between tracks is actually a great idea as it deters people from taking a shortcut across the tracks, potentially not making it up a high platform edge, and worse case ending getting ran over by a train. No matter what you think about the person being ran over, it will for sure cause severe delays.
Any HSR trains that won't fit into SF should continue towards Oakland or something similar, rather than turn around in SJ.
From a passenger point of view, it's actually probably better if it's hard or even almost impossible to turn around Caltrain trains in SJ, as that ensures that all trains from one platform are northbound and all trains from another platform are southbound. It's better to turn around trains at some smaller station south of SJ. In addition to making it more clear what each platform is used for, i.e. reducing "waiting at a concourse", it's also bonkers to not run the trains to the southern edge of the built up SJ area. Not running at least most trains to the southern edge forces people in the southern areas to go to SJ Diridon rather than a smaller station closer to them, increasing both congestion on local roads/buses and on the station/platform at SJ Diridon. And if most trains anyway reverse at other places than SJ Diridon, then it makes sense to not reverse any trains at Diridon.
Bonus: The only major reason for then reversing trains at SJ Diridon in a situation with some problems with the trains/infrastructure would be if the tracks either to the north or south are blocked, and if so there aren't any through trains to have conflicting movements with anyways. I.E. in that case you can reverse trains even if you need to cross loads of tracks.
P.S. I agree that platforms ought to be wide enough for all passengers for 1-2 trains to wait while still allowing passengers to exit said trains.
Re "steam trains" - I think that for a major station rebuild the reasonable thing to do would be to make sure that the station is fit for purpose if those super low frequency routes would eventually be upgraded to allow a usable train frequency.
Side track: How many freight trains do actually run on the UP tracks (and/or whichever other freight railways that are relevant in the area)? I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't be possible to at least increase the frequency to say one train an hour on the SJ - Oakland - Richmond - Martinez UP route. If anyone advocating for the US freight railways says otherwise, print out graphs/timetables for railways with mixed traffic in any other part of the world and stick it up the butt of said freight railway advocate :)
I'm as bad at pictures as I am at words, but here is a picture from back when I last cared in 2011:
Delete201112-Cahill-south.pdf
(Track connections and configuration north of the station elided for the obvious reason: endless sabotage of public assets and the public realm by "public" agencies. We're a worthless species and not only are we doomed but we're taking everything else with us.)
Anyway, 3x 420x9m island platforms: duh.
@MiaM "Fences between tracks is actually a great idea"
DeleteI don't much question that and it's no hill I'd choose to die on. It's the extra-wide track spacing to "allow" the fence required by Caltrain's "standards" that's a problem. Anyway for decades my stupid pointless sketches have used 5.2m spacing between platform tracks (vs 4.5m everywhere else) through it's wasteful and can cause hassle.
My experience is that this seems to work well but yeah, USA USA USA.
Also, just because, irrelevantly, here's a video of a station with no inter-track fence.
"better if it's hard or even almost impossible to turn around Caltrain trains in SJ ... ensures that all trains from one platform are northbound and all trains from another platform are southbound."
Simply not an issue. Island platforms can dispatch trains from either side semi-indiscriminately and passengers world-wide manage to heed announcements. (My pipe dream of potentially splitting the 400m HSR-long platforms into two semi-independent 150m Caltrain berthing locations is more of a problem.) Anyway the point is to "improve service delivered to passengers", and an absolute key way to do that it to deliver as much service as possible where the riders are going, and not to waste any time at all on non-revenue deadhead moves or on inexcusably inefficient train reversals anywhere.
"it's also bonkers to not run the trains to the southern edge of the built up SJ area"
Un-servable sprawl continues south from "downtown" San Jose to the Mexican border. One must draw threshold lines somewhere. One of those lines is at clearly at Cahill Street station, which is sort-of semi-adjacent to whatever "downtown" San Jose might be, and at a southern limit of rail-corridor-adjacent commerical development. Another might be at SJ Tamien 3km south, where there's at least the bones of something that might be a turnback station. Another (Clem's big on this) might be at SJ Blossom Hill, a further 5km of sprawlburb along, where there's nothing (and is on land owned and controlled by UPRR). One can continue this empty game with empty trains to Gilroy and thence to Los Banos and then god only knows where. The point is that ridership and traffic falls off in the real world, so service has to taper.
I certainly believe that Caltrain should provide some reasonable and economically justifiable level of service south of SJ Cahill. No question at all. Go nuts with branded S-Bahn San José. Just not at any price.
Also, track capacity is limited, and speed differentials increase as long distance trains sharing the corridor start getting up to full blast. Mixing stopping commuter trains into that is always a problem, always has been, always will be. (Cue: "ALTAMONT!, duh!") Now a dedicated central reversible commuter-only track on a three-passenger-track corridor is sure something that can physically and operationally address some of this, but fitting that low-traffic slow track together with a platform together with two fast tracks plus a freight track into the rail corridor (circa 27m 95ft wide) is something between costly and very very very costly.
"Re "steam trains" ..."
Union Pacific Rail Road and Amtrak are a nightmare that can and should be shoved off to the side, literally. One 100% independent track from Santa Clara all the way through the far-sprawling City of San Jose, two 100% independent platform tracks at SJ Cahill Street, that's plenty, they can do with that what they like. Not our problem. Nothing measured in trains per day is something we should think about for a millisecond.
Great points made in this thread.
DeleteS-Bahn/Through Running: I agree that there needs to be a better way to turn trains that also allow for S-Bahn service or similar south of Diridon to ensure that it's a through-running station to maximize efficiency and lower costs. If Caltrain/CAHSR/Capitol Corridor/Amtrak can coordinate on a joint facility to replace CEMOF, the ideal location would probably be the Granite Rock Quarry at Capitol. I also agree that there needs to be consideration of splitting some HSR trains at San Jose to Oakland, preferably by a electrified coast subdivision. The issue would be coordinating with UP for the Oakland - beyond segment, but not a hugely major issue (yet).
I'd also think that if CAHSR and Caltrain can negotiate something decent with UP, a S-Bahn style service that serves all stations up to Gilroy would help improve service south of Diridon and stem sprawl a bit. I'd also think that a terminus station in Hollister if San Benito and Santa Clara County can buy that spur could be an interesting solution to park trains and have a light maintenance facility for Caltrain.
Platforms: I agree with you all that they don't need to do anything with the existing platforms at the moment, and when the demand starts being problematic, they can slowly start elevating the station section by section, assuming CEMOF is gone, by just 5-10 feet higher, realigning the tracks as per other suggestions. Start with the outer tracks on the west side, the middle tracks, then the nearest inside tracks. The goal should be a very simple short stairwell up to the platforms with completely open pedestrian circulation through the station.
@Anonymous 23 Jul 11:29, there are cities among the sprawl south of San Jose and enormous gaps of non-urbanity south of San Jose to the Mexican border. If it were unbroken with even more development midway between San Jose and Santa Barbara than there is and ever will be, you'd see what even Anglos in various Anglo nations see as opportunity to develop serious train service in place of the 11-12 hour fingers-crossed service there is between locations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles Union Station.
Delete@Anonymous 23 Jul 12:36, service to Gilroy and beyond really awaits much more new development to and around Gilroy and beyond, where housing and exurban community formation joins warehouses and maybe a new truck stop or two. By then there may be growth or the threat of it coming too from Salinas. What has been for ages and still can be some decent rural country bike riding or car cruising outside the main corridor area is on limited time to remain that way. We know the destiny but not the details.
DeleteIt's glaringly obvious that "Anonymous 23 Jul 11:29" is I; blogspot web software is more Google abandonware and makes it easy to mis-post. Sorry. It's not like I'm trying hard to go undercover and hiding my tracks or anything.
DeleteRe "there are cities among the sprawl south of San Jose and enormous gaps of non-urbanity south of San Jose to the Mexican border" ... why, who knew? Who could possibly have known? Not "Anglos", that's who! Not anybody without access to super-classified ultra-high-res aerial imagery, nor to ... a map. Thank God for the internet commentariat. Thank you for your service, Captain Obvious.
"I'd also think that if CAHSR and Caltrain can negotiate something decent with UP, a S-Bahn style service that serves all stations up to Gilroy would help improve service south of Diridon and stem sprawl a bit."
DeleteS-Bahn style service (i.e. Caltrain) should stop at Blossom Hill. The Metcalf gap just south of there is a natural geographic and demographic end to the inner Bay Area. At ~90km from downtown San Francisco this is also at the end of what could be considered commuter rail - most S-Bahn lines in Europe are shorter than this end to end, let alone center to end.
Service south of this to Gilroy, Hollister, etc. should be considered regional rail (Regional-Bahn or Regional-Express in countries that also have S-Bahns). The natural way to provide this is as an extension of the Capitol Corridor south, just as it proceeds a bit north of Sacramento.
@Richard:
DeleteRe fences:
I think that the space between train and fence might be based on common body sizes. No offence but people in the USA are afaik among the fattest in the world, which might be a reason for a wider space.
A few reasons for it working great without fences in Japan is
A: They have taking the "waiting concourse" to the extreme, by only letting passengers on to the platform when they already know exactly which train is going to depart from that platform and afaik they also check passengers tickets while entering the platform. I.E. they already know that everyone at that platform is going to board the next train entering the platform, and not realize that they are on the wrong platform and go on a track trespassing adventure.
B: My impression is that people in Japan strongly follow rules.
C: Perhaps most importantly I think that it's really uncommon to have late platform changes, interchanges that have too narrow margins for everyone to make the interchange and whatnot, and also most trains run so often that missing your train due to a previous delay would only cause a delay of say 10-30 minutes or so, rather than worst case having to stay at a hotel and take your "Zephyr steam train" the next day or so.
With the suggested layout with HSR trains and Caltrain trains on separate platforms anyone changing trains would need to change platforms, which IMHO is a bad idea and increases the need for those fences.
Re platforms, reversing trains and whatnot: In the suggested layout it would be hard to reverse Caltrain trains as they would need to cross all HSR tracks either when entering or exiting their platform.
TBH I think it would be best to have a layout with two large bay platforms that are the main platforms both for HSR and Caltrain, one for southbound trains and one for northbound trains, and have additional platforms for the odd situations where that amount of platforms aren't enough. I can't remember the details of the suggested service patterns but I think it would be a good idea to have a time table that has say the same amount of fast Caltrain trains as HSR trains, and twice as many slow Caltrain trains as fast Caltrain trains. That way the pattern could be slow-HSR-slow-fast-slow-HSR-slow-fast and at SJ every other slow train would have cross-platform interchange with a fast train, and the other slow trains would have cross-platform interchange with HSR trains.
Re "steam trains" - long term I think it would be a good to aim for a future Caltrain (like?) service in the Oakland direction too, and also HSR trains in that direction. Long term goal quad track both in the Oakland and SF directions, and also quad track in the Gilroy direction. For now I agree with that those Amtrak and freight trains can and should have their own tracks. I also think it's important to NOT build any roof of their tracks, just a simple roof over the platform, and also have an actual wall (with fences, perhaps) dividing their tracks from the other tracks, to ensure that their diesel fumes don't enter the clean electric train part of the station. In addition to the obvious benefit of people not breathing in exhaust gasses, it also makes it easier to keep the station clean.
@Richard (part 2, I had to split this due to reaching the max comment length :O :O )
DeleteRe services southwards: I agree that the current sprawl makes it hard to gain lots of passengers, but I think that any park-and-ride passengers should be redirected to lesser stations than Diridon. And also as already stated, since there are true undeveloped areas not that far in the Gilroy direction it would be feasible to start from scratch with a higher density development at either one of the existing smaller stations or possibly even a new station. So in the long term future there for sure is a possible demand for high frequency local trains. This is also IMHO a reason for trying to have a right-of-way allowing say six tracks SJ-Gilroy, as that would allow fast and slow electric trains in both directions and one or two tracks for "steam trains". And it would of course be great to have separate tracks everywhere, it would probably be less important adjacent to the major stations as all trains will anyways have to stop, and when passengers change trains in both directions between two trains at the same platforms either both trains have to dwell longer than if it was just a regular stop, or one train can dwell as short as a regular stop while the other dwell extra long. In this case it seems reasonable for a slow train to dwell extra long, as anyone going for example from a suburb south of SJ Diridon to SF would anyway want to change to a fast train and vice versa, so the extra dwell times won't matter that much. All this requires that the tracks northwards to SF allow this service pattern though. Not sure if they do, as the decision makes have cheaped out on quad tracking it all.
@Anonymous:
Hollister seems like a good extension to trains that terminate at Gilroy.
@Onux:
I agree that S-Bahn might be the wrong term for trains to Gilroy and whatnot, but since no officials seem to want to rename the train services anyways that doesn't matter that much.
It would really make sense to for example adapt a German naming scheme for all the trains in the area though. Caltrain could be both Rb1 and Re1 for slow and fast trains, and so on.
A cultural problem is that the English speaking world seems almost obsessed on using names rather than numbers for transit lines, except for for some reason bus lines. At best colors seems to work as a substitute for numbers. Weirdly they also seem almost obsessed with using numbers that really say nothing, like Caltrain L3 and L4 going to Gilroy says nothing about the stopping pattern without studying a time table / schedule, while if it was called Re1 anyone would understand that it skips minor stations while a Rb1 would be the train to take to reach all minor stations.
It would be nice if using numbers rather than names could somehow become a part of ADA requirements.
@MiaM - I don't think six tracks are needed here tbh. I think at most 5 tracks are needed. 4 for HSR/Caltrain for a local and express service in each direction, then one track for freight/diesel. I'm hoping FRA and CPUC and other authorities are smart enough to allow Siemens Chargers (rated for 125mph operation) on the local HSR/Caltrain tracks instead of the extant track for freight/diesel, which can interline with future Amtrak trains and Capitol Corridor. If Capitol Corridor and Amtrak are smart, they could also see about dual mode locomotives where they could get on the catenary for that Santa Clara - Gilroy segment, then for other points south (eg Salinas) they can run on diesel. This is also an ideal approach for Capitol Corridor (if they're able to move freight to that Sacramento Northern subdivision) because they can electrify most of the mainline, then run under diesel when they have to use mainline freight tracks (eg Jack London).
DeleteAs for Hollister - yes. A terminus and maintenance facility there would also be a good way to bring in San Benito $$$ and simplify Gilroy operations and the station. Capitol Corridor or Amtrak or Caltrain can also run a similar service to Salinas in the future, using Gilroy as a through-station. Ideally, we would see all trains run through Gilroy and Diridon instead of any terminus station along that line to improve operational efficiency.
For example - a expanded Capitol Corridor service (Salinas - San Jose - Oakland - Sacramento) would interline and use catenary from Gilroy to just before Oakland, switch to diesel in Oakland. Riders could transfer at Gilroy or at Diridon to go to San Francisco, or even to transfer to HSR.
You're also right that S-Bahn is the wrong wording here. Regional rail would be a better descriptor, and could be the major foundation for CAHSR in the future. If policymakers are smart enough, they'd focus on regional rail and when CAHSR makes it over the hill to the Bay Area, we'd have an entire network ready to plug and play with. Metrolink has to be thinking about this, too.
"With the suggested layout with HSR trains and Caltrain trains on separate platforms anyone changing trains would need to change platforms, which IMHO is a bad idea ...".
DeleteYou're not thinking this through, that's all I'll say.
"Re platforms, reversing trains and whatnot: In the suggested layout it would be hard to reverse Caltrain trains as they would need to cross all HSR tracks either when entering or exiting their platform."
You're not thinking this through at all. Reversing trains reverse at the central platforms and arrive and depart on the central tracks. Slower trains (potentially short-turning) run on the central tracks, everywhere along the corridor, for basic basic basic obvious reasons.
Do I recall you might be from Sweden? Apologies if I'm wrong. Anyway, "Ostkustbanan", "Upplands Väsby". This Is The Way. (But not Lund–Malmö, which was quadrupled with the "wrong", express inside, track allocation for rebuild logistical reasons.) Or Utrecht–Amsterdam Biljmer; there are plenty of examples out there.
Well, Richard, you were responded to as you addressed yourself on here wittingly or not, and you did make a remark that hinted you might well be unfamiliar with the state south of the Bay Area. You also misunderstood other portions of the reply out of apparent unfamiliarity, at least exhibiting that, is all that need also be said.
Delete@Anonymous-S:
DeleteI agree that five tracks would likely be sufficient for a long time. However it seems like a good idea to aim for six tracks as if either freight increases or some other unforeseen thing happens it's probably a good idea to have an even number of tracks. Also UP seems keen on having a barrier between their freight track and any HSR/passenger tracks, and that barrier could use the space for "track five", kind of.
As long as we can really be sure that the risk of collisions is low enough, those dual mode Siemens Chargers could use the HSR/Caltrain tracks. I think that HSR/Caltrain should demand that Amtrak installs speedometers in every car, clearly visible for (almost) all passengers, to kind of rub it in that Amtrak trains outside the NEC could run at a decent speed if any money would be spent on the infrastructure.
Would a single loco be good enough to come up to speed on that stretch though? It kind of feels like it would be good if those locos would have more power on electricity than when using diesel, as the diesel lines as I understand it have a way lower max speed.
@Richard: I'm just stating that the current proposed station rebuild (ignoring the "villain" two level variant) has Caltrain platforms on each side of the HSR platforms. IMHO a bad idea if trains are to be reversed here.
I agree that there are benefits to having the slow tracks in the central area, but on the other hand you can aswell run the slow trains on the fast tracks if a section of the slow tracks can't be used. Sure, it delays the fast trains somewhat, but still. I.E. it's kind of a matter of taste, but having the slow tracks in the center is probably the best.
I think we can agree that the British way of having slow tracks on one side and fast track on the other side is the worst way to do this though :)
Anyway, I think that in a long term future we should aim at quad track both to SF and the Oakland direction and if any major rebuild is done at SJ Diridon then the result should have enough capacity for that volume of traffic. However this requires capacity to turn around about half of all trains, unless something completely unexpected happens like a reincarnation of the South Pacific Coast Railway from San Jose to Santa Cruz.
And yes, you recall correctly, I'm from Sweden. Btw Lund-Malmö is a bit weird as it also is used to switch between Swedish left hand drive and Danish right hand drive for the trains that run through the tunnel under Malmö and to/from the bridge to Denmark. It also kind of acts as a flying junction to the single track trailway through Lomma.
Btw this quad tracking also suffered from a bit of small city complex, in that Lund was persistent in demanding super expensive bi-level infrastructure or whatnot to not spoil the view from an old factory turned into a culture house. I think they realized that they had to choose between losing that view or not getting the quad track.
@Richard:
DeleteCame to think about a thing:
I fully agree that it would be great to have long platforms separated by switches at the middle. However this requires that the platforms are a bit further away from the trains in the area around the switches, as cars will sway out a bit when taking the diverging direction in a switch.
In other words this would require either trains that always use some sort of retracting bridges, or possibly retracting bridges from the platform, or carefully selected placement of the doors in regards to where the switches are.
Btw, re the "Villain" two level station alternative: That might not be that bad, as it would allow say two platforms for Caltrains, one in each direction, on one level, and two platforms for HSR trains, again one in each direction, at the other level, with loads of stairs, escalators and elevators between the two levels, making it as easy as possible to change trains (in the same direction, i.e. all combinations of faster/slower trains). Sure, that station alternative would still be bonkers in regards to how bad the cost-benefit would be, but still.
Visualize Some HSR Trains Stopping at the Magnificent San Jose Station™. Doing it and seeking it is actually not out of the question for some city boosters with their small city complex and other South Bay interests, though without a Google Village full of jobs, there's no Google Village full of jobs to which to connect more employees after Caltrain's.
ReplyDeleteThese are also the city boosters that reject dedicated bus or mere van shuttle service, or a conventional people mover, or even a monorail of all things, in favor of high-speed tunnel passage of passengers (one may use that HSR term here, "whisking" them) between train station and airport, or some fancy gadgetry, pods or a favorite now, automated small cars on whose dedicated lanes, aye, at whose cost, that's a wee rub.
good point. Yes, it for sure have a strong aura of small city complex over it.
DeleteAgreed with you both. Realigning the light rail to serve the airport, a very short APM that connects Santa Clara station - SJC, or a simple BRT lane that connects Diridon with SJC would be all great options.
DeleteHowever, one radical idea that I think may be worth it is to move all traffic to SFO and Oakland, close SJC and redevelop the entire site as a shitload of skyscrapers (mainly housing). The utility of that Santa Clara BART stop then is finally realized, and we could have a truly transit-oriented secondary downtown site that relieves housing pressures. This would require CAHSR to be connected to LA and SF, LV, and SD; and a solid regional state-wide network though because SJC has a huge amount of local/regional traffic.
@MiaM: An ordinary off-the-shelf people mover that ideally is consistent with what may be used at other airports suffices. I have had the heretofore and still vapor Google Village development of the area west of downtown or Diridon Station Area in mind and thought there should be some additional stops along the route between train station and airport. Whether it could also serve other locations like Levis Stadium or south and west of the Diridon Station area is a separate concern. That got lost early in the fixation with the esoterica (more tech as toys) in place of ordinary off-the-shelf suitable transportation. But then, notice that with the awful BART project, a different, ambitious kind of tunnel is sought instead of a consistent, off-the-shelf reuse of the existing system design elsewhere that BART has already used. That's in addition to the question if San Jose "needs" [sic] a subway instead of an aerial route with street rebuilding, instead.
Delete@Anonymous-S: Well, removing the airport would be needed for real skyscrapers given the airport height limits that few seem to care to know or realize are there, or want to be like some in San Jose that breach them anyway, exuding today's tech's morality, Accomplished Fact First, We Just Want To Do X.
DeleteTo me removal of SJC ("Mineta") or relocating an airport function so much closer to the new centroid of tech, at Moffett Field, is not feasible, though. To Moffett means a response by the actual single digit percentage fraction of the population that really is NIMBY (unlike incompetent or dishonest abuse of the term as with housing policy trends currently). These are the folks that want Caltrain as well as HSR put into a tunnel or covered trench at other's presumed expense, assuming it's achievable, or removed, they want San Jose to be the northern terminus with required transfer to Caltrain, or still dream of that cross-Bay diversion away from them using the Dumbarton route if terminating in S.F. They're like the anti-Brightline visceral NIMBY opponents in southeastern Florida who thought of a diversion 40% across the state to Lake Okeechobee and back to avoid their counties.
Note that prioritizing housing supply, when demand is key, by so many other than persons or households in a physically constrained area that limits supply anyway, is not a solution, though these days offices loses to housing and has since the pandemic. Realize that high-rises and housing in it would be expensive, not cheap, though. (Nothing in CA is cheap and government involvement is needed for true affordability now.) And what goes for mid-rise construction is mundane to repulsive. At least high-rises often look better. Sorry, no commonplace tall timber yet and no Scandinavian level tall wood work can be expected locally.
@Anonymous: I agree with demolishing the airport and replacing it with high density housing and whatnot.
DeleteAlso if Santa Clara will end up being a Bart station while SJ Diridon will be the largest/major train station in the area, it makes sense to have a VTA line through the redeveloped airport area connecting existing VTA line east of the airport to at least Santa Clara Caltrain station. Possibly extended along the ACE/Amtrack route to Santa Clara / Great America station (weird name, is Google Maps really correct here? :O ), connecting to the existing VTA lines at that place, but having these tracks and it's line kind of as a place holder for longer distant future quad track electric frequent Caltrain style trains on that route.
P.S. with small city complex I was mostly thinking about the ambitious super large suggested station with many platforms, but some weird gadgetbahn people mover also fits that description :)
@MiaM: The small city complex also includes the subway for BART and the type of subway design, plus of course re-routing high-speed trains through San Jose, the worst of three basic route decisions inferior to the right ones for SF-LA high-speed operation. The other two, the trunk along the eastern side of the Central Valley (the least bad of the three), even the Palmdale dogleg (#2) at least have some compensatory features that aren't there with the San Jose re-routing by choosing Pacheco over Altamont Pass, no matter how much HSR tech employee commuting is promoted.
DeleteTo the poster who says @MiaM and the off-the-shelf APM:
DeleteThat's an interesting idea in connecting Diridon, local stops, airport, and potentially Levis - expanding on that, I'd rather we realign and figure out a better connection for something that already exists like the light rail, and reserve the APM for Santa Clara BART/Caltrain to SJC (preferably a joint station for SJC and light rail). I'd add a line from Diridon, hugging the river on the airport side of 87, with stops at Coleman, a connection to the light rail facility, the airport, then use the Central Expressway corridor, stopping roughly at Scott and Central, to Bowers & Augustine, then to connect to Mission College and Great America, then Levi Stadium, potentially terminating roughly around Alviso. While this would be expensive, it'd serve as a one seat ride for the Diridon, the airport, Sunnyvale, Mission College, Great America, Levi's, and Alviso, using existing rolling stock and existing corridors for the most part.
@MiaM, this is Rod Diridon Global Transportation Complex, the greatest transportation hub in Western North America that is in the works. (Even though Oakland is the Bay Area transportation center, across the Bay from San Francisco)
DeleteBy the way, Oakland is not only dying more since decades-old deindustrialization in that area, but is being made worse now by policy decisions and choices, is being replaced by San Jose as the #2 airport in many minds, and the best known access route there is exemplary for the level of crime Oakland is experiencing now.
(You can read about it, the Hegenberger [Road] corridor.)
What has been sought for San Jose officially, though the city has misgivings or concerns now (maybe who pays for dedicated lanes, which might be aerial like other concepts typically should be) is this.
Delete(Warning: Marketing and tech-angle fluff that's gag-inducing)
https://www.glydways.com/
versus (beyond mere bus service and van shuttles; not gondolas)
https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/45797/637114866660130000
@Anonymous-S: it is a shorter APM route from the SJC terminals to the Diridon train station than it is from the SJC terminals to the Santa Clara train station. This is not as the crow flies or the TBM digs; the Santa Clara APM route must go around the runways as SJC/FAA nixed any tunnels under the runways.
Delete@Anonumous:
DeleteLooking at a population density map of the area shows that SJ is kind of at the southern tip of a V shaped pattern where the left top of the V shape is SF and the right top is Oakland.
I actually think that HSR through SJ (and Gilroy) is great for several reasons.
A: a single line you will miss out a decent chunk of the highest population densities, and omitting Oakland is the option that makes it as easy as possible to remedy that by improving/adding rail infrastructure (in particular the proposed rail tunnel SF - Oakland in combination with electrifying and improving the rail between SJ and Oakland, to allow HSR to run either way and reach both destinations, and also allow a Caltrain style services on both sides of the bay, running as a loop when/if the tunnel gets built)
B: Choosing Gilroy as the place to deviate towards the inland ensures the highest cost-benefit ratios for improving rail in other possible new and/or existing paths between the bay area and the inland. The future will almost certainly be good for rail building/improvement as the general population gets used to how good HSR will be, and realize that they could have similarly good service to other places simply by spending money on infrastructure and whatnot.
(Sorry to everyone else that this is kind of a repeat of what has already been written here...)
@Anonymous-S:
Or maybe reserve the APM for Disneyland?
P.S. side track: I think it would be great if we start using the word trams instead of either light rail or street cars, as they are the same thing and just a matter of what the infrastructure looks like. Well, except when someone uses light rail to describe what TBH actually is a metro, i.e. for example the DLR in London or for that sake anything that looks like a metro but uses overhead power rather than third rail.
Clem, regarding
Delete[... T]he Santa Clara APM route must go around the runways as SJC/FAA nixed any tunnels under the runways.
This eliminates the better airport connection, especially for Peninsula travelers, but San Jose interests would militate against it even if a tunnel (what makes sense) were permitted.
Meanwhile, since Diridon is the subject and you have referred to your earlier work on it, I wonder also if you were considering future employment and resident density diagrams for the Caltrain corridor and to the south as you have done with two instances already, including the earlier work you did featuring Diridon south of San Jose. Were you waiting for more of a dumbbell to form with employment on the southern Peninsula with or without the ever-promised, never-delivered-to-date wondrous Google Village? Your Census diagrams are among the best incidental features on your blog.
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2013/10/census-driven-service-planning.html
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2017/01/san-jose-done-right.html
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2017/01/san-jose-done-right.html
@MiaM, the San Jose-Gilroy and Pacheco Pass route for the state HSR project is oriented away from where the people are in the northern San Joaquin Valley, including the ever growing commuter shed for the Bay Area that began to extend there at Tracy, then kept growing, since the later 1970s. It overlaps with the greater Sacramento area including its own extended commuter shed. Altamont Pass serves this commuter route (and is anticipated someday to serve this regional traffic, too, not just intercity traffic like SF-LA). It (SJ-Gilroy, Pacheco Pass) obviously is an inferior way to ride a train between Sacramento and the Bay Area, while the Altamont route reaches the trunk route bend at Manteca and offers the obvious wye and transfer station site. It's "ambitious" to envision many young tech workers choosing to live much farther away, dependent on high-speed trains in Madera or Fresno, or Merced back toward Sacramento rather than through Altamont, and stroking San Jose boosters.
Delete@MiaM, try the following as well to see larger-scale maps of California as well as the core area of Northern California, where the people are and the travel is, and you'll see again why the Pacheco route is inferior to Altamont for serving most people, not just with the Sacramento connection. You can also see some other details, why the Central Coast or "Coast Daylight" (like the Coast Starlight), the route for which takes 11-12 hours currently, is not a candidate for high-speed rail not only for what's not shown like terrain challenges, but for how few people reside there versus on the eastern Central Valley trunk. It would be different (with a large gap in the Coast Ranges to access the southern Central Valley at the least) were there a huge metro area halfway between SF and LA rather than what's there.
Deletehttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0166083
http://www.undertheraedar.com/2015/08/mapping-american-commute.html
@Anonymous:
DeleteInteresting links, thanks.
However I don't see how this is an argument against the current HSR route? Altamont would always result in slower HSR trips from the southern parts of the bay area to LA and other southern parts of the HSR route, and until a rail link SF - Oakland will eventually be built in the future it would also be a slower trip SF- LA.
And in particular there will never ever be incentive for adding a route like the current plan if some other route would be initially chosen for HSR.
But on the other hand, with the current HSR route we can be more or less sure that the routes that currently have slow low frequency train services will eventually be improved as the opinion swings towards rail.
And also, unless I'm missing something (like a huge amount of freight trains?) it would be possible to improve Oakland-Sacramento a lot with the existing infrastructure. At least hourly service all day would be possible, likely even half hourly (unless there are many many (slow) freight trains). After all, it's a 79MHP double track railway.
@MiaM, what mattered from the start is San Francisco, the terminus, not San Jose. With the best route, San Jose would be bypassed; Oakland always has been the center of transportation or true "hub" in the Bay Area, despite what some in San Jose and in the South Bay want for themselves. And again, the Altamont route supports true Nor-Cal core regional travelers, so many of whom now are commuters with homes in the northern San Joaquin Valley and employment in the Bay Area. Dumbarton is a compromise from the best route, and goes as far south as the route should go in the Bay Area, and it happens to be near the new center, or centroid, of the tech "industry" as known now, the southern Peninsula instead of in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale when there still was actual industry, making tangible things, in the South Bay. San Jose including its actual and western extension of downtown isn't really important, continues to be something like an oversized Fresno now with crime and social problems.
DeleteMiaM, for insight, here's the word from the Cal. HSR Authority in 2008.
DeleteTry reading page 50 onward first, to save time. There are other goodies in this, too, though.
https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/programs/bay_area_eir/2008_Bay_to_CV_EIR_EIS_Volume_1.pdf
@MiaM if you read through the older work on this blog you'll find some compelling arguments for altamont being vastly (incomparably really) superior to pacheco operationally (doesn't matter how fast the train are if they're all full and you can't run any more) and that alignment options exist that make the runtime basically a wash. especially since the plan now is a leisurely stroll down to gilroy
DeleteAltamont always required significantly more track to be built between RWC and Tracy with much of it on a new RoW with infinitely more neighbor opposition that we'd have between Los Banos and Gilroy that would kill HSR via a death of a 1000 lawsuits.
DeleteIt would also significantly increase operating costs to provide good frequency to both San Jose and SF.
The other argument against that RoW is that it forces HSR to build around 45 miles of it on its own to reach RWC, as Valley Link and ACE already have a different RoW with its own ridership that they wouldn't want to abandon.
Serving Oakland will also be much easier once HSR is in SJ and CC finishes their "South Bay Connect" project which will provide them with a shorter double-track section between Fremont and Colliseum. To make that happen, we only need to talk about upgrading an existing RoW with existing hourly service to the tune of SJ-Fremont, 10 miles, and Coliseum to Jack London Square, ~7 miles. The costs of both would be shared with CC, HSR, ACE and maybe even Amtrak - who will all benefit from the upgrades - similarly to how Caltrain and HSR both benefit from the shared corridor.
@Martin
DeleteNeighbor opposition to Altamont in the Tri-Valley was real, but hardly more real than that of the wealthiest NIMBYs on Planet Earth who live in Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Atherton and fought tooth and nail against Pacheco. CHSRA proved they can beat NIMBYs... when they actually want to. But NIMBYs are a great excuse for not doing what one doesn't want to do anyway.
Anyway the only reason Altamont requires more track is because of the long detour down to RWC, which only made sense in the world of the 2000s where Link21 wasn't on the table. In our current world, where it is, the only reasonable thing to do is go by the shortest and most direct route to the two places with the most demand *by far*, that is, Oakland and SF. The path from Altamont is through Dublin Canyon, not Sunol Canyon. That means taking over BART's short Dublin/Pleasanton spur and probably digging a tunnel under Dublin Canyon.
ACE goes to San Jose instead of Oakland because that is where the tracks go, not because that is where the demand is. The freeway from the Tri-Valley to Oakland/SF (580) gets tons more traffic than the one to San Jose (680). In fact that is the entire reason Valley Link exists: because there is way more demand in the Oakland/SF direction, so Valley Link was conceived to fill the gap. So I'm not buying that this ROW would only be useful for HSR.
@Anonymous
DeleteAgain, I'm for building a decent speed electrified double track line approximately along the current ACE route.
The problem is that that route will be overfilled with trains with different stopping patterns and whatnot.
As an example, according to the first random google search result, Shinkansen (Japans HSR system) runs 3-4 trains per hour. If we imagine a setup where HSR trains runs at least two different services, one with limited stops and one that stops at all planned HSR stations, that uses up at least two of those possible 3-4 trains per hour. At least rush hour but preferable most parts of the day there really should be two trains per hour for each of those two services, which uses up all possible four trains per hour for true HSR operations.
If you then add local stops along an ACE/Altamont route, you end up with more trains per hour which means that you would either need quad tracking (or at least three tracks but that would lock the infrastructure to some specific versions of the time table), or the HSR trains would need to run slower.
Sure, quad track would likely be cheaper to build than two separate routes.
But given that HSR and Caltrain can't even be arsed to build quad track all the way from SJ to SF, we would most likely had ended up with just double track along the ACE/Altamont route if that had been choosen for HSR. And we would had suffered for eternity as it would be deemed "good enough".
And again, meanwhile with the current chosen route, you will only have HSR trains between Gilroy and the valley, and it will be easy to demand that all counties along the SJ-Gilroy route reserves space for up to six tracks (two HSR, two local, two freight (of which one would be used for the wall that UP requires)) if they would ever want a station for local trains.
Also, Oakland for sure deserves a good service, but I don't agree that Oakland having been the transport hub really has that much to do with what the future should look like. After all Oakland has what Richard calls "steam trains", i.e. a few trains per day, and also the rail station is too far away from the BART station.
Dumbarton would result in Oakland not having HSR trains, unless you would want a forked route or a shuttle service. And in particular that would require changing trains or three separate forks to service Oakland, SF and SJ with direct trains to LA. Three forks would never work except perhaps having a few trains per day taking "the odd route" and otherwise have a shuttle.
My vision for the future is the current chosen HSR system, improved rail SJ-Oakland, Link 21, a way improved Captiol Corridor, electrified and improved ACE (with a fork so some trains serves SJ while some serves Oakland and SF via Link21). Not sure if I see an improved San Joaquin service Oakland-Stockton or maybe extent e-Bart from Antioch to Stockton, or something else, or both.
Luke warm take: How about doing a study on either converting Bart to standard gauge, or adding additional rail for mixed broad gauge and standard gauge rolling stock on Bart, and also study what the height constraints are in the east bay. The point of this would be to study if it would be possible and if so what it would take to be able to run regular mainline passenger trains on the Bart route. That way the Bart route could be used by for example local/stopping trains on the ACE and Captiol Corridor routes from Oaklands and southwards. That way all the intermediate stations along the current mainline rail route between SF and Oakland could be closed, except wherever interchange with Bart would be suitable.
> It would also significantly increase operating costs to provide good frequency to both San Jose and SF.
Deletesan jose can get bent. they get served via timed transfer at RWC like any other bay area suburb would deserve. and the RoW that would have been used to serve SJ with split train operations in the original altamont counterproposal was used by SJ BART.
> The other argument against that RoW is that it forces HSR to build around 45 miles of it on its own to reach RWC, as Valley Link and ACE already have a different RoW with its own ridership that they wouldn't want to abandon.
this is a benefit. that is 45 miles of fast RoW that unlocks a reasonable itinerary between SF and sacramento. and is probably net cheaper than pacheco since you do not need to 4 track the entire caltrain RoW.
> Anyway the only reason Altamont requires more track is because of the long detour down to RWC, which only made sense in the world of the 2000s where Link21 wasn't on the table. In our current world, where it is, the only reasonable thing to do is go by the shortest and most direct route to the two places with the most demand *by far*, that is, Oakland and SF. The path from Altamont is through Dublin Canyon, not Sunol Canyon. That means taking over BART's short Dublin/Pleasanton spur and probably digging a tunnel under Dublin Canyon.
Link21 will never happen and should not even be on the table. Every time the MTC releases a new "ideation study" and it is renewed as the soup du jour on transit twitter people jump through hoops to come up with reasons to justify it. I submit that we should not start with the goal of building a tunnel under the ocean and then try to come up with reasons why it's necessary. an oakland RoW will also never happen as it is redundant and will be extremely expensive. under altamont oakland is served via transfer to BART at a fremont infill. BART, conveniently, is very fast and already occupies an ideal RoW between fremont and oakland.
> As an example, according to the first random google search result, Shinkansen (Japans HSR system) runs 3-4 trains per hour. If we imagine a setup where HSR trains runs at least two different services, one with limited stops and one that stops at all planned HSR stations, that uses up at least two of those possible 3-4 trains per hour. At least rush hour but preferable most parts of the day there really should be two trains per hour for each of those two services, which uses up all possible four trains per hour for true HSR operations.
quora is certainly a reliable resource MiaM. the Shinkansen runs more like 3-4 trains per MINUTE across the entire network. four trains per hour is what we'll get in california for our $100B, (more like two) if we're lucky. certainly not more than that without altamont.
see: many past posts on this blog
- https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-overtake-that-wont-be.html
- https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2022/08/hsr-lays-egg-in-caltrains-nest.html
- there's a timetable somewhere I can't find right know made by Richard or Clem that shows harmonious frequent caltrain AND hsr service with altamont and a midline overtake at RWC
@idiot doom spiral:
DeleteWould HSR via Altamont and Dumbarton be faster SF - Sacramento than Oakland-Sacramento would be with adding HSR tracks along the current Capitol Corridor route from north of Martinez to Sacramento?
And oh, crap, sorry, actually missed that it was a Quora answer re Shinkansen frequency. Sorry about that :(
However what they run across the network isn't interesting, the interesting is what they squeeze in on a double track line. Some pages talks about increasing it to every five minutes. That might be possible, some slightly more serious search results talks about 4 minutes to brake from full speed to full stop. That assumes that if one train derails the following train emergency brakes within one minute, if both trains runs perfectly to their time tables. If the derailing train is slightly delayed and/or if the following train is slightly ahead of schedule there will be less than 60 seconds. (And sure, you can of course argue that there is a good cost-benefit factor between running trains so often that more than one train will crash if one derails/crashes, as it would also allow a more frequent service, but that would probably be a hard sell both to the general public and to anyone with some decision-making responsibility).
Either way, this assumes that every train has the same stopping pattern, or that there are switches. Unfortunately trains have to slow down before and accelerate after switches if they take a diverging route on a HSR line, as no switches allow full HSR speeds in their diverging route. Not sure what the fastest speed limit is but I bet it's half of the max HSR speed or so.
So in other words if HSR would had used the Altamont route, it would either had to have been quad tracked or any ACE type service would have to really infrequent, or the HSR trains would have to run slow.
A question to you:
Are you for against a hypothetical future with both the current selected HSR route AND also a good electrified double track railway via Altamont?
FWIW, the Tokaido Shinkansen is double track with all secondary stations quad tracked (SFFS), three stopping patterns (including all stops), mostly 16 car trains. Per direction between Tokyo and Osaka they run 12-13 TPH peak, 10 TPH off-peak.
Delete@MiaM
DeleteHSR runs on its own line from RWC to the approach tracks to LA union station. put up the wires on ACE, why should I care?
Why RWC? HSR will run through Pacheco, and on Caltrain right-of-way and tracks from Tamien to San Francisco. Are you perhaps speaking of some hypothetical alternative world, where CHSRA chose the Altamont route?
Delete@Anonymous-S: Yes, 2-3 intermediate stops would serve the hotels that were supposed to be included in the area as well as the employers, and also some large housing projects planned there could be well-served. Those choosing to live there who flew often would really have a good deal.
ReplyDeleteWhat the city was given by many parties were proposals at a high level for various kinds of service. One of them was Bombardier with a monorail system (like Las Vegas's, but consider San Jose's better positioned) and possibly a separate people mover for the airport-train station shuttle service. Also sought was operation along the Stevens Creek corridor. To me what's neglected is what's north of the stadium and transit really connecting ballpark patrons (not just for football) and their events. The service could go farther to North San Jose somewhere like yes, Alviso or to the old Lockheed area now called the Caribbean area or what next it might be called, besides "past 237." Why not from there to the Google area, etc.? Much isn't present or developed, but the general idea is there.
...
I'll choose some unique suffix myself for identification sometime, maybe.
Today during their 15:30, Wednesday, July 24t meeting, the Caltrain Advocacy and Major Projects (AMP) Committee will review and discuss the following 72 page Update on Diridon Station Business Case slideshow.
ReplyDeleteThe meeting details with full agenda, slides and Zoom link for public attendance are available on the Caltrain Meetings page.
@Clem:
ReplyDeleteSuggestion / request / wish for a future post:
Some kind of overview of existing, proposed and former/disused railways in the greater vicinity of the Caltrain area, perhaps with links to further reading for each section, a summary of proposed changes, and also some rough estimate of the likelihood of any improvement taking place within some reasonable future.
Also perhaps a summary of what various major improvements of the rail lines in the bay area might look like. I know that this is getting really close to fantasy and far away from facts, but it could serve as a positive contribution to the debate about railways in the area. Kind of like a local/regional version of the "possible high speed lines" series that Lucid Stew does on Youtube, except as a blog post.
Or @anyone, if possible perhaps do something about the state of California railways on Wikipedia. I.E. add a map to a summary page, with each line clickable, and colors indicating current passenger and possibly freight usage/frequency, electrification or not, if it's disused, if it's proposed and/or if it's currently under construction.
Here is a map of pretty much every railway that ever existed in CA: https://www.railmaponline.com/USWestMap.php
DeleteFor currently-existing railways, Open Street Map is pretty accurate.
@MiaM, here is an example improvement.
DeleteDumbarton is useful to connect to the San Joaquin Valley and form a Manteca Wye at the bend corresponding to the change in orientation of the state's main axis between north-south for the northern forty per cent or so that is not as well-known and the mainly settled southern sixty per cent or so with its main axis that is oblique. (another reason Italy can be an analogue in addition to or instead of Spain for high-speed rail; Rome-Milan is another, though Fresno Isn't Florence, as it might be were terrain easier by the coast with a big metro halfway between the Bay Area and L.A.)
The Dumbarton route is "sideways" to the oblique main axis of most of the state and runs as far south, notably on the Peninsula, as high-speed rail should be routed, or dog-legged, in the Bay Area. It's inferior to Dublin Canyon and Oakland directly across the Bay to San Francisco, but suitable as an alternative route.
The most interesting Dumbarton example is the SETEC Ferroviaire route. It provides awful Tri-Valley service if any would be considered, versus Dublin being in an ideal location for a station that's really significant along the route in the eastern Bay Area, but it's direct from the Peninsula. Clem has written about it on this blog and included a Google map equivalent. Note there's no reason at all for a tunnel instead of a bridge over the Bay at the Dumbarton crossing, though. Also consider at least one more track and improved conventional, regional (including commuter) service on this route versus the antiquated, winding, slow route now. Oh, and "blended" non-HSR operation discussed in Clem's article below is 80 miles instead of 50, all the way to Gilroy, now.
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2013/03/lynn-schenk-is-right.html
The California rail network schematics (assembled by Swiss consultancy SMA) can serve as the canvas of your imagination. They are linked in the sidebar above. I don't have the energy to expand the scope beyond my peninsula backyard, but there is so much failure and so much potential!
DeleteThanks to all of you!
DeleteAfter having read the Cali rail network schematics, I first have to be captain obvious and say that the rail infrastructure between San Jose and south of Oakland is abysmally bad.
DeleteBut also, from Oakland all the way through Sacramento and a bit onward the line is double tracked. Some parts of it is slow, but a lot of it allows 79MPH for passenger trains which is pretty decent.
What is the reason that this line still is double tracked while so much else has lost it's second track?
Unless there are a really huge amount of freight trains, are there really any reason why the Capitol Corridor doesn't run at least every hour all day at the same minute (for every station) for every train?
I get that the part between Oakland and San Jose might be hard to have a great time table on, but between Oakland and Sacramento that should be doable.
Also I think that around 8pm departure both from Oakland and Sacramento for the last train is way too early. 10pm seems more reasonable, possibly even an "evening out" way later on Fridays and Saturdays?
Also the 79MPH speed limit for passenger trains is obviously at least partially due to classification of the railway, and only in some places due to geometry and whatnot. What would it take to upgrade those sections to allow say the speeds the NEC allows? (Taking the NEC as an example as it's an operational US railway that combines fast passenger trains with freight (afaik) on the same line/tracks).
Also if Cali HSR would add stations that can replace the current stations in Lodi and Turlock-Denair then HSR can fully replace the Amtrak San Joaquin service between Stockton and Fresno. HSR will have it's station a bit away from the current Amtrak station, but it seems like that south of the stations both the right-of-way that HSR will use, and the current Amtrak route, runs parallel. If a decent link would be built between the lines, the San Joaquin could either be truncated to Fresno using the new HSR station for easy interchange with the HSR trains. Or it could even be operated with some sort of dual mode HSR trains that could run fast Stockton-Fresno, slow Fresno-Bakersfield, and again fast Bakersfield-LA. Seems quite wasteful though to have a specific train type for this though. If a separate service would run Fresno-Bakersfield to service the existing stations then the station locations in Bakersfield becomes a problem as the HSR and the existing stations are far away from each other and the lines only joins "south" (technically more east than south at this place) of the stations, so for an easy interchange between a more regional remains of the San Joaquin service and HSR there is a need for an additional "Bakersfield south" station.
Also the route Martinez-Stockton is to a large extent single track, but it seems like there is right-of-way for double track all the way.
In other words I would say that it wouldn't take that much effort to improve the northern California rail network in a way that most of the existing passenger rail lines could have a least an hourly service with a decent speed.
Schedule:
https://www.capitolcorridor.org/trainschedule/Train_Schedules.pdf
to @MiaM - look into these documents from Capitol Corridor: https://www.capitolcorridor.org/vision-plan/
DeleteIn them, there's a plan to move Capitol Corridor to the coast line, bypassing Fremont for a quicker and more direct route to Oakland, plus rebuilding of the disused Sacramento Northern alignment for freight, allowing for more CC service through towns. The challenge would be figuring out how to separate freight and passenger rail in that section between Oakland and Martinez/Benicia, and could be solved with some big and expensive tunnels.
I agree that with a small push, we could have an amazing regional network. If we can get dedicated double-tracks for the entire CC corridor, with limited grade separations and quad gate tracks, we could get fantastic service between San Jose, Oakland, and Sacramento at 110-125mph. If we can get that level of service, we're talking 2 hours between San Jose and Sacramento, which is transformative. On top of Pacheco tunnels and on top of ValleyLink, we could see a massive shift to rail transit for Northern California by 2036 or so (assuming 10-12 years for financing and build out)
Anonymous-S, trains cannot travel 111-125 mph at-grade in the USA unless there is an impenetrable barrier at the crossing. That's expensive, so you see 110 mph at the most, including with the (ambitious) revision downward of SJ-Gilroy in 2018 for high-speed trains.
DeleteAbove 125 mph the tracks have to be fully grade-separated. It's the right thing to do in busy places as well to prevent collisions and improve safety, reduce disruptions of train operations. In busy places there usually aren't enough crossings, and closures are considered anathema.
@MiaM, the best route for Oakland-Fremont service (before continuing to San Jose) is through the cities it should serve, and that's the old Western Pacific Oakland Branch, that is where the BART East Bay Viaduct is located already, and there's an example conversion if not also conflict as elsewhere with a rail-trail being sought along the right-of-way now. There is no conflict at this time as in other cases like in the Adirondacks because nobody expects to revive rail there, even though it's better than the "Coast" alignment (branch and route) that bypasses cities instead of serving them, and misses Fremont. This map shows them:
Deletehttps://www.abandonedrails.com/oakland-subdivision
Also, earlier you mentioned trams. These are neglected and in addition to for example, providing service from off-campus student housing at suitable distances to colleges and universities, it could also be another possibility for San Jose's airport-train station connector. In fact, the distance involved for the latter (5 km) is about right for a reasonable example distance for higher education tram service, especially where student car use is impractical or parking is prohibited. (In practice at least in some places, impractical and prohibited)
@Anonymous there is a 20km stretch north of suisun that is arrow straight and has no grade crossings. and there's like 6 curves between fairfield and sacramento. with some judicious grade separation the capital corridor could be flying the entire way north of suisun bay
Delete@Anonymous-S:
DeleteThanks for the link to the document.
The document kind of states that they currently use the "allowed" (can't remember the exact wording, I read the document a few days ago) slots for passenger trains, without that much elaboration on what it would take to run more trains.
Re expensive tunnels: Sorry that I'm reiterating things but I think it's worth considering starting in Oakland rather than Richmond. Oakland anyways needs a reconsideration where some sort of train hub should be, and Link21 also opens up for making that choice in the not so distant future. Thinking about that in particular there is no good link to Bart at the current station. Also Richmond has a great Bart service, and even though they would most likely like to have an improved Capitol Corridor service, it seems worth skipping Richmond for the greater good.
Re a shared freight and passenger section: Afaik freight railways oppose electrification as it gets in the way of double stack container trains. Worth considering though is that in the southeast UK they run trains with third rail DC electrification, like on metro system, at 100MPH (!!!). Sure, that needs better fencing and people also need to keep track of their pets and livestock, but it's an option at least for where height constraints wouldn't allow overhead wires high enough to allow double stack container trains. Not sure what the pantographs would look like, i.e. if the trains would have two different ones for higher and lower overhead wire height, or if the same would work with two different heights.
@Anonymous:
On the other hand, BART is the local service in that area.
Is it worth running Oakland-SJ trains in a more built up area mostly to have a better placed Fremont station?
And yes, trams! In particular if a tram would serve the SJ airport it could have an average speed as good or even better than electrified Caltrain trains, given that the stations are so close to each other.
Just having some common part of the system, used by many lines, on a separate right of way can save a lot of time for many commuters. An example from Gothenburg, Sweden is the tram line eastwards from the central station, with a faster non-stop section along the mainline rail tracks, then a single stop at "Gamlestadstorget" where the route forks, and then one of the forks continue northwards with another long non-stop section (along a disused rail route). This makes that branch faster than the fastest average speed between two stations on the Stockholm metro system. (And the trams have a max speed of 60km/h, i.e. approx 40 MPH, so there is potential for even more travel time reduction).
Re trams and universities/students: I think that it would probably be a good idea to also serve high schools with trams, to give people of all education level and income classes a taste of walkable transit oriented areas. It might even be a good political goal to add good tram services to areas that are generally considered poor and/or subject to various types of discrimination (when it comes to city planning that would probably mostly be racial discrimination, but any type of discrimination seems like a good reason to improve an area). It's important to do this without the current residents being evicted due to gentrification and higher living costs though.
@idiot doom spiral:
I really like the idea of improving the service greatly on a part of the route, and leave another part as is, as that makes it way more obvious how good all of the route could be with enough investment.
@MiaM: The Western Pacific right-of-way (keeping it short) indeed is taken by BART already. The same is true for the real route to take to eastern Contra Costa County, namely the "Caldecott-highway 24 route" to Walnut Creek, itself an effective crossroads as Dublin is, and continue either to Antioch or to Martinez, in the latter case continuing with the Sacramento route that I-80 follows outside the Bay Area as well as the railroad. BART already serves eastern Contra Costa County as well as the East Bay to Fremont (and Richmond at the north end of the core area) and BART continues to use rail right-of-way to San Jose now. Rail service to and from Sacramento is poor north of Richmond because it follows a winding route, same as Altamont Pass and Niles Canyon, slowly at the water's edge, similar to what's found in the Puget Sound region. (And a bypass in the Northwest under the childishly named "We Can't Wait" program didn't wait for Positive Train Control and you likely know the tragedy of the inaugural run there and then.)
DeleteIt's a shame, though, because that Western Pacific right-of-way is the best conventional rail route now for serving the East Bay from the southern core southward. The Coast branch is poor, much poorer by comparison. However, Newark could work as a (lesser) substitute station there, with transfer capability to a future revived Dumbarton service logistically more supportable there.
@Anonymous:
DeleteYeah, that route would had been great at least for trains Oakland-Stockton. Looks like it would be some challenge to reach the existing rail bridge in Martinez though. In theory another option would had been a new bridge approximately where the ferry for the Sacramento Northern railway used to be, but relaying rail in that route would miss at least Fairfield and probably Dixon and Davis too.
Either way, the current BART is of course double tracked, and it seems like there isn't space for additional tracks more or less anywhere along the route. Also the tunnel sections are most likely sized for BART trains rather than mainline trains. Also seems like BART runs almost every 10 minutes for most of the day so even if some sort of mixed operation would technically be possible it would probably be hard to squeeze in more into the time table.
If we still play with the idea to convert the BART route to regular rail it would waste the long tunnel to Orinda and would also require a new tunnel all the way from wherever mainline finally ends up (with Link 21 and whatnot) in Oakland. I assume that tunnels are way more expensive than the highway median route, so it would in practice be an expensive tunnel to be able to abandon the cheap part of the current Bart route, which seems like a waste. Although it would be way more expensive, it seems like a better idea to build a full new route, or just postpone that part. For example an additional pair of electrified full HSR tracks from north of the bridge at Martinez to Sacramento would likely give way more bang-for-the-bucks than straightening up the route Martinez-Oakland. (And as I've been waffling about earlier in this comment section, UK uses third rail electrification for way higher speeds than the slow section between Martinez and Richmond (and also faster than the current max speed Richmond-Oakland), so it would most likely be possible to electrify without interfering with the freight double stack trains.
Speaking of rail in the Antioch area: It seems like they really cheaped out on as much as possible for the BART route/extension. A bunch of the stations only has access to one side of the rail. Also it looks like it would had been relatively easy to provide pedestrian access to the bart-eBart interchange thingie. Sure, additional pedestrian access on both sides of the tracks for the single-sided stations (and at all at the interchange thingie) wouldn't increase the amount of homes within walking or even biking distance that much, but on the other hand we are just talking about a few pedestrian bridges and ticket gates, not a full blown rail line.
Luke warm take: I think it would be a good idea to hold a consultative referendum re such pedestrian bridges, and as it would just be consultative it could include minors but on the other hand there should be a requirement that anyone voting be able to walk for say about half a mile or so to participate unless they have a registered ADA disability. I.E. ask 10 year old kinds if they would like to be able to walk to the station to meet up with their parent returning from work, or whatnot, and ask 15 year old kids if they would like to be able to walk to the station to take a train a few stops to go to the movies or whatnot without having to have some adult driving them everywhere.
Pt 2, ran into the max comment length again :)
DeleteAlso another thing they seemed to have cheaped out on BART to Antioch is that it seems like the tunnel under the highway connecting the depot to the end station in that it looks like it can only contain a single track. Given that the highway lacks a median further on, and that there is a currently single track freight railway (to Tracy) next to the depot, going through Arbor and Brentwood, mostly grade separated, and seemingly having space for at least one or possibly two additional tracks, it seems short sighed to not build the tunnel to take two tracks. Since the eBart is just a diesel motor wagon (DMU) it could be routed on a new route after Brentwood to join the tracks to Stockton. Or maybe those eBart vehicles aren't approved by FRA to share rails with freight trains?
Re Oakland-SJ: Sure, the route that Bart uses now would be better than the coastal route for stopping trains, but are stopping trains really needed? Non-stop trains would probably be better off taking the coastal route. The exception might be that a possible future ACE branch to Oakland rather than SJ would perhaps be better to route via the existing passenger route, but that is about it. And to be honest, it would probably be better to provide an interchange between the Bart Dublin route and ACE than add a branch to (or divert) ACE to Oakland?
I don't know enough about Fremont but would it be feasible to add a tram connection between Fremont Bart and a possible future station at Newark? It wouldn't really be useful for interchanges for longer distance travel, but could act as a connector for local trips. Thinking about running that either on an additional track on the right of way ACE uses, or even share tracks. There is a single place where there is a road bridge over the rail, otherwise the rail crosses roads at grade or the rail uses bridges over the roads. I.E. there is only one place where it might be hard to add overhead wire that would be high enough to not interfere with double stack freight trains. Either making the trams technically able to run on 25kV AC (like those who run on 16kV AC in Germany) or some wagon that is just used to be able to tow the trams using a mainline rail loco would suffice to get them to/from the VTA maintenance facilities. (It would hardly be reasonable to build maintenance facilities for like 2-4 trams for a small like like this).
Agree that a future restored Dumbarton bridge route would be a great reroute of ACE.
@MiaM:
DeleteI got hit by the comment length limit, too, will merely trim here.
a new bridge approximately where the ferry for the Sacramento Northern railway used to be
That would be to the route going through the proposed "California forever" project that a few are promoting now, incidentally.
If we still play with the idea to convert the BART route to regular rail it would waste the long tunnel to Orinda [...] [I]t seems like a better idea to build a full new route, or just postpone that part.
BART tunnels are too small for conventional rail including HSR. Another route would be a headache. It's inferior to Altamont for HSR, anyway, as well as a related improved full state rail system.
Tunnel size was addressed long ago in an amusing way on this blog, motivated by the antics of those in some Peninsula cities with HSR coming.
Here is the blog article:
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2010/06/tunnel-sizes.html
To that add the following, known as one of Clem's Greatest Hits:
https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/04/joy-of-tunnels.html
For example an additional pair of electrified full HSR tracks from north of the bridge at Martinez to Sacramento would likely give way more bang-for-the-bucks than straightening up the route Martinez-Oakland.
The tracks to get to Oakland are not only slow but wind by the Bay shore, adding to time needed. There is a potential Franklin Canyon-related improvement that bypasses much of this.
Speaking of rail in the Antioch area: It seems like they really cheaped out on as much as possible for the BART route/extension.
One only need say: "eBART" to confirm.
Since the eBart is just a diesel motor wagon (DMU) it could be routed on a new route after Brentwood to join the tracks to Stockton. Or maybe those eBart vehicles aren't approved by FRA to share rails with freight trains?
The DMUs are not FRA-compliant. Building onward to Tracy and a Valley Rail connection would be interesting.
Re Oakland-SJ: Sure, the route that Bart uses now would be better than the coastal route for stopping trains, but are stopping trains really needed?
Stopping local trains are in order to serve the cities between Fremont and Oakland. High-speed trains, no. The Coast Branch doesn't serve these cities, though a Fremont-Newark station is planned so at least the southern East Bay isn't neglected.
ACE goes to Fremont, not to East Dublin as Valley Rail would do. BART should have been completed to Livermore, shortening the trip. There is interest in eBART to extend from East Dublin to Livermore as an alternative, or reach ACE along El Chorro Road.
[W]ould it be feasible to add a tram connection between Fremont Bart and a possible future station at Newark?''
First note Ardenwood above with Coast Branch if it is taken. It is not in the same places as the double-wye where the Dumbarton branch meets with the Fremont route.
"Tram" outside the US is a streetcar or trolley bus inside it, and neither one would be sought in that location; a bus would be. A tram in the US sense is a slower electric conveyance like a golf cart, but bigger. That wouldn't work either, though it's better in San Jose for the airport-train station connection (and golf carts, too) than what the city has sought and the other ideas considered.
Here are the Ardenwood station brochure (another pedestrian bridge) and main page for the project:
https://www.southbayconnect.com/resources/SBC_ArdenwoodFactSheet_October2021.pdf
https://www.southbayconnect.com/
Diridon is also funny because of the related antics that include junkets, similar to the Green Cities conferences and problematic climate activist events involving government officials and others to enjoy travels often to really nice, interesting destinations often at others' expense.
ReplyDeleteThis article even features what else, the Quartet of magic trains on it.
And a junket, and much more, like other players and real estate
https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/early-missteps-on-diridon-stations-21st-century-redesign-may-risk-derailing-the-project/
https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/vta-fiercely-denies-wrongdoing/
The cherry-on-top is that after doing this junket to Rotterdam, the consultants decided to do the complete opposite of the Rotterdam layout. There was also a so-called Diridon advisory committee to discuss some of these layout options, and the consultants completely ignored feedback -- which is why (for example) these latest plans have this utterly ridiculous underground LRT station.
DeleteRelevant side track: In Sweden there is a general division that the national rail infrastructure authority builds, owns and maintains the platforms part of stations, while either a separate state ran entity or local municipalities or transit agencies own station buildings and everything else.
DeleteI think this division would had at least partially saved the Diridon situation. With this type of division, some sort of "California rail authority", joint owned by Cali HSR and all public transit agencies, would had decided on and paid for the platforms, and then it would be up to San Jose (and/or VTA) to pay for anything extra, but the hypothetical "California rail authority" would have to approve anything that is above, at or below the platforms.
That way they could build whichever "ticket office experience part", or whatever they would, but it would be clear to everyone what is needed and used for train operations and what is a separate thing.
(This would also make it easier to show that some investments might make a profit even when disregarding positive effects on society. I think that San Jose definitively is big enough that rent for shop spaces in the station could pay for the interest rate for the extra cost of building said shop spaces while anyways building the rest of the station. But on the other hand it would be hard for that to happen in a smaller town).
@MiaM: To add the fun and address that "ticket office experience" reference, read the following, for example; with Diridon and also with the downtown San Jose station if not the other deep station (overdone 28th St. - Little Portugal), and their sizes, not just depths, I say that San Jose people have ARTIC envy. It's dated, but still applicable: Below is a link to an article about it, a station with such a Ticket Office Experienced, but not by many, and you also can see where normal people intend to park by a rail service they use versus what the out-of-touch people want them to do. (if not magically all walk, cycle, or take transit)
Deletehttps://voiceofoc.org/2015/10/anaheims-artic-wasteland/
@Anonymous:
DeleteOh, wow, that ARTIC thing seems incredibly over sized. It would be suitable for a station like for example Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, with 18 platforms for 10-15 train lines, (logical lines/services, not physical routes) and a bunch of long distance buses and whatnot. ARTIC seems to be serviced by one local train and like three local bus routes and a few "other" bus routes. Also it's built at a station that don't serve the two local train lines in the area (the other being the Inland Empire one).
@Drunk Engineer, at least after that "fact-finding" trip, there's food for further San Jose booster-bashing that's also deserved, snide references to Diridon San Jose Niewe Centraal Station.
DeleteAnd never has there been one word from the city, has there, about exploiting that light rail somehow (with another line not being truly overreaching, by any means) to get fairly promptly to and from the airport. (Especially with nothing expected to be built for ages to come that merits intermediate stops -- mean but accurate humor)
@jpk122s 22 July, 2024 19:09 "ps Richard you had some great ideas for this grade separation in replies to a post on this blog last year, but the link appears to be broken. Any chance you can revive it?"
ReplyDeleteHi, like everything else in life I abandoned this immense time-sink (hundreds of hours "invested") because it got exactly zero traction. And I did so when I was in the middle of making some substantial changes that whose context I've now let slip and it's broken and I don't know how I'll get getting back into it and fixing it up, but history suggests I will, eventually, and nobody at all will care. So what you see is an old tossed-out-there snapshot of less-optimized vertical profiles than I've since developed, and there is exactly zero user interface (you REALLY want pan and zoom for this, but browser support for SVG images much beyond icons is abysmal, so I tried to implement it by hand, and boy oh boy is that a world of pain, and presently abandoned) but you can see the old diagrams still.
But beyond that, the larger problem is that pobox.com, on whom I've relied on and paid for email forwarding and URL redirection for 20+ years, discontinued the trivial-to-provide URL redirection service and every link I've ever put out there to anything for decades is broken. Half the Taktulator links from caltrian-hsr.blogspot.com are busted, along with a ton of links from the front-page images of Clem's articles which I hosted.
The "World Wide Web" was a mistake! ("Link in bio" is what people are reduced to.)
Anyway, manually substitute mly.users.sonic.net for pobox.com/users/mly/ and you might end up with things. (Aren't COMPUTERS supposed to do this shit for HUMANS? In some other less-awful timeline, quite possibly!)
Actually I just checked that "transbay.info", a domain I've paid to own for a couple decades and never used for anything, actually works(!!!). For now... Probably a better idea to use that than mly.users.sonic.net as there's far less than zero guarantee sonic won't throw web hosting under the bus sooner than later, and at least I can control where http://transbay.info redirects. In theory. (Oh and https://transbay.info doesn't work, because sonic.net where it redirects isn't doing whatever they need to do. Insecure connection scary!)
So give http://transbay.info/Caltrain-Grade-Separation/all.html a whirl.
Likewise ye olde Taktulator (now with SVG animation that nobody every asked for, but zero functional upgrades since 2011!!! Backwards compatability is A Thing!) is at http://transbay.info/Caltrain-Timetabling/201105-takt/
The prediction came true - in a meeting next week, staff are proposing to eliminate the "Stacked" alternative. Lots more slides in the presentation: http://santaclaravta.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=4003&Inline=True
ReplyDeleteThanks @Richard for the updated links. I really appreciate the work you did on this, even if it didn't get much traction. For Diridon, I agree that the first step needs to be giving up on the warm springs wye and vasona connections for freight. Once that is done, elevating the freight tracks seems to become feasible.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that 6 tracks / 3 platforms total for HSR+Caltrain at Diridon should be more than enough. If terminating some HSR service at Diridon is really planned (doubtful), reversing HSR trains via a pocket track somewhere near College Park would be a lot lower cost than overbuilding the station for this purpose.
Looking at the latest plans from the VTA meeting linked to by @AG above it's clear that they are just using the wrong constraints and ending up with terrible, expensive solutions that offer no transportation benefit.
My proposal for a realistic Phase 1 plan to elevate the Diridon station in preparation for CAHSR service is:
Delete1) Widen McEvoy Street to 4 lanes by acquiring the industrial parcels on the west side. This provides a diversion from San Carlos Ave to the Park Ave underpass which is hugely oversized (100ft ROW) and can easily handle the combined traffic of San Carlos Ave and Park Ave. VTA routes 23/523 would now serve Diridon.
2) Demolish the San Carlos Ave bridge over Caltrain. This is a relic and too steep and narrow for bikes or peds.
3) Construct a new 2-track EMU-only viaduct from Bird Ave ascending over 280, Auzerais and San Carlos to the west of the existing tracks. This can use CAHSR design standards including steep grades and vertical curves as no freight is supported.
4) Demolish the western 6 tracks at Diridon, leaving 3 tracks connecting to the existing MT1/2 alignment to the south. 2 Caltrain tracks and 1 freight is sufficient for interim service.
5) Connect the new EMU viaduct to new elevated 3 platforms, 6 track structure on west side of Dirdon. Descend to CEMOF using exceptional CAHSR grades. Choose platform elevation that makes most sense for connections north and south. Even ~10ft elevation should be enough to restore Santa Clara St. to pretty much at grade in the future.
6) Do compatible Vasona VTA LRT modifications (TBD) at same time, suspending VTA service on this line during construction.
Once Phase 1 is completed, 90% of the transportation benfit is acheived. 2 electrified tracks south of Diridon, grade separated for Caltrain and HSR service. Freight is still at grade but the small number of trains makes grade separating those tracks a low priority. However, passenger circulation at Diridon is not much better than today and the underpasses at Park and Santa Clara remain.
DeleteIn the distant future, a Phase 2 could be contemplated with a sequence like:
1) Reconfigure the Diridon PG+E substation so that the western part is cleared and can be acquired. This costs $$$ but maybe could be staged over a decade or two.
2) Construct a 1-2 track freight-compatible elevated viaduct to the east of the existing tracks, starting at Bird Ave in the south, ascending over 280, Auzerais, and San Carlos.
3) Demolish the annex of the "historic" Diridon station leaving the main hall intact (maybe keep the facade of the annex if we have to). Access to the station underpass is only from the west side during construction.
4) Remove the eastern 2 at-grade tracks leaving a single through track at Diridon for Freight. Remove southern freight connection to Warm Springs Wye. Terminate ACE/Amtrak at Santa Clara in interim service.
5) Construct an elevated 2-track structure for 1-2 ACE/Amtrak platforms connecting to the southern viaduct and extending north with freight-compatible 2-track viaduct descending slowly to grade far north at Taylor St.
6) Shift Freight and Amtrak/ACE to new viaduct and demolish at-grade tracks. Convert 280 rail bridge to pike/ped path. Improve passenger circulation from east side under tracks.
7) (Optional) Widen Diridon structure to add additional Amtrak track/platform if needed.
8) (Optional) Demolish old Santa Clara St. and Park Ave bridges and fill in streets to restore them to at-grade.
I wouldn't put this on the newer Open Thread. Instead it's here.
ReplyDeleteLook! Progress. Also there are challenges ahead, money they don't have, etc.
https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-officials-juggle-transit-design-with-city-disruption/
Taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $10b for Diridon Station redevelopment
ReplyDeleteThe project would need a significant local source of funding, including potential taxes or a financing district
By DEVAN PATEL
With new cost estimates projected at $3 billion to $10 billion to transform Diridon Station into a “world-class” transit hub, a joint advisory committee with representatives from four transit agencies and the City of San Jose has narrowed its vision for the area to two concepts ahead of a public campaign to gain support for the massive project.
Diridon Station has become central to the economic vitality of San Jose’s western downtown area amid BART’s looming expansion into the South Bay. At the same time, Google’s ambitious vision for a transit village in the vicinity could bring millions of square feet of office and retail space and thousands of homes.
While Google has remained committed to moving forward, the company temporarily hit the pause button last year as it reassessed the project timeline.
The larger Diridon Station area is a 250-acre span that could accommodate more than 12,000 additional homes and tens of millions of square feet of office space anchored around the SAP Center and the station, which would serve as a one-stop shop for all transportation methods, including the future BART line and the proposed high-speed rail service connecting San Jose to the Central Valley.
The advisory committee — which consists of San Jose, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, Caltrain, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the California High-Speed Rail Authority — initially looked at three alternatives but nixed one option that proposed stacking train tracks at a significantly higher cost of up to $13 billion.
A ground-level design places a price tag for the project between $3 billion and $6 billion. An elevated-track design has a steeper economic hit at $5 billion to $10 billion. Design staff said the at-grade alternative is less expensive because there is a significant cost for building higher tracks, and it also requires less material.
“The goal here is to build on extensive outreach completed throughout the (Diridon Integrated Station Concept) process, build awareness and seek feedback that will help us select a recommended alternative by next summer,” said Caltrain planning manager Melissa Reggiardo.
Jim Ghielmetti, a board member of the High-Speed Rail Authority, said that while he was anxious to hear the public’s input, he favored the ground-level option. “I think cost is something we have to keep in mind,” he said.
Regardless of the design chosen next year, officials know that it will take a variety of funding sources to make the project a reality.
Some form of federal matching funds will be crucial to the project. But to get to that stage, the agencies will need local, regional or state funds, said Amitabh Barthakur, a partner at HR&A Advisors.
Barthakur said that while federal funding for capital projects typically requires at least a 20% local match, most cases are closer to 50%.
“It doesn’t mean that all of them are local, but probably other non-federal sources,” Barthakur said. “We’ll have to get really creative in cobbling together that stack of funding.”
Local officials have faced similar challenges with funding the $12.8 billion BART extension, which has seen costs and delivery dates swell throughout its planning phase.
While the BART project — which is separate from the Diridon Station redevelopment — recently received a $5.1 billion commitment from the Federal Transit Administration, it left a $700 million funding gap that transportation officials are still trying to plug.
Representatives from the agencies were unavailable to answer whether the FTA’s substantial financial commitment to BART could affect future local projects’ ability to compete for additional funding.
Indeed. I'm critical and "Progress" above was not neutral, technically correct as it might be. The parasitism often with an entitlement mentality beyond the local or state scope for various local or state projects, with regard to state and federal funding of local and state projects, is routine and very annoying, to keep it kind.
DeleteDon't forget how well (I left out quotes again) special projects are executed, too, like the Bay Bridge's eastern span, wanting a "signature" work in place of an ordinary causeway (with what for the main span?), and what we got was an awful bridge nobody's proud of or finds attractive, and yes, a causeway. That's just the most basic description of what was a terrible project with politics, misspending, overspending, defects, and good luck with maintenance later with money for it being diverted to other pet projects in Regional Measure 3, for example. (With BART to Silicon Valley of course being a giant object of so much of that spending, with more likely to come when the stations get built)
" ... the newly established standard height of 48 inches above top-of-rail and lateral offset of 73 inches from the track center."
ReplyDeleteThe new standard platform assumes all cars have gap-fillers? So today's passenger cars would be 13 inches from a new-standard platform, and thus not allowed?
Do any of today's passenger cars in California have the ability to dock at a high platform? The question might be moot. In any event, it wouldn't be difficult to reproduce the technical solution used by Brightline in Florida, which would deal with such a gap.
DeleteYes, the Venture coaches on the San Joaquins have doors level at 48", though they're only used for the onboard wheelchair lifts (no gap fillers in other words).
DeleteFor older cars intended for low platforms, a relevant question is if it's possible to increase the height of existing door openings, or if they would be tall enough anyways, if any kind of gap filler would be used?
DeleteBtw an example of a rail vehicle that can use the same doors both for low and high platforms is the (west) German tram type TW6000, which also runs in Budapest. At low platforms some mechanism forms stairs (and said mechanism also fills the lower part of the door opening) while the mechanism stays put as a flat floor at high platforms. Regular doors open suitable for high plat forms. Sure, this is a tram and not a train, but the principle is the same. And also, there is no gap filler, it relies on tight enough tolerances that no gap filler is needed, much like metro systems in general).
Clem, the now years-old Brightline article including the gap filler is interesting insofar as the company brought long-time New Jersey Transit people aboard, pun intended, who were the source.
DeleteAnd it recruited rail industry veterans—many from New Jersey Transit, which was thinning its ranks in a cost-cutting effort under then-Governor Chris Christie. [...]
One of their early suggestions was to include a device on cars with a metal plate that would bridge the gap between the train and the platform. The public-transit contingent had seen briefcases and even small children disappear into the gap at Pennsylvania Station in New York. Even so, Tim Leiner, now assistant chief mechanical officer for Brightline, says his bosses back then were loath to do anything about it. “We actually had companies come in with a prototype,” he recalls. “It was right away: ‘We’ll never be able to do. Too many stops.’”
Goddard, on the other hand, embraced the idea. “You can basically roll onto our trains with a wheelchair or a stroller or a suitcase,” he says. “These guys came up with lots of things like that.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-brightline-railroad/
I assumed the "newly established standard" was a national standard, not just California. It's not? New high platforms back east are allowed to be the traditional 66-68 inches from track centerline, so they still work (sort of) with today's cars?
DeleteThe advent, finally, of Caltrain going electric is praised here.
ReplyDeleteNow if only one or more viaduct sections were built, with four tracks wherever possible or where they are considered most recently as making the most sense, permitting the most possible circulation underneath, across the right-of-way with ability to control it in a planned way, and no homes taken. But, alas, as with where four tracks can or should be built.
Just dual track with quad track at all stations between SF and SJ combined with level boarding would allow 10 trains per hour per direction. Imagine a series of viaducts with elevated stations running from at least San Carlos to Mountain View. This would eliminate all of those level grade crossings, open up up pedestrian, bike, and car traffic, plus some of the space underneath the viaducts could be developed into shops and restaurants.
DeleteFor an example of what is possible in the rest of the world, but obviously not in the US, Google "Awaji Station Grade Crossing". Two heavily used dual track electrified (overhead) commuter lines intersect at grade level in a dense part of Osaka, making the area famous for having crossing gates that never open. The solution is a new elevated two level station, with double deck pre-fabricated concrete viaducts built mostly over the existing ROWs, without disrupting ongoing commuter operations. Construction mostly at night, the grade level tracks and crossings will be removed on completion. Hankyu Railway will likely make a profit on this eventually, just from leasing out the newly freed up street level space underneath the viaducts.
Marc, thanks for the Awaji Station (Osaka) reference. It's an amazing project. Google links include video of the steady stream of Hankyu's sharp-looking burgundy EMUs, and constant ding of crossing gates. Much of the solution you describe is far enough along you can see it on Open Street Map, and Google's hybrid map. The elevated lines bridge the existing lines quite far out before touching down and tying into the main lines. Google Street View photos (when not "as was") are a few months newer than the hybrid map, and show some impressive Bay Bridge-sized double-deck truss bridges high overhead (and leaping over other elevated rail lines). So if you can't tell from the satellite view what a particular abutment is for, or how tall, you can often see from the street what it just turned into.
Delete@Marc, just dual track with quad track at all stations, where boarding isn't the challenge as at Caltrain, would have worked great for BART as well, allowing some stations to be skipped. Nowadays there is no real motivation (any more than there is real innovation) by the powers that be for adding pitiful shoofly low-speed bypasses of the stations with added switches and crossovers, that would allow slower skipping, but still time saving and higher average speed for some trains at some times.
DeleteAwaji was interesting and a reminder of something else, that's general, as with e.g., BART's viaducts or of course, the Embarcadero Freeway viaduct. Some people's eyesores or much worse are others' prizes, and many others are indifferent. Aerial structures are indeed divisive. I view them in a utilitarian sense and say that along the Peninsula or elsewhere in metro areas in particular, they're ideal for transportation below it, meaning for circulation, better than next best, a full-height embankment for what will pass underneath the tracks. (Pathway at 10 feet overhead clearance versus roadway at nearly 20 depending on which kind of street and traffic type)
Quad tracking, or rather three tracking, needs to extend a bit away from each station for it to really be useful, at least if you don't count on really long dwell times.
DeleteThe reason for this is that a stopping train needs some overrun space beyond the platform when it's rolling in to the station if a passing train should be allowed on the adjacent non-platform track, or for that sake to allow another stopping train to arrive at an adjacent track.
Although any reason for passing a signal at stop is bad, it will statistically happen often enough that the risk for a really bad outcome is high enough on a system like Caltrain.
Also on the arrival end of a station there is also a need for some length of quad tracking as you want to have a decent speed on the train even when the switch is set to it's diverging position in order to not slow down the non-stop train behind it. And obviously this means that there needs to be track between the switch and the further end of the platform that allows whatever braking distance plus margins is necessary.
When stations are close apart and the speed for non-stopping trains are high enough, you eventually end up in a situation where quad tracking a longer part of the line is more reasonable than having quad track stations and double track line between them. The investment to expand to quad track would be higher, but it also saves maintenance cost on switches (as you can skip most of them as compared to the mixed scenario, and those that you keep for resilience will afaik get less wear if they rarely are set in their diverging position).
Don't know exactly how this applies to line speed and station distances for Caltrain in particular, and I also don't know what the FRA regulations and general recommendations and experience is in USA. I do know that in Sweden one of the in-between stations between Gothenburg and Kungsbacka were built as a quad track station like suggested above, but it ended up not that useful due to the reasons mentioned above, so it eventually was rebuilt as a regular two track station (even though the stopping trains run every 15 minutes and the non-stop trains run iirc every 30 or 60 minutes peak hours).