2013 Q2 Corridor Roundup

original photo by afagen

There's been no shortage of developments in recent months on the peninsula rail corridor.

The Caltrain/HSR Blended Service Plan/Operations Considerations Analysis was published on the Caltrain website.  This document aims to flesh out the 2012 Caltrain/HSR Blended Operations Analysis with more detail requested by stakeholders.  While the comment period for this document is now closed, it has a number of weaknesses that should be addressed.

1. Strange assumptions about service to San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center.  For some obscure reason (agency turf?) all of Caltrain's simulations (see string charts in appendix, starting at page 29) send just two out of six trains per hour into Transbay, where essentially all the ridership will be.  Most Caltrain traffic is assumed to terminate outside the financial district, at 4th and King.  The string charts do not show any conflicts that would prevent sending at least four (if not all six) trains per hour to Transbay, making full use of the triple tracks in the downtown extension tunnels.
   
   If you accept that Caltrain isn't trying to spite its customers or diminish its own fare revenue, it's hard to imagine why any train would still terminate at 4th and King when it doesn't absolutely have to.
    
2. Strange assumptions about Caltrain station dwell times.  While the station dwell times of today's Caltrain service have been studied in excruciating detail, the way the dwell time statistics were incorporated into the simulation model may leave something to be desired.  Dwell times are the only randomized input to the model, and the specific random distribution used to calculate them can have enormous impact on the results.
   
   Because of Caltrain's 8-inch platforms and inefficient passenger flows, dwell times can occasionally exceed two minutes, for example if a wheelchair user needs to board a train.  The resulting dwell time random distribution has a long tail that reflects the "Russian Roulette" nature of today's operations.  These occasional outliers can easily ruin a tight timetable by setting off a domino effect of delays to other trains, resulting in poor on-time performance.  This is especially important because on-time performance (measured in minutes of delay), the figure of merit used to evaluate different operating scenarios, becomes sensitively dependent on the choice of dwell time random distribution.
   
   Consider level boarding, an improvement that Caltrain hasn't yet discovered how badly it needs.  The lack of steps and abundance of doors makes dwell times shorter and, more importantly, far more predictable.  The dwell time random distribution for level boarding does not have the long tail used in Caltrain's simulations, and we can finally stop playing Russian Roulette.  Look no further than BART to get representative dwell time data.
   
   What is the effect of the long tail in the dwell time random distribution?  Would level boarding be a better investment than building more passing tracks?  We'll never know, unless the model is re-run with a different dwell distribution that simulates level boarding.
    
3. Strange assumptions about the "hold out" rule.  This operational rule mandates that when a train stops at an old, narrow center-boarding platform, no other train may enter the station until the first train has departed (otherwise bad things can happen).  The practical effect of this rule is that trains operating on separate tracks can delay each other.  The hold-out rule is slowly turning into an exception as stations are modernized, and today applies at only three stations: South San Francisco, Broadway in Burlingame, and Atherton.
   
   In a cute computational flourish, the hold-out rule was accounted for in all operational simulations in the Caltrain report, but nobody bothered to ask if it would make any sense to invest billions (with a 'B') in the peninsula corridor to build HSR passing tracks, all the while not spending a few million (with an 'M') to rebuild the three remaining platforms to retire the hold-out rule forever.  Worse, Caltrain's analysis made no attempt to tease out the effect of the hold-out rule on minutes of delay, to quantify its effect relative to other sources of delay.
   
   This shortcoming could easily be remedied by re-running the model with and without the hold-out rule.

Finally, the document reveals a stunning discovery in its analysis of Dumbarton service:

It is important to note that the feasibility of operating Dumbarton Rail Corridor service on the Caltrain corridor in addition to the Caltrain and HSR blended system does not equate to having the capacity to add another Caltrain or HSR train during the peak hour. DRC service fits because it uses only portions of the corridor and does not require an end-to-end corridor operating slot.

This is the exact same reason why all HSR service should enter the corridor at Redwood City from Altamont Pass, rather than gumming up the entire length of the peninsula corridor.  The blended system would be easier to plan, cheaper to build, and provide far better service to passengers.

The Caltrain/HSR Blended Grade Crossing Traffic Analysis was published on the Caltrain website and concluded the following:

Additional analysis is necessary. However, before doing so, speculation should be minimized. A better understanding of the schedule and decision on passing tracks should be advanced before further traffic analysis is conducted.

That's a fancy way of saying that grade crossing conditions will depend heavily on what the eventual timetable will be, so that a timetable needs to be developed first.  Perhaps Caltrain will some day see that everything revolves around timetable planning.  The timetable is where it starts from, to determine infrastructure needs and grade crossing impacts, and also where it all ends up, to quantify service quality improvements for each community along the peninsula corridor.  Timetable planning is precisely where Caltrain is not spending a lot of effort, because they think they already know the answer, in the form of a general class of "peak period skip stop zone express" timetables described in the 2012 Caltrain/HSR Blended Operations Analysis (see page 34).  There's a lot of work left to be done in this area, starting with undoing Caltrain's mistaken fixation on "peak period skip stop zone express" timetables.  As far as this grade crossing traffic analysis is concerned, Caltrain put the cart before the horse.

The CBOSS train control project chugged along, with a couple of recent puff pieces in the local newspapers. This project is where the lion's share of Caltrain's capital budget is going these days:

Design work is about 50 percent complete, said Karen Antion, who is essentially the boss of CBOSS and a highly-experienced and highly-paid consultant. [...] The design of CBOSS should be complete by September, Antion said.

Is this the same design work that leads up to the Critical Design Reviews that were supposed to have been completed last March?  If so, CBOSS is now a year behind the original plan, and that's before the really hard task of integrating and testing a system that is so proudly proclaimed to be "unique to Caltrain."  It sure is comforting to hear that we've got such a wide spectrum of on-call consultants to get us out of any trouble.

Meanwhile, staff has already softened up the board for the impending Option 2 (Phase 3) contract, to be rubber-stamped at the August board meeting.  The status of key milestones in the scope of Option 1 (Phase 2) is artfully avoided.  This $86.5 million contract is the "final" increment of funding for CBOSS, before the need for an Option 3 (Phase 4) makes itself known, most likely in late 2014.

Remember SuperVia, of Rio de Janeiro?  They are already well into testing.  Their consultants must be absolutely stellar.

The San Carlos Transit Village project is inexorably nearing approval later this month despite strong (and legitimate) NIMBY opposition.  Apparently piqued by claims that SamTrans is sabotaging the modernization of the peninsula rail corridor by selling off land that will be needed for new passing tracks, both SamTrans and Caltrain have issued letters disavowing any ill effect to the rail corridor or to the adjacent Old County Road, essentially by claiming that nothing has been decided yet:

The blended system is undefined at this time and we cannot predict its impact

This is a strange claim to make, given that all the analysis reports commissioned by Caltrain in the last couple of years point towards additional passing tracks (the "midline overtake") being built right through San Carlos and the new Transit Village.

The San Bruno grade separation opened to train traffic, even if the project is far from complete.  Trains now use the tracks built atop a mechanically stabilized earth embankment (basically walls held together by the weight of the dirt fill in between) that could be representative of future grade separations elsewhere on the corridor.

The Thruth About Tejon

A quick programming note...

There's an explanation for the long silence in these pages.  I've been busy writing about an issue that is outside the scope of HSR and Caltrain on the peninsula.  See my post about the southern California mountain crossing, over on the California High-Speed Rail Blog.

Regular programming will return soon.

High Voltage Rule Making

25,000-volt alternating current overhead electrification, the worldwide standard for powering modern passenger trains as now planned for Caltrain and the statewide high-speed rail system, currently does not exist anywhere in California. Nor do any regulations exist to ensure its safe and reliable implementation. That's why the California High-Speed Rail Authority and its consultants have successfully petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission for a new regulatory framework to enable the use of 25 kV technology in California.

In concert with the CPUC, a committee of HSR technocrats has developed a proposed General Order to regulate important topics such as:

• Performance requirements
• Clearances and protection against electric shock
• Grounding and bonding
• Strength requirements
• Safe working practices
• Incident reporting

The rule-making proceeding can be found under CPUC docket number R1303009.  The proposed draft regulatory document (2.3 MB PDF, known as a "General Order" or GO) can be found under CPUC petition docket number P1210011.  A close reading of this proposed GO reveals two fundamental flaws that seem to have entirely escaped the authors:

1. The draft GO proposes to regulate 25 kV overhead electrification specifically for the operation of high speed trains.  The authors commit a fundamental category error by treating 25 kV electrification as a technology that is unique to 200+ mph high-speed rail, which is flat out wrong.  25 kV electrification is a world-wide standard technology used for powering any type of train, from commuter to freight to intercity to high-speed rail.  Examples abound, even within the United States, and could someday find their way to California--let's say for example, the San Francisco peninsula.  California regulations should not preclude any of these other applications just because they were authored by and for the HSR project.  The GO should regulate 25 kV AC electrification as a general category for powering electric railroads, and treat the specific application to high-speed rail as a sub-category.  The draft document should be entirely re-structured, with HSR relegated to a chapter that covers only those special regulations that pertain solely to high-speed operations.
    
2. The draft document does not read like a concise regulatory document, and instead includes numerous pages of technical guidelines and best practices quoted nearly verbatim from the CHSRA's own technical specifications.  Much of the draft is descriptive material that speaks of the HSR system in the future tense.  The authors seem to have made no effort to separate descriptive material and run-of-the-mill engineering requirements from the key regulatory (safety) requirements, and the result is an unorganized mess of a kitchen sink that reads as if a committee of technocrats had authored it.  Which they apparently did.

You might think that someone close to the matter would say something about these obvious flaws, but all that Caltrain could muster as a response (under P12100011) is this:

Based on our prior coordination with the CHSRA and discussions with California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff, the following is our understanding:

• The CHSRA Petition and proposed GO broadly describes the statewide high-speed rail system to include "shared use corridors"; 

• The reference to "shared use corridors" would include the Caltrain corridor, which is in the SF to SJ segment of the CHSRA blended statewide system; 

• The GO would potentially be applicable to the Caltrain electrification project, to be led by the PCJPB; and 

• The Caltrain electrification project will require specific regulatory consideration of the effect of 25 kV ac power lines upon signal predictors for at-grade crossings, which may require JPB to seek its own GO or to request an amendment to the GO being proposed by CHSRA. 

In other words, Caltrain politely requests to be considered as part of the HSR system so that whatever (really, whatever!) regulations of 25 kV electrification, as drafted by the CHSRA and its consultants, can "potentially" become applicable to Caltrain's own electrification project.  They couldn't get any more passive than this.

It is becoming clear that our rail agencies and state regulators are falling all over themselves in their incompetence to craft a logical regulatory framework around a mature world-standard technology.

Lynn Schenk Is Right

Lynn Schenk, vice chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, caused a stir today when her refusal to vote for the latest Caltrain / HSR memorandum of understanding left plans for the "blended" system stuck in neutral--at least until she is outvoted at the next board meeting.

She contends that the blended system isn't high-speed rail and shouldn't be paid for using HSR bond funds.  And she's right: nowhere else in the world does anyone seriously propose "blending" a new high-speed rail system with commuter rail over such a long distance as the 50 miles between San Francisco and San Jose.  That's a recipe for limited speeds, bunched commuter trains, and cascading delays.  It could rightly be considered a diversion of HSR funds from their intended purpose.

If you want SF to LA in 2 hours and 40 minutes, the simple truth is that blending should be kept to a strict minimum, like this:

The Virtues of Width

The Swiss rail vehicle manufacturer Stadler was recently awarded a contract for 112 bilevel EMU cars to be delivered by 2016 for the Moscow airport express, based on their modular KISS vehicle concept.  A rendering is shown at right, complete with retro-Soviet hood ornament.  (UPDATE 6/2013: datasheet now available).  These EMUs are noteworthy because they take full advantage of the generous Russian loading gauge (the available height and width clearances), resulting in two spacious levels of passenger seating, and also because they use high platforms.  This is a European EMU on steroids, and Caltrain should take notice.

In a blended HSR + Caltrain system, slowly transitioning to full grade separation over a time scale of decades, several constraints exist that will impede Caltrain's ability to add capacity to meet increasing ridership demand:

• More trains per hour won't work.  Because there are only two shared tracks, the capacity of the corridor (as measured in trains per hour) is limited.  It's going to be a stretch for Caltrain to operate six trains per hour per direction with HSR in the mix, so adding more is clearly out of the question until the much-dreaded additional tracks are built.
   
• Longer trains won't work.  Train length is limited at stations such as Burlingame and Menlo Park, where grade crossings are found at both ends of the station platforms.  Until these locations are grade-separated and new longer platforms are built, adding more cars to make longer trains is not feasible.  In any case, most Caltrain platforms limit train lengths to 600 feet (or 7 standard-length cars), at least until they are rebuilt.
   
• Taller trains won't work.  Today's bi-level trains already take good advantage of the available height, so there is no seating capacity to be gained by growing trains any taller.

Loading gauge comparison,
Russia / USA / Europe

If more, longer, or taller trains can't satisfy increasing ridership, why not give wider trains a try?  The Russian 1-T loading gauge, shown at right in comparison to the loading gauges of western Europe and Caltrain, allows trains that are almost six inches wider than ours.  Going even a few inches wider than the Russian limit, with a 134-inch wide car shell, would enable five-abreast seating at the same level of comfort offered in Caltrain's existing Bombardier cars.

The Advantages of Extra-Wide EMUs

The diagram below shows a cross section of three double-deck trains: a traditional European EMU of the sort coveted by Caltrain; a Caltrain Baby Bullet car; and a hypothetical extra-wide EMU with comfortable five abreast seating, a few inches wider than the Russian model described above.

Such an extra-wide EMU has several advantages.

• More passengers per train.  With five abreast seating, 15 to 20% more seating can be provided without increasing train length or train frequency.  Even in those areas without seats, more floor space is available for standees.
   
• More usable space.  Extra width makes for more spacious and comfortable vestibules, stairs, and passageways between cars.  High-traffic areas near doors, bicycle racks, restrooms, and luggage racks do not impede the flow of passengers.
    
• Lower crew costs.  The number of conductors required on a train is dependent on the number of cars in the train.  Under the present labor agreement, there is a strong incentive to keep train lengths to six cars and to maximize passenger capacity per car.  Five-abreast seating reduces the crew cost (and other operating costs) per available seat.
   
• Future-proof HSR compatibility.  Because the CHSRA has already settled on a single-level train architecture for its high-speed trains, it is likely that similar capacity limitations will drive the future California trains to be extra-wide, like the Japanese Shinkansen or the Russian Velaro.  Converting Caltrain to a wider standard helps achieve future platform interface compatibility with HSR, which is not just a matter of height but also of width.
   
• Easier conversion to high platforms.  Wider trains can be fitted with both high and low doors to accommodate a platform transition period, without cutting as badly into the seat count as for a normal size train.  (The Russian example is built exclusively for high platforms, but more doors could be added on the lower level.)  What's more, with high platforms built further away from the tracks, those annoying freight trains get a little bit more clearance.
    
• Easier vehicle packaging.  From an engineering standpoint, modern EMUs are like a jigsaw puzzle where every vehicle component must find its place under multiple constraints.  More width gives vehicle designers more flexibility to make everything fit, making trains more comfortable and maintainable.

There is very little downside to going wide.  Caltrain's EMUs would be a captive fleet on the peninsula rail corridor, such that expanding a few inches outside the AAR Plate F loading gauge would require only minimal infrastructure modification and would not impede interoperability.  Stadler has once again demonstrated that the car body shells of a modular vehicle can be tailored to any desired size, using different extruded aluminum shapes.

Caltrain should make full use of the generous clearances available on the peninsula corridor.  In a blended future where HSR limits the number of peak-hour commuter trains, extra-wide EMUs with five-abreast seating are an attractive solution for giving Caltrain more rush-hour capacity.

[Update 08/2014: this Swedish academic paper analyzes the numerous advantages of extra-wide trains in far more detail, going into cost elasticities etc.]