While I have no fondness for overly-rosy projections, the fact is that the challenges of getting across the Tehachapis were well understood, at least by those paying attention and indeed those developing the project. That section really should have been built early, but the EIS is approved now; just a matter of money. As with Switzerland's massively expensive and highly successful rail tunnel program.
The cost overruns so far are largely due to a crooked contractor; lack of expertise in-house meant that Tutor Perini scammed the HSR Authority on the first contract; they wised up and hired better contractors for the later contracts. Lack of in-house expertise and being scammed by contractors is a recurring problem in US passenger rail construction. Which has nothing to do with people who draw lines on maps.
And I'll warn you: Ralph Vartabedian at the LA Times is not an honest reporter, and deliberately misleads about a lot of stuff, including numbers. Normally costs are quoted in "current year" dollars; a ridiculous amount of the supposed increase in price is due to a shady change where they're being quoted in "estimated year of expenditure dollars based on estimated future inflation", which is basically just a way of making the costs look larger. Vartabedian doesn't mention this, because of *course* he doesn't; his articles have been consistently misleading. They're misleading on a lot of other points too.
And perhaps that is the biggest reason we don't build high-speed rail in this country; it's the only country with an active anti-rail disinformation campaign.
Dilan, thank you for the insightful writing. Musk cited his dislike for the superlatives attached to the San Francisco to LA line (slowest, most expensive per mile high speed line) as his reason for bringing about hyperloop. Where would Hyperloop fit in this discussion?
It's hard to know, because it's such a new, untried technology.
We basically know what the challenges of railroads are, including high speed trains, because they have been around so long and have been built so many places. In contrast, Musk needs to get Hyperloop working somewhere, and then we need to figure out where it could be built, for how much money, what safeguards need to be in place, etc.
Obviously Musk's criticisms of CAHSR are self-interested given he is invested in a competing technology. But it's also worth noting that many of the things that drive up the cost of CAHSR also potentially drive up the cost of a Hyperloop as well.
As a geologist, I have to say, I agree. Not only is there a massive fault, but the rock is large incompetent. Anything is POSSIBE, just some things are more possible than others.
If you want high speed rail, work on the San Diego to LA segment, or better yet the Los Angeles to Las Vegas line (Cajon pass is problematic, but solvable). Even San Francisco to Sacramento. But LA to SF....sheesh.
I'm glad to see your comment. I've been attacked some by HSR advocates (as you might imagine) who are just convinced that the fact it was built in Japan means there's no earthquake zone that could possibly be a problem. The notion that this terrain is unique and that the Tehachapis pose special challenges for railroad engineering is just completely outside of their imagination.
Well, if you know nothing about the subject, then it's all just lines on a map ;).
Just putting high speed between Lancaster to LA would be a huge benefit, so why didn't they do that first? Lancaster has 200k residents. Maybe another 100k in Palmdale. You could get a lot of commuters off the 14 and the 5, and 210 if you build that.
Which suggests to me they are lying - they probably costed that segment and found it would cost much, much more than anticipated. Why are they building the segment of the track least likely to be utilized first? Because they want to show some progress before asking for the rest of the money they'll need to do the really hard stuff. Even the Lancaster route is pretty tough.
While I have no fondness for overly-rosy projections, the fact is that the challenges of getting across the Tehachapis were well understood, at least by those paying attention and indeed those developing the project. That section really should have been built early, but the EIS is approved now; just a matter of money. As with Switzerland's massively expensive and highly successful rail tunnel program.
The cost overruns so far are largely due to a crooked contractor; lack of expertise in-house meant that Tutor Perini scammed the HSR Authority on the first contract; they wised up and hired better contractors for the later contracts. Lack of in-house expertise and being scammed by contractors is a recurring problem in US passenger rail construction. Which has nothing to do with people who draw lines on maps.
And I'll warn you: Ralph Vartabedian at the LA Times is not an honest reporter, and deliberately misleads about a lot of stuff, including numbers. Normally costs are quoted in "current year" dollars; a ridiculous amount of the supposed increase in price is due to a shady change where they're being quoted in "estimated year of expenditure dollars based on estimated future inflation", which is basically just a way of making the costs look larger. Vartabedian doesn't mention this, because of *course* he doesn't; his articles have been consistently misleading. They're misleading on a lot of other points too.
And perhaps that is the biggest reason we don't build high-speed rail in this country; it's the only country with an active anti-rail disinformation campaign.
I can tell you that after this episode I will not be voting for high speed rail again.
Dilan, thank you for the insightful writing. Musk cited his dislike for the superlatives attached to the San Francisco to LA line (slowest, most expensive per mile high speed line) as his reason for bringing about hyperloop. Where would Hyperloop fit in this discussion?
It's hard to know, because it's such a new, untried technology.
We basically know what the challenges of railroads are, including high speed trains, because they have been around so long and have been built so many places. In contrast, Musk needs to get Hyperloop working somewhere, and then we need to figure out where it could be built, for how much money, what safeguards need to be in place, etc.
Obviously Musk's criticisms of CAHSR are self-interested given he is invested in a competing technology. But it's also worth noting that many of the things that drive up the cost of CAHSR also potentially drive up the cost of a Hyperloop as well.
As a geologist, I have to say, I agree. Not only is there a massive fault, but the rock is large incompetent. Anything is POSSIBE, just some things are more possible than others.
If you want high speed rail, work on the San Diego to LA segment, or better yet the Los Angeles to Las Vegas line (Cajon pass is problematic, but solvable). Even San Francisco to Sacramento. But LA to SF....sheesh.
I'm glad to see your comment. I've been attacked some by HSR advocates (as you might imagine) who are just convinced that the fact it was built in Japan means there's no earthquake zone that could possibly be a problem. The notion that this terrain is unique and that the Tehachapis pose special challenges for railroad engineering is just completely outside of their imagination.
Well, if you know nothing about the subject, then it's all just lines on a map ;).
Just putting high speed between Lancaster to LA would be a huge benefit, so why didn't they do that first? Lancaster has 200k residents. Maybe another 100k in Palmdale. You could get a lot of commuters off the 14 and the 5, and 210 if you build that.
Which suggests to me they are lying - they probably costed that segment and found it would cost much, much more than anticipated. Why are they building the segment of the track least likely to be utilized first? Because they want to show some progress before asking for the rest of the money they'll need to do the really hard stuff. Even the Lancaster route is pretty tough.
As a voter, I rely heavily on newspaper voting guides, since there often seems to be little other analysis.
At the time, the LA Times, SF Chronicle, and SJ Mercury were all in favor. Sac Bee was against. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1A,_High-Speed_Rail_Bond_Measure_(2008)#Media_editorials
I started this thinking it was something else that I would hate and ended with deep respect for it.