Just to remind you, the California high speed train issue will not
disappear. (Worst case scenario: It will come up the Caltrain
corridor.) In fact, expect a great deal of newsprint devoted to it
in '08, as we approach the elections and the bond issue appears on
the ballot.

An article in the Fog City Journal (4.18.07) by Assembywoman Fiona
Ma, titled: Why California Needs High Speed Rail, is an example of
both a naive "regurging" of the CHSRA marketing rhetoric, factual
fantasy, and the hidden agenda of the bottomless revenue well. The
details don't matter here. Suffice it to say that her numbers are
forecaster nonsense (450,000 permanent employees; 86 million annual
passengers; oil savings (but not coal-generated electricity
consumption!); vehicle traffic reductions, etc. She is a victim of
the cost trap, suggesting that $9.9 Billion (the first bond issue) is
the cost of this project. She fails to mention that the actual
construction costs are projected by CHSRA at $40 Billion and that is
by no means what the real costs will be. All of which is to say that
we better continue to pay attention to what people are saying.

Thes article below, (which I shortened) is a more reasoned approach
than most, although there are a number of points with which we can
disagree.

Sometimes a metaphor is the best way to help understand something. Do
you remember the "Concorde?" It was a supersonic (Mach 2.5) airliner
used by both British Airways and Air France.
Because of its shock wave, it was limited only to overseas flights.
After several major crashes, it was discontinued and the remaining
units ended up in museums. It flew from 1969 to 2003. It is still
gorgeous. It's design and development costs were staggering. Even
though a one-way ticket was $10,000, it was a money loser and served
only as a PR and marketing icon. It carried the rich and the famous.
Why will this high speed train be any different? Well, for one thing
we will all be paying for it, forever!

Martin
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Published Wednesday, April 18, 2007, by SmarterTravel.com

357-mph train: Will we see it here?

Ed Perkins on Travel

SNCF-French National Railway made international news this month with
a new world speed record of 357.2 miles per hour. Given the sorry
state of railroading in the United States, the news caused many
Americans to wonder if and when we could ever enjoy high-speed rail
travel in this country. The short answer is that neither we, nor the
French, will routinely travel at 357 mph anytime soon. But existing
European and Japanese rail technology currently does 200 mph, with
250 mph on the near horizon. Our failure is a failure of will and
money, not of technology. Here are some specific lessons we can learn
from overseas.

The record-breaking French run was a test of the new TGV Est roadbed
and signaling under extreme conditions, not a proving run for actual
service. The train was specifically modified for the test -- a design
that will never see revenue service. But TGV and similar trains in
other parts of Europe already routinely cruise along at close to 200
mph, with speeds up to 250 mph coming soon. And for most
applications, that's plenty fast enough.

It's the short haul, stupid

The sweet spot for high-speed rail is in distances between suburban
and 300 to 350 miles.

At distances up to 350 miles, travel time by high-speed rail can
beat flying time, city center to city center. Also, rail can serve
suburban and intermediate-city station stops, while flying can't. And
even second-class rail is vastly more comfortable and hassle-free
than flying, with its difficult and expensive airport access, long
check-in time requirements, and cattle-car accommodations. It's no
surprise that the Eurostar Chunnel train has grabbed most of the
London-Paris and London-Brussels travel markets.

High-speed rail requires new or vastly improved roadbeds, which are
hugely expensive. The investment can be justified only where traffic
can support high-frequency service (every hour or so) and that means
heavily traveled short-haul corridors in populous areas. There is
simply no place in the high-speed rail spectrum for the once-a-day
(or fewer) long-haul services that Amtrak now provides.

The U.S. disadvantage

Unfortunately, high-speed rail works better in Europe that it would
in the United States. European populations and employment centers
are much more concentrated in and near city centers than is the case
here, where suburban housing sprawl and office parks have become the
norm. Low-end, high-speed rail is working already in the one part of
the U.S. best adapted to rail travel: The Northeast Corridor between
Boston and Washington. Transportation mavens cite a California
Corridor linking Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as a
likely prime target for new high-speed rail, along with some routes
radiating from Chicago. But even those are a bit of a stretch.
Elsewhere, it's hard to find corridors with enough city-center
demand to fill those hourly trains.

-- 
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Martin Engel
1621 Stone Pine Lane
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650:323-1670
martinengel@earthlink.net
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