San Joaquins discussion

Harmon Shay said:

I thought the vending machine idea on the San Joaquins was killed a while back because of all the complaints and that there will now be some form of live food service on the Venture San Joaquins.

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SJJPA staff and directors have publicly expressed a desire to improve food options on the San Joaquins. From the 2024 Business Plan:

SJJPA is researching and assessing the feasibility of additional alternatives [to the vending machines] that are closer to a traditional on-board food and beverage model, as well as opportunities for alternative food service partners.

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alanh said:

That's why the proposed high speed rail is on a new alignment that requires lots of tunneling to avoid the climbing loops.
Bakersfield to Palmdale
Palmdale to Burbank

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Do we know how long each of those tunnels will be?

There are a couple 10 or miles long.

NES28 said:

There are a couple 10 or miles long.

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Wow! Thanks. That's actually not as bad as I expected. I wonder what the Bakersfield-LA time would be if we were running conventional San Joaquins on that route?

Harmon Shay said:

Wow! Thanks. That's actually not as bad as I expected. I wonder what the Bakersfield-LA time would be if we were running conventional San Joaquins on that ro....

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On June 12th Zephyr pointed out that it would have to be two hours or less to beat the highway time. I don't know that the tunnel ventilation would handle fast and frequent Diesel-powered trains. These two issues likely make it unlikely.

Harmon Shay said:

Wow! Thanks. That's actually not as bad as I expected. I wonder what the Bakersfield-LA time would be if we were running conventional San Joaquins on that route?

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San Joaquin Daylight was 5 hours northbound, 4:53 southbound. It would not be any faster today and likely slower.

Santa Fe bus connections for their Golden Gates were 3 hours and went over to Pasadena from LA before heading to Bakersfield.

Thanks. I was also looking for a guess on what the running times on the new tunnel route would be. I've seen maps of the high speed rail line route. I thought it would have been more straight, but it zig-zags a lot.

Harmon Shay said:

Thanks. I was also looking for a guess on what the running times on the new tunnel route would be. I've seen maps of the high speed rail line route. I thought it would have been more straight, but it zig-zags a lot.

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OK, let's break it down.

By "zig-zag" I am assuming you mean the route jogging over to the Antelope Valley/Palmdale, not its path over the Tehachapis and the San Gabriels, that is quite straight for mountain railroads. The jog over to Palmdale was due to political, not engineering, considerations. Antelope Valley interests lobbied very hard not to be bypassed and were successful. There was an alternative over Tejon Pass, roughly parallel to Interstate 5 and a pretty straight shot between LA and Bakersfield, but politics won out. Also, I have heard that Tejon Ranch was pretty adamantly opposed to it crossing their land and put their thumb on the scale, too.

I don't see any mileage on the routes, so let's estimate it. Call it 160 road miles between LA and Bakersfield via Palmdale. I am starting with road miles rather than railroad miles because the railroad route is significantly curvier, adding miles. Any of the high speed rail route proposals are straighter still. I am treating 15 miles between Union Station and Burbank Airport separately, that's pretty straight either way and there are reasons to break it out as you will see. So about 145 road miles between Burbank, Palmdale and Bakersfield. Let's subtract about 5% given the proposals are straighter and also miss Mojave (apparently poor Mojave doesn't have enough clout). So let's ballpark about 137 miles.

As to speeds, for purposes here I am going to use conventional railroad and speeds for both the last 15 miles between Burbank and LAUS, since I don't see it in the links and often high speed shares tracks with conventional in urban areas. Let's say 70 mph. That is 13 minutes for each. I will use TGV speeds of 350 kph/220 mph for high speed and 110 mph for a San Joaquin. Virtually every piece of equipment Amtrak owns is rated for 110, including the San Joaquins equipment. It is also the FRA Class 6 passenger speed limit.

The high speed therefore can make 137 miles Burbank to Bakersfield in a bit over 37 minutes at 220. Let's call it 38. Add in the 13 minutes LA to Burbank and 3 minutes dwell each at Burbank and Palmdale and that makes LA to Bakersfield at 56 minutes, all in.

A San Joaquin at 110 could make the 137 miles in just under 1:15. Add in the same 19 minutes for station dwells and the last 15 miles, so it would be 1:34. If they could make 220 and 110 respectively for the last 15 miles, it would be 47 minutes all in for high speed and 1:29 for a San Joaquin.

Finally, note that the biggest expense in creating a Burbank-Bakersfield high speed line would be creating the ROW with extensive tunneling, bridging and fills. Laying track, hanging caternary, and acquiring rolling stock would be relatively small in comparison. Tunneling safely through the fractured rock and earthquake faults of the Tehachapis and San Gabriels will be extremely expensive. To invest that kind of money only to support the upper end of conventional speeds, 110 mph, would seem penny wise and pound foolish to me.

PS, the current proposed operating plan once the Bakersfield-Merced section, now well along in construction, will be to truncate the San Joaquins at Merced with a transfer to the high speed there. The San Joaquins will neither continue on BNSF, nor switch onto the HSR rails south of Merced.

Fascinating. Thank you for this information. Quite an education for me. I doubt if we'll be doing much more transportation-building of any kind in this country. Too many property owners with too many rights and absolutely no interest in any common good.

Harmon Shay said:

Fascinating. Thank you for this information. Quite an education for me. I doubt if we'll be doing much more transportation-building of any kind in this country. Too many property owners with too many rights and absolutely no interest in any common good.

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Railroads (both public and private) in the US have always had the power of eminent domain. But these days it's more expensive and perhaps harder to achieve. Part of the rights of way for the new California HSR line were purchased through at least the threat of using eminent domain.

I understood that part of the reason why private railroads were given the right of eminent domain was in exchange for a promise to provide passenger service. Of course this ended more or less with Amtrak, although there were some railroads (like Southern Pacific) that didn't participate.

The oddest recent eminent domain case I heard of was with the Skunk Train on the Mendocino County Coast attempting to use eminent domain.

BCL said:

Mendocino Railway has become entangled in several high-stakes issues in recent years, including the future of the Great Redwood Trail planned for former North Coast Railroad tracks from Cloverdale to Humboldt Bay.

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GRT needs to be rail+trail for Willits south, North fine try and make a trail though that terrible mess of slides.

BCL said:

Railroads (both public and private) in the US have always had the power of eminent domain. But these days it's more expensive and perhaps harder to achieve. Part of the rights of way for the new California HSR line were purchased through at least the threat of using eminent domain.

I understood that part of the reason why private railroads were given the right of eminent domain was in exchange for a promise to provide passenger service. Of course this ended more or less with Amtrak, although there were some railroads (like Southern Pacific) that didn't participate. ...

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It was the Southern that initially chose not to participate. The SP handed intercity service to Amtrak on Day One.

Willbridge said:

It was the Southern that initially chose not to participate. The SP handed intercity service to Amtrak on Day One.

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And the Southern threw in the towel and joined Amtrak in 1979, followed by the Rio Grande in 1983…

The story about SOU was that it felt that it needed new equipment. However, the costs just did not seem to be justified. Plus, suspect that it might not like the equipment designs such as Amfleets and the lack of inside volume compared to its heritage fleet..

west point said:

The story about SOU was that it felt that it needed new equipment. However, the costs just did not seem to be justified. Plus, suspect that it might not like the equipment designs such as Amfleets and the lack of inside volume compared to its heritage fleet..

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I understand that a serious, fatal derailment in December 1978 had something to do with it, too. The got their face rubbed into the fact that the liability exposure for running passenger service is huge. Between life expired equipment, break even operation at best, and a liability exposure that could potentially bankrupt the company, they quit. Amtrak took over just a couple months after the wreck, on February 1, 1979.

I understand the liability exposure was an element of Santa Fe's decision to join Amtrak as well, along with having to continue run seriously money losing trains, 23/24, Tulsan, Denver-La Junta connection, for 5 years at least.

JWM said:

Pre Covid, when the Coast Line was undergoing maintenance, the "Coast Starlight" would take the San Joaquin from L.A. north. When word got out, the bookings in coach went way up. Yes, it would be much slower, but what a ride.

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There was a week post covid actually. The only drawback was it ran non-stop to Sacramento so one could not take it to any of the stations along the San Joaquin line. (although it ran up the old SP main not the Santa Fe so there would be no stations to call at anyways). Even considering the slow line through the loop, it still is much faster and had to wait a couple of hours in Sacramento for the scheduled departure North.

I have always wanted to ride through the loop, and somehow miss these rare mileage chances to do so.

GDRRiley said:

the comets are still around
1 set is in LA as a special event set for the surfliner the other is still in the bay
I'd perfer we use them for something better

Nope, doing so would require a cafe car to be built,
I'd like to see a half cafe, half business and a business car added but the only way that would happen is if the state gets 5 more sets like has been recommended

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They were (or still officially are) exploring a food vending cart to compliment the vending coach. The decision to go with vending was made prior to this big on board survey they performed about two years ago where they had teams of market research people ride every train at least once end to end and attempt to survey every passenger that boarded. If you dig around their website in the documents database you should be able to find it and download the results. It's quite a large document and is really interesting actually. One thing that stands out as a big red flag was the part where passengers were asked to rank the most important part of the service that keeps them returning to the rtrain if they are repeat passengers. Shocker, the number one thing cited was the cafe car! And for something they feel is necessary to have, again, food service. (Not specifically cafe car, but that's clearly what they meant).

There is one huge glaring issue that will cause huge problems when the vending "coaches" come into service. Anyone who has ridden the San Joaquins often might notice the clientele can sometimes be... a little lacking in manners. They tend to talk loudly on their phones, and often watch YouTube videos or music and never with headphones. They do it at their seats, but they get especially obnoxious when they see their bodies in the lounge car. The vending coach is a regular coach with a very small vending area at one end. Imagine how annoying it will be to have to sit near that when the train is full? Even if they were set on this vending idea, it should have been in a food service/lounge car and not a coach.

Just a last note, they are having trouble finding a food cart vendor that they feel can provide what they are looking for at the right price. They are also not having much luck with a vendor to supply and maintain the vending machines. Who knows what quality food products we will end up with!

Harmon Shay said:

Do we know how long each of those tunnels will be?

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Last time I was on the Zephyr, when the conductor got on the PA to inform us we were nearing the Moffat tunnel, he gave a short bit of its history and then pointed out that it will Leo its place as number two longest in America as will the Cascade tunnel when the CA HSTR line full opens, as they will have the first, second, and fourth longest tunnels in CA at that point. Unit he mentioned it, I had not really thought of that. I looked at the draft EIR and if I remember correctly there was a 26 mile tunnel and a 14 mile tunnel planned just between Bakersfield and Burbank. Under the Pacheco Pass and San Louis reservoir there is a 16 mile tunnel planned last I read. That one would in fact be built years prior to the ones in Southern CA as they plan to connect to the Bay Area first, and then start building south from Bakersfield. Of course all depending on funding, with proper funding they could attack both ends at the same time.

If Brightline West can get their service running prior to the Olympics in LA, they intend to put the line front and center for the games. They will showcase it as part of the car-free Olympics plan, and show the world that America now has real high speed rail. If they pull it off correctly it could really spark a movement of people demanding better faster trans across the country! This could finally be the start of the revolution for HSR!

nti1094 said:

Just a last note, they are having trouble finding a food cart vendor that they feel can provide what they are looking for at the right price. They are also not having much luck with a vendor to supply and maintain the vending machines. Who knows what quality food products we will end up with!

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Let's hope it's better than the Old SP Automat Cars were!

Considering how well the North Carolina vending machines work, it shouldn't be that hard to find a similar vendor to operate this system.( and since it's California, healthier choices should be Job #1!!!)

What do you mean, "healthy choices" - pork cracklins as sold on the Piedmont are practically health food already!

Vending service and vending capacity are a lot less of an issue on a three hour each way schedule, with three coach cars in a typical consist. As I recall there's two full snack machines plus a drink machine plus hot water for tea and coffee plus complementary water on the Piedmonts - how does the New Automat compare, or can we infer from the space available?

thefirewarde said:

What do you mean, "healthy choices" - pork cracklins as sold on the Piedmont are practically health food already!

Vending service and vending capacity are a lot less of an issue on a three hour each way schedule, with three coach cars in a typical consist. As I recall there's two full snack machines plus a drink machine plus hot water for tea and coffee plus complementary water on the Piedmonts - how does the New Automat compare, or can we infer from the space available?

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6 vending machines in 2 cars for a 6 hour run, that will become 4 max with the shortening to Merced and the extension to Chico

nti1094 said:

Just a last note, they are having trouble finding a food cart vendor that they feel can provide what they are looking for at the right price. They are also not having much luck with a vendor to supply and maintain the vending machines. Who knows what quality food products we will end up with!

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I forgot where but I remember reading that Crane Payment Innovations was the "suggested" vendor, guess nothing came of that?

There's been reports that the vending cars are built, sitting at Siemens, with unfinished interiors. Hopefully we get answers soon.

I previously stated in the Venture car thread that the SJJPA is in the process of "transitioning" to vending service. Part of that switch was getting rid of the snack boxes and doing a "grab-and-go" operation.

It looks like they've started that. Apologies for the bad image, this was taken from the Amtrak San Joaquins Instagram story.

Thanks very much for this image. Looks like food containers on a luggage rack, am I correct? I wonder how many of these there are going to be per San Joaquin train. And is this completely on an honor system for now?