DesertXpress inks deal to add train link from Victorville to Palmdale

[Anderson]

What are the current Cajon running speed limits? I've never actually been told what the limits are.

As to the fares on that route, I could see lower fares happening if you had a lot of seats opening up at Victorville. However, Metrolink charges over $12 for Palmdale-LAUS, so I would expect that DX (or a truly fast commuter operation) could probably force that up quite a bit with faster times (i.e. fast enough that driving will often not be competitive even if the flow is good).

 

[johnny.menhennet]

What are the current Cajon running speed limits? I've never actually been told what the limits are.

As to the fares on that route, I could see lower fares happening if you had a lot of seats opening up at Victorville. However, Metrolink charges over $12 for Palmdale-LAUS, so I would expect that DX (or a truly fast commuter operation) could probably force that up quite a bit with faster times (i.e. fast enough that driving will often not be competitive even if the flow is good).

Yeah, I suppose that you could still get tons of ridership LA-Palmdale at $20, but probably not a lot of regular commuters. $40 per day is steep. The Cajon limits vary per track and grade. I know that generally, the 3% grade track is used for the downhill trains, and I've heard that the freights run about 20 but the Chief gets up to 30. The other two BNSF tracks are right around 20-25, both going up - generally. I neither know nor really care about the UP Palmdale Cutoff track, since its really not important.

 

[Anderson]

What are the current Cajon running speed limits? I've never actually been told what the limits are.

As to the fares on that route, I could see lower fares happening if you had a lot of seats opening up at Victorville. However, Metrolink charges over $12 for Palmdale-LAUS, so I would expect that DX (or a truly fast commuter operation) could probably force that up quite a bit with faster times (i.e. fast enough that driving will often not be competitive even if the flow is good).

Yeah, I suppose that you could still get tons of ridership LA-Palmdale at $20, but probably not a lot of regular commuters. $40 per day is steep. The Cajon limits vary per track and grade. I know that generally, the 3% grade track is used for the downhill trains, and I've heard that the freights run about 20 but the Chief gets up to 30. The other two BNSF tracks are right around 20-25, both going up - generally. I neither know nor really care about the UP Palmdale Cutoff track, since its really not important.

I think you could get more than you think for commuters. Yes, there is a limit,, but look at what the MTA can pull for the longer-range commuters in New York and Connecticut. Mind you, some of this is gas price-dependent, but I'm inclined to think that shaving 30+ minutes off of a daily commute could command a decent premium, especially for your wealthier residents. If anything, I think that's likely to be the biggest hurdle: A commuter system that does aim to serve the upper end of the market isn't exactly going to be a big issue for your local populist politicians.

 

[George Harris]

Saluda, at about 4.7%, was short ard required a couple of pages of rules, but steam hauled, and later diesel hauled freight and passenger trains both ran on it.

Yes, if you know you will have 6% grades, you can make the trains that can handle it.

Salida, as in Tennessee Pass?

yes I know that there are trains that CAN go at steep grades, but probably not at a speed faster than that of the freeway traffic next to it. At that point, you might as well just use the railroad RoW with between a 2.2 and a 3%, depending on where you are.

Nope. "Saluda", as in climbing the Blue Ridge in western North Carolina between Asheville NC and Spartanburg SC on the Norfolk Southern, formerly Southern Railway, The portion with the grade is now out of service, but not abandoned, and it appears that NS has no plan to abandon it.

Speed on steep grades: We get around to a power to weight ratio as previously said. True, even the high speed sets do not have sufficient power to maintain 180 mph plus on a 3% grade, but they will definitely be far above normal highway speed.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

What are the current Cajon running speed limits? I've never actually been told what the limits are.

As to the fares on that route, I could see lower fares happening if you had a lot of seats opening up at Victorville. However, Metrolink charges over $12 for Palmdale-LAUS, so I would expect that DX (or a truly fast commuter operation) could probably force that up quite a bit with faster times (i.e. fast enough that driving will often not be competitive even if the flow is good).

Yeah, I suppose that you could still get tons of ridership LA-Palmdale at $20, but probably not a lot of regular commuters. $40 per day is steep. The Cajon limits vary per track and grade. I know that generally, the 3% grade track is used for the downhill trains, and I've heard that the freights run about 20 but the Chief gets up to 30. The other two BNSF tracks are right around 20-25, both going up - generally. I neither know nor really care about the UP Palmdale Cutoff track, since its really not important.

I think you could get more than you think for commuters. Yes, there is a limit,, but look at what the MTA can pull for the longer-range commuters in New York and Connecticut. Mind you, some of this is gas price-dependent, but I'm inclined to think that shaving 30+ minutes off of a daily commute could command a decent premium, especially for your wealthier residents. If anything, I think that's likely to be the biggest hurdle: A commuter system that does aim to serve the upper end of the market isn't exactly going to be a big issue for your local populist politicians.

Hahahaha nobody who has money lives in Palmdale!!!

Sorry to anyone who this may offend, but Palmdale is gross.

But in all seriousness Anderson you are right. A national study showed that residents of the city of Palmdale have the longest average commute to work each day: 80 miles each way. This is incredible, and there definitely is a market.

George: They could maybe go pretty fast, but here in SoCal we go pretty fast. In the rural areas its completely common for the flow of traffic to be at 85, and often quicker. That's one of my biggest peeves about going to NorCal to visit my grandparents up there. Not only do the people there drive the speed limit, they drive UNDER it!

 

[Anderson]

Johnny,

You've got me wondering just what sort of premium fast commuter services could draw over "regular" services. I don't mean cases where you knock ten minutes off of a run by eliminating some stops in the middle...I'm thinking of that combined with faster running and the like to actually get commute times competitive with driving.

To pull a couple of examples:

-Fredericksburg-WAUS VRE times run between 1:24 (train 300, the super-early express) and 1:37 (train 302). Amtrak runs between 1:31 (train 94) and 1:15 (train 86). Driving time on Google Maps is 1:09 station-to-station. Net slowdown is between 15 minutes on the low end and 28 minutes on the high end.

-Riverside-LAUS Metrolink times run 1:23. Driving time is :59. Net slowdown is 24 minutes.

-WAUS-Baltimore Camden. Driving time: 56 minutes, either BWI Parkway or I-95. MARC times run from 1:04 (843, a morning express) to 1:19 (847). I'd argue that at the low end, the times are competitive...but the 1:13-1:19 trains are really stretching that competitiveness.

Of course, a sad irony underlies all of this: If you suddenly dropped all of those times sharply, there is every chance that the commuter lines involved would basically "crash" because of demand. Try to hand the VRE another 10,000 passengers and they're going to need the cars to put them on (probably solvable in such a situation, though right now they're bumping up against capacity problems) and where to put the extra 5-10k parking spaces (not easily solved; right now, 7 of 13 stations have parking utilization of over 90%, and two of those are using overflow spaces). The only way to manage such a surge would be to hike prices to "run off" riders until capacity could be brought up.

 

[AlanB]

Try to hand the VRE another 10,000 passengers and they're going to need the cars to put them on (probably solvable in such a situation, though right now they're bumping up against capacity problems) and where to put the extra 5-10k parking spaces (not easily solved; right now, 7 of 13 stations have parking utilization of over 90%, and two of those are using overflow spaces). The only way to manage such a surge would be to hike prices to "run off" riders until capacity could be brought up.

Actually VRE's biggest capacity issues are neither parking or getting extra rail cars. Their biggest issues are getting more tracks in the yards at DC to park the trains on during the midday and/or getting CSX to agree to allow for reverse peak service so that instead of storing cars during the day in DC, they can make additional runs or be stored in other yards outside of DC.

 

[afigg]

You East Coast people are well-off with large metropolitan areas and comparatively less traffic. On the East Coast, I was amazed at how few cars there were on the parallel 95 in Connecticut and no traffic whatsoever going through the Holland Tunnel. You guys had tolls before cars even really mattered, so you're used to it.

You were just there at the wrong times/days. Those places can get very, very busy.

Yea. I-95 in CT not busy? No traffic in Holland tunnel? Someone needs more data points or samples on east coast driving and congestion. :lol:

 

[afigg]

DX did indeed plan for 220 MTUs, but cut it back when they started seriously going for EIRs and FRA approval.Their first plans called for 150, then when CAHSR got serious they moved it up to 220. Later they went back to 150.

My expectation is that once Amtrak gets approval to run the Acelas at 160 mph, XpressWest (their new name) will move to increase their stated max speed to 160 mph. Above that, such as speeds up to 186 mph (300 kph), may increase track construction & design and power consumption costs to more than they want to pay. With no stops between Vegas and Victorville and a new ROW built from scratch, the average speed should be close to the max speed. With so few station stops, less of a need for a 186 or faster max speed to make up for the stops.

 

[afigg]

DesertXpress has changed their name to XpressWest. Looks like they are leaving their options open to extending their system beyond a Victorville/Palmdale to Las Vegas line. Their map now has arrow lines extending from Vegas towards Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

Edit: added comment - the timing of the announcement of the agreement with Metrolink along with the name change leads me to figure that there have been behind the scenes discussions between DX, now XW?, and the FRA & LaHood. With the Metrolink and CA agreement in place, the FRA may be announcing the grant of the RRIF loan in the near future. To minimize the short term howls of protest and caterwauling from the Republicans, the announcement could be made on a Thursday afternoon or a Friday when the House is not in session. Prior to a holiday week would not be unusual for more controversial annoucements.

 

[Anderson]

DesertXpress has changed their name to XpressWest. Looks like they are leaving their options open to extending their system beyond a Victorville/Palmdale to Las Vegas line. Their map now has arrow lines extending from Vegas towards Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

Brand new name as of today. Wow.

A line going from Las Vegas to Phoenix is going to have a hell of a crossing of the Colorado. And now they're shooting for Denver as well...

http://desertxpress.com/network.php

Something looks crazy to me here. LA-Vegas is a viable rail market, and I actually think Phoenix/Tuscon-LA (even via Vegas) might be viable. But Denver-Salt Lake-Vegas-Los Angeles? Neither Denver nor Salt Lake have the pre-existing rail markets, and I really don't see Denver-Salt Lake as being a massive enough travel market to support a 5-6 hour HSR line. A line on the Front Range? Sure, I could see that (see my earlier post about higher-speed commuter systems), but not this (at least, not in the next decade).

My only guess, given the length of the run and whatnot, is that they're looking at something like an overnight HSR service out of Denver as part of this. The other jam I see is the sheer cost here...if they use all new RoW, I could see this easily making a run on $100 billion. Yeah, somebody is getting way ahead of themselves.

Alan: True...I've been wondering why they haven't been adding cars to some of their trains, given that several of the trains are beyond capacity as-is. Storage space has been an issue (I know they're trying to get another ten cars' worth of space near Union Station). And completely beyond me is why the 306/307 consist and 304/309 consist haven't either been exchanged or swapped a car (since the former has spare capacity while the latter is well over capacity). The same goes with swapping 310/311 and 308/305...but in general, the Fredericksburg Line just seems swamped. The worst part of all of this is that it looks like that with some extra rolling stock (even without more frequencies), the line could get to 70% of operating expenses.

 

[leemell]

DesertXpress has changed their name to XpressWest. Looks like they are leaving their options open to extending their system beyond a Victorville/Palmdale to Las Vegas line. Their map now has arrow lines extending from Vegas towards Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

Edit: added comment - the timing of the announcement of the agreement with Metrolink along with the name change leads me to figure that there have been behind the scenes discussions between DX, now XW?, and the FRA & LaHood. With the Metrolink and CA agreement in place, the FRA may be announcing the grant of the RRIF loan in the near future. To minimize the short term howls of protest and caterwauling from the Republicans, the announcement could be made on a Thursday afternoon or a Friday when the House is not in session. Prior to a holiday week would not be unusual for more controversial annoucements.

That fits my expectations of DC, I've watched federal financial politics for more more than 30 years and I agree with this. It may not happen, but, the pattern fits exactly.

Edit: The other likely alternative is that the decision will be withheld until after the November elections.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

DesertXpress has changed their name to XpressWest. Looks like they are leaving their options open to extending their system beyond a Victorville/Palmdale to Las Vegas line. Their map now has arrow lines extending from Vegas towards Salt Lake City and Phoenix.

Edit: added comment - the timing of the announcement of the agreement with Metrolink along with the name change leads me to figure that there have been behind the scenes discussions between DX, now XW?, and the FRA & LaHood. With the Metrolink and CA agreement in place, the FRA may be announcing the grant of the RRIF loan in the near future. To minimize the short term howls of protest and caterwauling from the Republicans, the announcement could be made on a Thursday afternoon or a Friday when the House is not in session. Prior to a holiday week would not be unusual for more controversial annoucements.

That fits my expectations of DC, I've watched federal financial politics for more more than 30 years and I agree with this. It may not happen, but, the pattern fits exactly.

Yep. With this and the FEC, the times they are achangin'.

 

[afigg]

Brand new name as of today. Wow.

A line going from Las Vegas to Phoenix is going to have a hell of a crossing of the Colorado. And now they're shooting for Denver as well...

http://desertxpress.com/network.php

Something looks crazy to me here. LA-Vegas is a viable rail market, and I actually think Phoenix/Tuscon-LA (even via Vegas) might be viable. But Denver-Salt Lake-Vegas-Los Angeles? Neither Denver nor Salt Lake have the pre-existing rail markets, and I really don't see Denver-Salt Lake as being a massive enough travel market to support a 5-6 hour HSR line. A line on the Front Range? Sure, I could see that (see my earlier post about higher-speed commuter systems), but not this (at least, not in the next decade).

My only guess, given the length of the run and whatnot, is that they're looking at something like an overnight HSR service out of Denver as part of this. The other jam I see is the sheer cost here...if they use all new RoW, I could see this easily making a run on $100 billion. Yeah, somebody is getting way ahead of themselves.

Las Vegas to Phoenix could be under 300 miles. From Vegas, to Henderson NV, Boulder City?, then Kingman, then state route 93 to Phoenix. Then along I-10 to Tucson. Big enough population with fair amount of traffic to Vegas, so it could be viable. Could create a triangle with a LA-Riverside to Phoenix HSR line which would have a shared HSR station and line through Phoenix to Tucson.

Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and Denver is a serious stretch. I get ~430 miles along I-15 from Vegas to SLC. How many people in SLC travel to Vegas for conventions and the casinos? I'm sure there are some Mormons who secretly go to Vegas to gamble and party, but enough to justify a 430 mile HSR line? Doubtful.

Denver is building an extensive commuter and transit rail system which will make it a viable major anchor city for expanded intercity passenger rail routes. And Colorado has been studying building a HSR system along the Front Range and up into the mountains to as far as Grand Junction CO because of the traffic load on I-70. If Colorado were to build a HSR line from Denver to Grand Junction, then a HSR line to SLC or along I-70 to I-15 to Vegas could be a possibility. But I get ~760 driving miles from Vegas to Denver along I-15 and I-70. Over that terrain? Major, major bucks. A HSR line could happen along that route, but not until after we have 1000s of miles of electrified HSR corridors elsewhere.

I think XpressWest is putting lines to SLC and Denver on the map to score political points with Utah and Colorado politicians and the public. Not a viable prospect in the next several decades.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Personally, I hate the name XpressWest. The line will never reach further than the SoCal-Vegas market. Notice how the above link shows the map with the lines being highlighted in different colors. Did anybody else notice that the section was highlighted first LA-San Diego, then LA-Palmdale, then Victorville-Vegas, with Victorville-Palmdale coming last? I found it weird that the Palmdale connection was coming to fruition far after the other segments.

Anyway, Anderson is right that there is a huge demand for SoCal-Phoenix/Tucson travel. The market is very large, and while not as important as a line to Vegas, the area population is 2.5 x more than Vegas' once Tucson is included. I've actually always wondered why the Arizona government has not pursued the active development of a corridor system between those cities. The demand is also large, as evidenced by the hourly air shuttles linking them and the growing traffic. I know that the state government is anti-rail, but I'm surprised that even in a red state such as itself, the citizens have not demanded more. It was a miracle to even get the light rail line in PHX. I think that the line through Vegas to Phoenix would suffice, because you would probably still get a time similar to that of a driving time, but maybe more. From Solana Beach, the quickest time Google Maps will give you is 6 hours 5 minutes, although we know that we can do it with two stops in 5:20. From LA to Phoenix, they give 6:03. The distance from Vegas to Phoenix is actually pretty significant, so I'm not sure what time it would take via Phoenix. In a ll honesty, it would be much smarter to have a triangle with the two legs out of LA first than have the connection from Vegas to Phoenix, the demand isn't as large yet. The driving time Vegas-Phoenix is listed as 5:27. As much as I want to believe it possible, I don't think an 11 hour driving time if going in that triangle could match the 5 1/2 made by the direct driving. To say it more clearly, I don't think a train that goes along a route that takes 11 hours to drive will go as fast as the direct 5 1/2 hour route.

There is no demand at all for any high-speed service to Utah, coming from ANY direction. Denver does have a demand, but it is to the south, towards the cities of Colorado Springs and Pueblo, and probably more so to Albuquerque than Salt Lake. As was said, this is probably for political reasons. I just was lookign around a few days ago due to the activity of this topic and I saw something called the Western High Speed Rail Alliance and the plans looked very similar. Not much change at all.

 

[Anderson]

The problem I see is that Vegas-SLC-Denver is a set of rather modest travel markets that are very spread out. They all plug into LA nicely, but the times involved there are /really/ long. Assuming an average operating speed of 120 MPH (something that I doubt is technically feasible over parts of the terrain in question), I think Denver-LAX is still an overnight trip or a very long day trip.

Taking a guess, though, in my mind I actually saw such a train following the old "City of Los Angeles" routing, more or less (that is, running up into Wyoming and then down into the Salt Lake area that way). I would prefer, in many ways, the other proposed routing (i.e. I-15/I-70 instead of I-15/I-80/I-25), but the mountains are an issue there. If CO were on board and there were enough traffic on the Denver-Grand Junction section, the plan might end up being "build that segment and we'll link this thing later". Frankly, this makes sense...especially since while "flyover country" west of Denver is one of those places where I can see arguments against big passenger rail investments, an endpoint at Denver opens up all sorts of possibilities, both along the Front Range and further east. I won't lie...when they listed Denver, one of my first thoughts was "Are these guys going to /seriously/ shoot for Chicago?"

I'm still wondering what is going on here (i.e. the possibility of a couple of unconnected HSR lines going in, with connections on the map to try and sell things that might be added in at a later date seems plausible enough)...but I know there's support in CO for HSR, and I specifically recall one of the questions that came up during the HSR hearings a while back was one of CO's senators complaining about there being no HSR corridor in CO.

=================================

As to AZ, one of the big things that is really throwing a spanner in the works to any anti-rail sentiments is that, to a decent extent, the project is federal/private sector. Not that the state DoTs are out of the loop entirely, but it reduces their room to obstruct, and a profitable LA-LV train wanting to expand operations into AZ is going to induce all sorts of rhetorical tangles. If the state isn't having to pony up cash, that removes one big objection.

Looking at the LV-Phoenix routing, Vegas-Henderson-Boulder City slams into the Colorado River problem. If the cost was somehow packed into the same range as the Hoover Dam Bypass project cost, that wouldn't be too bad (and let's face it...I don't think there's anyone on here who /wouldn't/ want to see a rail bridge next to that), and US-93 is just about as close to a dream for a rail line (it is low, flat, and straight from Kingman north until you hit the mountains along the Colorado River).

With that said, I'm wondering if it wouldn't make more sense (simplified maps aside) to run the line down by US-95 and then cross at Needles or Bullhead City. Going any further south than that for the crossing, you should probably just split things at Barstow and get as close to I-10 as you can and use that RoW.

Just a final thought for this post: There is something of a grand irony about the interstate rights-of-way, which played a major role in passenger rail falling apart in the late 50s and 60s, now being turned to host HSR lines.

 

[GG-1]

The SoCal-Vegas market is HUGE! I would even venture to say size of or maybe larger of NYC-Boston, when you ignore intermediate points. Currently, there are two ways to get there. Drive on the 15, which is only 4 lanes to the 395, 3 to Barstow, and 2 the entire rest of the way to Vegas. The there is flying. If you look at the the number of fliers to Las Vegas from the SoCal airports, it is a large amount. These figures are from March 2011 - Feb 2012, unless otherwise noted.

From LAX: 1.147 million

From San Diego: 415,000

From OC: 221,000

From Long Beach: 172,000 (just on JetBlue alone)

From Burbank: 355,000 (June 10 - May 11)

From Ontario: 210,000 (taken Nov 10 - Oct 11)

Aloha

Yesturday the morning news were reporting that 110K people would be on I-15 returning to the LA aera following the EDC Concert at the LV Motor Speedway.. the were estimating the drive time to be 10 hours. Coming back from my daughters house after Christmas was 9 hours 15 minutes.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

The SoCal-Vegas market is HUGE! I would even venture to say size of or maybe larger of NYC-Boston, when you ignore intermediate points. Currently, there are two ways to get there. Drive on the 15, which is only 4 lanes to the 395, 3 to Barstow, and 2 the entire rest of the way to Vegas. The there is flying. If you look at the the number of fliers to Las Vegas from the SoCal airports, it is a large amount. These figures are from March 2011 - Feb 2012, unless otherwise noted.

From LAX: 1.147 million

From San Diego: 415,000

From OC: 221,000

From Long Beach: 172,000 (just on JetBlue alone)

From Burbank: 355,000 (June 10 - May 11)

From Ontario: 210,000 (taken Nov 10 - Oct 11)

Aloha

Yesturday the morning news were reporting that 110K people would be on I-15 returning to the LA aera following the EDC Concert at the LV Motor Speedway.. the were estimating the drive time to be 10 hours. Coming back from my daughters house after Christmas was 9 hours 15 minutes.

See I'm not crazy!!! This is actually a common occurrence. While I had not heard of the Electric Daisy Carnival being that big a problem, I can easily see how it would be now that I think about it. When it was in LA, the thing was crazy. I imagine that even though the venue switch is new, it's still just as popular with the young crowd.

 

[George Harris]

for those seriously interested in this project, go here: www.fra.gov/rpd/freight/1703.shtml

I have no idea why "freight" is in the link.

After this page opens, scroll down and you will find links to a number of files giving all kinds of information about this thing. File sizes vary from one to two megabites up between 20 and 65 megabites for the drawing files.

 

[GG-1]

for those seriously interested in this project, go here: www.fra.gov/rpd/freight/1703.shtml

I have no idea why "freight" is in the link.

After this page opens, scroll down and you will find links to a number of files giving all kinds of information about this thing. File sizes vary from one to two megabites up between 20 and 65 megabites for the drawing files.

Aloha George

Link is not working.

 

[George Harris]

for those seriously interested in this project, go here: www.fra.gov/rpd/freight/1703.shtml

I have no idea why "freight" is in the link.

After this page opens, scroll down and you will find links to a number of files giving all kinds of information about this thing. File sizes vary from one to two megabites up between 20 and 65 megabites for the drawing files.

Aloha George

Link is not working.

Have no idea why. Tried it and it did not work for me either. However, when I entered the same www.fra, etc. into google it was the first thing that popped up and that was what was at the top.

If all else fails, search FRA DesertXpress - Las Vegas to Victorville and it should be in the first few items.

 

[amtrakwolverine]

I got it to work. The link is wrong. HERE is the correct link http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/freight/1703.shtml

the first part is www.fra.dot.gov not www.fra.gov.

 

[GG-1]

I got it to work. The link is wrong. HERE is the correct link http://www.fra.dot.g...ight/1703.shtml

the first part is www.fra.dot.gov not www.fra.gov.

Mahalo for the fix.

 

[George Harris]

I got it to work. The link is wrong. HERE is the correct link http://www.fra.dot.g...ight/1703.shtml

the first part is www.fra.dot.gov not www.fra.gov.

Mahalo for the fix.

helps when somebody does it that does not in some sort of mindless typing think "dot" for department of transportation = "." Hello brain, is anybody home?

 

[Donctor]

You East Coast people are well-off with large metropolitan areas and comparatively less traffic. On the East Coast, I was amazed at how few cars there were on the parallel 95 in Connecticut and no traffic whatsoever going through the Holland Tunnel.

What? Were you visiting during the "hurricane"?

Maybe you didn't see any traffic because you died of boredom waiting to get in the damn tunnel.