Does California get rail electrification wrong?

[daybeers]

Maybe the person who wrote this should get out and look around and see what is really going on. I have no idea where the stuff in this blog came from, but it is totally unacquainted with reality. Caltrain is well under way with buying EMU's and installing overhead wire.

The expert who runs this blog is just that, an expert, and does see what's going on, through the PR nonsense you quoted in the rest of your post. Yes they have all the poles installed, whoopee, they were supposed to have revenue service by now, will they have it before 2024 is over? Will the budget balloon even more than its already ridiculous proportions?

Sure, they are electrifying, but that's just one line in CA. They've had so many headaches, failures, delays, cost overruns with this that they're looking for an easier, cheaper solution. Hydrogen fuel might be that in the short-term, but for any long-term, economically viable solution, they need to suck it up and hire competent people (hint, the foreign experts Alon talks about).

In Denver we didn't drag our feet on electrification because the completed commuter rail (A, G, N-Lines) started out as planning for LRT lines. The B-Line is electric to Westminster, but it is on hold beyond there for cost reasons

I would want any RTD projects on hold too until they can get competent people to hold to a budget and design good transit first before continuing on burning money on transit to the middle of the desert (Lone Tree City) with very little ridership.

 

[Willbridge]

I would want any RTD projects on hold too until they can get competent people to hold to a budget and design good transit first before continuing on burning money on transit to the middle of the desert (Lone Tree City) with very little ridership.

Lone Tree advanced the money to build an extension that was meant to come much later. RTD staff (including me) recommended less costly alternatives, but it was the city's plan to attract development, just before the pandemic. One of the things we discussed is that the optics would be terrible because people would blame RTD rather than discussing the rightness or wrongness of Lone Tree's policies.

It's off this thread, but let me also point out that service to Lone Tree was cut drastically for the pandemic. Note that Lone Tree also built concrete roadways and paths for places where gravel roads would be hard to justify. This was a view from a train in 2019.

 

[MARC Rider]

I would want any RTD projects on hold too until they can get competent people to hold to a budget and design good transit first before continuing on burning money on transit to the middle of the desert (Lone Tree City) with very little ridership.

This is just a quibble, but aren't the areas around Denver more of a short grass prairie than a desert?

 

[John Bredin]

Lone Tree advanced the money to build an extension that was meant to come much later. RTD staff (including me) recommended less costly alternatives, but it was the city's plan to attract development, just before the pandemic. One of the things we discussed is that the optics would be terrible because people would blame RTD rather than discussing the rightness or wrongness of Lone Tree's policies.

It's off this thread, but let me also point out that service to Lone Tree was cut drastically for the pandemic. Note that Lone Tree also built concrete roadways and paths for places where gravel roads would be hard to justify. This was a view from a train in 2019.

It's not entirely off-thread for me to note that the word "incompetent" seems to get thrown around willy-nilly, often as shorthand for "I wouldn't do that" or, somewhat less presumptuously, "I don't know why they're doing that."

Looking at the area on Google Maps, it looks like only the last two stations in Lone Tree are "in the desert" and clearly intended to be hubs of development that just hasn't happened yet. I recall photos of elevated extensions of the NYC subway in Queens going past completely undeveloped blocks in the 1910s or 1920s. They didn't stay undeveloped for long. Here's one.

 

[west point]

Every little thing that was ever buried or built on railway land recorded in a way that is easily accessible and retrievable. This doesn't happen over night but takes decades and decades of being disciplined and following the rules.

How untrue that is. In my present town a project that had us have to do several bores under a RR track almost became a disaster. Simply there were undocumented as best as I recall 7 water lines some as small as 1-1/2 inchs, 4 gas lines. 4 sewer lines, 5 storm sewers. None of which were in casings. Will not list their present status for obvious reasons.

someone realized that almost all crossings happened after the stock crash and great depression. That deduction happened after we received the RR drawings. of the area.

 

[George Harris]

I will completely agree with what MARC rider says about top management. Have been on the wrong side of that one. However, as to not knowing what is going on in the rest of the world, I have seen more than once someone come in making pronouncements in a French or German accent and the managers bowing and all but kissing their feet, even when people that know their methods, plus American methods and a few other places methods tell them that there are better and more practical ways being ignored simply because it appears that we had the wrong accents so that our conclusions and recommendations based on previous experience with multiple ways that things can be done enabling development of the best way forward out of all practical possibilities.

If the "PR nonsense" is what was quoted in the first post in this thread, that was not quoted by me, but by the original poster. I stand by what I said. This Hydrogen or whatever nonsense for electrification of Caltrain was never seriously considered if even thought about. It is simply that whenever any serious rail service or improvement project is being planned or constructed all the dingbats and science fiction fanatics come out of the woodwork to tell you how it ought to be done. That sounded like what was going on here. If this was a misquote of Levy, then he or whoever knows the total can clarify. If this was his opinion, whether he was German, Israeli, or from Atlantis is immaterial, he was not being realistic in the slightest.

 

[Willbridge]

Here are the lead paragraphs from what Alon Levy wrote in his blog:

Caltrans has a new plan to make its intercity rail fleet zero-emission. The snag: it rejects electrification as infeasible and is instead looking for hydrogen fuel cell trains. I do not think any of the people who were involved in this study is competent enough to keep working in this field, and it’s important to explain why.

I refer readers to the electrification report we at TransitMatters put out a few months ago. It talks about the costs and benefits of overhead wire, and goes over some case studies of some electrification projects, some good (Trondheim), some okay (Israel, Denmark), and some examples of what not to do (Caltrain, Toronto). Since then I’ve seen additional data of electrification costs out of Italy, where they’re near the bottom of our range.

Our report also goes into alternatives to wire and why they’re infeasible. Hydrogen is not even remotely close. The largest order as of 2019 was 27 trains for the Rhine-Main region, each 54 meters long, for 500M€, or around 343,000€ per linear meter; single-level EMUs typically cost around 80,000€/m in Europe. It’s infant technology with wanting performance and its cost is not worth it compared with the cost of wiring the trains.

I think this thread has mixed up Caltrans and Caltrain.

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2022/01/29/quick-note-california-gets-electrification-wrong/

 

[George Harris]

From cirdad: "Every little thing that was ever buried or built on railway land recorded in a way that is easily accessible and retrievable. This doesn't happen over night but takes decades and decades of being disciplined and following the rules."

How untrue that is. In my present town a project that had us have to do several bores under a RR track almost became a disaster. Simply there were undocumented as best as I recall 7 water lines some as small as 1-1/2 inches, 4 gas lines. 4 sewer lines, 5 storm sewers. None of which were in casings. Will not list their present status for obvious reasons.

someone realized that almost all crossings happened after the stock crash and great depression. That deduction happened after we received the RR drawings. of the area.

Did anyone tell you about railroad Valuation Maps? These are available for every mile of railroad in the United States and are normally meticulously keep current. Usually railroad companies are near paranoid about anything under or near their tracks and carefully record what it is and where it is. I have on one project seen the contractor take the copies of these maps that were relevant to his work simply roll them up and stick them in a corner of the office. As a result they were, at considerable expense, totally surprised to find embedded concrete slope reinforcement where they were supposed to excavate. It was shown on the Val map. These maps are usually are not very pretty, as unless completely redrawn the original ink on linen was done in 1917 or thereabouts with all revisions that were within the railroad right of way noted with an AFE or contract number and date. Due to their age and spending much of the early years in unairconditioned offices that were usually next to railroad tracks thereby subject to dusting with coal smoke they are anything but consistent in quality over each sheet. Also, areas outside the right of way, if shown at all usually have not been updated at all, so you are seeing what was there in 1917 or thereabouts. On one occasion when looking to do a bridge replacement survey on a branch line we could not find the small town shown on the map because it no longer existed. When we got to the location by simply walking from the nearest milepost we could find some evidence of long gone roads and buildings, but driving by on the nearest road that existed in the late 1960's, there was nothing to be seen. (AFE = Authorization for Expenditure)

 

[Willbridge]

Did anyone tell you about railroad Valuation Maps? These are available for every mile of railroad in the United States and are normally meticulously keep current. Usually railroad companies are near paranoid about anything under or near their tracks and carefully record what it is and where it is. I have on one project seen the contractor take the copies of these maps that were relevant to his work simply roll them up and stick them in a corner of the office. As a result they were, at considerable expense, totally surprised to find embedded concrete slope reinforcement where they were supposed to excavate. It was shown on the Val map. These maps are usually are not very pretty, as unless completely redrawn the original ink on linen was done in 1917 or thereabouts with all revisions that were within the railroad right of way noted with an AFE or contract number and date. Due to their age and spending much of the early years in unairconditioned offices that were usually next to railroad tracks thereby subject to dusting with coal smoke they are anything but consistent in quality over each sheet. Also, areas outside the right of way, if shown at all usually have not been updated at all, so you are seeing what was there in 1917 or thereabouts. On one occasion when looking to do a bridge replacement survey on a branch line we could not find the small town shown on the map because it no longer existed. When we got to the location by simply walking from the nearest milepost we could find some evidence of long gone roads and buildings, but driving by on the nearest road that existed in the late 1960's, there was nothing to be seen. (AFE = Authorization for Expenditure)

Were those Valuation Maps ordered as part of the USRRA?

 

[neroden]

US private freight railroads are notorious about forgetting that they own property where their tracks were removed a long time ago. This held up a San Diego Trolley project for over a year and held up St. Paul Union Depot work for over a year (in both cases, UP owned land that it had forgotten about but that the city property records remembered). So I'm not particularly impressed by their recordkeeping.

 

[MARC Rider]

US private freight railroads are notorious about forgetting that they own property where their tracks were removed a long time ago. This held up a San Diego Trolley project for over a year and held up St. Paul Union Depot work for over a year (in both cases, UP owned land that it had forgotten about but that the city property records remembered). So I'm not particularly impressed by their recordkeeping.

If you forget about the property you own, I guess you can be reminded when the property tax bill arrives. Of course, if they haven't paid taxes on property they forgot about, maybe the city can just seize the property in lieu of taxes.

 

[jis]

If you forget about the property you own, I guess you can be reminded when the property tax bill arrives. Of course, if they haven't paid taxes on property they forgot about, maybe the city can just seize the property in lieu of taxes.

If anything, often the municipalities are equally if not more ignorant, specially in small towns. It can be quite a trip to get municipalities to take responsibility for things that they own too.

 

[Bob Dylan]

If anything, often the municipalities are equally if not more ignorant, specially in small towns. It can be quite a trip to get municipalities to take responsibility for things that they own too.

Yep, lots of Small towns, especially in Rural areas, still have old records stored in musty Warehouses and Courthouses since they haven't been computerized.

Mason, a West Texas Ranch Town, had their Courthouse torched by an Arsonist, but luckily all the Records ( which dated back to the 1800s)had been moved to another site due to the Courthouse due to be Renovated soon..

There's lots of Lawsuits over property rights in Texas since our Records go back to Spanish and Mexican Land Grants.( Title Companies rake in a Fortune in the Lone Star State.)

 

[George Harris]

There's lots of Lawsuits over property rights in Texas since our Records go back to Spanish and Mexican Land Grants.( Title Companies rake in a Fortune in the Lone Star State.)

Yes! Spent 2 years working on DART planning the first go around before that round got killed politically in 1988. This was not just one party's fault. There was enough done by several parties involved that caused that death. There were several properties that were dimensioned in Spanish Varas. How long a Vara is, I do not know, nor at this late date am I sure that I spelled it right. Another fun fact: The Texas Legislature had to pass a law declaring rail transit systems as railroads for right of way purposes so that the right of way for at least one of the lines would not be lost in the process of removing a section of railroad to be used for a DART right of way. (So, what is going on with the TxHSR on this issue? Would not the same issue apply, or was this written to only apply to Dallas County?)

As to local agencies property records, in the South many court houses were burned during the War Between the States, usually for sheer maliciousness as they were of no military significance. This has led to a lot of "who owns what?" issues in many places for over a century. This has resulted in significant right of way and other property issues for railroad that were in existence at that time. Even without that issue, on one particular survey to lay out an industrial track we found a manhole in the middle of the area the county was assisting the industry in buying. Popped the lid, and behold they had a sanitary sewer line passing under the proposed building site. At that point, we folded up our equipment and called the agency and said, you better rethink your plan. They acted surprised.

 

[jis]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Note even to myself, I am embarrassed to say.... time to swing back to California electrification.

 

[George Harris]

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Note even to myself, I am embarrassed to say.... time to swing back to California electrification.

True. Sorry for getting so far off topic.