Group working on Cascadia HSR

[flitcraft]

Today's Seattle Times had this article about a high-powered working group whose long range plans include HSR between Vancouver BC and Portland. I realize that, even if this comes about, I won't live to see it, but it does recongize the importance of corridor HSR for the future of the region.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sponso...m_medium=banners&utm_campaign=branded_content

 

[George Harris]

This thought has been kicked around for quite some time. It has been about 20 years since I first heard about it being considered. Are they having a slow news day? Does one of the favored study groups with political connections need a boost in revenue? I think this thing has been folded, spindled, and mutilated sufficiently. Call me when they start moving dirt.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Call me when they start moving dirt.

That is the way I feel about a lot of rail projects that get studied to death. Politicians throw a bone to pro rail constituents by funding a study for a few hundred thousand (basically petty cash in the government world) that gets put on the shelf and nothing happens. For example Gateway, midwest rail expansion, proposals for rail expansion here in Maine etc.

 

[Tlcooper44]

This country is so endlessly obsessed with HSR that we may never improve our rail system.

 

[Urban Sky]

This country is so endlessly obsessed with HSR that we may never improve our rail system.

Amen, and it’s not much better North of the border…

 

[jiml]

The problem in North America is that people assume that HSR is the standard in the rest of the world that we need to emulate, when in fact it's just a percentage of actual passenger rail that receives more attention. We'd do well to achieve what countries like Germany and the UK do on "regular" tracks with "regular" trains.

 

[jis]

The problem in North America is that people assume that HSR is the standard in the rest of the world that we need to emulate, when in fact it's just a percentage of actual passenger rail that receives more attention. We'd do well to achieve what countries like Germany and the UK do on "regular" tracks with "regular" trains.

Instead of that we spend a lot of time on good Dining car service, and Sleeping car service, instead of figuring out how to deploy core train service in a broad network. We get conniptions when someone talks about corridors forgetting to mention LD service. The nation as a whole sometimes appears to be not ready for a discussion of a rational rail segment of the passenger transportation services.

 

[neroden]

The elephant in the room is that North America is the only place with private corporations owning a significant amount of track, and it does not work. Not in the US, not in Canada, not in Mexico. The privatization fetish is what wrecks things the most. Wrecking freight service too.

 

[Urban Sky]

The problem in North America is that people assume that HSR is the standard in the rest of the world that we need to emulate, when in fact it's just a percentage of actual passenger rail that receives more attention.

This is exactly the point almost all North Americans miss when they contrast passenger railroading in places like Europe with those at home: HSR is nothing more than the icing on the cake.

According to the most recent Statistical Pocketbook of the European Commission, High Speed Rail accounted for only 27.7% of all passenger rail travel in 2019 within the European Union (or 31.3% if excluding the UK, which left the EU in January 2020):

Source: EU Transport in Figures 2020 (p.54)

If we use the reports of Deutsche Bahn's Long-Distance and Regional Business Units, we can approximate the average distance traveled in 2019 on Germany's High-Speed trains as 293 km [1] and 21.1 km [2] on its non-HSR trains, which suggests that the HSR services shown in above table only accounted for 113 million [3] (or 3.4%) of the 3.2 billion [4] rail passengers transported in 2019 in Germany - the 3rd-largest HSR network in Europe [5].

Now consider that the threshold for "HSR services" in above table is 200 km/h (125 mph) and you will realize that basically all NEC services would already qualify as the kind of "HSR services" which only account for a measly 3.4% of total rail passenger volume in Germany.

[1] 44,151 million passenger-km divided by 150.7 million passengers
[2] 41,633 million passenger-km divided by 1,927 million passengers
[3] 33.2 billion passenger-km divided by 293 km
[4] 67.2 (100.4*-33.2) billion passenger-km divided by 21.1 km (*EU Transport in Figures 2020, p.53)
[5] EU Transport in Figures 2020 (p.81)


***

We'd do well to achieve what countries like Germany and the UK do on "regular" tracks with "regular" trains.

We sometimes actually exceeded what these countries achieved, as the comparison of Toronto-Montreal and Berlin-Munich shows (both city pairs which are exactly 504 km apart, if measured by a straight line from downtown station to downtown station): When we had one train per day achieving 3h59 (at least on paper), the fastest travel times between Berlin and Munich were somewhere between 6 and 9 hours - and that was despite having upgraded some 80 km to 200 km/h. Unfortunately, the historic coincidence that we at some point achieved a travel time below 4 hours with our supposedly slow trains has created a public perception that everything which achieves a travel time with only a 4 in front of the "h" is simply not worth pursuing, even though it took Germany more than 450 km of HSR upgrades, which came at a capital cost well in excess of C$20 billion and was spread over a period of more than half a century:

Source and detailed explanations: re-post from Urban Toronto


***

The elephant in the room is that North America is the only place with private corporations owning a significant amount of track, and it does not work. Not in the US, not in Canada, not in Mexico. The privatization fetish is what wrecks things the most. Wrecking freight service too.

Japan is the perfect (but to be honest, probably also: only) example that you can have a highly performant and passenger-centric railway network under private ownership, but the key observation is that infrastructure access must be regulated to balance the needs of freight and passenger operations - and this is certainly an area where the Americas and Australia are at odds with Europe, Africa and Asia...

 

[jiml]

Nice homework @Urban Sky.

 

[Tlcooper44]

This is exactly the point almost all North Americans miss when they contrast passenger railroading in places like Europe with those at home: HSR is nothing more than the icing on the cake.

According to the most recent Statistical Pocketbook of the European Commission, High Speed Rail accounted for only 27.7% of all passenger rail travel in 2019 within the European Union (or 31.3% if excluding the UK, which left the EU in January 2020):
View attachment 26521
Source: EU Transport in Figures 2020 (p.54)

If we use the reports of Deutsche Bahn's Long-Distance and Regional Business Units, we can approximate the average distance traveled in 2019 on Germany's High-Speed trains as 293 km [1] and 21.1 km [2] on its non-HSR trains, which suggests that the HSR services shown in above table only accounted for 113 million [3] (or 3.4%) of the 3.2 billion [4] rail passengers transported in 2019 in Germany - the 3rd-largest HSR network in Europe [5].

Now consider that the threshold for "HSR services" in above table is 200 km/h (125 mph) and you will realize that basically all NEC services would already qualify as the kind of "HSR services" which only account for a measly 3.4% of total rail passenger volume in Germany.

[1] 44,151 million passenger-km divided by 150.7 million passengers
[2] 41,633 million passenger-km divided by 1,927 million passengers
[3] 33.2 billion passenger-km divided by 293 km
[4] 67.2 (100.4*-33.2) billion passenger-km divided by 21.1 km (*EU Transport in Figures 2020, p.53)
[5] EU Transport in Figures 2020 (p.81)


***



We sometimes actually exceeded what these countries achieved, as the comparison of Toronto-Montreal and Berlin-Munich shows (both city pairs which are exactly 504 km apart, if measured by a straight line from downtown station to downtown station): When we had one train per day achieving 3h59 (at least on paper), the fastest travel times between Berlin and Munich were somewhere between 6 and 9 hours - and that was despite having upgraded some 80 km to 200 km/h. Unfortunately, the historic coincidence that we at some point achieved a travel time below 4 hours with our supposedly slow trains has created a public perception that everything which achieves a travel time with only a 4 in front of the "h" is simply not worth pursuing, even though it took Germany more than 450 km of HSR upgrades, which came at a capital cost well in excess of C$20 billion and was spread over a period of more than half a century:

Source and detailed explanations: re-post from Urban Toronto


***



Japan is the perfect (but to be honest, probably also: only) example that you can have a highly performant and passenger-centric railway network under private ownership, but the key observation is that infrastructure access must be regulated to balance the needs of freight and passenger operations - and this is certainly an area where the Americas and Australia are at odds with Europe, Africa and Asia...

I'm gonna cite this post in the future.
Thanks.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

This country is so endlessly obsessed with HSR that we may never improve our rail system.

Supporters of HSR also want to see more passenger rail and public transportation services in general, but your inexplicable push to isolate HSR proponents as being distinct from and detrimental to other rail initiatives undermines support for all types of passenger rail. Do you believe countries that built superior passenger rail networks did so by pitting each solution against the others or by combining forces to promote more passenger rail of all kinds? If any of our passenger rail goals are likely to be met we need to join forces rather than try to talk each other out of participating with zero sum arguments.

Now consider that the threshold for "HSR services" in above table is 200 km/h (125 mph) and you will realize that basically all NEC services would already qualify as the kind of "HSR services" which only account for a measly 3.4% of total rail passenger volume in Germany.

The very first HSR service averaged more than 80MPH on purpose-built trackage in 1964 while the NEC still struggles to average 65MPH over winding 1950's era snail rail more than a half-century later. Just because my Honda can reach 125MPH for a few minutes does not make it a sports car.

This is exactly the point almost all North Americans miss when they contrast passenger railroading in places like Europe with those at home: HSR is nothing more than the icing on the cake. According to the most recent Statistical Pocketbook of the European Commission, High Speed Rail accounted for only 27.7% of all passenger rail travel in 2019 within the European Union (or 31.3% if excluding the UK, which left the EU in January 2020):

When was the last time you got excited about a cake with 0% frosting? HSR is the halo product that grabs headlines and builds support for passenger rail of all types. When fully integrated into a larger transportation system HSR functions as a backbone for services that connect to light rail, heavy metro, subways, buses, and even aircraft. The continuing lack of true HSR leaves us without an increasingly important tool in our public travel ecosystem.

 

[Tlcooper44]

Supporters of HSR also want to see more passenger rail and public transportation services in general, but your inexplicable push to isolate HSR proponents as being distinct from and detrimental to other rail initiatives undermines support for all types of passenger rail. Do you believe countries that built superior passenger rail networks did so by pitting each solution against the others or by combining forces to promote more passenger rail of all kinds? If any of our passenger rail goals are likely to be met we need to join forces rather than try to talk each other out of participating with zero sum arguments.

inexplicable? Hardly...
I agree with you in principal, and the rhetorical nature of what I said certainly had its drawbacks, but you’re acting as if my statement had no room of nuance perhaps for the sake of your own rather one-demensional arguement.

There were those who didn't support the infrastructure bill mostly in part because it didn’t have funding (or enough funding) for true High Speed Rail (220+). The reality is that there are so many aspects to reliable, useful and all-around great rail travel that have nothing to do with achieving an arbitrary number for a top speed.

moreover, the CAHSR project has many drawbacks that are simply associated with making sure the trains achieve true HSR when in reality, a good proof of concept for fast, frequent and reliable trains could be achieved with a significantly lower number, that would probably lower the price tag considerably.

No one on this forum is fundamentally opposed to HSR. I just think we need to have truly great RAIL first, before we start becoming obsessed with HSR to the point where we don’t want to spend on anything that doesn’t fit the picture.

Instead of spending billions on the straight ROW and tracks required to achieve intensely high speeds, we could have that money go towards electrification (a true necessity for HSR anyways), good rolling stock, improving OTP, more frequencies, etc., all of which contribute to a rail system people will want to ride.

Your statement of HSR being a “halo” product I absolutely disagree with. if anything, it’s a trigger-word for anti-rail advocates to further push their agenda. To suggest that HSR grabs headlines and universally builds support is simply not true in this country.

 

[Willbridge]

The "other" part of German rail passenger service is the work that has gone on (too long for some tastes) to improve network connections. Switzerland and the Netherlands are ahead of them; France is behind. The attached report gives an idea of what they have accomplished. Ironically. it covers the same period as Amtrak's struggles.

The photograph which you may have seen before shows two HO trains making a cross-platform connection per a computer driven model. At this public display in backwater Ostfriesland, no one seemed surprised at that. At the next model railroad club open house in North America, note how trains just randomly come through stations.



North Americans have been "trained" to expect lousy connections, with a few exceptions. I watched a couple from Nebraska miss a connecting train on our LRT lines because they couldn't believe that the connection was working so well. The Aurora, Colorado couple who they were visiting had warned them that they likely to have a long wait for a connection (apparently based on some third party's report). They were right, because they had to wait 15 minutes for the next train.

It's not surprising then that Important People and people who have a superficial knowledge focus on one aspect and miss another.

Southbound D and E-Line trains at I-25 & Broadway; the D-Line train on the right pulled in second. This was inspired by some cross-platform transfers in NYCTA, CTA and IC Electric legacy systems, as well as German set-ups. I've never met a non-railfan who noticed any of those from a tourist visit.


One couple left waiting for the H-Line train that follows this meet. Everyone else had a train-to-train connection.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

No one on this forum is fundamentally opposed to HSR. I just think we need to have truly great RAIL first, before we start becoming obsessed with HSR to the point where we don’t want to spend on anything that doesn’t fit the picture.

Which countries that operate HSR today waited for conventional rail to be "truly great" first and how long did it take them to achieve that goal?

Instead of spending billions on the straight ROW and tracks required to achieve intensely high speeds, we could have that money go towards electrification[...], good rolling stock, improving OTP, more frequencies, etc., all of which contribute to a rail system people will want to ride.

The people who are willing to fund HSR are also willing to support the rest of your proposals.

There were those who didn't support the infrastructure bill mostly in part because it didn’t have funding (or enough funding) for true High Speed Rail (220+).

Who voted against the infrastructure bill due to insufficient HSR funding?

Your statement of HSR being a “halo” product I absolutely disagree with. if anything, it’s a trigger-word for anti-rail advocates to further push their agenda. To suggest that HSR grabs headlines and universally builds support is simply not true in this country.

Let them get triggered. I say we either go big or go home. Life is too short to live under someone's thumb and HSR supporters have been waiting for several decades now.

 

[west point]

IMO the number of passengers is not a good metric. Instead it is revenue passenger. It is the same way with Amtrak. NEC passenger much higher than LD however LD revenue is much closer to the NEC revenue.

 

[MARC Rider]

IMO the number of passengers is not a good metric. Instead it is revenue passenger. It is the same way with Amtrak. NEC passenger much higher than LD however LD revenue is much closer to the NEC revenue.

One of the major justifications for taxpayer financing of passenger rail is to get cars off of the road, especially in heavily populated areas. From that point of view, the number of passengers is, indeed the better metric.

 

[MARC Rider]

Which countries that operate HSR today waited for conventional rail to be "truly great" first and how long did it take them to achieve that goal?

Almost every other country that has built high speed rail already had an extensive conventional rail system that was a major part of the transportation mode share. The only place in North America where that exists is in the Northeast Corridor. You have to crawl before you can walk.

 

[Tlcooper44]

Which countries that operate HSR today waited for conventional rail to be "truly great" first and how long did it take them to achieve that goal?

A better question is which countries didn't already have fantastic conventional passenger rail systems first before a single mile of HSR track was laid?

 

[MARC Rider]

The very first HSR service averaged more than 80MPH on purpose-built trackage in 1964 while the NEC still struggles to average 65MPH over winding 1950's era snail rail more than a half-century later.

The current Washington - New York Acelas average 80 mph on a rather old right of way, including at least one tunnel (under Baltimore) built in 1874 and several bridges that are at least 100 years old, requiring the trains to slow down as they pass over. The New York -Boston trains are, indeed slower, but being able to obtain, finance, and build purpose-built HSR trackage between those cities is probably an impossible task, given our political culture. They could greatly increase their average speeds by simply getting the trains to consistently run at 70 mph on the Metro-North trackage between New Rochelle and New Haven. The current Washington-New York average speed of 80 mph is highly competitive with other transportation modes, and there's really no need to increase the average speed on that route. What they need to do is modernize the infrastructure to improve reliability and increase capacity, thus lowering fares to make the train even more competitive than other modes.

 

[Tlcooper44]

The current Washington - New York Acelas average 80 mph on a rather old right of way, including at least one tunnel (under Baltimore) built in 1874 and several bridges that are at least 100 years old, requiring the trains to slow down as they pass over. The New York -Boston trains are, indeed slower, but being able to obtain, finance, and build purpose-built HSR trackage between those cities is probably an impossible task, given our political culture. They could greatly increase their average speeds by simply getting the trains to consistently run at 70 mph on the Metro-North trackage between New Rochelle and New Haven. The current Washington-New York average speed of 80 mph is highly competitive with other transportation modes, and there's really no need to increase the average speed on that route. What they need to do is modernize the infrastructure to improve reliability and increase capacity, thus lowering fares to make the train even more competitive than other modes.

Completely agree! The NEC doesn't need true HSR. What it needs is to shave trip time of journeys in different ways. Additionally, more frequency (which should be coming with the 8 additional Acella II trainsets) would help. Having a train every half hour would for sure help and making tickets truly affordable would be a sure way to compete with all other forms of travel.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Almost every other country that has built high speed rail already had an extensive conventional rail system that was a major part of the transportation mode share. The only place in North America where that exists is in the Northeast Corridor. You have to crawl before you can walk.

At the dawn of HSR era the US still had one of the most robust passenger rail systems on the planet. A system that gets smaller and slower over time. We've gone from running to walking back to crawling again. The lower we aim the worse it gets so what is the end game here?

A better question is which countries didn't already have fantastic conventional passenger rail systems first before a single mile of HSR track was laid?

How do you measure terms like "great" or "fantastic?" Right now Egypt is laying new track and buying modern trains that include HSR sets to replace one of the worst passenger rail systems on the planet. Meanwhile we are left watching country after country leapfrog us because fast rail triggers people.

​

There were those who didn't support the infrastructure bill mostly in part because it didn’t have funding (or enough funding) for true High Speed Rail (220+).

Still no names to support your narrative?

 

[BlackDiamond]

But Egypt did at least have a conventional rail system, albeit poorly run. Look at another African country Morocco which had and still has a decently run conventional system and has just added HSR modeled on the LGV's of France.

We should be emphasizing getting "higher speed" rail connecting more cities 400 - 500 miles apart being the sweet spot for rail travel, places like Ohio, the Southeast, LA - Phoenix - Tucson, etc. The problem is how things are currently structured is that it takes state support and many of these states have little or no interest in passenger rail. So even with billions available at the Federal level, nothing happens.

 

[neroden]

But Egypt did at least have a conventional rail system, albeit poorly run. Look at another African country Morocco which had and still has a decently run conventional system and has just added HSR modeled on the LGV's of France.

We should be emphasizing getting "higher speed" rail connecting more cities 400 - 500 miles apart being the sweet spot for rail travel, places like Ohio, the Southeast, LA - Phoenix - Tucson, etc. The problem is how things are currently structured is that it takes state support and many of these states have little or no interest in passenger rail. So even with billions available at the Federal level, nothing happens.

Well (cough) that's why I say send the money to NY instead, where we have political support for rail.

Our actual obstacle in many of the eastern states *supportive* of rail is that the crucial rights-of-way are owned by lunatic private corporations, which aren't even managed competently as freight haulers, let alone for passenger service. So I think the key thing is to nationalize the tracks, like literally every other country in the world with railroad tracks has done at one time or another (even if Mexico and Canada inexplicably re-privatized them), and as the US even did with Conrail (though the US irresponsibly privatized it).

To their credit, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, and California have bought substantial amounts of ROW, with Massachusetts and New Jersey buying the most. But in NY we need to buy a lot more; I would say that only Massachusetts and New Jersey are close to owning as much track as they need to. (New Jersey's mismanagement of those tracks is another story.)

Carving out new rights-of-way is a NIMBY-filled process, and even California HSR ended up leaning on existing ROWs in a lot of places. Access to existing ROW is crucial.

 

[Tlcooper44]

What does any of this mean? How do you measure terms like "great" and "fantastic?" It's almost like you're just debating yourself at this point.

This makes no sense. How is any of what I said "debating myself?"

I made two assertions:
1. Having a great passenger rail network is a pre-requisite for a HSR network.
2. HSR is not a pre-requisite for a great passenger rail network.

Still no names to support your narrative?

Who voted against the infrastructure bill due to insufficient HSR funding?

I didn't say politicians, nor did I mean politicians if you read carefully. I suppose I could dig through the myriad articles, posts, and videos that I review on a daily basis to try to find the individuals who didn't support the infrastructure bill because it had too much for Amtrak (conventional rail) and none for HSR, but I don't really think I need to in order to support my broader arguement.

I will reiterate my point once more:
Supporting true HSR infrastructure to the point where we must go all or nothing is not helpful.
Instead, incrimental improvements to the speed of our trains through electrification and other CRUCIAL pre-requisites for HSR is a better approach. Oftentimes, achieving universal HrSR (which Europe has achieved on most of their mainlines) will reap the exact same benefits as HSR.

How do you measure terms like "great" or "fantastic?" Right now Egypt is laying new track and buying modern trains that include HSR sets to replace one of the worst passenger rail systems on the planet. Meanwhile we are left watching country after country leapfrog us because fast rail triggers people.

You bring up Egypt replacing their trains (and tracks) with some HSR sets. That's great, and I applaud them. They went the 'nuclear' approach, but any given country doesn't need to do that to dramatically improve their network.

If you have a crappy violin, you could spend millions and get a strad. But there are plenty of cheaper and nearly as good violins that don't cost as much as a strad, and will get you nearly the same result.