Xpress West

[afigg]

If I may get this topic back to Xpress West, there is more information on why the DOT suspended processing of the RRIF application. A major hitch was that Xpress West failed to satisfy the Buy America component of the RRIF loan requirements. Xpress West wanted waivers that the FRA was not willing to sign off on. Given the high political profile of the loan, understandable that the FRA and USDOT would be reluctant to open their agencies to attacks because they waived Buy America rules for a $5 billion loan.So they tried to push XW to team with CHSRA and presumably Amtrak on equipment purchases which XW is clearly resistant to doing.

Las Vegas Review Journal Feds: XPressWest failed to meet 'Buy America' rules for high-speed train.

WASHINGTON — A Las Vegas firm’s application for a $5.5 billion federal loan to buiid a high-speed railroad to Southern California was shelved in part because it failed to meet “Buy America” rules.
XPressWest executives went back and forth with officials from the Department of Transportation to salvage the loan bid, proposing to rework its contracting and corporate structure in response to a range of concerns raised by evaluators.

But then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the company’s most recent proposal, on May 20, was not accompanied by documentation that further could be evaluated, and he decided to halt the loan review after 2½ years.

“After several years of engagement with no resolution to the threshold issues addressed in this letter and the significant uncertainties still surrounding this project, we have decided to suspend further consideration of XPressWest’s loan request,” LaHood said in a letter sent June 28 to XPressWest Chairman Tony Marnell.

the California HSR Blog has a link to a (redacted) copy of the LaHood letter to XW and a discussion of the situation (with their usual anti-HSR posters popping in): XpressWest Struggled to Meet Federal Buy America Rules

So where does Xpress West go from here?

 

[jis]

I still don't believe Victorville to Vegas is the right place to tie up a significant part of the available RRIF funds at this time, and hence I have continued to oppose this loan. OTOH in general I do support the construction of HSR corridors where it makes sense. This one just doesn't make any sense at least to me. This in my view is the continuing saga of the mismanagement of everything to do with HSR by the current administration - a very unfortunate happenstance since it is not often that one gets an administration sympathetic to passenger rail.

 

[GG-1]

I still don't believe Victorville to Vegas is the right place to tie up a significant part of the available RRIF funds at this time, and hence I have continued to oppose this loan. OTOH in general I do support the construction of HSR corridors where it makes sense. This one just doesn't make any sense at least to me. This in my view is the continuing saga of the mismanagement of everything to do with HSR by the current administration - a very unfortunate happenstance since it is not often that one gets an administration sympathetic to passenger rail.

Aloha

What you may not being considered is where to connect to the California HS Rail. No mater where the California system route ends up a route from Vegas to Victorvile makes sense. I agree as a final endpoint Victorville is a dud. For whatever reasons they seem to not want to be connected to CHSR publicly.

 

[Andrew]

Is that because 2016 is an election year? Also, I understand that a $15 million preliminary engineering grant was signed by President Obama for the Gateway Project in November, 2011. Thus, when is it likely for the entire engineering for Gateway (including environmental impact statements) become completed?

OTOH, NY State might find some money, but hard to see from where.

NY State could find the money; that's not the issue. What's hard to see is if the politicians will make the effort to find it.

1. Are you saying that NY State would fund the entire $15 billion or a part of the Gateway Project?

2. What will need to be done to revive the Xpress West Project?

 

[AlanB]

OTOH, NY State might find some money, but hard to see from where.

NY State could find the money; that's not the issue. What's hard to see is if the politicians will make the effort to find it.

1. Are you saying that NY State would fund the entire $15 billion or a part of the Gateway Project?

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that NY could find a share of the money.

 

[afigg]

Came across this news update on Xpress West in Progressive Railroading: Federal financing rejection won't halt high-speed rail project, XpressWest says. I have not yet checked the Vegas newspapers for more info on how XW is publicly dealing with the "suspension" of the RRIF application by US DOT. I wonder, from the statement by XW, if XW has already reached on tentative agreement with a vendor group to purchase off the shelf HSR trains and signal & power systems as part of an investment package that won't fit in with Amtrak and CHSRA trainset plans (which have to meet the Buy America requirement). So the RRIF loan funding approach could not be made to work.

Excerpt:

However, in a July 17 statement posted on the XpressWest website, company officials said they will continue with their project's plans regardless of the USDOT's decision.
"XpressWest has always, and will continue to work with an international high-speed group from North America, Asia and Europe," according to the statement. "The United States' high-speed rail market is in its infancy and the international high-speed rail community is ready, willing and able to get XpressWest on-line now and launch a new industry in America."

The company has proposed constructing and operating a new, double-tracked high-speed rail route running 185 miles between southern California and Las Vegas. The project would be built within or adjacent to Interstate 15

 

[Anderson]

Hmm...I can't help but wonder if JR Central might not somehow have their finger in the pie here. Call it an odd hunch that could well be wrong, but they're the only folks with the resources to push something like that which are in this business and who're badly constrained on what they can do "at home".

 

[user 1215]

I would think JR East has a lot more resources than JR Central...

 

[jis]

Yup, as long as Xpress West is able to mobilize private capital to fund most of the project, I am all for it.

And yes, JR East is definitely the richer of those two.

 

[Andrew]

How long until Xpress West gets the green light for the massive RRIF Loan?

 

[afigg]

How long until Xpress West gets the green light for the massive RRIF Loan?

I suggest you read a few posts back in this thread. The US DOT suspended review of Xpress West's RRIF application, which means no RRIF loan.

 

[wsc]

The canceling of the Federal Loan to X-West is actually great news for HSR in the US. Here's why.

1) Finnacing of this project has been questionable and shaky at best. HSR's public image is already having to deal with all the negative press from CalHSRs trains to nowhere and billions spent without turning a single shovel.

2) If it did start construction, chances are very high it would run out of money and the project would stall. This would leave a wonderful photo op for are the naysayers in the median of I-15 to use forever as an arguement against future HSR.

3) If by a some miracle it did get completed and trains actually started running, almost no one with any real knowledge of the project (meaning those who know where Victorville actually is) believes that X-West will ever make any money or stand a chance of paying back the loan except for those working for X-West. No one honestly believes people are going to drive through hours of LA traffic and 100 miles out into the desert just to catch a train at a station that is already almost half way to Las Vegas. I suspect even the folks at X-West know this, which leads to my next point.

4) X-West could do damage to HSR equivalent to that done to Nuclear Power by the Three Mile Island accident. Namely, killing HSR forever. I believe that even the folks at X-West know their project is doomed to failure, however the plan now is to build it anyway and then either ask for a bailout or continuous subsidy. Or they intend to complete it, run it at a loss for a year or two and then threaten to shut it down and convince CA, NV or the federal government to purchase it and operate it as a government funded transit agency which they (X-West) would then ask for an operating concession. We would then have X-West pocketing the $5 billion federal loan, selling the route to the government (probaly another $5 billion or so), and then getting a multi-year operating concession (worth several hundred million a year) to operate a railroad that everyone knew was going to lose money from the start. Tell me I am wrong, but I think we all know how this kind of thing often works.

So again, the best thing for HSR is for bad projects to die before too many tax dollars are wasted. HSR cannot afford for the first new HSR project in this country to be a financial failure. Subsidy will be okay if the project has record ridership and efficient fiscally responsible operations. This combination will allow HSR to expand with bi-partisan support. That is why continued support for CalHSR and projects like X-West are so damming to the cause. Money should be spent on real projects and real improvements and not 20 year political sagas and pipedreams.

We take all the CalHSR money and put it into rebuilding the NEC, we could have a REAL 160+ mph corridor that actually serves large city centers across an entire region. We already know it would be a huge success since it already is a success now! And we could staret seeing the payoff immediately, not in 2025 or whenever CalHSR now says will be the first SF to LA train. OR, if we really think we need it to be a new project, then pick an existing corridor with proven ridership that is short enough to be up and running in 5 years or less and not based on political payoffs. Despite how much HSR folks hate Wisconsin, the reality is the Chicago to Milwaukee corridor (not Madison, Detroit or St. Louis) has been proven in study after study as the best choice for the first true HSR project. That's why both DB and SNCF are interested and willing to pay for much of it. But until we get people at the Federal DOT who base HSR on its viablity and not political payoffs or retaliation, the best we should hope for is nothing because in this case trying and failing truly would be worse than not trying at all.

 

[jphjaxfl]

The canceling of the Federal Loan to X-West is actually great news for HSR in the US. Here's why.
1) Finnacing of this project has been questionable and shaky at best. HSR's public image is already having to deal with all the negative press from CalHSRs trains to nowhere and billions spent without turning a single shovel.

2) If it did start construction, chances are very high it would run out of money and the project would stall. This would leave a wonderful photo op for are the naysayers in the median of I-15 to use forever as an arguement against future HSR.

3) If by a some miracle it did get completed and trains actually started running, almost no one with any real knowledge of the project (meaning those who know where Victorville actually is) believes that X-West will ever make any money or stand a chance of paying back the loan except for those working for X-West. No one honestly believes people are going to drive through hours of LA traffic and 100 miles out into the desert just to catch a train at a station that is already almost half way to Las Vegas. I suspect even the folks at X-West know this, which leads to my next point.

4) X-West could do damage to HSR equivalent to that done to Nuclear Power by the Three Mile Island accident. Namely, killing HSR forever. I believe that even the folks at X-West know their project is doomed to failure, however the plan now is to build it anyway and then either ask for a bailout or continuous subsidy. Or they intend to complete it, run it at a loss for a year or two and then threaten to shut it down and convince CA, NV or the federal government to purchase it and operate it as a government funded transit agency which they (X-West) would then ask for an operating concession. We would then have X-West pocketing the $5 billion federal loan, selling the route to the government (probaly another $5 billion or so), and then getting a multi-year operating concession (worth several hundred million a year) to operate a railroad that everyone knew was going to lose money from the start. Tell me I am wrong, but I think we all know how this kind of thing often works.

So again, the best thing for HSR is for bad projects to die before too many tax dollars are wasted. HSR cannot afford for the first new HSR project in this country to be a financial failure. Subsidy will be okay if the project has record ridership and efficient fiscally responsible operations. This combination will allow HSR to expand with bi-partisan support. That is why continued support for CalHSR and projects like X-West are so damming to the cause. Money should be spent on real projects and real improvements and not 20 year political sagas and pipedreams.

We take all the CalHSR money and put it into rebuilding the NEC, we could have a REAL 160+ mph corridor that actually serves large city centers across an entire region. We already know it would be a huge success since it already is a success now! And we could staret seeing the payoff immediately, not in 2025 or whenever CalHSR now says will be the first SF to LA train. OR, if we really think we need it to be a new project, then pick an existing corridor with proven ridership that is short enough to be up and running in 5 years or less and not based on political payoffs. Despite how much HSR folks hate Wisconsin, the reality is the Chicago to Milwaukee corridor (not Madison, Detroit or St. Louis) has been proven in study after study as the best choice for the first true HSR project. That's why both DB and SNCF are interested and willing to pay for much of it. But until we get people at the Federal DOT who base HSR on its viablity and not political payoffs or retaliation, the best we should hope for is nothing because in this case trying and failing truly would be worse than not trying at all.

The US is already way behind most of the developed nations on High Speed Rail. Every other system has been built with Government support. CAHSR is the best plan I have seen in the US. Yes, it will take money because it will be a completely new right-of-way, probably the first built in the US in well over 100 years. CAHSR will be successful and it will result in similar systems being built elsewhere. There is a trend in US for new concepts to start in CA and spread over the US. I am looking forward to the new train from LA to SF in 2025 or whenever it starts.

 

[user 1215]

We take all the CalHSR money and put it into rebuilding the NEC, we could have a REAL 160+ mph corridor that actually serves large city centers across an entire region.

I don't think you're going to get 160 MPH service in the NEC just by rebuilding it. Much of the problem today lies in the fact that a) there is just too much traffic, b) there are too many slow curves. To really get 160 MPH, you MUST have a dedicated ROW - like the Shinkansen in Japan. Separate true HSR from local commuter services. And even in the NEC, this will require a new ROW, obtained by expensive imminent domain claims & battles. No way to do it cheaper than in California.

 

[jis]

Are we talking of 160mph max speed on certain segments, or 160mph average?

160mph on certain segments one can certainly get with some rebuild, even on as much as about a quarter to a third of NEC South depending on how much money one wants to spend.

OTOH 160mph average? For that one will need an new ROW and my fearless prediction is that will not happen in the next 30 years.

And by the way, it is "eminent domain" not "imminent domain".

At the end of the day what matters more is trip time than max speed. And the incremental cost of reducing trip time from current to say 2 hours (113mph avg) on NEC south is hugely less than to try to get to 1.5 hours (~150mph avg), and IMHO 2 hrs is way more than adequate for most purposes, and should not require max speeds much higher than 160, which is eminently doable in a lot of the current ROW per the Deputy Chief Engineer of the NEC HSR Project as stated by him at the last TransAction conference.

NEC North is a much harder nut to crack, but bringing ti to something like 2:45 may be feasible in the current ROW with a little bit of cooperation from the State of Connecticut. But beyond that will require a quantum jump in cost.

 

[user 1215]

And by the way, it is "eminent domain" not "imminent domain".

English sux.

 

[Anderson]

Are we talking of 160mph max speed on certain segments, or 160mph average?
160mph on certain segments one can certainly get with some rebuild, even on as much as about a quarter to a third of NEC South depending on how much money one wants to spend.

OTOH 160mph average? For that one will need an new ROW and my fearless prediction is that will not happen in the next 30 years.

And by the way, it is "eminent domain" not "imminent domain".

At the end of the day what matters more is trip time than max speed. And the incremental cost of reducing trip time from current to say 2 hours (113mph avg) on NEC south is hugely less than to try to get to 1.5 hours (~150mph avg), and IMHO 2 hrs is way more than adequate for most purposes, and should not require max speeds much higher than 160, which is eminently doable in a lot of the current ROW per the Deputy Chief Engineer of the NEC HSR Project as stated by him at the last TransAction conference.

NEC North is a much harder nut to crack, but bringing ti to something like 2:45 may be feasible in the current ROW with a little bit of cooperation from the State of Connecticut. But beyond that will require a quantum jump in cost.

I agree that trip time/average speed is the important metric. Top speed is a nice peacock display, but it's not much more...it's good for mating money with proposals, but it doesn't do anything else practical in most cases.

The 90 minute push is because they want to get BOS-WAS to three hours. In all likelihood, four hours for that would probably do a number on the endpoint air markets (think the 40-50% share Amtrak has BOS-NYP) and more or less wipe out everything short of that. Even getting under five hours (i.e. 2:00 WAS-NYP, 2:45 NYP-BOS, and up to 15 minutes for a crew change and passenger turnover at NYP) would probably get just about everything except the endpoint in Amtrak's hands and do some substantial damage there.

 

[afigg]

Are we talking of 160mph max speed on certain segments, or 160mph average?
160mph on certain segments one can certainly get with some rebuild, even on as much as about a quarter to a third of NEC South depending on how much money one wants to spend.

OTOH 160mph average? For that one will need an new ROW and my fearless prediction is that will not happen in the next 30 years.

The Feasibility Study report for the Aberdeen MD station discusses in detail the plans for 160 mph center tracks for a shifted 4 track line through the station. From the NEC infrastructure plans, it is clear that Amtrak is seeking to build a number of 160 mph segments on the current NEC between NYP and WAS. I agree that a 2 hour NYP to WAS trip time will be a worthy improvement if they can pull it off. Given the huge costs of a series of 220 mph new ROW segments along the NEC corridor, except perhaps on some subset of the NYP-BOS section, I do not expect to live long enough to see it happen.
I don't understand this notion that we should put all our higher speed rail resources into the NEC. We can afford to build a LA to SF true 220 mph HSR line while also making serious improvements for 160 mph running to the NEC. And other HSR corridors as well. People should keep some perspective on the price tags for HSR corridors. The estimated cost for replacing the Tappan Zee bridge in NY is currently around $5 billion and that after stripping out transitway options to cut the cost. So one Tappan Zee bridge replacement is not that much less than the cost of building a Victorville to Vegas HSR corridor.

 

[leemell]

California has 30M people and two very large population centers and and several large centers. Way more than necessary to support HRS. In about twenty years it will probably be about 50M.

 

[Anderson]

To be honest, Obama could have jammed a working piece of the CAHSR plan through with a mix of the two rounds of HSR funding and a massive block from RRIF to round up $20bn or so in federal money. That plus a state commitment would likely at least get you something workable from the LA area to the Bay Area (even if it ended up being a 125 MPH run until electrification could be carried out/extended all the way from end to end), and that money being present and committed aggressively could have made the plan a fait accompli to a very great degree.

As to the NEC, I could see a few stretches of trans-160 MPH showing up south of NYP, but they'd likely be dedicated tracks between WIL and WAS, nothing more.

Granted, some of it is a bias of where I'm from, but I'd like to see efforts made to make SEHSR (and/or variants thereof) happen sooner. I think the NEC has the potential to be a core for a larger HSR network on the East Coast and I'd like to see that come to pass.

 

[Bus Nut]

The 90 minute push is because they want to get BOS-WAS to three hours. In all likelihood, four hours for that would probably do a number on the endpoint air markets (think the 40-50% share Amtrak has BOS-NYP) and more or less wipe out everything short of that. Even getting under five hours (i.e. 2:00 WAS-NYP, 2:45 NYP-BOS, and up to 15 minutes for a crew change and passenger turnover at NYP) would probably get just about everything except the endpoint in Amtrak's hands and do some substantial damage there.

Don't think of it as damage. Think of it as market rationalization. :giggle:

 

[Bus Nut]

I don't understand this notion that we should put all our higher speed rail resources into the NEC. We can afford to build a LA to SF true 220 mph HSR line while also making serious improvements for 160 mph running to the NEC. And other HSR corridors as well. People should keep some perspective on the price tags for HSR corridors. The estimated cost for replacing the Tappan Zee bridge in NY is currently around $5 billion and that after stripping out transitway options to cut the cost. So one Tappan Zee bridge replacement is not that much less than the cost of building a Victorville to Vegas HSR corridor.

Imagine if highway widening projects had to go through an alternatives analysis vs. high quality rail transit, as they require with transit service expansions. (Strangely, when they do rail vs bus they never figure in quality of life for residents exposed to the asthma risk... oh, we're not supposed to talk about environmental justice? NM.) The screaming from the highway/car dead-enders lobby would be deafening.

 

[Anderson]

I don't understand this notion that we should put all our higher speed rail resources into the NEC. We can afford to build a LA to SF true 220 mph HSR line while also making serious improvements for 160 mph running to the NEC. And other HSR corridors as well. People should keep some perspective on the price tags for HSR corridors. The estimated cost for replacing the Tappan Zee bridge in NY is currently around $5 billion and that after stripping out transitway options to cut the cost. So one Tappan Zee bridge replacement is not that much less than the cost of building a Victorville to Vegas HSR corridor.

Imagine if highway widening projects had to go through an alternatives analysis vs. high quality rail transit, as they require with transit service expansions. (Strangely, when they do rail vs bus they never figure in quality of life for residents exposed to the asthma risk... oh, we're not supposed to talk about environmental justice? NM.) The screaming from the highway/car dead-enders lobby would be deafening.

I am reminded of the commentary from someone from, I believe, CT that if the EIS process had been in place in 1950, we'd never have gotten I-95 from New York to Boston.

 

[Eric S]

I am reminded of the commentary from someone from, I believe, CT that if the EIS process had been in place in 1950, we'd never have gotten I-95 from New York to Boston.

A portion of which, IINM, was constructed on land originally purchased by the New Haven RR to relocated/straighten the Shore Line.

 

[DET63]

Apparently the RRIF loan for Xpress West is dead. Someone posted this to new thread, but a mod closed it, saying it's being discussed here. Well, it hasn't actually been discussed here, so I'm just copying and pasting their post into this thread.

WASHINGTON — The government has halted its review of a multibillion-dollar loan request for high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas and Southern California, a potentially staggering hit to the ambitious project.
The development is a blow for XPressWest, which has envisioned itself having a major role in the region’s future. The company’s plans call for electric trains whisking passengers at speeds up to 150 mph between Las Vegas and, for starters, Victorville, Calif.

More

That someone was me. Thanks for clarifying the fact that the thread I started (or tried to) was about a topic that was peripheral to what has been discussed here, but was yet to be directly addressed.