Xpress West

[leemell]

Not to mention that Desertxpress/Xpresswest COO met with the CHSRA board in January and signed an agreement a couple of months later.

Edit - they met with the Board in September and remarks indicate they continue to meet.

 

[GG-1]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-17/china-u-s-reach-agreement-on-high-speed-rail-before-xi-visit

Not to mention that Desertxpress/Xpresswest CEO met with the CHSRA board in January and signed an agreement a couple of months later.

Aloha

Very interesting, news, about 2 hours ago, had no reports on this. I will watch a different station in a hour to see if they include something about this.

 

[leemell]

I saw this info on the CHSRA website right after they occurred. These items don't show up in any of the Authority archives. Mack was on the agenda for the Jan. Board meet in to make a presentation.

 

[afigg]

China basically uses an indegenized version of ERTMS for train control and signaling, which they originally acquired from Siemens or Bombardier, I forget which one exactly. It should not be that hard to get a compatible version in place, since AFAICT CA HSR also plans to use some version of ERTMS.

The compatibility issues is not just signals, but power loads, clearance envelope, curve radii, maximum grade, and other stuff including a state bureaucracy that may be prone to keep a private operator off of the CA HSR tracks. But thinking on it, there are significant incentives for XW and the Chinese to make sure their trains can run over CA HSR tracks to both LA Union Station and to San Francisco. The incentive to the CHSRA is that a Palmdale to Vegas HSR line under construction provides a huge boost to get over the funding and political barriers for the route selection, EIS, approvals. and building the Bakersfield to Palmdale and Palmdale to LA segments. Those 2 segments are crucial to advancing the CA HSR project and those will be the most difficult and likely the most expensive segments to build, and the segments that could run into long delays from legal and political challenges.

The press release from XW and China Railway International spell out that their plan is a Victorville to Palmdale route to connect to the CA HSR system if there were lingering questions about that: China Railway International U.S.A. CO., LTD., And XpressWest To Develop Nevada - California Interstate High-Speed Passenger Rail System.

China Railway International USA CO., LTD. and XpressWest have agreed to form a joint venture that will accelerate launch of the XpressWest rail project connecting Las Vegas, Nevada to Los Angeles, California (the "Southwest Rail Network"). The Project will develop, finance, build and operate the Southwest Rail Network, with stations in Las Vegas, Nevada, Victorville, California, and Palmdale, California, and service throughout Los Angeles. The decision to form a joint venture is the culmination of years of work and builds upon the significant accomplishments of XpressWest.

Supported by $100 million in initial capital, this new high-speed rail line (approximately 370 km(s) in length) will create new technology, manufacturing, and construction jobs throughout the interstate corridor and will connect Southern Nevada and Southern California to drive new economic development and grow tourism – a vital part of the region's economy. The Project will serve as a model of international cooperation and will firmly establish a United States-based high-speed rail industry that will result in significant job creation throughout the Southwest with construction planned to commence as early as September 2016. The Project will immediately undertake all necessary regulatory and commercial activities to advance the reality of regional high-speed rail in the United States. Implementation will begin within the next 100 days.

The next few years are looking better for HSR and expansion of intercity passenger rail in the US, despite the opposition from the House Republicans. The next 5+ years may see 3 privately funded passenger rail corridors either running or in advanced construction: All Aboard Florida, XW & Chinese Railways to Vegas, Dallas to Houston HSR, and 1 publicly funded HSR corridor, LA to SF.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I agree that things are looking good for there to be at least one HSR system and one private intercity system to become realities in the not too distant future in the US.

Hopefully this will spur more investment into HSR and intercity train service, and who knows, maybe even the House will see the headlight.

Where the people lead, the leaders might possibly, eventually follow?

 

[jis]

Regarding compatibility issues, yeah we can all exude knowledgeability about it, but the fact of the matter is there is no rational reason for eXpress West to not consult with CAHSR and make sure they build more or less compatible systems. As for signalling and control systems, which was the original question raised, trains operating with multiple such systems are not unheard of, though with a little care such should be unnecessary. OTOH, if the equipment is expected to also operate on vanilla US freight PTC standard lines, they will have to carry additional equipment for such anyway, since it is the pinnacle of NIH and incompatible with anything else in the world. As for loading gauge, the Chinese cars as basically Siemens Velaro cars with the same loading gauge. It would be astounding if CAHSR adopts a loading gauge that is too small for those. As for power, I would be astounded if it is not 25kV 60Hz. So I think the whole big concern about compatibility may really be a huge storm in a small teacup.

Now, the state bureaucracy which is not a technical issue may be unpredictable and hard to deal with, but my guess is loading gauge, curve radii and what nots will be a non-issue.

 

[leemell]

You hit the nail on the head. Most of this is just noise in the signal so to speak. The Chinese (and XpressWest) are not so stupid as to create incompatible systems and then try to use this system as a selling point for other systems in the US. Besides, it would be an obstacle to be overcome to using the CHSR tracks.

 

[leemell]

XpressWest has changed the trainset to Siemens Velaro clone "CRH3". The maximum speed was raised from 150 mph to 201mph.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Need I say more?

 

[cirdan]

XpressWest has changed the trainset to Siemens Velaro clone "CRH3". The maximum speed was raised from 150 mph to 201mph.

I don't know how much importance one should attach to non-captioned pictures.

The website is probably outsourced to some web design company who may be using stock photography. I wouldn't try to read too much into details at this point.

 

[DSS&A]

Hi,

The Nevada appointed commission had a big meeting this week and will be issuing a Request For Proposals for a HSR system with the proposals due in November 2015!!!! Here's a link to an article with the big news:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/traffic-transportation/nevada-high-speed-rail-authority-sets-framework-choosing-operator

 

[CHamilton]

XpressWest draws nominal high-speed rail competitors

 

[DSS&A]

Hi,

XpressWest was selected by the Nevada Commission and construction may start ass soon as October 2016. Here's a link to the article.

http://www.govtech.com/transportation/High-Speed-Rail-Project-Moves-Forward-in-Nevada.html

 

[Eric S]

Hi,

XpressWest was selected by the Nevada Commission and construction may start ass soon as October 2016. Here's a link to the article.

http://www.govtech.com/transportation/High-Speed-Rail-Project-Moves-Forward-in-Nevada.html

Bit of a typo in there, but I wonder if it might be appropriate, given all the starts and stops with this project/proposal.

 

[jis]

Where is the rest of the funding coming from?

 

[seat38a]

Pretty much the whole business model of xpress west fails without CAHSR. Not sure about others, but if I get in the car, and have to drive to Victorville to get on a train, I'm going to drive all the way. Getting up and over Cajon Pass is no easy feat with the nasty traffic. I don't think anyone would be throwing money at this without a future where they can connect to CAHSR down to LA.

When the CAHSR segment through the Inland Empire to San Diego gets built, I'm wondering if there could be another privately funded HSR project between Phoenix and LAX that uses the CAHSR for the last mile into LA. The most cost prohibitive part of the the system, building through socal, would already be built out by CAHSR.

In theory with the expected line speed, it would be quite possible to get from the Bay Area to Las Vegas and Phoenix via HSR.

 

[DSS&A]

Hi,

Sorry about the typo error. If Nevada HSR is operational before CAHSR is operational, Metrolink could run express trains LA to Palmdale until the CAHSR segment is operational.

 

[CHamilton]

High-Speed Rail to Vegas Getting Real
Nevada chooses a Chinese-backed venture to move forward, work could start next year

 

[leemell]

On Chinese web sites (sorry I do not have links) they claimed that the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation is prepared to invest 7-8 $B to complete the route to Los Angeles.

 

[jis]

Well, for them it is just swapping out one type of debt instrument (US Bonds) from the US for another sort (Nevada HSR Bonds), albeit somewhat riskier stuff, assuming it is Government of China that is underwriting all this in the background.

 

[neroden]

Riskier bonds with *higher interest rates*. Also, the Government of China isn't really one thing; it has lots of different factions. And they're very capitalist. This faction would of course like to earn higher returns on their money so that they get ahead in the "money race".

 

[DSS&A]

Hi,

Here's a link to a new article about how Las Vegas is updating it's long tern view on transportation issues and is considering light rail and other transit improvements. If the HSR project moves forward, a light rail connection to the HSR station is a natural choice for the "first mile/last mile" of some trip connecting to the strip.

http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2015/dec/09/why-las-vegas-transportation-leaders-think-time-ri/

 

[Anderson]

Aguero thinks Las Vegas also has an advantage for light rail because of its attractive farebox recovery rate, which reflects how much of a transit system’s operating costs are covered by passenger fares. Already, current public transit on the Strip generates a 163 percent farebox recovery, according to Aguero, far exceeding the national average and helping to make light rail attractive for possible private investment.

My thought on reading that was "Holy ****!" The Acela might manage that on a good day; the Lynchburger came close one year...but that is amazing. It's probably a mix of service industry workers, the fact that the route is a good "connector" and/or has lots of "feeder" routes, and the use of high-capacity vehicles (one of the two lines on the Strip uses double-decker buses). I wouldn't be shocked if there was a tourist/local gambler component in there, either...I can't vouch for parking prices on the Strip but I remember traffic being less-than-ideal, and from what I can tell where the two overlap you have a bus about every 7-10 minutes except in the middle of the night (when it's every 20 minutes...which is still far more than most other bus routes in the country see).

 

[DSS&A]

Hi,

Efforts are in the works to help minimize pacts to the environment to allow the new line to be built on an alignment that follows the interstate for a portion of the route and also reduce construction coats. Here's a link to an article about the latest news on this project.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/high-performance/new-legislation-introduced-to-advance-nev-calif-high-speed-rail-project.html?channel=54

 

[DSS&A]

Xpresswest has been mal8ng progrrss on their project, but goverment approvals are slowing down the project from their original schedule by a few months. Here's a link to an article with current project information. It's interesting that the newspaper writer focused on one small sentence about the separate hyperloop project idea and not the HSR project update presentation.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/traffic-transportation/xpresswest-executives-have-talked-hyperloop-one-about-high-speed-rail