ALL HSR Funding Cut From 2011 Budget (400M recalled from 2010)

[Anderson]

Just a quick FYI....

For the earlier references pointing to Chinas HSR. As of today China announced it is slowing its HSR system down as it costs too much for maint and energy costs.

They will still be fast but, not as fast. That will make it cheaper to operate/maintain and allow them to lower prices to appeal to the masses as the HSR was not drawing enough ridership...

Very interesting

Not terribly shocking...I read an article sometime back about people complaining that they were cutting the "normal speed" trains and forcing them to choose between high speed travel and no travel at all. Of course, I think part of the culprit is energy price issues and part is inflation.

 

[George Harris]

Without going back and doing quotes, here are a few comments and responses. Those following the thread will know to what.

Concerning the cutting of ordinary trains where high speed lines go into service: Remember that China's economy is still very much a top-down "Command" economy instead of the bottom-up "Demand" economy where service demands can only be skewed by government intervention, not determined by it. The change of services was commanded, but when done the demand was not there. At least the powers that be did wake up to some of the reality, as follows:

China's huge population is still mostly very poor. For most of the people except business and party elites, price is far more important than speed in determining trip choices. So, even in the areas where the high speed service exists, the high speed train's market is probably only a few percents of the travel market.

Concerning Calif HSR: The target speed is 220 mph operating speed with an alignment that will permit 250 mph ultimately for as much of the alignment as can be achieved. It has been fairly conclusively determined that when end to end rail trip time gets under 3 hours, the air service demand drops drastically. The 220 mph maximum speed is necessary for this to happen. If an alignment between Bakersfield and about Burbank was built that would permit 70 to 90 mph, an end to end all rail, except crossing San Francisco Bay, trip time of about 8 hours could be achieved. This is reasonably close to realistic end to end times if driving. Even at these speeds, a one seat ride should result in a huge increase in the rail share. However, to build a 90 mph alignment across the Tehachapi area would not be significantly cheaper than the 220 mph alignment. So, might as well build the higher speed line.

If you choose to build a 110 to 125 mph railroad, for much of the route it will be little to no cheaper than building a 250 mph railroad.. You will still need 100% grade separations, and many of the other thing you would need for anything going above 90 mph.

 

[jis]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the issue of what is the optimum operating speed for HSR has been studied quite a bit for various energy price and traffic profiles, and in general around 200mph - 220mph seems to be the sweet spot. Beyond that energy prices and maintenance costs apparently start overwhelming everything else, said another way it becomes difficult to recover those costs through higher riderships and fares. Initially China had chosen to ignore these studies and gone ahead to fame and glory. Eventually optimum operating points become important when one is talking about running a huge operation with no infinite trough of money to feed from.

 

[Anderson]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the issue of what is the optimum operating speed for HSR has been studied quite a bit for various energy price and traffic profiles, and in general around 200mph - 220mph seems to be the sweet spot. Beyond that energy prices and maintenance costs apparently start overwhelming everything else, said another way it becomes difficult to recover those costs through higher riderships and fares. Initially China had chosen to ignore these studies and gone ahead to fame and glory. Eventually optimum operating points become important when one is talking about running a huge operation with no infinite trough of money to feed from.

I think it might be able to run one or two trains at those higher speeds as "super express" trains with a limited market (and probably requiring some nice onboard service to boot), but as an overall operating system? Not happening. You could probably manage it for a nonstop Shanghai-Beijing express or on one or two other routes that would have a substantial market for that, but my guess is that you'd basically need to be able to run it as the HSR equivalent of an All Pullman.

 

[George Harris]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the issue of what is the optimum operating speed for HSR has been studied quite a bit for various energy price and traffic profiles, and in general around 200mph - 220mph seems to be the sweet spot. Beyond that energy prices and maintenance costs apparently start overwhelming everything else, said another way it becomes difficult to recover those costs through higher riderships and fares. Initially China had chosen to ignore these studies and gone ahead to fame and glory. Eventually optimum operating points become important when one is talking about running a huge operation with no infinite trough of money to feed from.

This logic has been used for years. The only thing that has changed over the years is the number. 40 years ago the magic number was around 125 mph. Who knows where it will be in another 40 years.

 

[jis]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the issue of what is the optimum operating speed for HSR has been studied quite a bit for various energy price and traffic profiles, and in general around 200mph - 220mph seems to be the sweet spot. Beyond that energy prices and maintenance costs apparently start overwhelming everything else, said another way it becomes difficult to recover those costs through higher riderships and fares. Initially China had chosen to ignore these studies and gone ahead to fame and glory. Eventually optimum operating points become important when one is talking about running a huge operation with no infinite trough of money to feed from.

This logic has been used for years. The only thing that has changed over the years is the number. 40 years ago the magic number was around 125 mph. Who knows where it will be in another 40 years.

Considering that it might take us 40 years tog et funding to actually build anything you do have a point.

Though in terms of Physics one thing that is not going to change is coefficient of friction and fluid dynamics involved. Until now the limitations were mostly due to beliefs about what can be done in the catenary to pantograph and rail wheel interface. I am assuming that this will be a non issue. It never was an issue of energy cost in that consideration anyway. There is possibly a point where even after taking the energy cost of climbing to flying altitude , it becomes cheaper to fly because of the much lower energy loss at the much lower pressures up at 35K feet than on the ground. I don;t know. Just wondering. OTOH, if burning carbon fuels of any sort for anything becomes cost prohibitive, then of course electrified rail will have a a huge leg up on anything else, irrespective of the energy cost, as long as it is less than the net cost of carbon fuel burning.

But again, you do make a valid observation.

 

[Anderson]

I may be wrong, but I am under the impression that the issue of what is the optimum operating speed for HSR has been studied quite a bit for various energy price and traffic profiles, and in general around 200mph - 220mph seems to be the sweet spot. Beyond that energy prices and maintenance costs apparently start overwhelming everything else, said another way it becomes difficult to recover those costs through higher riderships and fares. Initially China had chosen to ignore these studies and gone ahead to fame and glory. Eventually optimum operating points become important when one is talking about running a huge operation with no infinite trough of money to feed from.

This logic has been used for years. The only thing that has changed over the years is the number. 40 years ago the magic number was around 125 mph. Who knows where it will be in another 40 years.

There's always going to be a "sweet spot" at some point, and it'll always be moving. I think the spot with cars moved for a while...and of course, it likely depends on the system being used (as I understand it, diesels peak out at 110-125 before wear, tear, and fuel consumption become issues). "Standard" HSR might well have a sweet spot at 220 MPH. Maglevs? No clue.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Maglevs have no practical limits because the basic concept is inherently impractical. Practical and maglev should never be used in a sentence parsed any way other than the one you are reading.

 

[j653]

Is it possible that HSR funding was cut from the 2011 budget because the Obama administration is counting on funding it via the 2011 multi-year surface transportation act? Just a thought--I have nothing to back this up.

 

[jis]

Is it possible that HSR funding was cut from the 2011 budget because the Obama administration is counting on funding it via the 2011 multi-year surface transportation act? Just a thought--I have nothing to back this up.

No. That is not the case. Multi year STA only does authorization, not appropriation. You can't spend money that has not been appropriated, no matter how much authorization has been done. The way the financial process works, appropriations have to be done annually through the budget bills.