Curtain Goes Down on US High Speed Rail

[Green Maned Lion]

Actually, the idea is to reduce the cost, increase the profit, and reduce the lifespan so the suckers have the buy again soon. But I digress. I am way too cynical for my 26 years.

Despite your engineer status, you are clearly no engineer. George Harris is and I was until I retired. There are an enormous number of trade-offs made during design, and nearly all affect each other in some way. The design space is so large there frequently is no definitive way to find the optimal solution. Many times design requirement changes will impact the finished product in very unexpected ways. And yes, without profit, there will be no product.

Reducing the design life of a product is sometimes a desirable thing, how many people would still use the Motorola "brick" if it was still viable? Any remaning life was wasted cost in design and build.

I do engineer things, but not as complicated as anything you two do/did. Regardless, a cellular phone is a disposable product with a short life span- but that being said, if my old Motorola Teletac worked with the 3G system, I'd use it, believe me.

715 Budd-built cars, 277 Bombardier, 254 Pullman-Standard, 120 Alstom-Bombardier, 116 Morrison-Knudson, 67 Talgo, 61 Alstom, and 9 St. Louis Car Company.

Is this the current fleet makeup?

Also, with respect to "Value Engineering", I guess the question then is "What specs is Amtrak putting out for their bids?"

Yes, that is the current fleet makeup, give or take a few cars.

 

[George Harris]

Proper value engineering is to change standards and components that do not reduce the worth of the project. For most things of any size, you cannot write a cookbook that gives you the exact recipe to be followed. It is more like you have a cabinet full of ingredients and you have to come up with the best meal you can achieve using what you have on hand. Maybe to come out good you need to use a little more of this one and a little less of another one, and the proportions developed by judgment. This requires both experience and a "feel" for what you are doing. Generally the first part of VE is to see if the designer is using a proper balance between requirements than cannot all be met. Also, it is good to look to see if there are any requirements in the spec that are simply unnecessary.

An example: In another project there was a spec for an electrical component that included a unit weight limit in addition to the usual electrical and mechanical performance requirement. The question why was asked. No realistic why was found. What was found was that the weight limit excluded some of the potential suppliers that otherwise had a perfectly good product for the required use. This limit dissapeared from the next issue of the specification.

One common, and reasonable, act is to defer work on or provision of items that will not be needed until some future date. This should be done only where it does not result in more than minimal increase in difficulty and cost of providing the item when it does become necessary.

A not so good idea: WMATA decided to reduce the size of parking lots in the outlying stations to save initial cost. This had a negative impact on ridership, and resulted in the stations being regarded as bad neighbors because of their streets becoming cluttered with cars left all day by WMATA riders. Several years later most of the lots became multi-story parking garages. If this had been in the original plan it would have made the decision seem almost reasonable.

A good idea: The minimum median width on a four lane (two each way) interstate highway is supposed to be 64 feet. Why? So when traffic demands, an additional lane can be placed on each side without the need to reconstruct overpasses. Thus provision for a 50% increase in capacity is built in at the cost of an additional 24 feet of right of way.

 

[Anderson]

GML,

What Pullman-Standard cars are still in use? This is a slight change of topic, but I'm just wondering where I can find a list/suggestions of where they are..

 

[jis]

GML,

What Pullman-Standard cars are still in use? This is a slight change of topic, but I'm just wondering where I can find a list/suggestions of where they are..

The Superliner Is for one! I suppose that is why one of them is named George Pullman!

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The Superliner I cars were the last passenger cars built by Pullman-Standard. The last Superliner built was a sleeper, and it was named George M. Pullman to commemorate that. No pre-Amtrak Pullman cars remain in service owned by Amtrak. They were retired in 1993 when the last two Amtrak Pullman cars, a pair of all-bedroom sleepers, were removed from the Auto Train when it went Superliner.

Aside from Amtrak's personal ownership, North Carolina Department Of Transportation owns the following Pullman Standard 66-seat coaches: 400001 Cardinal, 400002 Dogwood, 400003 Honey Bee, 400004 Long Leaf Pine, and 400005 Scotch Bonnet. They were built for Kansas City Southern in 1965. Since KCS terminated passenger service in 1969, and the cars never saw service since, they were practically brand new when NCDOT put them into service in the mid-90s.

Pullman-Standards Carbon Steel cars were junk. Which is why most of them were removed from service.

 

[Anderson]

GML,

Thanks for the info. Now I'm wondering which of the Piedmonts those are on. I may have to make a trip down to NC just to say that I rode on a pre-Amtrak Pullman and be able to confuse the hell out of some people!

 

[George Harris]

GML,

Thanks for the info. Now I'm wondering which of the Piedmonts those are on. I may have to make a trip down to NC just to say that I rode on a pre-Amtrak Pullman and be able to confuse the hell out of some people!

Go the NCDOT web site for rail: www.bytrain.org

According to that, they can be found on trains 73, 74, 75, 76.

For the list of equipment and its origins, go to www.bytrain.org/passenger/pdf/dotrailequipment.pdf

According to this, they have 5 coaches built for KCS in 1965 by Pullman-Standard, 3 coaches bbuilt for Union Pacific in 1964 by St. Louis Car, and 3 cars, one combine and two lounges in car bodies built for the US Army in 1953 by St. Louis Car.

When KCS bought these cars, they stated that they had no intention of going out of the passenger business, ever. When the Post Office pulled all mail off trains a few years later, it so changed the financial picture that they requested and were permitted to discontinue all passenger trains.

 

[Spokker]

Well, an anti-CHSRA group is claiming that the cost of the California project is $63 billion, up from $43 billion, and that the CHSRA is covering it up. I don't know what's going on and there is not yet a counterargument against the claim.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/10/10greenwire-calif-gauges-private-sector-interest-in-high-s-46780.html

Adding to the pushback were new cost estimates released yesterday by a watchdog group called Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design that pegs the entire project's cost at $65 billion. That is up from a $43 billion estimate the authority released in 2009.
Nadia Naik, co-founder of the Palo Alto-based group, explained her organization had been hoping to see updated numbers from the authority, but when she lost confidence that those numbers would appear anytime soon, the group decided to release its own estimate.

"Our figures are based on the authority's documents and [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] applications and were calculated over two months ago," she said. "The 2009 $43 billion figure was outdated the day it was released, because it [priced] the project as it existed circa 2005."

The highest cost I am willing to defend with a straight face is about $100 million per mile on average, give or take a few million. That would put the entire project, phase 1 and 2, at around $80 billion. This is in line with what the Taiwanese paid for their system. European systems tend to be cheaper, but there is track sharing there.

 

[Anderson]

George,

Thanks for the info. Those are the Piedmonts. I'll try and get down there at some point for the experience...now, why do I need to go to Charlotte, again?

Spokker,

I've got a bad feeling about that, in no small part because I've seen too many projects miraculously miss price estimates. Isn't this at least part of the NJ tunnel disaster, too? A nasty underestimate blew back in everyone's face?

 

[jis]

I've got a bad feeling about that, in no small part because I've seen too many projects miraculously miss price estimates. Isn't this at least part of the NJ tunnel disaster, too? A nasty underestimate blew back in everyone's face?

It was a contributory and proximate cause, but not necessarily the main cause IMHO. The project developed progressively into a wrongheaded thing with progressively lower and lower return on investment for higher and higher cost.

Actually some of us consider the New Jersey case to be a tunnel redemption rather than a tunnel disaster. Yes there was a huge risk involved. But the more recent developments would suggest we might get an overall better setup and better return for the money. The thing is that the basic need has not gone away, and something will get built. The question is how to make it the best thing that serves the most rather than a monument to ones ego.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

George,

Thanks for the info. Those are the Piedmonts. I'll try and get down there at some point for the experience...now, why do I need to go to Charlotte, again?

Spokker,

I've got a bad feeling about that, in no small part because I've seen too many projects miraculously miss price estimates. Isn't this at least part of the NJ tunnel disaster, too? A nasty underestimate blew back in everyone's face?

Cost was Christie's excuse to cancel a unbelievably bad monument to George Warrington's Universe sized ego.

 

[George Harris]

Well, an anti-CHSRA group is claiming that the cost of the California project is $63 billion, up from $43 billion, and that the CHSRA is covering it up. I don't know what's going on and there is not yet a counterargument against the claim.

. . . . . . .

The highest cost I am willing to defend with a straight face is about $100 million per mile on average, give or take a few million. That would put the entire project, phase 1 and 2, at around $80 billion. This is in line with what the Taiwanese paid for their system. European systems tend to be cheaper, but there is track sharing there.

1. Note the description of the group as being anti-CHSR. They have a conclusion. Now all they need is to come up with sensible sounding reasons to support it. That is, if it supports their desired outcome, they use it. If it does not support their desired outcome, they ignore it or attempt to discredit it. Therefore, there is not way that their cost estimate can be considered as being unprejudiced.

2. There are two points concerning the Taiwanese system. First, the percentage of the line on structures or in tunnels is far higher than whzt will happen in California. However, to counter this, there were not the multitudinous studies made due to the agitating of the opposition, and labor costs were much lower than they will be in California.