Does California get rail electrification wrong?

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Here's an interesting blog post from Alon Levy:

Quick Note: California Gets Electrification Wrong | Pedestrian Observations

Apparently, Caltrans wants to electrify trains using hydrogen fuel cell technology rather than overhead wires. From my experience, it seems that technology is not yet ready for prime time on mainline railroads. Plus, how are they going to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen? (The alternative to using electricity to generate hydrogen is to reform it from natural gas, which sort of eliminates its value as a "decarbonization" strategy.)

I found this paragraph from the post interesting, and kind of meshes with my professional experience:

It’s a perennial problem in the United States that rail managers and agency heads are allergic to electrification. It’s a foreign concept, literally. They don’t travel – when they do they think of it as a vacation, not as work to see how countries with an order of magnitude more rail ridership per capita do it. None of the people they know knows, either. Nor are they technically apt or curious – they come from a managerial culture in which speaking of technical details is low-prestige, and making excuses and talking about politics are high-prestige. Fresh master’s graduates in Europe know more than they ever will. They are useless, and they know it.

In a different field, I've been nosing around for consulting jobs since I retired. However, what I mainly offer is the ability to speak about technical details; It seems that the people making decisions about spending money aren't as interested in that, what they seem to want out of someone with EPA experience is internal political gossip so they can anticipate what sort of rules they will have to face. Fortunately, I recently found someone who is interested in the technical details, but we'll have to see what happens if my technical advice goes contrary to the preconceived ideas of the top management.
 
In general more often than not if your advice goes against what the management wants to hear you will experience what Peter (of Peter Principle fame) euphemistically calls "the Lateral Arabesque" to some suitable basement office :D

As usual Caltrans is looking for the latest Gadgetware to impress themselves. 🤷‍♂️ Hydrogen powered Hyperloop, here we come 😬
 
Considering how long it takes to get anything approved and built in CA, perhaps by the time they're ready to actually do something hydrogen cell will be a mature technology. 🙃
Yeah, but the only way they'll have enough electricity to produce the hydrogen fuel would be to build nuclear power plants in California. :) So you'd have to wait until the nukes come online. I'll leave that as a student exercise to estimate how long that will take.
 
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I really hope the electrification of Caltrain, a mainline railroad will potentially help other parts of California see the benefits of overhead wire electrification for fast frequent electrification.
 
I really hope the electrification of Caltrain, a mainline railroad will potentially help other parts of California see the benefits of overhead wire electrification for fast frequent electrification.
Me too. I'd love to see Metrolink electrified but it would take a lot, and they just spent millions on brand new tier-4 engines.
 
Maybe the person who wrote this should get out and look around and see what is really going on. I have no idea where the stuff in this blog came from, but it is totally unacquainted with reality. Caltrain is well under way with buying EMU's and installing overhead wire. The EMU's have been undergoing tests at Pueblo. Go to the following sites for some REAL information direct from the horse's mouth.

Amongst them, "This month, the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Program celebrated the installation of 3,092 pole foundations." and
"Our first electric trainset arrives on Caltrain property in spring, and we look forward to inviting the public to get their first look at the actual vehicles that will become the mainstay of our fleet."

I also regard his statement that, "It’s a perennial problem in the United States that rail managers and agency heads are allergic to electrification. It’s a foreign concept, literally." as completely bogus. But then what do I know? I have only worked on this stuff. Oh, yeah, foreign concept? Means these people have never visited the Northeastern US. You know, such stuff as main line Washington DC to Boston, lots of miles of commuter services out of New York City and Philadelphia etc.

Caltrain Modernization
Caltrain eNews: Approaching Milestones, All Foundations Installed, New South San Francisco Station (constantcontact.com)
 
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Good landmark to complete, now on to the next logistical challenge. Get 3,092 poles to their assigned location and installed.
I trust you are being sarcastic. Getting poles in place and installed is the easiest part of putting up a catenary system. Getting the foundation in the ground is far more difficult than plopping the pole into place.

As to the whole "hyperlink" concept, by the way: That thing is not science, it is science fiction. It would be far more sensible if the authors of the reports were Heinlein or Asimov.
 
I think that hydrogen power vs. catenary discussion was in regard to the Gilroy service.
Alon Levy writes from Berlin, but has studied and worked in the U.S. and Canada. My surmise from reading other essays by him that his impressions have been particularly influenced by Boston, Chicago (including neglect of the IC Electric) and Los Angeles commuter rail operations.

In Denver we didn't drag our feet on electrification because the completed commuter rail (A, G, N-Lines) started out as planning for LRT lines. The B-Line is electric to Westminster, but it is on hold beyond there for cost reasons. Residents along that line opposed electrification because they were concerned about views.

20201031 - 100751.jpg
Photo credit Svetlana Grechka.
 

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I trust you are being sarcastic. Getting poles in place and installed is the easiest part of putting up a catenary system. Getting the foundation in the ground is far more difficult than plopping the pole into place.

Not really sarcastic, the foundation would be more work than placing poles, but the logistics of getting 3092 poles in place would be very interesting in a urban area.

Do you have complete poles trucked in on a just-in-time shipment? Where do you stage them? Do the pole get transfer to a rail based installer? How many install team are you supporting?

I definitely think get the foundation in was more challenging even if they were able to use prefab foundation. But the work of scheduling 3092 poles in a urban environment would be very interesting to me.

UP built a new HQ build in Omaha a few years back. Ever floor had false floor installed for the wires to run underneath it. The instructions were to remove your padlock while at the truckstop, then drive across the river on a certain streets. When your arrived you turn on to a side street and back into the project. Flag person stop traffic, a guy was assigned to pop open your doors while your backing in. Those floors were very heavy, and this process was repeated several times a day for weeks. Good business for us, but it was a don’t be late deliver, with your bosses looking over your shoulder type of load.
 
One of the big selling points of electrification is that you move the electricity generation gear from the train to the lineside and so reduce weight, meaning you get more acceleration for the same power and hence a faster and higher performing train.

As soon as you start installing storage or generation on the train you have given away that advantage.

Battery or hydrogen technology definitely have their niches, but it is totally misguided to present them as an alternative to electrification. At best they are an alternative for lines where electrification is not feasible. But they will always be an inferior compromise.
 
Not really sarcastic, the foundation would be more work than placing poles, but the logistics of getting 3092 poles in place would be very interesting in a urban area.

Do you have complete poles trucked in on a just-in-time shipment? Where do you stage them? Do the pole get transfer to a rail based installer? How many install team are you supporting?

I definitely think get the foundation in was more challenging even if they were able to use prefab foundation. But the work of scheduling 3092 poles in a urban environment would be very interesting to me.

UP built a new HQ build in Omaha a few years back. Ever floor had false floor installed for the wires to run underneath it. The instructions were to remove your padlock while at the truckstop, then drive across the river on a certain streets. When your arrived you turn on to a side street and back into the project. Flag person stop traffic, a guy was assigned to pop open your doors while your backing in. Those floors were very heavy, and this process was repeated several times a day for weeks. Good business for us, but it was a don’t be late deliver, with your bosses looking over your shoulder type of load.
Actually, judging by this RFW video from last November, a good number of the poles have already been installed. Caltrain said 60% had been installed as of June 2021, when they announced the delay of service start until 2024. Some are just bare poles, but the southern end appears to be fully strung except for the contact wire, and some of the others have the crossbars.
 
What problems might the various RRs think are impediments to install CAT. Any RR person who looks at the NEC can see the very complicated wire work and the necessity to rebuild the rusting poles that were buried in the soil. Is that what a new installation of CAT look like? What the New Haven = BOS and Caltrain looks like is a closer example.

What is probably the most difficult procedure to installing CAT. IMO it is the potholing for the pole supports. That became a very difficult problem for the New Haven - Bos section as there were a lot of utilities and rock for planned locations that had to be moved. Caltrain did not have as many problems but still the San Fran terminal was the last to be completed due to unannounced reasons. Now the pole supports are concrete with connections way above ground level.

Potholes on single track are a problem if the machine is track mounted which is almost a requirement at certain locations. Once the potholes are done pole installation is easy but the same problem of installation of single-track locations is still a problem. Then installation of CAT hangers and wire a RR has the same problems.

Has Caltrain ever broken out the costs of installing the CAT?
 
What problems might the various RRs think are impediments to install CAT. Any RR person who looks at the NEC can see the very complicated wire work and the necessity to rebuild the rusting poles that were buried in the soil. Is that what a new installation of CAT look like? What the New Haven = BOS and Caltrain looks like is a closer example.

What is probably the most difficult procedure to installing CAT. IMO it is the potholing for the pole supports. That became a very difficult problem for the New Haven - Bos section as there were a lot of utilities and rock for planned locations that had to be moved. Caltrain did not have as many problems but still the San Fran terminal was the last to be completed due to unannounced reasons. Now the pole supports are concrete with connections way above ground level.

Potholes on single track are a problem if the machine is track mounted which is almost a requirement at certain locations. Once the potholes are done pole installation is easy but the same problem of installation of single-track locations is still a problem. Then installation of CAT hangers and wire a RR has the same problems.

Has Caltrain ever broken out the costs of installing the CAT?

Times have moved on since the Pennsy started electrifying the NEC. The drilling of holes is a process that can be largely automated and very little pick and shovel work is needed. Buried utilities and other surprises can be detected with ultra-sound and other methods.
 
I have noticed that outfits like Indian Railways which have a large Office of Railway Electrification with well trained staff with great deal of field practice tends to do such things quite swiftly while turnkey projects using contractors with who knows what amount of field practice and experience stumble all over the place. Actually Network Rail in UK have arrived at a conclusion that it is better to have a standing organization for electrification that works progressively from one project to the next instead of hiring a new set of people to do each project. There is something to be said for that I suppose.
 
Times have moved on since the Pennsy started electrifying the NEC. The drilling of holes is a process that can be largely automated and very little pick and shovel work is needed. Buried utilities and other surprises can be detected with ultra-sound and other methods.
I spent a lot of my early career supervising the drilling of ground-water monitoring wells on highway rights-of-way that had underground pipes, telephone and electrical cables. It was really no problem at all, we just called Miss Utility before we drilled and they would send somebody out with a tricorder-like device that was able to locate the buried stuff. A little fluorescent orange spray paint on the pavement, and our driller knew where not to drill. Out of hundreds of wells, we only had one screw up, where we drilled through some telephone lines. Thank goodness it wasn't an electric cable. But because we had Miss Utility out before we drilled, we had no liability for the mishap.
 
I have noticed that outfits like Indian Railways which have a large Office of Railway Electrification with well trained staff with great deal of field practice tends to do such things quite swiftly while turnkey projects using contractors with who knows what amount of field practice and experience stumble all over the place. Actually, Network Rail in UK have arrived at a conclusion that it is better to have a standing organization for electrification that works progressively from one project to the next instead of hiring a new set of people to do each project. There is something to be said for that I suppose.
I witnessed this in a street brick-paving job. In Denver's historic LoDo district it was decided to retrofit the intersections with paving bricks. The contractor took longer getting started than planned and so did not finish the project before the end of the construction season. They started over in the next year and took most of the summer to finish with new help.
 
Can confirm a lot of the caltrain catenary system is up. In many places it’s 100% complete, especially in the southern sections

I wanted to add, I think the Caltrain catenary is also constant tension! When driving by the construction in San Mateo today, I could see pulleys and weights on some of the poles.
 
Alon Levy writes from Berlin, but has studied and worked in the U.S. and Canada. My surmise from reading other essays by him that his impressions have been particularly influenced by Boston, Chicago (including neglect of the IC Electric) and Los Angeles commuter rail operations.
The first five words of this statement explains a lot, to me, at least. My experience with working with Europe engineers, the Germans particularly is that they start from the viewpoint that Americans have nothing to teach them followed with a their way is the only way attitude. Therefore, their first thought appears to be that if what they see is different from the German standard, it is wrong. There was also a great deal of difficulty when dealing with a situation where the ingredients did not match the German recipe. As an aside, it appears that for them, and most other nationalities as well, if working on a foreign project a primary objective is to get it based on their home country standards to the greatest extent possible so as to maximize use of their home country products.

Miss Utility: Dial 811. Yes, absolutely. It can save a lot of headaches and surprises, some of which can be deadly if the utility is gas. Our City Engineer's office has a sign up about "Dial 811" which has a last line that I suspect is different from what the law really says. It reads "Survivors will be prosecuted."

Constant Tension Catenary: That it was not done this way in a primary reason the old Pennsylvania Railroad Electrification is so complex. Constant tension is one of these ideas that once you understand the concept is blooming obvious. It removes all, and I mean all the temperature variation issues, and with that a lot of the horizontal forces on elements in the system. You just have to make sure your tensioning weights have enough travel room to cover the entire change in length of wire over the segment due to temperature variations.
 
I have noticed that outfits like Indian Railways which have a large Office of Railway Electrification with well trained staff with great deal of field practice tends to do such things quite swiftly while turnkey projects using contractors with who knows what amount of field practice and experience stumble all over the place. Actually Network Rail in UK have arrived at a conclusion that it is better to have a standing organization for electrification that works progressively from one project to the next instead of hiring a new set of people to do each project. There is something to be said for that I suppose.
I see on a You Tube post [cruising the cut] that Network Rail UK also have a specilist bridge building team on this same basis. Just 7 days to built a bridge under a 4 track mainline!
 
The first five words of this statement explains a lot, to me, at least. My experience with working with Europe engineers, the Germans particularly is that they start from the viewpoint that Americans have nothing to teach them followed with a their way is the only way attitude. Therefore, their first thought appears to be that if what they see is different from the German standard, it is wrong. There was also a great deal of difficulty when dealing with a situation where the ingredients did not match the German recipe. As an aside, it appears that for them, and most other nationalities as well, if working on a foreign project a primary objective is to get it based on their home country standards to the greatest extent possible so as to maximize use of their home country products.

...Constant Tension Catenary: That it was not done this way in a primary reason the old Pennsylvania Railroad Electrification is so complex. Constant tension is one of these ideas that once you understand the concept is blooming obvious. It removes all, and I mean all the temperature variation issues, and with that a lot of the horizontal forces on elements in the system. You just have to make sure your tensioning weights have enough travel room to cover the entire change in length of wire over the segment due to temperature variations.

I think Alon Levy is a mathematician, not an engineer. One of the topics that he works on is the variations in construction projects around the world.

Regarding Constant Tension Catenary, the lack of it is one difficulty with trolley coach overhead. Over height trucks would crash into it in the summer and then the truckers would complain that they had gotten away with being over height the last time they came through (which would turn out to have been in colder weather).

In Edmonton winter construction was preferred, to reduce the risk of wire breaks caused by contraction at cold temperatures.

1978  099.jpg

The Edmonton LRT was built with Constant Tension, but had some fixed overhead, as at this trolley coach crossing and tunnel mouth.

1978  077.jpg
 
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I have noticed that outfits like Indian Railways which have a large Office of Railway Electrification with well trained staff with great deal of field practice tends to do such things quite swiftly while turnkey projects using contractors with who knows what amount of field practice and experience stumble all over the place. Actually Network Rail in UK have arrived at a conclusion that it is better to have a standing organization for electrification that works progressively from one project to the next instead of hiring a new set of people to do each project. There is something to be said for that I suppose.

We often hear about the down-sides of burocracy but this is surely one of the up sides. Every little thing that was ever buried or built on railway land recorded in a way that is easily accessible and retrievable. This doesn't happen over night but takes decades and decades of being disciplined and following the rules.

Most of the mess on British Rail started after privatisation, when private companies were given free reign to add and modify stuff without any accountability.
 
The first five words of this statement explains a lot, to me, at least. My experience with working with Europe engineers, the Germans particularly is that they start from the viewpoint that Americans have nothing to teach them followed with a their way is the only way attitude. Therefore, their first thought appears to be that if what they see is different from the German standard, it is wrong.

Um, Mr. Levy is an Israeli mathematician, not a German engineer. He just happens to be living in Berlin right now. According to his bio, he also spent some of his youth in Singapore. And he got his doctorate at Columbia, in the USA, so he must think that Americans had something to teach him. By the way, he just as capable of being critical of the German public works process and transit operations as he is of any other country. My take on reading him is that he thinks that American transit managers, for various cultural reasons, don't have an interest in learning what people are doing in other countries, which is sort of a shame, since there are a lot of good ideas and practices out there outside the US. He also suggests that American top managers tend to be generalists who aren't willing to pay proper attention to the recommendations of the subject matter experts who work for them. As someone who had a 40-year career as a subject matter expert in a different field, I think he's right on target with that one.
 
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