HSR releases business plan for costly train

[leemell]

Yeah...I think I'm in favor of putting a rail line through one of those routes. Honestly, even if it was constrained to lower-speed running for a fair section of the route (and let's be honest, does anyone expect to see a train cracking 200 MPH through those mountains in this world?

Yes

Really? (No, that's a serious question) Even with some of the better plans out there, you tend to get mountain ranges, river crossings, and urban areas where trains have to slow down because rivers, etc. don't necessarily follow high-speed alignments. For example, IIRC the bullet trains out in Japan mainly stuck to either coastal plains or to convenient valleys and so forth for the most part (rather than trying to blast through mountains). Some of the other lines are "just" upgrades of existing lines rather than full new alignments. I know you can shave off some "bad corners" with a bit of dynamite, but how much are they seriously looking at putting into getting a train running over 200 MPH over the mountains themselves?

Check it out for yourself : CA HSR route Map

 

[Anderson]

I pulled up the map and I pulled up a Google Maps satellite map of the region. Color me a bit dubious, but I suspect that even with nice tilting trains, you're either going to sink way too much money into that section blowing holes in mountains or you're going to have a more crooked line than that map would indicate (even if you stick to the SR14 alignment, those curves seem to be just a hair too tight to blow through at full speed).

Of course, with that said, it looks like it's only 30 or 40 miles of slower running in there, and even the worst curves in there could probably be managed at somewhere between 79 and 125 MPH.

 

[USrail21]

Actually, it is 26 stations and I would like a branch to Long Beach (I will upload a topic on that)