LA -> SF

[pebbleworm]

You don't have to stop for gas, you don't have to stop to eat, etc. If you are in a little more of a hurry, take the San Joaquins. We usually take the CS southbound and the San Joaquins heading north.

 

[afigg]

Look at the map. Not a road map, a topographic map. Even without any other interferenc from other trains, a train on the current Bakersfield to Los Angeles line would probably take around 5 hours. Metrolink already owns the line south of Palmdale. Ever heard of the Tehatchapi Loop? The railroad climbs something like 3,500 feet in elevation between Bakersfield and Tehatchapi by means of one of the major 19th century engineering feats of the world. In fact, if the line were to be built new today, it would be much the same. The only way to be straighter and shorter would be to be steeper. There is no possibility of something like the so called "base tunnels" that are being built in the Alps in Europe. It would amount to building a tunnel most of the distance between Bakersfield and Sylmar, what is that? Around 80 miles and crossing several faults? The longest tunnel elsewhere in the world is somewhere under 30 miles and wa horrendously expensive.

Not quite 80 miles of tunnel to get through the Tehachapi mountains. The route analysis and scoping documents for the CA HSR Bakersfield to Palmdale segment are available. I have not looked at this segment of the CA HSR planning in some time. There is a January 2012 update on the route alternatives titled Agenda Item 5 - Attachment AA Report Volume 1 (37 page PDF, ~3.5 MB) on the top of the document set which has a useful cutaway sideway of the Tehachapi mountain range profile and possible route grades on page 24. New Alternative T3 is 39.4 miles (of the 3 subsections), would consist of 10.9 miles of tunnels, 3.4 miles of elevated structures and 25.2 miles of cut/fill/At-grade. T3 has an average grade of 2.85% over 20 miles, sustained grade of 3.3% over 8 miles. This is a route for passenger trains, not for freight trains. A skim read of the analysis summary report shows how much preliminary engineering work and communications with the local community planners has been done towards picking a new HSR route through the mountains.

10.9 miles is a lot of tunnels to dig out, but it is a manageable amount with modern tunnel boring machines. Will take some years and a few billion dollars to build 2 tracks through the mountains friom Bakersfield to Palmdale however.

 

[guest in the west]

In the halcyon days of the Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight, a crack train if there ever was one, the schedule for November 1954 was:

LV Los Angeles 8:15 a.m.

LV Santa Barbara 10:35 a.m

LV San Luis Obispo 12:35 p.m.

LV San Jose 4:58 p.m.

AR San Francisco 6 p.m.

It would be nice to think that 70 years later, an Amtrak Coast Daylight could achieve the same schedule of 9 hours, 45 minutes. Nice, but doubtful. :mellow:

 

[George Harris]

Look at the map. Not a road map, a topographic map. Even without any other interferenc from other trains, a train on the current Bakersfield to Los Angeles line would probably take around 5 hours. Metrolink already owns the line south of Palmdale. Ever heard of the Tehatchapi Loop? The railroad climbs something like 3,500 feet in elevation between Bakersfield and Tehatchapi by means of one of the major 19th century engineering feats of the world. In fact, if the line were to be built new today, it would be much the same. The only way to be straighter and shorter would be to be steeper. There is no possibility of something like the so called "base tunnels" that are being built in the Alps in Europe. It would amount to building a tunnel most of the distance between Bakersfield and Sylmar, what is that? Around 80 miles and crossing several faults? The longest tunnel elsewhere in the world is somewhere under 30 miles and wa horrendously expensive.

Not quite 80 miles of tunnel to get through the Tehachapi mountains. The route analysis and scoping documents for the CA HSR Bakersfield to Palmdale segment are available. I have not looked at this segment of the CA HSR planning in some time. There is a January 2012 update on the route alternatives titled Agenda Item 5 - Attachment AA Report Volume 1 (37 page PDF, ~3.5 MB) on the top of the document set which has a useful cutaway sideway of the Tehachapi mountain range profile and possible route grades on page 24. New Alternative T3 is 39.4 miles (of the 3 subsections), would consist of 10.9 miles of tunnels, 3.4 miles of elevated structures and 25.2 miles of cut/fill/At-grade. T3 has an average grade of 2.85% over 20 miles, sustained grade of 3.3% over 8 miles. This is a route for passenger trains, not for freight trains. A skim read of the analysis summary report shows how much preliminary engineering work and communications with the local community planners has been done towards picking a new HSR route through the mountains.
10.9 miles is a lot of tunnels to dig out, but it is a manageable amount with modern tunnel boring machines. Will take some years and a few billion dollars to build 2 tracks through the mountains friom Bakersfield to Palmdale however.

I had seen these reports. The 80 miles was to go through rather than up and then back down. This would make it equivalent in nature, that is about the same elevation on both ends, as the base tunnels in Europe.
Whether the railroad would be for 110 mph or 220 mph, to go better than the 25 mph line that is there now would require something very much like that proposed in these reports. To be straighter requires being steeper.

 

[chakk]

About 1/2 of the I-5 highway route between LA and SF has a speed limit of 70 mph. but many of the people driving the route are exceeding that speed by 5 to 10 mph -- so long as they don't get ticketed by the California Highway Patrol.

 

[guest in the west]

Look at the map. Not a road map, a topographic map. Even without any other interferenc from other trains, a train on the current Bakersfield to Los Angeles line would probably take around 5 hours. Metrolink already owns the line south of Palmdale. Ever heard of the Tehatchapi Loop? The railroad climbs something like 3,500 feet in elevation between Bakersfield and Tehatchapi by means of one of the major 19th century engineering feats of the world. In fact, if the line were to be built new today, it would be much the same. The only way to be straighter and shorter would be to be steeper. There is no possibility of something like the so called "base tunnels" that are being built in the Alps in Europe. It would amount to building a tunnel most of the distance between Bakersfield and Sylmar, what is that? Around 80 miles and crossing several faults? The longest tunnel elsewhere in the world is somewhere under 30 miles and wa horrendously expensive.

Not quite 80 miles of tunnel to get through the Tehachapi mountains. The route analysis and scoping documents for the CA HSR Bakersfield to Palmdale segment are available. I have not looked at this segment of the CA HSR planning in some time. There is a January 2012 update on the route alternatives titled Agenda Item 5 - Attachment AA Report Volume 1 (37 page PDF, ~3.5 MB) on the top of the document set which has a useful cutaway sideway of the Tehachapi mountain range profile and possible route grades on page 24. New Alternative T3 is 39.4 miles (of the 3 subsections), would consist of 10.9 miles of tunnels, 3.4 miles of elevated structures and 25.2 miles of cut/fill/At-grade. T3 has an average grade of 2.85% over 20 miles, sustained grade of 3.3% over 8 miles. This is a route for passenger trains, not for freight trains. A skim read of the analysis summary report shows how much preliminary engineering work and communications with the local community planners has been done towards picking a new HSR route through the mountains.
10.9 miles is a lot of tunnels to dig out, but it is a manageable amount with modern tunnel boring machines. Will take some years and a few billion dollars to build 2 tracks through the mountains friom Bakersfield to Palmdale however.

I had seen these reports. The 80 miles was to go through rather than up and then back down. This would make it equivalent in nature, that is about the same elevation on both ends, as the base tunnels in Europe.
Whether the railroad would be for 110 mph or 220 mph, to go better than the 25 mph line that is there now would require something very much like that proposed in these reports. To be straighter requires being steeper.

There is another alternative that some rail advocates in Southern California have suggested for the Hi Speed route rather than the Tehachapi/Mojave/Soledad Canyon: a route from Bakersfield southwest toward the Sespe Wilderness and tunneling through the mountains there into the Santa Paula Valley and then into the LA Basin. I have no idea whether this would present less daunting grade and tunnel requirements, but assume that the idea has some engineering moxie behind it. I don't know if the High Speed Rail people ever gave more than a cursory glance at it, however.

On the larger point, could not the coastal route be double-tracked and straightened, could not the LA-San Diego corridor be entirely double-tracked, and could not the Bay Area corridors be substantially upgraded---all for less than a fifth of the estimated cost for the High-Speed rail system? You would end up with train service in the San Diego-LA corridor, and throughout the Bay Area corridors which would be highly competitive with the auto, and reasonable LA-SF service that while perhaps not as fast as driving, presented a realistic alternative for many passengers?

 

[Texan Eagle]

About 1/2 of the I-5 highway route between LA and SF has a speed limit of 70 mph. but many of the people driving the route are exceeding that speed by 5 to 10 mph -- so long as they don't get ticketed by the California Highway Patrol.

You get ticket for going 5-10mph above on a 70 mph road around there? :blink: I thought that's "normal" speed most people do, and then there are some going 15 or 20 above, those are the ones who fall in Highway Patrol net. I drove LA to SF on I-5 with 70 mph speed limit and for almost entire stretch I was on cruise control at 75 in the right lane, and had tons of cars pass me much faster! I was feeling I am going slow doing only 75 on a road marked 70!

 

[calwatch]

Highway Patrol is few and far between out in the sticks. Travel with the speed of traffic and you won't encounter problems.

Now as for the San Joaquin route, there are quite a few people making the LA-Northern California (Stockton and points north) trip. I often do a spot check of people that get off my bus, when I take it from LA to points north, and see where their destinations are. It seems to be 60/40 between people going to Stockton and points north, and people with destinations south of Stockton. I use Stockton as the cutoff point since there may be people taking the other branch who get off there and take the bus. The San Joaquin is definitely a corridor train - there is less conversation and more people are doing their own thing on their electronic devices, they have wi-fi, and the food is not as good as the Coast Starlight - although Amtrak has said the California trains have the widest variety of food available out of ALL trains in the Amtrak system. Certainly you can get breakfast for lunch or lunch for breakfast on the San Joaquin, even if it is just microwaved. And it is a much smoother ride than Megabus.