The growth of China's High Speed Rail network

[WICT106]

Freeway medians aren't always suitable for reasonably fast intercity trains. See this article about gadgetbahnen that discusses the issues involved. Except in parts of the country where freeways are straight and flat for considerable distances, most freeways have curves that are sharp enough that maximum speeds would be limited. Also, many freeways don't have much of a median strip anymore, was they have used that real estate to add more lanes.

I will add that there would have to be some way of keeping those drivers who skid off the road, from going onto the tracks. Every year, with every "first" snowstorm of the winter, there are hundreds of drivers who have to re- learn how to drive in snow.

 

[Tlcooper93]

I will add that there would have to be some way of keeping those drivers who skid off the road, from going onto the tracks. Every year, with every "first" snowstorm of the winter, there are hundreds of drivers who have to re- learn how to drive in snow.

This isn’t a real problem.
Concrete or steel barriers work just fine.

 

[Brian Battuello]

I read a story some years ago that said a study of average commute times had been holding relatively steady since Roman days. I don't remember the number, but it was something like people were willing to take a 30 minute chariot ride into work, and the average commute has stayed the same ever since. Well documented that adding a lane only helps for a few months until x% more people decide to use the road.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

It will be interesting to see how the planned line in a highway median works out for Brightline West's line between the LA area and Las Vegas. Of course at least there they shouldn't have to worry so much about drivers skidding onto the tracks during a snowstorm

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

I will add that there would have to be some way of keeping those drivers who skid off the road, from going onto the tracks. Every year, with every "first" snowstorm of the winter, there are hundreds of drivers who have to re- learn how to drive in snow.

The issue with transit in the median, in cold climates (or moderate climates with snow), is the salt and salt spray thrown up by salting highways in winter. It's caused a lot of problems for the CTA over the years on all of their lines that run in the median.

 

[Tlcooper93]

Personally, I think the jury is still out on the Chinese hsr system, and it’s overall impact.

The system continues to rapidly expand, and perhaps the economic growth to support/justify the sheer size of the network remains to be seen, but I think it’s foolish to right it off entirely because it seems the country is accumulating debt.

The issue with transit in the median, in cold climates (or moderate climates with snow), is the salt and salt spray thrown up by salting highways in winter. It's caused a lot of problems for the CTA over the years on all of their lines that run in the median.

Highways take up vast amounts of space in their ROW. Confining ourselves to the median seems at least unnecessary but likely unwise, as there’s usually decent space on the sides as well. Seems Brightline realized that with SR 528.

 

[jis]

Highways take up vast amounts of space in their ROW. Confining ourselves to the median seems at least unnecessary but likely unwise, as there’s usually decent space on the sides as well. Seems Brightline realized that with SR 528.

It was the FDOT and Central Florida Turnpike Authority's choice as to where Brightline was placed relative to the roadway in the SR528 Corridor, not exclusively Brightline's. Brightline stated its project needs and then took what was offered consistent with meeting those needs. The fact that there is not enough space in the median for two tracks in significant portions of the highway and that they wished to keep the option open for adding more lanes in the future may have played a part in the choices made too.

Interestingly FDOT wanted the tracks close to the Highway whereas the Turnpike Authority wanted the tracks as far as possible from the Highway. Observe the position of the track along SR528 east of SR417 and west of I-95, and you will know which part of the Highway is operated by which outfit.

 

[jis]

Here is an intersting perspective on China's High Speed Rail project

 

[Willbridge]

The video reflects a common problem in both public and private organizations: starting out with a success and then over-running the point of diminishing returns.

 

[west point]

What is being ignored is what infrastructure does not have to be built that the HSR replaces. How many miles of wide highway ROW does not have to be built? How much fuel will be saved? How much concrete can go to other projects? How much time will workers save commuting that government will just make workers be at jobs longer each day?

 

[jis]

What is being ignored is what infrastructure does not have to be built that the HSR replaces. How many miles of wide highway ROW does not have to be built? How much fuel will be saved? How much concrete can go to other projects? How much time will workers save commuting that government will just make workers be at jobs longer each day?

But someone still has to figure out how to pay down the debt without crashing the currency Weimar style. That is what is causing them to dial back. There are significant issues of not being entirely truthful about GDP numbers and the top brass knows about it. So they are a bit alarmed.

 

[NES28]

The thing to keep in mind about railroads in China is that they were desperately short on capacity. So in most cases straight, electrified routes were built for passenger trains to get out of the way of the freight trains. A win/win. They have probably now overdone HSR construction. The U.S. probably only needs about 6500 miles of HSR, less than a quarter of what China has.

 

[cirdan]

The system continues to rapidly expand, and perhaps the economic growth to support/justify the sheer size of the network remains to be seen, but I think it’s foolish to right it off entirely because it seems the country is accumulating debt.
.

I think there isn’t a country in the world that isn’t accumulating debt irresponsibly . Such is the appeal of spending other people‘s money . And this is indeed a problem that we often take too lightly . But at least China will have a fine and wonderful high speed rail system to show for it while other countries just borrow money to squander .

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

I think in this country with our spread out population density true high speed rail is only worthwhile in a few selected areas such as maybe Dallas/Fort Worth - Houston or LA - Las Vegas. Most areas would benefit more from higher frequency conventional rail between cities 200 - 500 miles apart as demonstrated by the successes of operations such as NC's Piedmont and Maine's Downeaster.

 

[cirdan]

I think in this country with our spread out population density true high speed rail is only worthwhile in a few selected areas such as maybe Dallas/Fort Worth - Houston or LA - Las Vegas. Most areas would benefit more from higher frequency conventional rail between cities 200 - 500 miles apart as demonstrated by the successes of operations such as NC's Piedmont and Maine's Downeaster.

The reason Dallas to Houston or Vegas to LA are so attractive that even private investors are willing to take the leap without any direct subsidies is that you have the interesting combination of a City pair with high connectivity potential and essentially empty space in between where you can acquire ROW relatively easily and at low cost . And furthermore there are no major natural obstacles in the way such as mountains needing to be tunneled at very high cost .

Anything outside of this perfect storm requires either subsidies and government support , or must actually be built by a government agency as the benefits are external and cannot be fully recovered through the farebox alone .

Yes it is true that the more projects you build the more you are faced by diminishing returns . But the same can be said of highways , airports and indeed many non transportation services provided by the government . Why must rail be held to higher standards than other government activities ?

 

[MARC Rider]

I think in this country with our spread out population density true high speed rail is only worthwhile in a few selected areas such as maybe Dallas/Fort Worth - Houston or LA - Las Vegas. Most areas would benefit more from higher frequency conventional rail between cities 200 - 500 miles apart as demonstrated by the successes of operations such as NC's Piedmont and Maine's Downeaster.

Uh, what about New York-Washington, New York -Boston, Washington-Richmond, Pittsburg-Cleveland-Chicago- Detroit, Chicago-St. Louis, Chicago Indianapolis, Memphis - Nashville- Louisville, Miami-Tampa-Orlando-Jacksonville, etc. None of these routes has true high-speed rail. The only true high-speed rail being built is in California, the more useful system is being built by the state, with all sorts of delays, and then a Las Vegas-Rancho Cucamonga line (with conventional commuter rail into Los Angeles) is being built by Brightline.

And this business about how the US is a "spread-out" population is bogus, at least for where most Americans live. The population density of the country east of the Mississippi River is pretty similar to that of Europe. Yeah, transcontinental high-speed rail across the western deserts might not be the world's best investment, but there's a lot of places in the US where it would be a good idea.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

Uh, what about New York-Washington, New York -Boston, Washington-Richmond, Pittsburg-Cleveland-Chicago- Detroit, Chicago-St. Louis, Chicago Indianapolis, Memphis - Nashville- Louisville, Miami-Tampa-Orlando-Jacksonville, etc. None of these routes has true high-speed rail. The only true high-speed rail being built is in California, the more useful system is being built by the state, with all sorts of delays, and then a Las Vegas-Rancho Cucamonga line (with conventional commuter rail into Los Angeles) is being built by Brightline.

I should have specified "outside of the NEC" which is a special case with European like population density and an existing pattern of high-ish speed rail travel. Also I intended the 2 examples I have as being representative and not an exhaustive list of all possible city pairs where HSR could be successful. Obviously LA - San Francisco is one.

And this business about how the US is a "spread-out" population is bogus, at least for where most Americans live. The population density of the country east of the Mississippi River is pretty similar to that of Europe. Yeah, transcontinental high-speed rail across the western deserts might not be the world's best investment, but there's a lot of places in the US where it would be a good idea.

Well maybe in the Northeast, the Southeast is pretty low density except for a few metro areas such as Atlanta. Also Florida with its several cities fairly close together plus the Disney complex a city in itself, which are now moving towards the kind of higher frequency conventional rail I was talking about. Perhaps someday a HSR upgrade might happen but expensive due to the need to grade separate the existing rights of way.

 

[NES28]

I think in this country with our spread out population density true high speed rail is only worthwhile in a few selected areas such as maybe Dallas/Fort Worth - Houston or LA - Las Vegas. Most areas would benefit more from higher frequency conventional rail between cities 200 - 500 miles apart as demonstrated by the successes of operations such as NC's Piedmont and Maine's Downeaster.

FRA-led Regional studies in SW, SE, & MW found that HSR could be expected to operate at a profit (i.e. but not pay off construction costs) in a fair number of corridors (including LA-Phoenix, the Chicago hub routes, Atlanta-Orlando, and Atlanta-Charlotte). Chicago-Orlando would probably qualify, given the number of significant cities enroute (although this was beyond the scope of the studies). Another one would be Portland-Seattle-Vancouver. Chicago-NYC might also qualify.

 

[jis]

FRA-led Regional studies in SW, SE, & MW found that HSR could be expected to operate at a profit (i.e. but not pay off construction costs) in a fair number of corridors (including LA-Phoenix, the Chicago hub routes, Atlanta-Orlando, and Atlanta-Charlotte). Chicago-Orlando would probably qualify, given the number of significant cities enroute (although this was beyond the scope of the studies). Another one would be Portland-Seattle-Vancouver. Chicago-NYC might also qualify.

If we could simply do Chicago - NYC in 12 hours that in itself would be terrific, and it is actually doable on existing RoWs if the owners would play along, and it won't cost anything like the HSR pipe dreams.

 

[Tlcooper93]

I think that in general, it’s hard to predict ridership in America given how much untapped potential there is with rail.

A HrSR company is succeeding and turning a profit earlier than expected in one of the most car centric and rail hostile states in the union.

What would that mean for places like the greater NE/MW or west coast if there was actually decent service.

If we could get NE regional level service (occasional HrSR and decent frequency/otp) in most major rail corridors across the country, it would change everything.

And in the strict NE, if we could get something close to half hourly HSR service, that would be nice too.

 

[Ziv]

Here is an intersting perspective on China's High Speed Rail project

"According to the OECD it costs 90% more to build tracks for trains going 217 mph than 155 mph."
Is that close to being true in the US? Nearly double the price for a 40% increase in speed?
I wonder what the price differential is between tracks rated for 155 mph vs. 79 mph?

 

[jis]

"According to the OECD it costs 90% more to build tracks for trains going 217 mph than 155 mph."
Is that close to being true in the US? Nearly double the price for a 40% increase in speed?
I wonder what the price differential is between tracks rated for 155 mph vs. 79 mph?

US should be in the same ballpark, although the base cost in US in general is higher than elsewhere, for myriads of reasons.

To give you an idea of how difficult it is to come up with a meaningful and well supported answer to your question, the document linked to below has the raw data on a number of "high speed" projects in many countries of the world, including China. It includes the information on the max speed and the cost per km. As you can see, the per km costs are all over the place and do not have a clear correlation with maximum speed either, and depends on way too many factors. But it does give a ballpark idea of how much things cost, even in China:

HSR Costs

And here is some neat analysis and visualization of the data, for what it is worth:

Analysis and Visualization

 

[George Harris]

"According to the OECD it costs 90% more to build tracks for trains going 217 mph than 155 mph."
Is that close to being true in the US? Nearly double the price for a 40% increase in speed?
I wonder what the price differential is between tracks rated for 155 mph vs. 79 mph?

NO!!!! Completely nonsensical illogical statement. Many variables.

In open flat terrain, the difference would be near zero. In urban areas, depends upon how you define 79 mph track. If no grade crossings for 79 mph, again very little difference in cost. In mountainous terrain, 79 mph could cost 2 to 3 time a ground following 30 to 40 mph track, and then the 220 mph could be anywhere from 20% more to 3 plus times as much as the 79 mph version, depending upon terrain. This can be mitigated, and in some cases overcome, by use of steeper grades. 3.5% is perfectly acceptable under high speed trains, and even steeper is acceptable operationally even though many people have trouble wrapping their minds around it. There are some alignment details that can surprise you, such as there is an entry and exit jerk in spirals which are of no significance at 79+/- become significant at higher speeds, which the Japanese resolve by using variable rate of change spirals. There are also aerodynamic issues that can affect clearances to lineside facilities and structures. Etc.

In many ways, track is track. For a comfortable high speed track, maintenance tolerances must be much tighter, and for ballasted track the maintenance costs will be higher, plus at high speeds the trains will pick up and throw the smaller rocks in the ballast. These issues can be reduced/eliminated by using a concrete based track support, which will be somewhat, but not necessarily significantly more costly. In fact, on bridges use of concrete base track will reduce structure cost. You cannot have a lighter duty lower cost track by limiting heavier axle loads, as even though the axle loads may be light, since impact is related to MV^2.

 

[NES28]

If we could simply do Chicago - NYC in 12 hours that in itself would be terrific, and it is actually doable on existing RoWs if the owners would play along, and it won't cost anything like the HSR pipe dreams.

We have lots of evidence that Class 1 freight rail owners will play along on reasonable terms and lots of evidence that they won't. Public ownership of ROWs is essential. Even Brightline West is being made possible by use of the I-15 median at a very modest cost.