LA Time story $68-billion California bullet train project likely to overshoot budget and deadline targets The monumental task of building California's bullet train will require punching 36 miles of tunnels through the geologically complex mountains north of Los Angeles. Crews will have to cross the tectonic boundary that separates the North American and Pacific plates, boring through a jumble of fractured rock formations and a maze of earthquake faults, some of which are not mapped. It will be the most ambitious tunneling project in the nation's history. And then they talk to a bunch of tunneling experts and geologists about how wildly optimistic the estimates are. The bullet train will require about 20 miles of tunnels under the San Gabriel Mountains between Burbank and Palmdale, involving either a single tunnel of 13.8 miles or a series of shorter tunnels. As many as 16 additional miles of tunnels would stretch under the Tehachapi Mountains from Palmdale to Bakersfield. The state will probably opt for twin bores — one for each of two parallel tracks. That means as many as 72 miles of tunneling before 2022. Can it meet that schedule? "No way," said Leon Silver, a Caltech geologist and a leading expert on the San Gabriel Mountains. "The range is far more complex than anything those people know." Herbert Einstein, an MIT civil engineer and another of the nation's top tunneling experts, said, "I don't think it is possible." What California needs to do is build a twin pair of large canals, with locks where required, so people and goods can travel by ship between LA and San Francisco.
I lack the engineering chops, but I've never understood how you get a train from Los Angeles to the Central Valley. Those are some serious mountains, and the fact that the Amtrak route involves a bus should tell us something.
A while back we had a thread on this and a huge amount of the problem has been Republican sabotage. Filing endless lawsuits in an attempt to derail the project, constantly saying they oppose the project in public but demanding the route be changed to their districts, changing regulations then recharging them just to drive up costs as part of their "it will be too expensive" campaign. This is exactly like the Republican shit bagger wrt the ACA but worse as the state legislature has more influence. Still, voters have noticed and punished the shit out of Republicans for their burn the place down and make sure nothing ever gets done attitude. Since 2012 they have had much, much less influence in the state legislature and that is why they switched to endless legal harassment with frivolous lawsuits. The project is extremely popular so their whole strategy is to drive up costs, delay hoping public opinion changes, and then claim "See? The other guy can't get anything done!"
They are which is why they needed to change it to a tunnel. That was one of the few necissary changes. I still think it should just go up IN as that would be a more or less straight route between SF, LA, and SD (the three main metro areas serviced) but Republican districts are all east of I5 on the east side of the valley and they demanded everything go through there or they would block everything. This was retarded because it slowed down the whole point of the bullet train (fast service between major cities), don't contribute jack shit wrt ridership, and adds lots of twists and turns to a line that needs to be straight for max speed. Even worse they demanded stops in all of these small towns when HSR is not commuter rail and is only supposed to stop in major urban centers.
Horribly enough, it was Republicans who shoved the tectonic plates together to make building the tunnels as difficult as possible.
That is not a problem until you cross the San Andres fault. Are you really going to argue with a geologist who lives and works in California on a point about geology?
Are you going to argue with all the geologists who bore tunnels and study the route that says it's likely to be a huge problem? Even inactive fault lines are an issue.
Don't give 'em any ideas. This debacle is going to be north of $100 billion when all is said and done, and the trains will go fewer places and be much slower than promised.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Yes, faulting, most of it inactive, is a problem in uplifted mountain ranges such as found in the L.A. to central valley route but no, catagorically, your claim of problems due to plate boundaries is false as no plate boundaries are crossed. You are just wrong.
Actually the big problem is the train goes more places, with more stops, no of the economically interesting, and zig zags all over (in cling not less than 8 90 degree turns) to make Republicans happy that it goes to their worthless districts. The original, and far superior, route went up the I5 skipping the shit holes and going in a straight line between the major cities which will provide all of the passengers. The French evaluation team agreed the I5 was best but Republican cock sucker demanded it go through their remote shit holes. Summary execution is too good for them and a slow, painful death by fire is what is called for.
So the high speed rail line follows the Pacific Coast Highway? Note to the geologist living on the Pacific Plate who wants to ride a train through the North American Plate: Boundaries will be crossed. Republican put the plate boundary there so as to massively inconvenience liberals. We plan very, very far ahead.
Uh, it pretty much does follow I5. Here's the California High Speed Rail Authority's own map. It's not "zig-zagging;" it's taken a pretty direct route over flat land. The cost already far exceeds what was promised to the voters ($40 billion); it's now at $68 billion and climbing. Service to Sacramento and San Diego will not be included in Phase 1. The statutory requirement of a 2 hour 38 minute trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles is nowhere close to being met. Large sections of the line will not be high-speed, but will run on existing track. Ridership estimates are far lower than what was promised to voters. The cost of a ticket from SF to LA is currently estimated at $81 (voters promised $50). And subsidies will likely be required to keep this boondoggle going. And, yes, there's the little matter of boring tunnels through the San Gabriel mountains. That speaks for itself. The Democratic Party has all the statewide elective offices and a lock on the legislature; clearly, the California High Speed Rail boondoggle is all Republicans' fault...
There are seven 90 degree turns and lots of worthless stops so, yes, it is a zig zag. If it followed the I5, as voters originally approved, it would be a straight line. Fact.
are you geographically illiterate? The route of the PCH and the I5 are not remotely the same. There are whole mountain ranges in between.
Actually, I think there is something a lot more sinister in there. The first problem is the airlines. They are probably dumping shit tons of money in to stop such a thing. If california could show this works HSR would get a huge boost and the airlines, who have made every effort to fuck the customer, would have real competition both in california and across the nation. Then you have the trucking industry. HSR would be competition for them also. It would be a lot faster than their routes, pollute a lot less, not be such a hazard, and lower road traffic. There would still be local deliveries, but it would be much better to go on the train and you would not have to worry about the time. Then you would have trouble with the oil industry as you would lose traffic in the airlines, trucking, and diesel trains. That would lower purchases. Those are some big enemies to come up against. Of course, you are correct the republicans are already biased against it because they cannot stand an infrastructure project that would employ people and possibly strengthen an economy while hitting their doners hard. Such a project would run mainly on electricity so it would push development of bigger and more efficient power plants, and they do love their coal. That is not to mention the fact that they have a great way to track americans through the TSA and the train doesn't have TSA people all over the place because you cannot realistically hijack a plane and go wherever you want. In the case of a computerized HSR you probably would make it pointless to try considering you would probably have external control over the electricity and directions the magnets flow. I am pretty sure HSR cars are just boxes while the track does the propulsion work. Oh god would I love to see the airlines get a good pounding by the rail system. I hate the airlines with all of my heart. I actually do like flying, but the airlines have made flying one of the worst experiences ever. Not to mention the train people actually make people shut the fuck up in quiet times and places. Fuck you Chis Christie, amtrak doesn't have to take your bullshit.
Despite @gturner being a completely visionless fucktard, I would imagine that earth movement would be much more of a problem than for regular rail given the solid construction HSR needs. Still, I would think that given the design of HSR breaking is going to be far more efficient and faster. Also detection of rail damage would be much better. California is looking at a future massive earthquake, however, I am sure their engineers are well aware of that and will look towards mitigating any damage such an event would cause. Also, if done right the project could make it so that repair goods and evacuation would go much faster. Even if there are breaks you would still be able to fast track heavy supplies into the area on the undamaged area.
That would be the point. If you want to stay on the Pacific Plate to avoid all those fault lines, you'd better not go inland onto the North American plate. When you get into tunneling through the plate boundary, more than other inactive fault lines, any slight shift is going to compromise the tunnel to some extent. Concrete will crack. The rails will shift. One of the transfer cars I programmed in LA tried to drive out into the streets after the last LA quake, and it took the factory quite some time to replace the rails and straighten everything. A more than minor shift, say 6 inches or so, and you might see a year of downtime.
Romans used to carve straight through mountains for their aqueducts. I'd like to think we could do at least as well. Depends on how much money you want to spend, I guess.
Contradictory notions. Trains that go to many places are slow, trains that go to fewer places are fast. Stopping, starting, dwell, directional change, and decrepit infrastructure are the things that slow trains. HSR can fix all of those problems, but in California it's only going to fix the last, leaving the other three in the hands of politicians to ruin. If you ever get a chance to ride Acela on the east coast, you'll understand. In theory, that's a 160 mph platform, yet it still takes almost four hours to get from Boston to New York, and another three plus to reach DC. Acela faces all four problems, and with the exception of a brief spot between Boston and Providence, and another brief spot in New Jersey, it does not hit top speed.
Fuck me, sometimes the simplest solution is the best......MEXICANS! They can knock out a tunnel across the border over a three-day holiday weekend. 36 miles of rock would be no problem.
You do realize there are cargo trains, and could be cargo trains that are faster and safer than a truck?
1) Which subject do you teach? 2) Each state has different standards for both teachers and what is taught (common core tries to address this).
Extremely different. High speed trains used highly banked tracks on curves to maintain speed and avoid rocking passengers. Freight trains do not used highly banked curves as it would require far more elaborate binding and securing of cargo to avoid lateral shifting. Also, on average a freight train is roughly 10 times the mass of a passenger train which again influences the track layout and configuration. The American freight railway system (according to The Economist) is already consider the best in the world.
I have taught American History, World History, Civics American Government Contemporary American History Geography Economics Arkansas History English Literature Math Enrichment Arkansas has its state frameworks for all subjects based on the Common Core standards.
This is interesting when you consider you have discussed certain issues on there will us in the past and you've talked utter crap. World history, civics,economics and Geography come to mind. Also, if Arkansas does indeed have a state framework, why did you depart from it?
Yes, that would be the case if the engineers were as stupid as you. However, I am pretty sure they are much smarter than you are and will build the cars to compensate for different loads. You do realize they already do that inside trucks, right? With the invention of pod systems it would be pretty easy. Also considering that the breaking and acceleration systems would be more effective in each car rather than relying on friction to do most of the work.
I wouldn't recommend much mixing of freight and passenger lines. When I took Amtrak from Louisville to LA we got stuck behind a freight train whose crew hit their eight hour limit, so they hopped in a pickup truck and drove home - union rules. So we waited for a couple hours for a bus to pick us up and drive us in to Chicago because the freight train was only going to move out of our way in the fullness of time. Most rail freight doesn't need to move fast because if it needed to move quickly, it wouldn't be on a train where loading and unloading is going to take a long time as cars are shuffled in switching yards to get to their final destination in some warehouse district.
