There's a fifteen page paper sitting on my desktop. It's called: A New Roadmap for High-Speed Rail, dated April 18, 2011. It was written by Jason Kuehn for Oliver Wyman, Inc.
It's extremely interesting, although I don't agree with everything in it. I will reproduce key passages about California's high-speed rail project, but you should download and read the whole thing.
See: http://www.hsrupdates.com/commentary/details/--869 The whole PDF paper is attached. Courtesy of Progressive Railroading.
As I say, you don't have to believe or accept everything you read here -- I don't -- but it does provide some challenging insights otherwise not available.
To his credit, Jason Kuehn doesn't accept the route into the San Joaquin Valley (CV) selected by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. It's also important to say here that this blog doesn't approve of the routes suggested in his paper either.
We believe that full HSR -- the type that runs in France, like TGV -- is not necessary for connecting California's two population centers. Why is not upgrading current passenger rail a major step forward in providing alternative inter-city modalities at far more parsimonious cost effectiveness? If that's what Mr. Kuehn is recommending, then I agree with it. Mr. Kuehn's route is certainly more logical and rail appropriate, utilizing existing rail corridors from San Diego, all the way up through San Jose to Stockton and on to Sacramento.
That route implies that the San Francisco leg from San Jose is not a main trunk line, but the spur that it actually is. All of which goes to show you that the rail route from San Francisco into the Central Valley and back to Palmdale identified by the politicians sitting on the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board serves political, not railroad purposes. The more appropriate route from Los Angeles to San Diego, the second most heavily used transit corridor in the US, is the LOSSAN route also along the Coast.
Here's another way to look at this: The current thinking behind California's HSR is that it would take passengers away from air travel between the two major cities and put them on the train. Why would you not improve short-haul air travel; that is, fix all its current shortcomings about which we complain so much, rather than bring that business to a close? (Unless this is really about Industrial Warfare between two different transit providers!)
We all like to say that if we didn't have to suffer all the indignities and time-loss at the terminals, we would be far more disposed to flying. Regardless of how challenging, "fixing" what's wrong with short-haul flying is more readily and financially available for remediation that creating a brand-new, super-expensive railroad. At this time, about 8 million passengers per year take the trip between SF and LA.
Perhaps the same way that the privately-owned freight rail operators divested themselves of the passenger rail business, the major long-haul air carriers could divest themselves of the short-haul air business, which, in any case, ought to be operated with a totally different business model.
The government funding the creation of a new modality of transit at outrageous costs (HSR) in order to put an existing industry (short-haul air) out of business seems totally improper, if not outrageous.
The only reason this is all taking place is the discovery of the high-speed rail pot of gold for those, world-wide, in this and related rail industries and their acolytes.
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[Edit.]
The largest project, in California, is based on building a new dedicated passenger right-of-way, the first leg of which would connect Fresno and Bakersfield—two cities with a combined population of less than two million. It is not clear that private investors will step up to invest in this project, because the initial ridership may be too low to cover operating costs. The $40 billion in bond funding authorized by California voters for HSR restricts the use of the bond funds to projects that will not require a state operating subsidy. (page 2)
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Furthermore, as we have seen in California, political and environmental challenges can create significant delays, which must be resolved to attract private investment. The current program in California is now planned to initially connect Fresno and Bakersfield, which are at best tributary markets, with little chance of recovering their operating costs in the near-term. Can you imagine what the nearly $4 billion allocated to California would do in buying the UP’s Coast Line (see Appendix 1) and upgrading parts of it for high-speed service? The Coast Line connects the two largest metropolitan areas in California and would leverage California’s existing feeder network to San Diego, Sacramento, and the Central Valley. And both metropolitan areas have commuter rail networks to provide access on existing rights-of-way to city centers and to distribute riders throughout the greater metropolitan area. (page 11)
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Recovering a lost opportunity: Based on the amount of Federal money being thrown at California High Speed Rail, and because it serves the first and seventh (L.A. to San Francisco and L.A. to San Jose respectively) busiest short haul air corridors, the former SP Coastline is a “must have” for High Speed Rail. California’s key freight route traverses the San Joaquin Valley to the east. Both the Bay area and the L.A. Basin have extensive commuter networks and state supported Amtrak feeder services which would extend the reach of this High Speed corridor from Sacramento to San Diego. Ironically Southern Pacific offered to sell this corridor to the State
about 15 years ago. (page 11)
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Appendix 1: Freight Corridors That Could Potentially Be Acquired for HSR
California Coast Line: Recovering a Lost Opportunity
In the early 1990’s, the Southern Pacific Railroad was cash poor and had a lot of deferred investment needs. But it also had an extensive freight network in California (and other states).
The “Coast Line” between Los Angeles and San Jose hosts Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, but only supports a couple of freight trains per day. The heavy freight corridor in California traverses the Central Valley through Fresno and Bakersfield, making this line somewhat redundant in the SP network.
This route was offered to the State of California for around $350 million before the Southern Pacific was acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad. California didn’t buy the Coast Line corridor, but the Southern Pacific sold several other lines in the Los Angeles Basin to Metrolink for commuter service and to the Alameda Corridor for consolidation of all the freight railroads onto a single freight corridor serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The Coast Line is still only used by Amtrak and a handful of Union Pacific freight trains and might still be purchased, although probably now for a much higher price. This line links the two largest metropolitan areas in California and connects the two state-supported clusters of passenger services: the San Diegan lines (serving San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, and San Diego) and the Capital and San Joaquin corridors (connecting the Bay area with Sacramento and Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield). These services (along with Metrolink and Coaster service in Southern California, and Caltrain, ACE, and Bart in Northern California) could provide feeder service and urban access points for a Coast Line HSR route. One has to believe that most of the
ridership estimates for California HSR could be realized at a lower overall benefit/cost ratio using the Coast Line rather than building a dedicated line. (page 13)
