Silicon Valley speaks up for high speed train stops

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the environmental studies have been made available for public review by the California High Speed Rail Authority. Another influence, and one that is not entirely positive, will be political, not always the best influence on transportation decisions.

Pizarro: Get on board now, discuss California train route

By Sal Pizarro
Mercury News

Article Launched: 08/21/2007 01:38:47 AM PDT

 

California’s transportation experts are working to figure out a system of bullet trains to zip people from Southern California to the Bay Area in about two hours. And the main issue for this region is which route the trains will take when they arrive and leave.

An option through Pacheco Pass would stop in San Jose before heading north and is favored by many civic leaders in the South Bay and Peninsula. An alternative, favored by East Bay leaders, would go directly to Oakland and San Francisco, with a spur line taking riders to San Jose. There are arguments for both sides.

The environmental impact report on the two routes is now available to the public, and the California High Speed Rail Authority will hear comments on the report at meetings this month.

The lengthy reports (and more concise summaries) are available on the rail authority’s Web page (http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov). There will be a public meeting at the San Jose City Hall council chambers at 4 p.m. Friday. Another meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Aug. 29 at Gilroy City Hall.

Public comment will be considered in the board’s choice. So it would be a shame if Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers stayed on the sideline for this one.

Advertisement

Filed under: Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, Regional USA Passenger Rail

Even in Vietnam

Some of the proposed Vietnamese trains will run at well over 200 mph (300km per hour. The low end fast trains will operate at the speed of America’s fastest, the Acela. Thanhnem reports developments in southeast Asia.

 

In attracting investment, the railway modernization plan will also lay focus on building strategic routes including high-speed lines from Hanoi to HCMC; Lao Cai to Hanoi and Hai Phong; and upgrading the Lang Son province’s Dong Dang to Hanoi.

 

Tops on the list is the 1,630km Hanoi-HCM high-speed railway [including two new lines HCMC-Nha Trang and Hanoi-Vinh], designed for passenger train speeds of 300 – 350 km per hour.

 

The 1,630 km railroad will be built in six years period at an estimated cost of $33 billion, reducing travel time between the capital and the southern commercial hub to less than 10 hours from more than 30 hours now.

 

Seventy percent of its funding will come from the government, mainly from Japanese official development assistance, while the railways will raise the rest through loans.

 

As planned, the corporation will restructure its performance system, invest in production lines to assemble locomotives, build new rail cars, expand markets, diversify services, and produce international standard spare parts, materials and mechanical products.

The corporation wants to have the ability to export rail cars to regional countries by 2010.

VRC has mapped out investment projects to improve its infrastructure and modernize signaling systems, as well as build Hanoi-Vinh, and Saigon-Nha Trang twin railway routes.

 

Vietnam’s inland railway system now covers nearly 2,400 km in length with the Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi-Hai Phong, and Hanoi-Lao Cai being the main routes.

Filed under: International High Speed Rail

More from New Hampshire

There is an old adage which states, “success has a thousand fathers.” So let it be with the Downeaster, Amtrak’s fastest growing service, along the seemingly unlikely corridor of Boston and Portland, Maine.

New Hampshire recently created a rail authority to institue similar services and the Portsmouth Herald has been dragged into the 21st. century, if kicking and screaming. Heck, they do seem to understand that even highways cost something to build. Rail is the cheaper alternative.

There have been many false starts and no shortage of political and, yes, public indifference to reviving passenger railroad traffic in the state. From the perspective of naysayers and critics of public transportation in general, the costs associated with such a revival are prohibitive.

The estimated $80 million cost to create lines, rehabilitate infrastructure and bring the equipment necessary to make the service a reality won’t come easily, but the alternative cost of doing nothing is staggering — given how more highway construction only leads to more congestion, more pollution and faster highway degradation.

Of course, we need only look at the success of the Downeaster, the passenger train service that runs from Boston to Portland, Maine, through Exeter, Durham and Dover, as an example of enlightened policy and determination.

Observation: could the Atlanta to Athens market be compared to Boston and Portland?

Filed under: Regional USA Passenger Rail

Concerns about Sydney trains

The good folks of Sydney, Australia have shelled out $8 Billion for a high speed train system, and there have been questions about the consortium contracted to deliver the equipment. Since we are obliged to report the good with the bad, this story from the Sydney Morning-Herald falls somewhere in between.

If anything, the news tends toward the good since the outfit doing the work has hit some small snags, but is being held up by its’ booming rail division. Funny, isn’t it? Rail transportation is vibrant almost everywhere across the globe. The story bears reading, especially the part about some of the “carriages” being built by a Chinese outfit whose only experience so far is with equipment for places like Iran and Zimbabwe.

‘We’ll make new Sydney trains on time’

The engineering and infrastructure company involved in the joint venture to deliver Sydney’s $8 billion passenger train fleet system says the consortium will be able to deliver the new carriages on time.

Downer EDI, the company behind the troubled Millennium trains, stunned investors earlier this month when it issued its third profit warning in a year. The warning forced the resignation of its managing director, Stephen Gillies, and wiped more than $372 million from the company’s market value.

The events called into question the role of the private sector in solving NSW’s growing transport woes, coming seven months after the troubled Cross City Tunnel was placed in receivership and combined with repeated delays to the Tcard ticketing system from the supplier, ERG Group.

Downer chief financial officer Peter Reichler said today the company would deliver the trains “on time, in full”.

“We have a very good working relationship with the client Railcorp,” Mr Reichler said.

“We are about nine or 10 months into a 80-month contract.

“More importantly, all our major subcontractors and suppliers have back-to-back terms in their contracts.

“Over 100 engineers and designers are currently working on this project as we speak today.

“We will deliver these trains on time, in full.”

Analysts have said the write-down earlier this month raised concerns about Downer EDI’s ability to deliver, just eight months after the Premier, Morris Iemma, awarded a consortium led by the company a contract to build Sydney’s passenger rail carriages for the next 30 years.

There was consternation when the Herald later revealed that the Reliance Rail consortium will outsource the building of 626 carriages to Changchun Railway Vehicle Company, a Chinese company with little experience of supplying passenger trains to a developed country. Its carriages operate in Iran, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and North Korea.

Downer has a 49 per cent stake in the Reliance Rail consortium, which also includes Hitachi and ABN Amro, Babcock & Brown Public Partnerships and AMP Capital Investors.

Downer EDI today reported its full year results and a net profit of $101.5 million, which was in line with expectations.

Earlier this month, the company downgraded its profit forecast for the year to $101.5 million, from a previous forecast of $157 million to $160 million.

Despite the profit downgrade, Downer’s fiscal 2007 result was significantly better than last year loss of $24.93 million.

The improvement was partly underpinned by its rail division, which posted a 53.7 per cent jump in revenue and 29 per cent lift in earnings, thanks to the public private partnership with the NSW government.

Overall, the company posted a 15 per cent improvement in revenue to $5.36 billion, and underlying earnings growth of 22 per cent to $281 million.

At 12 noon, shares in Downer were up 35 cents to $5.52.

Filed under: International High Speed Rail

Sacramento Bee Editorial: For Northern California rail, the future is here

Recent plans released for transportation improvements in the San Francisco Bay area have begun to draw editorial response. This one, highlighted below, comes from the Sacramento Bee.

To serve Bay Area traffic demands, rail service planners foresee an urgent, immediate need to expand and improve the Sacramento Capitol Corridor’s passenger and freight rail service. Currently, passenger rail shares the tracks with freight trains, an arrangement that causes long delays for both and is likely to get much worse.

Freight traffic across the San Francisco region is expected to grow even faster than passenger, 350 percent over the next 50 years. The Capitol Corridor will carry a good portion of the increased freight.

With the corridor already approaching capacity, the draft report says two main tracks will have to be added to the existing two tracks to allow freight and passenger service to run essentially parallel operations.

The Capitol Corridor is only one slice of the Bay Area rail plan. The plan includes, among other things, more tracks and passenger service in the North and South Bay, more BART stations and a new BART tube under the San Francisco Bay.

The estimated price tag for the ambitious regional rail plan is $46 billion. If a statewide High Speed Rail Corridor is added, the cost would jump another $17 billion.

What portion of the rail plan is feasible and financing options will be debated in the months ahead. No doubt the draft plan will be modified substantially before it is adopted.

However, one thing is certain: The importance of rail in moving people and goods through the Bay Area and other parts of the state will grow. An investment will have to be made and made soon. No one should imagine otherwise.

Filed under: Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, United States High Speed Rail