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| Re: PHOTOS: CALTRAN CALTRAIN IV (1145299) | |||
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Re: PHOTOS: CALTRAN CALTRAIN IV |
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Posted by WillD on Sun Mar 18 17:53:01 2012, in response to Re: PHOTOS: CALTRAN CALTRAIN IV, posted by Jersey Mike on Sun Mar 18 16:58:12 2012. It's called none of the above. Stick a fork in California, its done.It's also the largest single economy in the US, the ninth largest in the world if taken independently of the US. California's fiscal troubles are solely the responsibility of their foolish property tax laws which restrict revenue for schools and municipalities. Deferring needed infrastructure improvements into the future only ensures we pay that much more money. But hey, I guess whatever it takes to make sure you can play armchair engineer a few more years. They could also add more express service which also cuts half an hour off the running time. I have now been fucked twice by those hourly daytime headways. If they are going to spend money, spend it first on increasing the number of trains Great, so we're going to blow Caltrain's scarce operational funds running more trains without the operational savings electrification would provide. If you want to do away with Caltrain that's about the easiest way to accomplish that. Because it already exists to both SFO and Oakland and has been funded to San Jose. ... on the wrong side of the Bay. That does nothing to close the 54 mile gap between Millbrae and San Jose that will exist after BART is extended to San Jose. Using BART's Warm Springs extension's $164 million/mile extension that comes to $8.9 billion to extend BART from Millbrae to San Jose (without cars). By comparison Caltrain's latest electrification can be completed for $470 million for the infrastructure, plus around $300 million for the rolling stock. For less than a tenth the cost electrifying Caltrain allows them to maintain the existing local/express service (something BART would do away with) increase speeds, and prepare the corridor for the eventual connection to the high speed rail system. Anyway your little electrified grade separated pipe dream will cost just as much as BART so why bother maintaining two systems at that point. As was indicated above, there's an order of magnitude difference between the cost of extending BART and the outlay to electrify Caltrain. It's also worth noting that an electrified Caltrain will not necessarily be fully grade separated right off the bat. That program would be undertaken as required by traffic and the expansion of high speed rail on the corridor. The latest blended HSR/Caltrain plans even indicate that the HSTs could be operating on the corridor over grade crossings in the first few years of operation. Of course now that the FRA has confirmed the UIC EMUs Caltrain proposes to to purchase are functionally identical to the extant Caltrain rolling stock in a collision there is no real requirement to grade separate the line before HSR will utilize it. Anyway, BART learned its lesson with MUs that can only work in the leading or trailing position. Let's hope the Caltrain planners will learn from history and purchase vehicles that can be coupled and passed through mid-train so they don't have to run 6-8 car trainsets all day. Why? The problem with BART was that they clung to the US's foolish use of single and married pair cars. They would have been much better off ordering most of their cars in 4 car sets with a few pairs or singles to round out longer trains. Caltrain will likely receive four car, permanently coupled trains. |
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