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| Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification (918205) | |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 14:37:07 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Jersey Mike on Tue Mar 30 08:12:11 2010. FRA crash rules aren't just about freight trains, they deal with the issue of grade crossings and other right of way incursions. It is FAR cheaper to add protection to the vehicles than to add protection to every grade crossing and every switch and who knows what else.And EN15227 provides grade crossing protection equal or superior to the FRA's requirements. Controllable deformability is far better for mitigating the effects of a grade crossing impact than high buff loading. An FRA compatible railcar will rapidly overcome the point where the buff loading will be exceeded, and at that point the deformation becomes totally unpredictable. This is most graphically illustrated in the recent Metrolink crashes where the FRA compatible cars, which will be non-deformable up to 20mph, deform in totally unpredictable and dangerous ways upon striking anything above that speed. A light weight European style EMU derailed into a rock cut in Australia and killed 20 people when the car was ripped apart. And a heavy, FRA compatible BBD Bilevel car hit a jeep on a grade crossing, jumped the track, was ripped open, and killed 25 people. The injuries per passenger mile on the "light weight" European systems are FAR lower than our heavyweight trains provide. Shit happens when you move and it's going to be that much more severe at higher speeds. It is foolishness to think we can prevent the deformation of the railcar at usable passenger speeds. Unless you want to restrict yourself to a 30mph railroad you're going to face the prospect of railcar deformation in a crash. Crash energy management provides the capability for the trainset to controllably deform and absorb an impact and in so doing reduce the demands on the nondeformable passenger cabin, but as yet the FRA has been extremely slow to adopt those elements. The Caltrain route will never be good for 125mph or probably even 100 because of the massive number of grade crossings and "downtown" running. There are a few separated sections that could see higher speeds, but much of the line is just one giant suburban grade crossing. The NIMBIES will never allow HSR even if California had the money to pay for it. The length of the Caltrain corridor will be almost entirely grade separated and quadruple tracked. The funding as currently allocated will allow for the minimal property acquisition required to reach 4 tracks and for extensive grade crossing separation and elimination. |
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| (918631) | |
Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Tue Mar 30 14:56:59 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Jersey Mike on Tue Mar 30 09:00:51 2010. With strong rolling stock you don't have to grade separate the right of way for one, which provides a large cost savings.Except the main reason for eliminating grade crossings is to reduce traffic conflicts and to mitigate against the logistical problems of having a local area cokehead crash into one of your trains and cause heavy delays and cancellations. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Electrification |
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Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Mar 30 14:58:16 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Electrification, posted by timz2 on Tue Mar 30 14:32:31 2010. Supposedly Caltrain hopes all-stop locals will run San Jose-SF in 70 minutes, which would require EMUsWhat makes you say that push-pull electrics can't run at a 39-mph average speed . . . ? |
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| (918633) | |
Re: CALTRAIN Electrification |
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Posted by timz2 on Tue Mar 30 14:58:34 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 14:37:07 2010. "Caltrain corridor will be almost entirely grade separated and quadruple tracked. The funding as currently allocated will allow for the minimal property acquisition required to reach 4 tracks and for extensive grade crossing separation and elimination."Some people hope for four tracks total, including the two HSR tracks. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Mar 30 15:00:18 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by AEM-7AC #901 on Tue Mar 30 14:56:59 2010. The current crashworthiness specs aren't based on that. There were no grade crossings at Chase MD. |
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| (918637) | |
Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:07:40 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Jersey Mike on Tue Mar 30 08:39:06 2010. Why do you think NJT uses Push-pulls? EMU's have much higher costs associated with them because in addition to all of the propulsion kit they are all locomotives and required to be inspected as such. Every EMU that can be eliminated from a fleet saves money.But there are costs associated with operating a mixed fleet. The economies of scale which can be brought to bear on a unified fleet, as well as the savings present in purchasing truly off the shelf equipment on the world market should more than offset the marginally higher cost of operating an EMU fleet. I'm surprised LIRR and MNRR haven't bought single-mode DC electric locomotives to get rid of some of their own MU's on express runs. The current would be a killer. The only Caltrain runs that will benefit from EMU acceleration are the off-peak locals and there isn't a big capacity issue with them. So the off peak passengers do not deserve as rapid a trip as possible?The current local trip time from 4th and King to San Jose is about 91 minutes, yet the adoption of European EMUs would reduce that by 20 minutes. Second all trains should use 3-2 seating as anything less is a waste of space. That's simply not going to happen as NJT's experience with the Multilevels and SEPTA experience with DVARP and the Silverliner Vs shows. But assuming we were to do 3+2 on at least the lower level of these bilevel EMUs, then their capacity would be that much greater than the single level EMUs. That means greater savings in smaller station platforms to build and maintain, all for a marginal increase in cost. And since we're buying OTS EMUs without having to get into an expensive one-off design there'd be savings present there as well. Finally, Europe basically runs BART style rapid transit operation. In the United States we have these things called Railroads, which, although slower, are safer, cheaper, more fault tolerant, provide more spacious accommodations and come with a cup holder. That couldn't be more incorrect if you tried. BART's totally new, proprietary infrastructure is just about the antithesis of the RER and S-bahn system's principle of operation. Fine, outwardly their operation may appear somewhat similar, but at anything more than skin deep they're radically different. It's funny how you think that will actually be built, If it isn't going to be built then what is the point of having any faith in the future of mass transit or urban development? If we're going to restrict ourselves to 150mph max, 80mph average operation then we'll be limited to linking cities within 200 miles of each other. This means maybe we'll link Chicago to St Louis, LA to San Diego, Houston to Dallas at a cost equal to a 200mph line, but ultimately none of those HSR lines will achieve the same market share a faster line would provide. but I hope the FRA will get involved and require proper rolling stock. The FRA is already involved. They're the ones who signed off on the additional federal funding for the Transbay terminal project. If they're going to step in and totally destroy any chance of the CAHSR project ever being useful by limiting its top speed to 150mph then why give them the funding to pursue this non-compatible operation? Remember when your system can tolerate crashes everything else becomes cheaper. No it doesn't. You get to dig longer tunnels and cuts, and build longer bridges because your heavier rolling stock cannot deal with grades. You get to repair the track twice as often because the 150 ton beasts you insist on operating in contravention of worldwide best practices tear apart the rigid track structure. And all this is completely in vain because at 150mph it doesn't much matter if you have a beercan or a steel bar; it's going to bend and break when you smash into a bridge abutment. This "crash tolerance" is a complete myth at any speed above about 30mph, at which point deformation can and will take place, and in all FRA compatible railcars that deformation will be violent and unpredictable. The Germans tried to go the whole no-crash route with their ICE network, but they still had one and it killed 101 people. Sure, after the bridge fell on the train. Exactly how is your "crash tolerant" approach going to protect the passengers with a few thousand tons of steel raining down on the side of their railcar? In fact by not taking steps to avert crashes in the first place you're increasing the chances of a derailment and post-derailment injuries occurring. If an Acela were to strike a bridge the death toll would likely be higher than Eschede and would more than likely only be mitigated by the smaller number of people that overweight train carries relative to an ICE 1. But while we're on the subject, why no mention of the Shinkansen or the TGV? Where are their flaming crashes with hundreds dead? Surely by your logic their lightweight, "non crash tolerant" trains should be killing people left and right, but they've been going strong for the past 30 years without a major incident. And it's not like they haven't had their share of problems, what with the bombings, WWI trenches opening under the train, or in Japan's case earthquakes and typhoons. Yet these lightweight trains somehow have an even lower injury rate than our heavyweight trains carrying a tenth the number of passengers at less than half the speed. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:27:25 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Jersey Mike on Tue Mar 30 09:00:51 2010. Great, ERTMS, another boondoggle. Why do I get the feeling that North American rail projects are designed to relieve foreign equipment providers of their defective crap.Huh? The Chinese are using a derivative of ECTS on their Wuhan-Guangzhou PDL at 250mph and an average speed of 194mph. How is that a boondoggle? Or do you just want our rail system to remain uselessly slow so you can get picture of signals? To hell with the people who actually want to get from point A to point B, eh? Once again the whole point of the crash standards is to mitigate the effects of all crashes, the vast majority are not train to train. And once again, the technical memorandum accompanying the Caltrain waiver petition to the FRA is pretty clear. At anything above 20mph the effect of a grade crossing impact is identical regardless of whether the vehicle is compatible with 49CFR238 or EN15227. Below 20mph the European EMU will see deformation of crash energy management components but no intrusion into the operator's cab. Above 20mph there will be deformation of both FRA and UIC rolling stock, but in the case of the European railcars the deformation will be predictable and mitigated by the CEM. An American design is likely to buckle at a point behind the cab, as in the Bombardier Bilevels, or to cause the trailing car to jackknife. Now maybe current FRA regulations are too strict as they were basically lobbied for by Bombardier so that they could win the ACELA contract , but given the crash performance of European rolling stock in accidents vs American stock I'd pick American stock any day. I'd be happy to roll things back to what they were in the 1990's. That'd work, but it will not happen. Rolling back crashworthiness requirements would mean a whole host of virtually incompetent operators like Metra, Metrolink, and MN would get carte blanch to order structurally deficient railcars without also installing adequate train control and protection systems. It'd be nice if we could simply order ICE 1s, but unfortunately that day has passed and the FRA sent us down this path toward uselessly slow, heavy rolling stock. California is setting an excellent example to the rest of the US as to how we can deal with the onerous requirements without sacrificing passenger safety. With any luck we can adopt the Bay Area's solution to LA, Houston, Dallas, and other large cities which to this point have adopted light rail with only minimal investment in commuter rail. Heck, the Metra Electric and South Shore line would be ideal for conversion to European EMUs. The Dutch DD-IRMs provide performance vastly superior to the 1200 series EMUs with greater capacity on 1500vdc wire with 25kv compatibility. It'd be nice if BBD still offered them. |
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Re: Caltrain Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Tue Mar 30 15:32:51 2010, in response to Re: Caltrain Prepares for Electrification, posted by Olog-hai on Mon Mar 29 18:10:18 2010. Could that have been me??? Sorry, but you misconstrued my statements..."Someone on Subchat (forget whom) tried to claim that these cars would not venture east of Gary. This is evidence to the contrary . . ."What I said was that these cars were purchased for and would be assigned to the high capacity trains between Gary Metro and Millennium Station in downtown Chicago. There are five westbound trains between Gary and Chicago and six eastbound trains. Saying that the cars would be used for Gary-Chicago trains does not say that you would never see them east of Gary....The shops are in Michigan City so obviously the cars have to go east of Gary, doing that even on a daily basis. Lastly the bilevel cars have now developed auxilliary power troubles which has caused them to be restricted from rush hour trains until a remedy is found. Thus, they might be found on revenue trains that go east of Gary and not just deadheading to and from the shops. Hope this clears things for you. David Harrison |
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| (918646) | |
Check the Dates |
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Posted by BarnYard on Tue Mar 30 15:41:50 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:27:25 2010. Before debating the pros & cons of Electrification,has anyoneconsulted a calendar? The original article in Railway Age dated Monday March 29th states a decision will be made by Caltrans on Thursday.Thursday April 1st, as in April Fools Day. California's credit rating is about to tumble into the Pacific.As nice as electrification would be,I doubt strongly they could raise the money necessary. Don't believe everything the media tells you,although I believe this is harmless prank that may actually bring about some dialog for the future when/if finances pick up. Remember,the BarnYard called it here. |
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| (918647) | |
Re: CALTRAIN Electrification |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:45:00 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Electrification, posted by timz2 on Tue Mar 30 14:58:34 2010. Some people hope for four tracks total, including the two HSR tracks.I would hope so. I haven't seen any plan for the corridor which had anything less than 4 tracks from South San Francisco through San Jose. Some plans appear to advocate for a stacked arrangement, with two Caltrain/Freight tracks at grade level and the two high speed rail tracks above. But IMHO this is a dangerous arrangement which could ultimately result in an increase in crashes due to reduced sight distances caused by the elevated structure. I just really hope they keep Caltrain and the HSR compatible. It would be completely foolish to put the HSTs on the Caltrain ROW and then restrict the ability of Caltrain to operate express service between SJ and SF. 70 minute local trips between San Fran and San Jose are a great improvement, but is still 12 minutes slower than the Baby Bullets. The HSTs will undoubtedly help with the passengers going directly to San Jose, but no high speed train will stop at Mountain View, Sunnyvale, or Palo Alto. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Electrification |
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Posted by timz2 on Tue Mar 30 15:49:28 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Electrification, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Mar 30 14:58:16 2010. "What makes you say that push-pull electrics can't run at a 39-mph average speed . . . ?"Sounds easy, doesn't it? (Actual distance 4th St to San Jose is around 46.75 miles, so we'll make it 40 mph.) Present schedule with 20 stops is 91 minutes (that's leaving out Broadway and Atherton; dunno if Caltrain hopes to reinstate them someday). So, can an ALP46 save a minute between each station pair, compared to an F40? 30 seconds would be a reasonable hope. (Truth to tell, I haven't found anything to support my recollection that Caltrain hopes for 70 minutes. Personally ALP46s would suit me fine, but I never ride the line except for fun.) |
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Re: Check the Dates (was:Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification) |
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Posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:57:04 2010, in response to Check the Dates, posted by BarnYard on Tue Mar 30 15:41:50 2010. This has been seriously discussed by Caltrain for nearly the past 20 years. In 1992 they had Morrison Knudson do a study on the potential electrification of the corridor between San Francisco, San Jose, and Gilroy. It is no April fools joke.It is interesting that there is this insistence that California is broke. The money is there, backed by the largest economy of any state in the country. Just because at the moment the pre-teabaggers have succeeded in keeping the state from raising the revenue to adequately pay for the subsidies the teabaggers consume does not mean that problem will persist. In any event the state's portion of the project, the 10 billion dollar bond, has already passed and is just awaiting matching federal and private funds before it is disbursed. If California's credit rating were to go into the toilet tomorrow (which, for all the propaganda to the contrary, it won't) the CAHSR project would form the single best effort at economic recovery they could get. Across the state thousands of contractors could be involved in building a project receiving a large amount of federal funding and funds from bonds created before that hypothetical collapse. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by Jackson Park B Train on Tue Mar 30 16:21:25 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by Olog-hai on Tue Mar 30 15:00:18 2010. Actually the current regs resulted from Silver Spring (Georgetown Jct) 1996 not the Chase incident. As I and others have maintained for years, that WAS a signal issue which would not have ocurred with cab signals/ATS 1950s technology. NTSB and FRA at the time ordered heavier "tanks" rather than better signaling/train control. Once we shift to train control measures and increased grade separation the "tank" solution becomes obsolete.I should mention that the NIMBYs on the Peninsula are apoplectic. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by 9 local on Tue Mar 30 21:19:26 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:07:40 2010. Shinkansen has ONE derailment (due to an earthquake) and NO passenger fatalities and has been in operation for almost 50 YEARS. The TGV has no passenger fatalities on LGVs, with the only accidents coming from three minor derailments in which the carriages stayed upright. That system has been operating for almost 30 YEARS. |
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Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by Fytton on Wed Mar 31 04:28:08 2010, in response to Re: CALTRAIN Prepares for Electrification, posted by WillD on Tue Mar 30 15:07:40 2010. There are two kinds of safety - primary and secondary. Primary safety systems try to avoid crashes; secondary safety systems try to make things safer if crashes occur.Jersey Mike has very fixed views: secondary safety is all-important, the US way of achieving it is the only way, or anyway the best way, and therefore European-style trains are inherently unsafe. The evidence is that if you are on a scheduled passenger train in a civilised country - whether in North America, Europe, Japan or Australasia - you are in one of the safest places on Earth. If you wouldn't ride a train in those places because of saftey concerns, then you should never drive a car, or fly. In fact you'd better not ever go anywhere. All railway administrations in those countries take safety very seriously indeed, but they differ in their approach to the primary versus secondary safety question. |
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Re:Did Olog-hai Miss This Response? Caltrain Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Wed Mar 31 10:57:26 2010, in response to Re: Caltrain Prepares for Electrification, posted by Olog-hai on Mon Mar 29 18:10:18 2010. Could that have been me??? Sorry, but you misconstrued my statements..."Someone on Subchat (forget whom) tried to claim that these cars would not venture east of Gary. This is evidence to the contrary . . ."What I said was that these cars were purchased for and would be assigned to the high capacity trains between Gary Metro and Millennium Station in downtown Chicago. There are five westbound trains between Gary and Chicago and six eastbound trains. Saying that the cars would be used for Gary-Chicago trains does not say that you would never see them east of Gary....The shops are in Michigan City so obviously the cars have to go east of Gary, doing that even on a daily basis. Lastly the bilevel cars have now developed auxilliary power troubles which has caused them to be restricted from rush hour trains until a remedy is found. Thus, they might be found on revenue trains that go east of Gary and not just deadheading to and from the shops. Hope this clears things for you. David Harrison |
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Re:Did Olog-hai Miss This Response? Caltrain Prepares for Electrification |
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Posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Thu Apr 1 15:57:25 2010, in response to Re:Did Olog-hai Miss This Response? Caltrain Prepares for Electrification, posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Wed Mar 31 10:57:26 2010. He's replied to everything else. Maybe he just can't admit to being wrong. |
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