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Re: Valley to Valley (Confidential and Proprietary?)
Author: Clem
Date: 05-19-2019 - 22:08
Some gems I found in the report:
1) What "Buy America" does to high-speed rolling stock prices:
>60% US content causes a 100% premium over straight up import (twice the price)
>80% US content causes a 160% premium
>95% US content causes a 220% premium, or over three times the price of import
Protectionism doesn't pay. There are better ways to invest these premiums elsewhere. We're good at a lot of things in this country, but building high-tech high-speed trains isn't one of them.
2) Sheer idiocy in the Pacheco tunnel design:
a) no plan for tunnel lining to withstand 1000 feet of ground water pressure
b) having a trough in your tunnel profile, where water will accumulate
c) having a peak in your tunnel profile, from which hot gasses from a fire won't be easily vented
d) keeping the profile at a 1.2% ruling gradient, when 3.5% is perfectly okay for high speed electric rolling stock and allows drastically shorter tunnels and viaducts by hugging the terrain profile more closely. This is worth BILLIONS.
3) They didn't check if there was room between San Jose and Gilroy on the UPRR Coast sub. The three track baseline configuration requires 70 feet of ROW, possibly more than is available.
4) Their el-cheapo plan to build passing station sidings for Caltrain to shove into while HSR steams past is ill-advised, and according to the consultant makes it "unlikely that the CHSRA trains will reach the required speed" without significant passing track upgrades.
It's almost like these clowns don't understand how high-speed rail is different from their paint-by-numbers engineering straight out of AREMA manuals.
1) What "Buy America" does to high-speed rolling stock prices:
>60% US content causes a 100% premium over straight up import (twice the price)
>80% US content causes a 160% premium
>95% US content causes a 220% premium, or over three times the price of import
Protectionism doesn't pay. There are better ways to invest these premiums elsewhere. We're good at a lot of things in this country, but building high-tech high-speed trains isn't one of them.
2) Sheer idiocy in the Pacheco tunnel design:
a) no plan for tunnel lining to withstand 1000 feet of ground water pressure
b) having a trough in your tunnel profile, where water will accumulate
c) having a peak in your tunnel profile, from which hot gasses from a fire won't be easily vented
d) keeping the profile at a 1.2% ruling gradient, when 3.5% is perfectly okay for high speed electric rolling stock and allows drastically shorter tunnels and viaducts by hugging the terrain profile more closely. This is worth BILLIONS.
3) They didn't check if there was room between San Jose and Gilroy on the UPRR Coast sub. The three track baseline configuration requires 70 feet of ROW, possibly more than is available.
4) Their el-cheapo plan to build passing station sidings for Caltrain to shove into while HSR steams past is ill-advised, and according to the consultant makes it "unlikely that the CHSRA trains will reach the required speed" without significant passing track upgrades.
It's almost like these clowns don't understand how high-speed rail is different from their paint-by-numbers engineering straight out of AREMA manuals.
