The reason they went to the middle of nowhere is because A. there’s mountains where you want it to go and B. This train is also supposed to interconnect the underserved central valley that everybody in California has forgotten about.
@@Wkay04 That's not true! The French CHSR consortium offered to build any of the three+ alignments that were being discussed at the time. They developed plans for all three variations, not just the one you are talking about. Then the hwy 5 alignment was dropped altogether because it was more expensive and slower than the current hwy 99 alignment. Overall, the French bid was weak and had obvious flaws, so they were dropped out of contention pretty early. People keep cherry-picking just one of those three plans that this organization made and want to claim that it proves something. That is at the very least dishonest and probably actively malicious toward CHSR.
@@tonyburzio4107 I think the point is to connect the population spots to each other, especially those smaller cities between SF and LA are growing because people moved there to live while traveling to work in those two big cities, high speed rail will help a lot.
@@tonyburzio4107 Do you not think that maybe those are things that would be turned around by a good, fast, reliable connection to other cities? Or do you not understand anything about railways?
Agree. If things go well, it'll ease the housing crisis--allowing folks to live in a more affordable city (like Fresno) and work in the coastal cities. I like the chosen alignment. Just wish the initial stage connected to my city (San Diego) from the get go!
There are no mountains along most of i5, there are once you get to the grape vine where i5 and and 99 merge. They could have easily followed i5 and then broke off over to Bakersfield and then followed the current route the rest of the way.
Negative. Both I-5 and 99 (the chosen path) require tunneling. The coastal route, where the tracks were laid in the 1800s, is what avoids the mountain. (tracks were also laid in the 99 route in the 1800s, on a zig zag route that slowly gains elevation. Amazing engineering for the time but it's really slow. If were were to go down 99 we would dig a tunnel right through the mountain. But you have to do that with both 99 and I-5.) Reason they took 99 is political. They thought people in Trump Country were more likely to vote for it if money was spent in their area. But the people in that area are now very upset, because instead of going down a highway median like a normal person, they bought up all kinds of private property, blowing the project's budget.
@@mushieslushie "here are no mountains along most of i5, there are once you get to the grape vine where i5 and and 99 merge. They could have easily followed i5 and then broke off over to Bakersfield and then followed the current route the rest of the way." No no, if you're going to break off, you go west to go along the coast. Bakersfield still requires going through a mountain.
@@JuanWayTrips "If it already needs to divert into the Central Valley, then it makes sense to align it with the major cities there." It doesn't. You either stay on I-5 and tunnel at the grapevine, or you go west and merge with LOSSAN. (LOSSAN is basically NEC West. It goes along the California coast, avoiding the mountain range. Tons of trains run on that track every day already. Read that again. TRACKS ALREADY EXIST AND COULD BE USED FOR THIS.)
The line can't be straight because of mountains that would cost billions to dig through. We've seen how much people hate spending any money on transit so tunnels would be a crazy idea.
@@Wkay04 Nope, that is an anti-rail invention. "TGV" (not actually TGV) offered to build any of the routes under consideration, and dropped out because their bid was weak.
@@uwucaffeineaddiction4023 They are going to have to tunnel through at least two mountain ranges as is, southeast of San Jose and northwest of Los Angeles... The plan is to build the longest railroad tunnel in America southeast of San Jose, longer than the Cascade Tunnel and the Moffat Tunnel, and a number of shorter tunnels northwest of Los Angeles. These tunnels will be going through tough granite, not soft shale. Construction of any of the tunnels have not started as yet, these tunnels may take a decade to build... Did California put the cart before the horse?
The most direct line is along the coast. The jagged, rugged, mountain filled coast. I guess we'll never know why they chose the flat 450 mile long Central Valley.
I call bull shite. If they did build on the most direct route, they'd be tunneling through miles & miles & miles of tunnels. Therefore the cost if they went on the most direct line would be higher than the tallest peaks of Colorado, California, Washington & Alaska combined. Besides, in a Road Guy Rob video on buses, building just a straight piece of track could cost up to $100 million dollars per mile, plus put that 1 mile of track underground & it can cost up to $1 billion dollars. Plus, the east side access project at one point cost up to $1million dollars for just one foot. So, would you rather build through mountains or would you rather do flatlands?
@@Wkay04 Thats interstate 5, and its still in the Central Valley. Unless youre talking about 101, which, again, would need to go through mountains, canyons, rivers etc.
@@Wkay04 You keep posting this lie, but that doesn't make it any more true. "TGV" offered to build any alignment CHSR chose. They specifically didn't have an opinion on which alignment to choose and did very few studies on which of their three plans would be best. All of this is in contemporaneous public documents. You don't need to keep lying about it.
@@paul329 The interstate 5 alignment is barely appropriate for cars, let alone a train, and definitely not a fast train. All but a flat central section would be OK for HSR. That alignment dropped out of contention pretty early. It was never even considered seriously due to how much more expensive and slower it would be. This was all discussed at the time! You can look it all up yourself.
The Central Valley is in effect the fastest route between SF and LA. The line as the crow flies is all Mountains and a significant draw for the train is to help connect CA's fast growing communities in the Central Valley especially as families are priced out of the SF and LA urban zones. You fell into some of the same trap that RealLifeLore did a few weeks ago here.
Not the fastest route, it would be faster as the crow flies, but more expensive to tunnel through, rather than basic cut, cut and cover, at grade or elevated. Something they can't afford to entertain without a massive budget increase.
@@mrmaniac3 Actually, yes speeds in tunnels are in the 180mph range vs 220mph for the open sections for CHSR. You might lose all the speed advantage in tunnels making and entirely tunneled route slower than the hwy 99 route. And this is before you even consider that a tunnel route is likely over 10x more expensive than the current route.
I expected a more nuanced take from you on their route selection. It’s clear that the route isn’t a straight line, but it’s equally obvious that you didn’t try to understand the history, politics and geography that influenced why this route was selected. I suggest watching Alan Fisher’s video on CAHSR, for not being from California, I’m very impressed that he spent the time to understand how demographics, geography, history, and politics led us to today.
Seriously, it's amazing that all these people like RealLifeLore and now WorldwideRailfan put in almost no effort to understanding the geography, goals, people, and culture of California when taking these pot shots at CAHSR. As evidenced (and I know it's a small thing, but it's indicative) by the very bad mispronunciation of cities (RealLifeLore with Merced and WordwideRailFan with Tulare). And some of the answers aren't exactly difficult. It's not like you look at Europe and all the high speed rail lines take exactly straight lines from London to Paris to Berlin to whatever the biggest capital cities are. They also take slighly meandering paths to take up as many towns as possible while not deviating too much from the overall path and taking geographically advantageous routes. Of course they would! it helps connect the entire country and continent. It's not *just* about connecting the very biggest 3 or 4 cities. On top of that, it encourages growth and development along these already-populated (and to be clear, they *are* populated) routes.
@@amvin234 Unfortunately, a lot of rail fans in the US tend to be politically Conservative for some reason. As all Cons, they are brainwashed to hate anything remotely related to California. The merits of the project aren't even related to this. Just look at how they swoon over Brightline because is it ostensibly a "private" company, even though they are heavily subsidized by the state of Florida. It's just a politics thing not objective criticism of the project.
You're going to get flamed for that comment about the alignment. There are mountains all the way up the California coast. Building it that way would have cost considerably more in addition to serving far fewer people.
The Central Valley is not 'nowhere'. It's home to the 5th and 9th largest cities in California (Fresno and Bakersfield) as well as around six million people. When the CA High Speed Rail Authority received federal funding from the Obama Administration, it had to be spent in the Central Valley which is economically behind the Bay Area and LA Basin. The high speed rail project is intended to boost the economy of the Central Valley both during its construction and operation, and better connect it to SF and LA. A one hour train ride from affordable housing in Fresno to jobs in San Jose, instead of a three hour drive, is a serious gamechanger. Same with Bakersfield to LA via Palmdale, bringing those cities closer to LA and allowing people with LA-area jobs to live in more affordable housing there with a fast, convenient train ride instead of dealing with LA traffic. Part of what makes the Tokaido Shinkansen so effective isn't its sheer speed, but its ability to move large amounts of people quickly and efficiently, connecting the population centers and bringing them closer together. That's what California's high speed rail project needs to strive for. It'll link six of California's ten largest cities, bringing them closer than ever before, and providing a much needed alternative to driving and flying. High speed rail, true high speed rail, is a new concept in the US that has been embraced by much of the developed world for decades. California is brave enough to be the first to finally bring high speed rail here, and it for sure hasn't been easy, but that doesn't make it not worth doing. Imagine if we'd had that mindset with the Interstate highways and as a result they never got built. California needs to double down on its high speed rail project and get the initial Merced-Bakersfield route operating ASAP, and once people experience high speed rail here there will be a greater push to reach SF and LA ASAP as well.
Being European, I'm all for high-speed trains, the faster, the longer, the more densely meshed, the more efficient : the better. But I'm really wondering if opening the Bakersfield Merced well before the rest is even built won't have adverse effects on the perception people have of the project. As it will frankly be quite disappointing, even frustrating to experience such a partially completed project while knowing the exorbitant cost it had and will continue to have to finish. Aren't you worried that this partial line might be left discontinued due to lower than expected satisfaction ? In Europe, France and Spain for example, they always open first line trunks that achieve a very perceivable travel time saving. So that the public immediately sees a massive difference and validates future expansions. They never start by building the middle of the route but usually from the most populous end of the future line and at least up to a significant destination or its bypass. Like the Paris Bordeaux line which first trunk (Paris Tours) opened in 1990, reducing travel time from Paris to Bordeaux down to 3h and a few. Then in the 2010's they opened the Tours Bordeaux trunk (with bypass) to reduce Paris Bordeaux travel time to 2 hours. Just like they did with the original line of both countries (Paris Lyon in 1981 and Madrid Sevilla in 1992). Also, the San Francisco Gilroy stretch seems awfully long to be running on conventional low-speed lines. Couldn't have they built secluded tracks ? Trench tracks ? Fully underground ? Or elevated ? They spend huge money on odd decisions but they'll let the trains crawl for dozens of miles near SFO ? The other thing that stunned me (in a similarly bad way) is that the line runs through each city each supposed to serve... Why haven't they used the French and Spanish model of high-speed lines with city bypasses and branches everywhere ? It's gonna be a nightmare of NIMBY behavior and noise complaints situations... In France and Spain, all lines have bypasses and all lines can be run from one end to the other without crossing any city center. There's only one exception that I know of on the Madrid Barcelona line if I recall correctly but the line uses a soundproofed high-speed tunnel to cross the town. In France and Spain, to serve cities in the vicinity of the line they either use "on-line" out-of-town stations (with a minimum of 4 tracks, the 2 inner ones being for full speed through traffic) or "off-line" city center stations connected by branches (that can either be regular tracks, higher speed / upgraded tracks or high-speed). Some destinations have both city center "off-line' and out-of-town "on-line" stations. Why would CAHSR choose to cross every city on the line ? This is absurd and ultimately ends up costing more for a lesser service. The only place it can be justified (and that's debatable) is in space constrained / densely populated areas like Japan or Northwestern Germany... California's topography and population density is much closer to Spain and France than to Germany or Japan. I'm afraid they'll have to slow down trains for every urban crossing on the route between LA and SFO due to noise complaints or they'll have to spend some extra billions trying to dampen the sound on the urban stretches of the line. Some of the choices they made seem really odd and counterproductive. Between the bizarre choice of first phase and the absence of city bypass, I'll only be reassured once it'll be finished. Until then, I'll doubt of ever seeing it finished and operating as planned.
@@KyrilPG Maybe you haven’t looks through the CAHSR specifications. But the signed and agreed upon noise level is: “pass-by noise levels (82 feet (25 m) from track) not to exceed 88 dB at 155 mph (249 km/h) and 96 dB at 220 mph (350 km/h).” The problem for the NIMBYs is that they can’t sue them unless the noises exceed this level. California was smart and put this on the ballot so people knew what they were getting into when they signed it. The rail manufacturing companies (Alstom, CCRC, Siemens, etc) have to have a train that can’t hold up those standards. If they don’t, they’ll loose the contract. There are already trains that meet this specification. Even the 30-year-old TGV Atlantique meets the specification. As for the initial segment being open. Maybe this is just an United States thing, but when things get built through the most densely populated (more wealthy) areas first, they never reach the less populated (less wealthy, underserved) areas. This choice has to do a lot with political equity, and less with “build train now!” mentality. Travel times are still being cut down; albeit, in the Central Valley. If the rail project gets more funding, it’ll be able to start the Merced to SF section. Hopefully that funding will come before the Central Valley section is fully up and running is 2031 (which I bet it will when the trains are delivered and testing in 2025). After all a “New Rail Speed Record” on the continent isn’t anything to scoff at. The amount of good publicity that’ll bring to the project is amazing.
@@KyrilPG the current Amtrak San Joaquin service between Bakersfield and Oakland had over 1 million riders in 2019. The interim high speed rail service between Merced and Bakersfield will be operated by SJJPA (who operates the San Joaquins) and essentially an extension of the San Joaquins, connecting with them and ACE in Merced and buses to LA in Bakersfield. My guess is the ticket prices will be similar to the current service, and those who currently ride the San Joaquins will ride high speed rail as well as those who may not have tried the service before and want to experience high speed rail. High speed rail will form the backbone of a statewide transit system from Day 1.
The concept is there, but remember the population - you CANNOT uproot populations just to put a train in - NEVER GONNA HAPPEN - NOT ENOUGH MONEY IN THE WORLD CAN PAY FOR THIS fiasco
@@cruzn4ever169 so what would your suggestion be for our 21st century transportation needs for traveling between Northern and Southern California? More driving and flying? Our state’s population is expected to grow to 50 million people by 2050. That’s more cars on the freeways and more crowded airports. Continuing to expand those to meet demand is a finite and short term solution. We need a long term solution, and the world has proved for decades that it’s high speed rail. That’s why California voters approved Prop 1A in the first place, cause they knew we need a third alternative. We still do, and it’s being built now. The money is there if we’re willing to invest it and keep building. We have to. We can’t continue to rely on the personal car and flying for our transportation needs while the rest of the developed world leaves us behind. The US used to have some of the best transit networks in the world, and it’s long overdue that we begin shifting back toward that. High speed rail will connect cities as well as those transit networks together, in California eventually creating a statewide transit system that’ll rival the best in Europe and Asia. High speed rail will form the backbone of that system. This is being built not just for today, but for tomorrow, a future that doesn’t rely on the car. People will obviously continue to drive, just as they do throughout the world in places with great public transit including high speed rail, but it’ll be solely by choice, not by necessity.
A lot of people seem to love to bash CHSR (especially the blasted media) just for how problematic some of it's construction has been going. But, I believe if we continue supporting the project & fund it all now rather than later, this whole thing can be built and the economic & environmental impacts will far outweigh all that negativity.
You do know that HSR trains going 200+mph don't have a lesser carbon footprint per passenger as the airlines carbon footprint per passenger. Slow trains going 80 mph do, but not HSR trains going 200+mph... HSR trains consume much more energy, 90 percent more, than slower legendary trains...
@@ronclark9724 Not everything is about making things green. Also, there is no technology that is truly "sustainable," as most technologies require some sort of mining.
California HSR will NEVER make money. Once running, it'd be at least a US$ 9-figure drain on the California general fund annually. It's ALREADY 3 TIMES over original budget and more than a decade behind schedule. The best thing the Biden administration could do for California and the US as a whole is to cease all federal government funding of this extraordinarily poorly conceived white elephant. The sooner it's killed, the better. There are far more sensible routes for HSR from Denver east. West of Denver, topography makes HSR untenable.
@@harlangrove3475 It’s job isn’t to make money it’s job is to make the economy better, connect people, lower travel times, all while lowering emissions because of the air route of Los Angeles to San Francisco and all the cars that drive on the route. It will succeed because people ultimately want it to. And you my friend sound like you’re out of state
the track specs at the stations are 4 lanes. They will be accommodating express traffic and local according to the California HSR project videos I seen.
Because a direct route to SF and LA would miss the goal. The goal of California is connect 8 of its 10 largest cities to high speed rail in phase 1. SF and LA are already built out so California is betting big on a CenCal city like Fresno to become the 3rd great mega region behind the current 2.
Unless you're classifying San Diego as just part of Greater Los Angeles, it's already a substantial #3, metro area population more than 3 times that of metro Fresno. ZERO chance Fresno (or Sacramento, with metro population more than double that of Fresno) grows larger. More pedantic, San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties together have about 2 million people. Santa Clara and Satna Cruz counties have about 2.3 million. But the bulk of the Bay Area population is in Solano, Contra Costa and Alameda counties with over 3.2 million. That doesn't even include Sonoma and Napa counties in the North Bay or the western portions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties which have hundreds of thousands of commuters into the Bay Area proper. My point is that within their respective city limits, Fresno could surpass San Francisco, and it just wouldn't matter. It'd take a REALLY BIG EARTHQUAKE to make Greater Fresno rise above California's #5 metro area in population, and that requires treating the entire 9-county Bay Area and Ventura, southern Los Angeles, western San Bernardino and Riverside, and Orange counties respectively single metro areas.
@@harlangrove3475 well that greater LA area does technically extend to Riverside and San Bernardino. So yes all those cities are considered the LA area. I would include San Diego in as well for purposes of transit as San Diego is connected to LA by city besides a 10 mile stretch of beach. The bay area is all considered 1 metro as well, so after that Sac and Fresno are the 3rd or 4th metro areas depending if you count SD separately.
There is more than A end to B end train services. The midway stations are in the central valley because Land is Cheap there compared to LA and SF regions. Having the central valley opened up as a 'commuter belt' zone will give LA and SF - overflow capacity for people to have affordable housing within commutable distances of one or the other or both or three when Sacramento route opens. It is about Urban Development. Trains in Europe and China etc are not built for A to B but for A to B to C to D to E to F to G etc... Even if the cost of tickets never cover the cost of CapEx - Op Costs... these trains will regenerate desolate areas/regions and create new in others with nada. People in LA spend hours just to drive a few miles - home to work. These trains can carry passengers hundreds of miles home to work in less time than the few miles of the LA Stationary CAR park called the Freeways.
This. Plus, running high speed trains through the continuously hilly/mountainous coastal regions (as proposed in the video) would've posed way more environmental/engineering problems, without the benefit of connecting all those commuter cities. Perhaps in the far future, there could be an express line that runs more directly, but for now the proposed route makes the most sense.
@@米空軍パイロット Yep, you still end up in the Valley vs running a dozen miles to the west but in crazy intense mountains! Even the hwy 5 alignment is still too hilly for HSR. You'd still have to go farther to the east from the 5 to make it work financially.
@@KRYMauL That would be like taking money out of one pocket and moving it into your other pocket. Same costs but paid from a different. Californians in general are rabidly anti development. I don’t think that this scheme would have gone over well. Most Californians would rather pay for the construction outright than grant special land use rights like Brightline got.
2:31 that's because the west coast is FULL of mountains & it's even more expensive to build your whole HSR line through mountains. Also, the central valley is a major farming area & has a lot of people living below the poverty line so they probably can't afford to use a car to go places.
California and Chile have a similar geography, and we have built our main highways and railways through our Central Valley as well, this is mainly because a coastal route would need to be really curvy or straight through tunnels
I've taken Amtrak between LA and Oakland/SF a couple times. I recommend you look at the schedule for the Coast Starlight which winds its way through the mountains along the California central coast vs the schedule for the San Joaquin which takes the longer route through the central valley with a bus connection from Bakersfield to LA. Guess which one is faster, by like a lot? The San Joaquin.
There were improvements to the coast line that would have cut the time planned and nearly funded in 1994 that would have cut travel times to around 8-9 hours. The bond measure to do that and other projects failed badly. With additional funding needed to drop it to ~6 hours.
The CAHSR cant operate a more direct route because that route was not approved by voters in 2008. The CAHSRA is constitutionally bound to build what voters were promised with that ballot so they couldn’t choose that route even if it was feasible. There are also about 8 million people in the Central Valley, so its not really “the middle of nowhere.” Its huge ridership potential. The Central Valley is often ignored in California and could use the economic potential given the local poverty rates there. The coast is also much more mountainous so it would only drive up the overall budget while not offering a huge speed benefit and also creating a huge passenger deficit
@@losh330 At the very least they should be using this opportunity to make TOD within 15 minutes of the line. Also, isn't the NE corridor getting upgraded for trains up to 120 mph.
@12:10 "why not the direct route"? Look at a map. There's a reason the Central Valley is called "valley": it has mountains on both sides. Also, the cities along the line have almost 3 million inhabitants in their respective metro areas. HSR, and rail in general, must be implemented with the word "network" in mind. Separate lines rarely ever make sense - it's mostly the synergies with other modes of transport, on a regional and local level, that make HSR successful.
If they had built the railway straight to SF from LA without going to the central valley, it would have been even more expensive given the numerous mountains through which they would have had to tunnel, and the lawsuits that would have come from those who live on the coasts.
Also, the rail alignment along the coast from San Diego to LA isn't the best place for a long-term rail alignment. Coastal erosion and general disruption from waves is starting to be a problem, though that is a preventable and fixable problem.
@@TheRailwayDrone What do you mean? The Surf Line is operated by several railroads, both passenger and freight. And the company to blame for its construction never saw the light of the 20th Century. It's currently co-owned by two regional rail authorities, and Amtrak is required and expected to run passenger rail service along the line. I don't see how they are to blame for accelerating coastal erosion due to sea level rises. A realignment would be ideal, some ways inland, perhaps along the highway alignment, or further inland. But that's outside of Amtrak's purview as a non-owning operator. Maybe they can have some say in the decision, but it's up to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority and San Diego Northern Railway to go ahead with it.
I remember being 4 years old and during a free week of the Disney channel (because back then you had to pay for it, and my parents certainly didn’t) seeing an episode of a Winnie the Pooh series, where Piglet asks Owl for the *shortest* way to where he’s going, only to find it’s an arduous route and takes him forever. When he complains to Owl, Owl says you should have asked for the fastest route or the easiest one. Don’t be Piglet about this.
The "middle of nowhere" as you put it has a population almost of the entire state you live in. Sacramento metro, Fresno Metro, and Bakersfield metro alone has almost 4 million people. Fresno and Sacramento are the 5th and 6th largest cities in California after San Francisco. Not to mention Stockton with over 300k, Modesto with over 200K Merced is pushing 100K, the Visalia Hanford area is pushing almost 200K. I love how all you folks on the east coast act like San Francisco and Los Angeles are the only two places in California . Also the reason they did not run it down the coast is the cost of land not to mention the terrain.
I would like to mention that the Central Valley had been a major focus of CAHSR to begin with, since it has historically had poor air quality and people who live in Central Valley cities do commute to SF and LA. One of the major holes in Amtrak California's network is a lack of a line through the Tehachapi Pass to connect Bakersfield to LA, since the Tehachapi Loop is closed to passenger trains and at capacity.
How many people commute from Kern county to the Los Angeles basin? As for people in Stanislaus and Merced counties, they already have ACE trains, and people in San Joaquin county have BART after driving to Antioch. OTOH, a better train line that the Capitol Corridor could make sense for Sacramento to Oakland. There are damn few who commute from Fresno anywhere else, and between Merced and Bakersfield there's really only Fresno.
@@harlangrove3475 A lot of people commute from places in the Central Valley to Silicon Valley for work. Their number has been steadily growing proportional to housing prices in the Bay. But now with partial or full work from home this category is exploding. This is an extremely viable lifestyle if you only have to drive to the office once-twice a week, or once a month, or once a quarter (yes, that's also a thing) for all hands meetings and socials.
It seems everyone from the state of California is telling you the same thing. Mountains and the population of Central Valley are why they didn’t just go the straightest route.
It's wild that well into the second decade of the project, so many people continue to get the route conversation so wrong. First, surely this isn't actually an argument that the route should've been a literal straight line, right? To not understand that is beyond parody. But even giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that what was really meant was that it should follow the I-5 alignment, the experience thus far should make it abundantly clear why that would've been a bad idea. For all the faults of the current construction packages and the eventual IOS plan, the only thing that would've been worse would be for all that money and infrastructure to not actually connect to anything at all and building on I-5 would've delivered on that in spades because it literally would be useless until finished at least into the Bay Area and LA Basin. Given that the price tag is ballooning for factors mostly not exclusive to the chosen alignment, the same would've happened on an I-5 alignment except 30 miles from an existing rail line and cities bigger than Los Banos and I don't see any reality where the same funding sources that can't fill the existing funding gap would somehow open up to fill a delta orders of magnitude larger before being usable.
It because these people aren't from California and can't bother to look at a map. They just incorrectly restate incorrect information they saw in other videos.
@@mushieslushie It's interesting how an entire misinformation "folklore" has developed to trash CAHSR. There's a bunch of this misinformation that opponents keep throwing into conversations but there are no original sources and none of them remember who started the rumors. For example, they almost always say that the current route will take over 4 hours. But no one has ever been able to prove that or show an analysis showing this result. Everyone who did an analysis on the current route says that it takes about 2h38mins, just under the 2h40min legal requirement. Same thing with the cost estimates. They all say that the original cost was supposed to be $33 billion. But the actual cost that was publicized in 2008 (when the bond measure was approved) is $44 billion. Where the $33 billion estimate even comes from is a mystery. Although, I think they are getting estimate that from an earlier failed HSR project from the 90s. There's a bunch of this stuff that the opponents keep repeating that doesn't have a source. But it's so prevalent that no one remembers who told the lie first.
I like how everyone is pointing out the reason for the route. Overall, I thought it was a good video, but wow did the creator completely miss an obvious one there 😅
He has a perpetual blind spot on anything related to California and CAHSR. And he’s not alone on this either. Not sure why so many foamers are so anti-California, but it certainly isn’t a rare thing at all. Somehow, the extremely nerdy and facts-and-figures rail community is completely OK reciting outright misinformation from plainly questionable sources when it comes to this project. It’s a little disturbing, I have to say.
Just look at a map of where CA's mountains are. Hills and mountains are always the biggest problems for rail and it should be obvious this is what caused the route to be what it is. I agree that starting by running 4 trains between 2 places that are unfamiliar even to those who live there is a bad way to sell the project and it would have been better to begin in LA, also making it harder to cancel or scale back once significant work had been done but I expect there's a reason for that too.
In reality Fresno and Bakersfield both have ~1 million people metro areas. They are not small cities at all. Just those two and the smaller cities in between could support an HSR route on their own without a connection to the larger coastal metros. It would be incredibly silly to build CHSR but _not_ to connect it to the SF and LA areas, sure. But financially it such a system could function on its own.
@@TohaBgood2 None of the Central Valley cities metros are large enough to support HSR trains every hour like San Francisco or Los Angeles. If you are going to build very expensive HSR you might as well as use it as often as possible... Not once or twice a day, every hour!
@@ronclark9724 That's not true! Fresno and Bakersfield both have metros of about 1 million people. That's plenty for one single HSR line! Sure, the LA and Bay Areas are monstrous. But you don't need megaregions to support HSR. If this were true most current HSR routes wouldn't exist. It's just a train, not teleportation equipment! And while Fresno and Bakersfield are certainly large enough metros on their own to support just one line of HSR, this is a moot point. Because there will be a transfer in Merced to ACE and the San Joaquins. Even just the San Joaquins, with it's one million passengers is large enough for an HSR speed upgrade! This isn't rocket surgery. The demand is clearly there.
@@ronclark9724 Given how I live in Germany which isn't known to have that big cities, your counterargument is completely bogus in my eyes. For example, here in Germany, only four cities surpass a population of at least one million (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, the next biggest city, Frankfurt, "only" has 760k resients) and connections to even more or less smaller cities are still made. For example, Würzburg "only" has got 127k residents and is around 100km away from both, Frankfurt and Nuremberg but isn't just part of the German HSR network but also the end an HSR line (the Hannover-Wützburg line). Fresno (545k) and Bakersfield (408k) are more populated than that, being more closely populated to the other end of the line, Hanover (536k), and at a shorter distance to boot (167km compared to the 287km of the latter).
Take a look at the geography of coastal California. Crossing through 300 miles of mountains would be incredibly expensive involving many more tunnels to maintain a high speed geometry (as your suggested routing showed) and I-5 literally skips every city and hamlet in Central California. Also, a rail line that only served Los Angeles and San Francisco was totally unviable politically. 4 million people live in the San Joaquin Valley. That is a significant underserved market that made total sense to serve. Any high speed route in the world has intermediate stations to serve intermediate trips. Tokyo - Osaka doesn't just serve Tokyo and Osaka. The Boston-DC corridor serves other major cities in between. Express routes serve more direct options. That's how transit corridors work. As it is, routing I-5 along the unpopulated west side of the San Joaquin Valley did not contribute to the economies of the Central Valley cities like it does everywhere else. That slight is still felt in the Central Valley. If the HSR system wanted statewide support to pay for it, then the Central Valley is required. As it is, these Central Valley cities have become bedroom communities for the Bay Area and Los Angeles so, these communities are now a part of the long distance commuter shed that is integral for the Bay Area and Southern California. This is why the Altamont line is already extending ever further into the Central Valley but commute times are still very high w traditional rail. HSR will likely allow many people in the Bay Area and LA to move to more affordable cities and still work the SF or LA. The Central Valley cities are the most affordable yet economically depressed area of California and the HSR system will very likely stimulate much needed growth for the state by invigorating these important Central Valley cities (Fresno is CA's 5th largest city). Housing prices are astronomical and this would help mitigate that. The San Joaquins Amtrak route (Bakersfield to Oakland/ Sacramento) is the 6th busiest route in the US (just behind the 5th busiest Sacramento-Oakland line). Fresno and Bakersfield each have a metro area population of 1 million. About 90,000 people commute from the Northern San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area and 50,000 from Sacramento. The one routing problem I do see is the Pacheco Pass route. This southerly route makes getting to the Bay Area from Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto, a circuitous route. Sacramento to Oakland right now by rail is 90 min. After planned rail upgrades to 125-150 mph it will be 45 min. Add another 40 minutes to get to SF on BART from Richmond (there is no connection to BART in Oakland). It takes 2 hours to get from Stockton to San Jose on ACE commuter rail today. Who knows how long the Modesto to San Jose commute on the Altamont Express will be. A much better route through the Altamont Pass down into Fremont would have allowed for more direct routes from both the south and the north. A branch to San Jose might have been required or a smaller circuitous around the south end of the Bay rather than crossing the Bay at Dumbarton.
I'm very excited for these new high speed rail implementations such the namesake discussed in the video here and Brightline West. It'll be so interesting to see HST coexisting with the conventional and traditional American rail.
You should watch the newish Alan Fisher video on why CHSR is good, it explains why the trains go through the central cavalry really well. Great video and I’m excited for the rest of High Speed Rail Week 2!
People who are “direct line” advocates forget that those cities are still are part of the state, and if you thought this would’ve happened WITHOUT them, YOU’RE CRAZY. Also, with this going through the central valley, gives them the potential to expand into greater cities. When you have public transportation of this magnitude running through it, it becomes more attractive to other businesses and companies.
The reason they aren’t going in a straight line is because there are tons of mountains in the way that would be very expensive to build and maintain tunnels for. So it’s cheaper to just go around the mountains
@@gregory596 That would be just about 50-60 miles shorter, but it would bypass all of the populated areas. Palmdale, Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced have almost 3 million inhabitants in their metro regions. It wouldn't make any sense to bypass those for just 15 minutes less travel time. CHSR will be a huge boost for those cities and hopefully spur further development of a sustainable transit network.
@@gregory596 I guess it's because there is already another high-capacity road connecting those cities: route 99. The thing with car traffic is: it's loud and smelly - hence you want to move it *out* of cities whenever possible. Plus, it's much slower than HSR, so those fewer miles actually make a significant difference in travel time between LA and SF. A 50mi detour by HSR is just ~15 minutes, but by car on the interstate it's the better part of an hour.
@@gregory596 Yeah, most of the Valley inhabitants were wondering the same thing when it was proposed. the 5 was a crazy boondoggle from the era of excessive highway building. It's very hard to justify it in retrospect. It bypasses the entire population of the Valley just a few dozen miles to the West of where all the cities and towns are neatly lined up north to south. Also, the 5 is built in literally the very first possible highway alignment as far as possible to the west. This means that some sections clip hilly terrain that is appropriate for cars but not for HSR or even a conventional train. It would literally be more expensive to build CHSR in the 5 alignment vs the 99 alignment _and_ be slower. This is the type of thing that only makes sense if you don't look at a map too closely, but falls apart immediately if you do.
As mentioned in other comments, the main reason a direct line wouldn't work is geography. There's a bunch of mountain ranges along the coast which is why the amtrack takes 12 hours. And highway 101 takes longer than highway 5 to go from LA to SF or vice-versa. Even so, there probably still is a more direct route taking into account geography. But the other major factor is probably land use and right of way. No doubt they thought carefully in the planning stages and had to make compromises and pay for right of way even though the line is not as direct as they might have preferred. I imagine many proposals were rejected for a lot of frustrating reasons.
Regarding the rolling stock of high speed rail in California perhaps some of these types of trains will be proposed: 1. Alstom: TGV POS 2. Siemens: Velaro 3. CRRC: Fuxing CR400AF (just like Indonesia high speed rail known as KCIC) 4. Hyundai Rotem: KTX Sancheon or maybe EMU-320 5. Kawasaki: Shinkansen 500 or 700 series but it can be E5 or E8 series 6. Hitachi Rail Italy: Zefiro V300 (just like Frecciarossa 1000) it can be run 350 km/h 7. Talgo: Avril (known as Renfe AVE Class 102) And I also think that if CRRC wins the tender for high-speed rail rolling stock in California, there will be some workers from Indonesia or KCIC who are ready to be deployed.
The proposition from Alstom would most probably be a choice of AGV (TGV distributed motorization), TGV M single deck (new type with power cars half occupied by passengers), TGV M Duplex and maybe AGV Duplex if Alstom manages to sort the double decker vs distributed motorization issue soon enough. (They're working on it). The M in the new TGV M stands for several features, one of them being "modular". It offers quickly and easily modifiable interiors and train length / composition. They might also additionally offer variants of Bombardier (Zefiro) inherited designs or parts. The TGV POS is just a type quite specific to work in France, Germany and Switzerland, primarily on the Paris Strasbourg South Germany line that has Duplex looking power cars with single deck TGV like passenger cars. Much like one of the 2 Thalys TGV derivatives. So CAHSR could choose between trains with power cars and partially distributed motorization or fully distributed ; and between single or double deck trains. That would mean a choice of 3 to 4 different types of trains derived from the same common base with Alstom only and possibly other types from Bombardier's legacy. I really doubt that CAHSR would go with CRRC given the very poor state of the Sino-American relationship and the fact that it would need 35+ years of expected stability. I don't really see them choosing Kawasaki / Shinkansen like trains either. Albeit not for political reasons but because Shinkansen derived trains are really tailored for the Asian markets with their seating, etc. Some arrangement I hardly see the American public enjoying. So the main candidates I'd see : Alstom, any of the 3 or 4 types. Siemens Velaro (but I'm not sure about the speed requirements) Hitachi / Bombardier Zefiro (although there's quite a conundrum due to Alstom having bought Bombardier) Talgo 350. I really don't see CAHSR going with either CRRC or Kawasaki / Shinkansen derivative. Do you have any information on the loading gauge and other dimensions (other than length) required by CAHSR ? Given the current "air bridge" between LAX and SFO with dozens if not hundreds of flights per day, they'd better choose high capacity trains. That's why I think a TGV M Duplex or AGV Duplex (if it's ready) derivative would be ideal. These trains offer the greater number of seats for the limited length required while still providing common 2x2 seating.
@@KyrilPG There is no problem with the speed requirements with Siemens Velaros. The Chinese Velaro version actually managed to break the production train speed record at 486 kph (unmodified), so those Velaros are easily able to achieve all the required speeds. In General don't forget about the legislation to buy made in America trains. This usually disqualifies half of the manufacturers. Siemens has a plant in Sacramento, Alstom in the Northeast (new Acela trains), and some of the others build at least some subway trains somewhere throughout the country.
@@MaxiAir Yeah but I meant sustained speed (especially under hot conditions). There was a problem on the Madrid Barcelona line where they subsequently lowered the max sustained speed down to 320 or 330 due to the trains. I know that all of the "valid selection" (factories in the US) of possible trains are capable of those speeds but it's about the sustained speed 18 hours a day that I had doubts with the Velaro.
@@KyrilPG The speed was reduced to 310 kph due to the signaling systems (ETCS level1) installed on the line. Nothing with the train. Even the Spanish Version reached 403 kph back in 2006, and apparently that wasn't the limit. Seeing the export history of other high speed rail products, the Velaro certainly is the most successful for a reason. Lower speeds in the 300-320 area instead of 360 or 380 are mostly a choice of power utilization
The Central Valley is the fastest-growing region in the state; the time to build in transit connectivity is while it's still growing. There's a reason _we in California_ decided _from the beginning_ to set the alignment along the Hwy 99 corridor rather than (a) the coast (geographically impractical) or (b) the I-5 corridor (literally the middle of nowhere). I've been following this project ever since it was first conceived of in the '90s, and that was _always_ the plan - and for good reason. It would sure be nice if "experts" like yourself and Real Life Lore would familiarize yourselves with those reasons before expounding upon them.
The reason why CHSR goes over the 99 highway alignment rather than the alignment you showed is cost. Plain and simple, the direct line you showed goes almost entirely over a massive north-south mountain range. And as a bonus it has to cross over the treacherous Grapevine mountain range near LA. This alignment would be significantly more expensive than the chosen 99 hwy alignment. It would literally be one or _more_ orders of magnitude more expensive to run HSR entirely over the more or less direct line between SF and LA. We're talking at least 10x more expensive. And it would be slower to boot, unless we go full crazy and tunnel the entire thing at even greater expense! So the alignment was always going to veer off to the east to run in the Central Valley rather than over the direct, or near direct line between the two metros. The only question was how much to the east. There were only two choices: 1. The 99 highway alignment (roughly), or 2. the 5 highway alignment. The 99 hwy alignment was chosen as the clear winner for being both cheaper and faster. There wasn't even a contest here. All the arguments about the routing of CHSR has been about where exactly the 99 hwy ROW will be, but CHSR always hugged it pretty closely. The 99 highway alignment is much flatter and is where most of the 6.5 million inhabitants of the Central Valley live. It is practically a continuous urban/semi-urban area. The 5 alignment is hillier. It was deliberately placed in the most western part of the Valley that can already support normal highway ROW curves and elevations. This was done to minimize SF-LA distances, like you are proposing for CHSR. The problem is that this alignment is too steep, curvy in some places for HSR. CHSR would have to run to the east of the 5 in the more hilly areas at the north and south ends and then join the 5 alignment only in the flatter center sections. This would look like a straight line with two giant S curves at the ends. As you can imagine this makes little sense, financial or speed-wise. You could avoid building these two curves, but only by slowing down the line significantly, well below the 2h40 minutes it is legally required to have for SF-LA, and closer to 4-4.5 hours. Basically, the 5 alignment was so problematic that it was dropped pretty early from consideration. It was both more expensive and slower than the current 99 hwy alignment. People keep looking at a CHSR route map without elevations and keep stepping on this rake over and over again. If they had just looked it, this endless conversation could finally end. The current alignment is the only thing that makes sense. This was all discussed publicly when the route was being decided on. All the documentation is public and can be easily researched, but practically no one bothers to do it for some reason.
There's a huge mountain range between LA & Bakersfield. The planned route goes around those mountains so you can avoid having to tunnel thru them. Also the reason for the route thru the center of the state is because of more mountain ranges. You have the coastal mountains, then you have the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range both going north/south sort of parallel to each other with the central valley corridor in between them.
It is being completed. The opponents have raised all hell and people briefly believed the propaganda. But they are only a couple of years off schedule and only have about a 47% cost increase. That's bad for sure, but nothing close to imperiling the project in any way. It's just a bunch of propaganda. CAHSR has defeated every single lawsuit that the opposition tried against them. Now they have secured most of the land and are steaming ahead. The project is fine. Don't believe these doomers. They're either clueless or actively malicious.
I mean, the most direct route would have been along or near the 5 Freeway through the valley since the coast route is much too mountainous. At least more mountainous than the current project which will have to contend with three mountain ranges. As for why it goes through the central valley cities, AFAIK its one part politics to secure some kind of support from the cities served, one part to invest in a part of the state which has been historically neglected, one part to open the cities as commute options for increasingly overcrowded Bay and SoCal Metropolitan areas, and a final part of being required on a state and federal level.
Actually, no. The 5 is only the most direct route if you tunnel under the Grapevine. That is insanely expensive and wasn't ever a real option. They did look at it and just that one section would have cost more than the entire project as designed. The only viable southern crossing is through the Tehachapis. This means that one way or another you end up on the eastern part of the Central Valley. From there the most direct route is in fact the hwy 99 alignment that they ended up choosing. The fact that that alignment happens to pass through most of the town in the Valley is almost a happy accident. But then again, the very reason why those towns are on the 99 is because that was the most favorable alignment for rail over 100 years ago when that was built.
I think they will. Their trains are already in all the marketing. They have a local factory in Sacramento that already makes 135mph Siemens trains for all of North America. Local manufacturing is required by CHSR. Also, Deutsche Bahn was already selected to be the operator and have started working on planning. They have the most experience with Siemens ICE trains so their input will definitely be in favor of Siemens too. It's not quite a foregone conclusion yet, but Siemens is definitely the contender to beat here.
I definitely agree too! It would be great for a company with a large train presence in the state with manufacturing and such in Sacramento to win the high speed contract. A win-win for both.
a huge reason the HSR project is being built is to make it possible to commute from the central valley to either LA or SF, thereby reducing strain on the housing market in the big cities.
Sam - I hate to say the obvious, but almost the entire length of the straight line you mentioned early is mountains. Just overlay that line on a topo map and have fun imagining the cost. That made the choice to go up the Central Valley easy, and the next choice was whether to follow I-5 or go through the established cities. The valley cities have a combined population of 6M or so, while the west side of the valley has no one. That meant it could more easily be a California system, rather than just a SF and LA system. I know it's hard to see from the east coast because it just doesn't get talked about, but the central valley of Cali is its own place with its own needs.
Hard disagree with your opinion on the route. 1. The pacific coast is filled with mountains and it would be extremely difficult to build a “straight line” between LA and SF 2. Why shouldn’t the Central Valley cities deserve a high speed train line? Millions of people live there and while it is true that they aren’t as populated as the two big cities this would greatly convenience those people and ultimately have less cars on the road. 3. The one point I’ll give you is that this would exclude cities like Ventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Salinas, Santa Cruz, etc. We can only hope they add another line that way
Knowing you're from Massachusetts makes a lot of sense. There are huge mountain ranges in the way preventing a straight line from LA to SF. Additionally, the California central valley is historically underserved and in dire need of transportation. The proposed route follows a large segment of the I5, one of the most high traffic segments of interstate in the country. So suggest that the California HSR should skip the central valley almost misses the point entirely, which is to alleviate traffic and congestion along California's busiest roads. (I grew up in California, have lived in both the bay area and LA, and commuted between them often)
I see this is the typical "Hurr Durr, this project is dumb because they didn't go in a stright line." without remotely thinking of why. You even draw you line straight down the mountain ridge.
It's appropriate that CAHSR was covered first after the controversial video that RealLifeLore made on it, which was almost immediately met by Alan Fisher's response video. Good review on this line, but the parts I find the most disturbing is that they considered initially opening a single track in 2021 before reversing this decision a few months later. Furthermore, I remember there being discussion of CAHSR considering battery or hydrogen powered trains instead of overhead electric, but this plan may be called off as well. I would just find it hilarious if they pulled a Metra and ordered ex-Amtrak Acelas or other intercity/commuter equipment. Speaking of which, a Boston based company called Rolling Stock Solutions just announced they'll be leasing F40s for commuter railroads, which makes me wonder which F40s they'll be using for this company, and where they'll be deployed first (maybe they'll be used for CAHSR..?/j). Can't wait for more videos in this series.
The only people pushing battery or hydrogen was some state politicians in LA. None of those would come even close to 220mph ops. Getting F40 over 100mph is hard
The single track idea was simply because that’s all they could afford given the funding at the time. They were just able to scramble together finishing all the environmental reviews, the remaining construction on to Bakersfield and Merced, but then they only had enough left for trackwork and electrification of a single track. A couple of public meetings ago the CEO of the authority was well aware how much more expensive it is to lay one track at a time (rather then double tracking from the get-go) and voiced high hopes for some federal funding (which they got I believe) to prevent this extra cost.
Why choose the Central Valley line? 1. Because it's a high-speed rail instead of a high-speed subway. Taking a train that goes quickly in the tunnel is absolutely uncomfortable. 2. Digging tunnels would be bloody expensive and probably require more foreign technologies involved, which would be not favoured by local companies. Some brief opinions about choosing the rolling stock: 1. Because the train will go at high speed up to 220mph, the train cabin must be well sealed, or the passengers would find it uncomfortable. I'm not sure how many Americans have ever travelled on a 200mph+ vehicle, not aircraft, but the feeling would be pretty different. 2. Hitachi's Zefiro high-speed train, previously named Bombardier Zefiro, is a new and cheap solution designed for China. However, it is told not stable on the high-speed move. 3. For a better maintenance convenience, I highly recommend the California high-speed to choose the same rolling stock as the Brightline West so that the manufacturer can build a big warehouse and related facilities nearby, which could significantly reduce the maintenance cost.
AFAIK Brighline West is only gonna operate 180 mph (290 km/h) trains. And-as of now-they are not planning on interlining with CAHSR. Their current plans are only as far Victor Valley (9 miles north-east of the Amtrak station in downtown Victorville)They have a notice of intent to extend over the Cajon pass to San Bernardino (in an adjacent station to metrolink). The link to Palmdale-and interlining to LA union station-is only conceptual at this moment. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to settle on a common trainsets between Brightline and CAHSR to save on maintenance (at least for now). That said, Siemens does have a pretty big operations in California, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the CAHSR would end up going with Siemens Velaro trainsets as well.
@@rokksula4082 Well... It's Brightline so there's a lot of unsubstantiated marketing in their claims. Originally they claimed 150mph for LA-LV and that is still unchanged based the route they are targeting. Nevertheless, they released this new 180mph claim with zero details. I won't believe it until I see it substantiated somehow. The ROW they chose certainly can't sustain more than 150mph for most of the route. Also, they simply don't need more than 150 mph anyway so it's unlikely that they will spend a bunch of extra money trying to reach that. Basically, let's wait and see on this speed claim. But keep in mind in the meantime that Brightline West is a vanity project for Brightline to continue to be able to call themselves "high speed" without earning it, even though their current and planned services are all conventional commuter rail in every sense and by any metric.
@@TohaBgood2 Agreed. I’ve gotten used to the excellent public announcements and general open communication behavior of the CAHSR authority, that it was quite frustrating actually trying to find out what the intentions are exactly for Brightline West. From their hole schtick you might think they were offering one seat ride from LA to Las Vegas, and their website certainly is not trying to deny it. But if you look closely-and you have to actively look closely-you see no such promises. I was hoping to find some environmental studies etc. but I only found vague promises. However, one such promise says top speed of 180 MPH (and I realize now how that doesn’t mean a lot if they only reach that speed on a tiny section). They do say “planned future connection to California High-Speed Rail in Palmdale” on their website, however I can’t find anything about the planned alignment etc. let alone any plans to interline to LA (except for the possibility hinted on the maps around Palmdale from CAHSR authority).
I never knew that someone is covering American Railways, I am glad to see that you're putting your hard work to gather all the information but American Railways progress is seems to be really slow, I am from India and they started railroad projects but modern railway just four years ago and already fast trains are running and Bullet train by 2027, trains made by Alstom, it's a French company and some other manufacturers including Indian companies really reaching their targets. I am Railway fan, love to ride in the trains and love to see fast and beautiful trains in California soon, thanks for sharing.
Also, tunneling under the Grapevine would be insanely expensive. The Tehachapis are the only option for a rail crossing and even that requires extensive tunneling. So one way or another you end up on the eastern side of the Central Valley after crossing the mountains from the LA area. From there the current 99 alignment is indeed the shortest route to the northern crossing at Pacheco Pass.
Because of the coastal mountains, the line has to run through the central valley to avoid astronomical tunneling costs. While the line could have taken the shorter route and followed the I-5 corridor along the sparsely populated western edge of the valley, trekking the extra 50 miles across the valley to the CA-99 corridor allows you to loop in millions of additional potential riders and several intermediate destinations along the highly populated eastern edge of the valley. Since the train will be travelling at 200+ mph in nearly-straight lines across the valley, this excursion only adds a small time time penalty for express services. Given the budget limits you to building only one line through the central valley, the chosen route is definitely the superior option.
Ignoring the fact that any costal route would have way more hills and mountains to deal with. There’s also the whole equity and trying to connect the regions that currently have lots of super commuters. The valley is also home to some of the poorest areas in the state. San J are getting cut back to Merced. They expect you to transfer there Bright line west is LV to Rancho C. Palmdale to Victor Valley is a LA metro project instead of a freeway expansion Looks like 2-3 editing mistakes slipped though as you double said something.
The coast is very rugged and prone to landslides. The central valley has a lot of large economically disadvantaged communities that would benefit from being connected to the high-speed rail. Current service runs there now and it’s very popular the only missing point is between Bakersfield in Palmdale which the high-speed rail is going to connect.
9:57-I like how you chose JetBlue. They are my favorite airline (despite never flying on it), and I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and it was slow, but very pretty, and it is not that hard to get across the bay taking BART or a bus.
Yes the alignment could have gone along the western side of the Central Valley (getting anywhere near the coast is a non starter because of the topography), but the east side of the Valley is better since it will serve the cities along the 99 corridor. They are underserved and absolutely need the connection.
problems with a more direct route: 1) Mountains the entire way 2) fault lines the central valley is much more level, and geologically stable, making construction cheaper and easier. In addition to allowing the rail line to link into the historically under-served and highly impoverished cities there, spurring economic growth. Not to mention cheaper land (also part of why it's sharing right of way with CalTrain, historically a bad idea for high-speed rail.)
Here’s a Thumbs down 👎🏼 for repeatedly insulting those of us in the Central Valley; your cheap attempt to caste us off as insignificant. We are very much looking forward to the high speed rail train which will alleviate heavy traffic through the Grapevine.
I love this series keep up the good work, love these documentaries, hope that they can get this done by the dates that are to be meeted! Once again nice job!
You would NEVER be able to use the straighter route the he's talking about. The terrain and property would never allow it. Please do your home work before insulting the professional people planning this project. I think they know what they'll doing.
The 2 routes compared - Coastal vs. Central Valley actually sort of exist on Amtrak, and the central Valley route is faster even though it requires Bus Transfers at the start and end
Ugh... So disheartening to hear that this project is still like 10+ years away from first trains running. I remain hopeful, but like... is money the main construction bottleneck? If so, throw down that cash and let's get some gosh darn track laid! All I've seen so far is miles of dirt cleared and a few over/underpasses being worked on.
how hard is it for people to look at a map and realize a direct route between sf and la is dumb because you'd have to cut through the pacific coast range and spend hundreds of billions to do so
Why do people keep insisting that the Central Valley is "the middle of nowhere"? I can tell that most of the people that say that have never set foot here or else you would stop with that nonsense. Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Merced, Stockton, hell even the capital of Sacramento are in the Central Valley. The region has certainly been undeserved compared to other areas of CA, but it is most definitely not "the middle of nowhere". I live here and I'm sure anyone else who lives or has been through here can agree with me.
People have already taken you to task on the route so I won't pike on. But I will say "Tulare" rhymes with "hair". It does not rhyme with "carry". Also, as you were making this video talking about lack of funding and oversight, the state legislature passed a new state budget that addressed issues of funding and oversight.
To add to what UwU Caffeine Addiction wrote below, the coastal mountains also have a plethora of fault lines whereas the Central (San Joaquin) Valley does not. The Central Valley has something like a mile of silt from the Sierra Nevada filling it (mostly on the east side) which acts as a shock absorber for earthquakes. Additionally, many of LA's and SF's population is moving to the Central Valley due to high costs of living, horrible traffic, high crime, etc. Fresno will be a maintenance and service center for the HSR trains with a population to support that effort. One thing not mentioned in the video was that the cost overruns and mismanagement of the project are horrendous. I may be mistaken, but the project has cost over 100 billion and we aren't even a third of the way completed. It will make the Boston Tunnel project look like small potatoes cost wise when completed.
LOL "Why didn't they just build over an entire mountain range for 500 miles and instead go where everyone lives and is pancake flat?" And at three minutes I am done watching lol
It’s much cheaper to build on flatland then to build on mountains so a more direct route would actually be more expensive and more harder to build. It’s important to do extensive research before doing videos.
Its not just the grade, or the mountains. The proposed route parallels existing commercial lines, meaning it will be easier to aquire land for the right of way and places the line, as noted to several cities that have no real transit connections. Also paralleling existing lines means at least some of the grading work has been done, lowering costs, etc
You done fucked up in your first point... You don't build a high speed train just to service the two big cities, but connect everyone... If you build it, people can commute from Stockton and Modesto and Palmdale and Bakersfield and completely revolutionize the interconnectivity of the state... and it will improve the lives of everyone not just people trying to go from sf to la...
None of these plans have been met. So far they have spent over150 billion, it won't pay for itself, heavily subsidized by non riders, not able to provide enough electricity to power it, the disaster continues. It's a deep pocket joke.
That would have been an entire missed market. The Valley has a higher population, higher economic value and is cheaper to build than through sparsely populated mansions inside of mountains and would have ONLY served two cities which is next to useless.
One development that no one anticipated was for the I-80 between the Bay Area and Sacramento to explode into a "Mega-Region" as people move out to inland cities. So maybe the economic and population centers as they exist today will shift inland to the central valley and the "train to nowhere" will serve more than an alternative to getting from LA to SF but the new commuter service between communities that didn't exist 20 years ago.
The direct route means cutting/tunneling through mountains and thus costing a lot more than building tracks on flat valley land, that is what you are not realizing.
Like the TGV & LGV in France, HSR total ridership is higher when many cities, including those as small as 400K pop. are spaced 50-90 miles apart are connected. With 4-track HSR stations, you can always run Express or Limited-Stop trains past smaller cities. That is how California HSR will achieve 2 hour 40 minutes (Express) and 2 hour 56 minute (Limited Stop) service.
While the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, it isn't always the fastest, something that becomes obvious if you've taken physics.
The central valley makes more sense than along the coast for a few reasons. First the central valley is not the middle of nowhere. It has many growing populations, and people travel regularly to and from there and the major cities. There's a reason why a major highway already goes through the central valley, while a narrower less used one goes on the coast. Second the California coastline north of LA is quite mountainous, so the amount of space for construction is quite narrow. Third the coastline gets a lot of mudslides and fires that would slow down construction and possibly prevent trains from running due to safety.
Prop 8 would have never passed if it was just going to serve LA and SF, along the I5. If those 2 cities were just going to pay for it no one would really care but taking money from the CV to pay for a direct route. No Dice.
No this is a great project. Highspeed bullet trains should have been done decades ago. But damn it takes America so long to do things. 2033 for full service? In 10 years the Chinese would have 5 lines completed. They completed a beautiful train station in 9 hours. Nine hours!!! California, step it up!! Get to work!!!
The reason they went to the middle of nowhere is because A. there’s mountains where you want it to go and B. This train is also supposed to interconnect the underserved central valley that everybody in California has forgotten about.
TGV offered to help build it and proposed that it would operate in the interstate median down the coast
Also because everything was ready to start building there but not yet quite in LA and SF so they started building in the central valley
@@Wkay04 That's not true! The French CHSR consortium offered to build any of the three+ alignments that were being discussed at the time. They developed plans for all three variations, not just the one you are talking about. Then the hwy 5 alignment was dropped altogether because it was more expensive and slower than the current hwy 99 alignment.
Overall, the French bid was weak and had obvious flaws, so they were dropped out of contention pretty early. People keep cherry-picking just one of those three plans that this organization made and want to claim that it proves something. That is at the very least dishonest and probably actively malicious toward CHSR.
@@TohaBgood2 🤣🤣 yeah I’m sure the hwy 5 was more expensive.🤣
Don’t worry. Those communities will be gone in a few years because of the state’s abysmal water management.
The chosen alignment is significantly better in my opinion, in part because of the easier geography but mostly because of the connectivity
You can't detour all around the LA basin and still be fast. That's silly..
@@tonyburzio4107 I think the point is to connect the population spots to each other, especially those smaller cities between SF and LA are growing because people moved there to live while traveling to work in those two big cities, high speed rail will help a lot.
The cities they are "connecting" are bankrupt, losing people at an alarming rate. The only thing growing are homeless encampments.
@@tonyburzio4107 Do you not think that maybe those are things that would be turned around by a good, fast, reliable connection to other cities? Or do you not understand anything about railways?
Agree. If things go well, it'll ease the housing crisis--allowing folks to live in a more affordable city (like Fresno) and work in the coastal cities. I like the chosen alignment. Just wish the initial stage connected to my city (San Diego) from the get go!
The main reason the HSR route is further inland than the direct route is to avoid the mountains closer to the coast
There are no mountains along most of i5, there are once you get to the grape vine where i5 and and 99 merge. They could have easily followed i5 and then broke off over to Bakersfield and then followed the current route the rest of the way.
@@mushieslushie If it already needs to divert into the Central Valley, then it makes sense to align it with the major cities there.
Negative. Both I-5 and 99 (the chosen path) require tunneling.
The coastal route, where the tracks were laid in the 1800s, is what avoids the mountain. (tracks were also laid in the 99 route in the 1800s, on a zig zag route that slowly gains elevation. Amazing engineering for the time but it's really slow. If were were to go down 99 we would dig a tunnel right through the mountain. But you have to do that with both 99 and I-5.)
Reason they took 99 is political. They thought people in Trump Country were more likely to vote for it if money was spent in their area. But the people in that area are now very upset, because instead of going down a highway median like a normal person, they bought up all kinds of private property, blowing the project's budget.
@@mushieslushie
"here are no mountains along most of i5, there are once you get to the grape vine where i5 and and 99 merge. They could have easily followed i5 and then broke off over to Bakersfield and then followed the current route the rest of the way."
No no, if you're going to break off, you go west to go along the coast. Bakersfield still requires going through a mountain.
@@JuanWayTrips
"If it already needs to divert into the Central Valley, then it makes sense to align it with the major cities there."
It doesn't. You either stay on I-5 and tunnel at the grapevine, or you go west and merge with LOSSAN. (LOSSAN is basically NEC West. It goes along the California coast, avoiding the mountain range. Tons of trains run on that track every day already. Read that again. TRACKS ALREADY EXIST AND COULD BE USED FOR THIS.)
The line can't be straight because of mountains that would cost billions to dig through. We've seen how much people hate spending any money on transit so tunnels would be a crazy idea.
TGV offered to help build it and proposed that it would operate in the interstate median down the coast
@@Wkay04 Sncf*
@@Wkay04 yeah but the entire thing will have to be a tunnel in oh my god that is so expensive and useless. The rooting it has now is better
@@Wkay04 Nope, that is an anti-rail invention. "TGV" (not actually TGV) offered to build any of the routes under consideration, and dropped out because their bid was weak.
@@uwucaffeineaddiction4023 They are going to have to tunnel through at least two mountain ranges as is, southeast of San Jose and northwest of Los Angeles... The plan is to build the longest railroad tunnel in America southeast of San Jose, longer than the Cascade Tunnel and the Moffat Tunnel, and a number of shorter tunnels northwest of Los Angeles. These tunnels will be going through tough granite, not soft shale. Construction of any of the tunnels have not started as yet, these tunnels may take a decade to build... Did California put the cart before the horse?
The most direct line is along the coast. The jagged, rugged, mountain filled coast. I guess we'll never know why they chose the flat 450 mile long Central Valley.
TGV offered to help build it and proposed that it would operate in the interstate median down the coast
I call bull shite. If they did build on the most direct route, they'd be tunneling through miles & miles & miles of tunnels. Therefore the cost if they went on the most direct line would be higher than the tallest peaks of Colorado, California, Washington & Alaska combined. Besides, in a Road Guy Rob video on buses, building just a straight piece of track could cost up to $100 million dollars per mile, plus put that 1 mile of track underground & it can cost up to $1 billion dollars. Plus, the east side access project at one point cost up to $1million dollars for just one foot. So, would you rather build through mountains or would you rather do flatlands?
@@Wkay04 Thats interstate 5, and its still in the Central Valley. Unless youre talking about 101, which, again, would need to go through mountains, canyons, rivers etc.
@@Wkay04 You keep posting this lie, but that doesn't make it any more true. "TGV" offered to build any alignment CHSR chose. They specifically didn't have an opinion on which alignment to choose and did very few studies on which of their three plans would be best. All of this is in contemporaneous public documents. You don't need to keep lying about it.
@@paul329 The interstate 5 alignment is barely appropriate for cars, let alone a train, and definitely not a fast train. All but a flat central section would be OK for HSR. That alignment dropped out of contention pretty early. It was never even considered seriously due to how much more expensive and slower it would be. This was all discussed at the time! You can look it all up yourself.
The Central Valley is in effect the fastest route between SF and LA. The line as the crow flies is all Mountains and a significant draw for the train is to help connect CA's fast growing communities in the Central Valley especially as families are priced out of the SF and LA urban zones. You fell into some of the same trap that RealLifeLore did a few weeks ago here.
Not the fastest route, it would be faster as the crow flies, but more expensive to tunnel through, rather than basic cut, cut and cover, at grade or elevated. Something they can't afford to entertain without a massive budget increase.
@@mrmaniac3 Would it still be faster even accounting for lower speed limits in tunnels?
@@Dogod2 good point, might not be. Higher drag in tunnels I guess? Not to mention a shockwave of pressure being carried by the train.
@@mrmaniac3 Actually, yes speeds in tunnels are in the 180mph range vs 220mph for the open sections for CHSR. You might lose all the speed advantage in tunnels making and entirely tunneled route slower than the hwy 99 route.
And this is before you even consider that a tunnel route is likely over 10x more expensive than the current route.
@@TohaBgood2 Also that's a 100 billion in tunnelling cost alone right ther.
I expected a more nuanced take from you on their route selection. It’s clear that the route isn’t a straight line, but it’s equally obvious that you didn’t try to understand the history, politics and geography that influenced why this route was selected.
I suggest watching Alan Fisher’s video on CAHSR, for not being from California, I’m very impressed that he spent the time to understand how demographics, geography, history, and politics led us to today.
Seriously, it's amazing that all these people like RealLifeLore and now WorldwideRailfan put in almost no effort to understanding the geography, goals, people, and culture of California when taking these pot shots at CAHSR. As evidenced (and I know it's a small thing, but it's indicative) by the very bad mispronunciation of cities (RealLifeLore with Merced and WordwideRailFan with Tulare).
And some of the answers aren't exactly difficult. It's not like you look at Europe and all the high speed rail lines take exactly straight lines from London to Paris to Berlin to whatever the biggest capital cities are. They also take slighly meandering paths to take up as many towns as possible while not deviating too much from the overall path and taking geographically advantageous routes. Of course they would! it helps connect the entire country and continent. It's not *just* about connecting the very biggest 3 or 4 cities. On top of that, it encourages growth and development along these already-populated (and to be clear, they *are* populated) routes.
@@amvin234 Unfortunately, a lot of rail fans in the US tend to be politically Conservative for some reason. As all Cons, they are brainwashed to hate anything remotely related to California. The merits of the project aren't even related to this. Just look at how they swoon over Brightline because is it ostensibly a "private" company, even though they are heavily subsidized by the state of Florida.
It's just a politics thing not objective criticism of the project.
That is a much better video
@@TohaBgood2 thats utter bullshit. Most train and public transit fans are always democrats. Are you kidding me lol
You're going to get flamed for that comment about the alignment. There are mountains all the way up the California coast. Building it that way would have cost considerably more in addition to serving far fewer people.
The Central Valley is not 'nowhere'. It's home to the 5th and 9th largest cities in California (Fresno and Bakersfield) as well as around six million people. When the CA High Speed Rail Authority received federal funding from the Obama Administration, it had to be spent in the Central Valley which is economically behind the Bay Area and LA Basin. The high speed rail project is intended to boost the economy of the Central Valley both during its construction and operation, and better connect it to SF and LA. A one hour train ride from affordable housing in Fresno to jobs in San Jose, instead of a three hour drive, is a serious gamechanger. Same with Bakersfield to LA via Palmdale, bringing those cities closer to LA and allowing people with LA-area jobs to live in more affordable housing there with a fast, convenient train ride instead of dealing with LA traffic.
Part of what makes the Tokaido Shinkansen so effective isn't its sheer speed, but its ability to move large amounts of people quickly and efficiently, connecting the population centers and bringing them closer together. That's what California's high speed rail project needs to strive for. It'll link six of California's ten largest cities, bringing them closer than ever before, and providing a much needed alternative to driving and flying. High speed rail, true high speed rail, is a new concept in the US that has been embraced by much of the developed world for decades. California is brave enough to be the first to finally bring high speed rail here, and it for sure hasn't been easy, but that doesn't make it not worth doing. Imagine if we'd had that mindset with the Interstate highways and as a result they never got built.
California needs to double down on its high speed rail project and get the initial Merced-Bakersfield route operating ASAP, and once people experience high speed rail here there will be a greater push to reach SF and LA ASAP as well.
Being European, I'm all for high-speed trains, the faster, the longer, the more densely meshed, the more efficient : the better.
But I'm really wondering if opening the Bakersfield Merced well before the rest is even built won't have adverse effects on the perception people have of the project.
As it will frankly be quite disappointing, even frustrating to experience such a partially completed project while knowing the exorbitant cost it had and will continue to have to finish.
Aren't you worried that this partial line might be left discontinued due to lower than expected satisfaction ?
In Europe, France and Spain for example, they always open first line trunks that achieve a very perceivable travel time saving.
So that the public immediately sees a massive difference and validates future expansions.
They never start by building the middle of the route but usually from the most populous end of the future line and at least up to a significant destination or its bypass.
Like the Paris Bordeaux line which first trunk (Paris Tours) opened in 1990, reducing travel time from Paris to Bordeaux down to 3h and a few.
Then in the 2010's they opened the Tours Bordeaux trunk (with bypass) to reduce Paris Bordeaux travel time to 2 hours.
Just like they did with the original line of both countries (Paris Lyon in 1981 and Madrid Sevilla in 1992).
Also, the San Francisco Gilroy stretch seems awfully long to be running on conventional low-speed lines.
Couldn't have they built secluded tracks ? Trench tracks ? Fully underground ? Or elevated ?
They spend huge money on odd decisions but they'll let the trains crawl for dozens of miles near SFO ?
The other thing that stunned me (in a similarly bad way) is that the line runs through each city each supposed to serve...
Why haven't they used the French and Spanish model of high-speed lines with city bypasses and branches everywhere ?
It's gonna be a nightmare of NIMBY behavior and noise complaints situations...
In France and Spain, all lines have bypasses and all lines can be run from one end to the other without crossing any city center.
There's only one exception that I know of on the Madrid Barcelona line if I recall correctly but the line uses a soundproofed high-speed tunnel to cross the town.
In France and Spain, to serve cities in the vicinity of the line they either use "on-line" out-of-town stations (with a minimum of 4 tracks, the 2 inner ones being for full speed through traffic) or "off-line" city center stations connected by branches (that can either be regular tracks, higher speed / upgraded tracks or high-speed).
Some destinations have both city center "off-line' and out-of-town "on-line" stations.
Why would CAHSR choose to cross every city on the line ?
This is absurd and ultimately ends up costing more for a lesser service.
The only place it can be justified (and that's debatable) is in space constrained / densely populated areas like Japan or Northwestern Germany...
California's topography and population density is much closer to Spain and France than to Germany or Japan.
I'm afraid they'll have to slow down trains for every urban crossing on the route between LA and SFO due to noise complaints or they'll have to spend some extra billions trying to dampen the sound on the urban stretches of the line.
Some of the choices they made seem really odd and counterproductive.
Between the bizarre choice of first phase and the absence of city bypass, I'll only be reassured once it'll be finished. Until then, I'll doubt of ever seeing it finished and operating as planned.
@@KyrilPG Maybe you haven’t looks through the CAHSR specifications. But the signed and agreed upon noise level is:
“pass-by noise levels (82 feet (25 m) from track) not to exceed 88 dB at 155 mph (249 km/h) and 96 dB at 220 mph (350 km/h).”
The problem for the NIMBYs is that they can’t sue them unless the noises exceed this level. California was smart and put this on the ballot so people knew what they were getting into when they signed it.
The rail manufacturing companies (Alstom, CCRC, Siemens, etc) have to have a train that can’t hold up those standards. If they don’t, they’ll loose the contract. There are already trains that meet this specification. Even the 30-year-old TGV Atlantique meets the specification.
As for the initial segment being open. Maybe this is just an United States thing, but when things get built through the most densely populated (more wealthy) areas first, they never reach the less populated (less wealthy, underserved) areas. This choice has to do a lot with political equity, and less with “build train now!” mentality.
Travel times are still being cut down; albeit, in the Central Valley.
If the rail project gets more funding, it’ll be able to start the Merced to SF section. Hopefully that funding will come before the Central Valley section is fully up and running is 2031 (which I bet it will when the trains are delivered and testing in 2025). After all a “New Rail Speed Record” on the continent isn’t anything to scoff at. The amount of good publicity that’ll bring to the project is amazing.
@@KyrilPG the current Amtrak San Joaquin service between Bakersfield and Oakland had over 1 million riders in 2019. The interim high speed rail service between Merced and Bakersfield will be operated by SJJPA (who operates the San Joaquins) and essentially an extension of the San Joaquins, connecting with them and ACE in Merced and buses to LA in Bakersfield. My guess is the ticket prices will be similar to the current service, and those who currently ride the San Joaquins will ride high speed rail as well as those who may not have tried the service before and want to experience high speed rail. High speed rail will form the backbone of a statewide transit system from Day 1.
The concept is there, but remember the population - you CANNOT uproot populations just to put a train in - NEVER GONNA HAPPEN - NOT ENOUGH MONEY IN THE WORLD CAN PAY FOR THIS fiasco
@@cruzn4ever169 so what would your suggestion be for our 21st century transportation needs for traveling between Northern and Southern California? More driving and flying? Our state’s population is expected to grow to 50 million people by 2050. That’s more cars on the freeways and more crowded airports. Continuing to expand those to meet demand is a finite and short term solution. We need a long term solution, and the world has proved for decades that it’s high speed rail.
That’s why California voters approved Prop 1A in the first place, cause they knew we need a third alternative. We still do, and it’s being built now. The money is there if we’re willing to invest it and keep building. We have to. We can’t continue to rely on the personal car and flying for our transportation needs while the rest of the developed world leaves us behind.
The US used to have some of the best transit networks in the world, and it’s long overdue that we begin shifting back toward that. High speed rail will connect cities as well as those transit networks together, in California eventually creating a statewide transit system that’ll rival the best in Europe and Asia. High speed rail will form the backbone of that system. This is being built not just for today, but for tomorrow, a future that doesn’t rely on the car. People will obviously continue to drive, just as they do throughout the world in places with great public transit including high speed rail, but it’ll be solely by choice, not by necessity.
A lot of people seem to love to bash CHSR (especially the blasted media) just for how problematic some of it's construction has been going. But, I believe if we continue supporting the project & fund it all now rather than later, this whole thing can be built and the economic & environmental impacts will far outweigh all that negativity.
You do know that HSR trains going 200+mph don't have a lesser carbon footprint per passenger as the airlines carbon footprint per passenger. Slow trains going 80 mph do, but not HSR trains going 200+mph... HSR trains consume much more energy, 90 percent more, than slower legendary trains...
@@ronclark9724 yeah but the fact of the matter is the running on energy versus jet fuel or diesel or gasoline.
@@ronclark9724 Not everything is about making things green. Also, there is no technology that is truly "sustainable," as most technologies require some sort of mining.
California HSR will NEVER make money. Once running, it'd be at least a US$ 9-figure drain on the California general fund annually.
It's ALREADY 3 TIMES over original budget and more than a decade behind schedule. The best thing the Biden administration could do for California and the US as a whole is to cease all federal government funding of this extraordinarily poorly conceived white elephant. The sooner it's killed, the better. There are far more sensible routes for HSR from Denver east. West of Denver, topography makes HSR untenable.
@@harlangrove3475 It’s job isn’t to make money it’s job is to make the economy better, connect people, lower travel times, all while lowering emissions because of the air route of Los Angeles to San Francisco and all the cars that drive on the route. It will succeed because people ultimately want it to. And you my friend sound like you’re out of state
Don’t bypass cities unless it’s an express train, the greatest thing about rail is interconnectivity
the track specs at the stations are 4 lanes. They will be accommodating express traffic and local according to the California HSR project videos I seen.
Because a direct route to SF and LA would miss the goal. The goal of California is connect 8 of its 10 largest cities to high speed rail in phase 1. SF and LA are already built out so California is betting big on a CenCal city like Fresno to become the 3rd great mega region behind the current 2.
Unless you're classifying San Diego as just part of Greater Los Angeles, it's already a substantial #3, metro area population more than 3 times that of metro Fresno. ZERO chance Fresno (or Sacramento, with metro population more than double that of Fresno) grows larger. More pedantic, San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties together have about 2 million people. Santa Clara and Satna Cruz counties have about 2.3 million. But the bulk of the Bay Area population is in Solano, Contra Costa and Alameda counties with over 3.2 million. That doesn't even include Sonoma and Napa counties in the North Bay or the western portions of San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties which have hundreds of thousands of commuters into the Bay Area proper. My point is that within their respective city limits, Fresno could surpass San Francisco, and it just wouldn't matter. It'd take a REALLY BIG EARTHQUAKE to make Greater Fresno rise above California's #5 metro area in population, and that requires treating the entire 9-county Bay Area and Ventura, southern Los Angeles, western San Bernardino and Riverside, and Orange counties respectively single metro areas.
@@harlangrove3475 well that greater LA area does technically extend to Riverside and San Bernardino. So yes all those cities are considered the LA area. I would include San Diego in as well for purposes of transit as San Diego is connected to LA by city besides a 10 mile stretch of beach. The bay area is all considered 1 metro as well, so after that Sac and Fresno are the 3rd or 4th metro areas depending if you count SD separately.
@@harlangrove3475 Pretty much all of SoCal is an extension of LA.
@@LawAcieIV from downtown sd to downtown LA it takes 2 hours to drive, and 3 hours to train. They are different places
There is more than A end to B end train services. The midway stations are in the central valley because Land is Cheap there compared to LA and SF regions. Having the central valley opened up as a 'commuter belt' zone will give LA and SF - overflow capacity for people to have affordable housing within commutable distances of one or the other or both or three when Sacramento route opens.
It is about Urban Development.
Trains in Europe and China etc are not built for A to B but for A to B to C to D to E to F to G etc... Even if the cost of tickets never cover the cost of CapEx - Op Costs... these trains will regenerate desolate areas/regions and create new in others with nada.
People in LA spend hours just to drive a few miles - home to work. These trains can carry passengers hundreds of miles home to work in less time than the few miles of the LA Stationary CAR park called the Freeways.
This. Plus, running high speed trains through the continuously hilly/mountainous coastal regions (as proposed in the video) would've posed way more environmental/engineering problems, without the benefit of connecting all those commuter cities. Perhaps in the far future, there could be an express line that runs more directly, but for now the proposed route makes the most sense.
@@MichaelChristensen13 And even if they try to make one, it'll probably still be in the Central Valley.
@@米空軍パイロット Yep, you still end up in the Valley vs running a dozen miles to the west but in crazy intense mountains! Even the hwy 5 alignment is still too hilly for HSR. You'd still have to go farther to the east from the 5 to make it work financially.
They should've bought the land around the stations and use the revenue to pay for the track construction.
@@KRYMauL That would be like taking money out of one pocket and moving it into your other pocket. Same costs but paid from a different. Californians in general are rabidly anti development. I don’t think that this scheme would have gone over well. Most Californians would rather pay for the construction outright than grant special land use rights like Brightline got.
2:31 that's because the west coast is FULL of mountains & it's even more expensive to build your whole HSR line through mountains. Also, the central valley is a major farming area & has a lot of people living below the poverty line so they probably can't afford to use a car to go places.
I guess some people haven't seen alan fishers video yet
Well it also makes sense because all of our cities are old rail cities with rail connections and are just right above each other anyway
Japan doesn't have mountains? And earthquakes?
@@carsonfran It does, which is why they choose the flattest routes possible.
California and Chile have a similar geography, and we have built our main highways and railways through our Central Valley as well, this is mainly because a coastal route would need to be really curvy or straight through tunnels
maybe same geography, but NOT the same $$$$$$$$$$. Taxpayers with money do not want a high speed train in their front yard !!!!!!
@@cruzn4ever169 not in my front yard, that’s a new one.
the nimbys are evolving
I've taken Amtrak between LA and Oakland/SF a couple times. I recommend you look at the schedule for the Coast Starlight which winds its way through the mountains along the California central coast vs the schedule for the San Joaquin which takes the longer route through the central valley with a bus connection from Bakersfield to LA. Guess which one is faster, by like a lot? The San Joaquin.
There were improvements to the coast line that would have cut the time planned and nearly funded in 1994 that would have cut travel times to around 8-9 hours. The bond measure to do that and other projects failed badly. With additional funding needed to drop it to ~6 hours.
The Central Valley has over 7 million people, that’s more than most states
But they don't go anywhere.
@@tonyburzio4107 It's almost as if in order to go places, you need a way to get to other places!
The CAHSR cant operate a more direct route because that route was not approved by voters in 2008. The CAHSRA is constitutionally bound to build what voters were promised with that ballot so they couldn’t choose that route even if it was feasible. There are also about 8 million people in the Central Valley, so its not really “the middle of nowhere.” Its huge ridership potential. The Central Valley is often ignored in California and could use the economic potential given the local poverty rates there. The coast is also much more mountainous so it would only drive up the overall budget while not offering a huge speed benefit and also creating a huge passenger deficit
Why didn't they have the freight company pay for the track, then or do any of the other funding mechanisms that Brightline is doing.
@@KRYMauL because freight companies won't use the CHSRA built track at all.
@@losh330 Doesn’t explain why they couldn’t do it like NE corridor.
@@KRYMauL the NE corridor is ancient and not rated for 220 mph.
@@losh330 At the very least they should be using this opportunity to make TOD within 15 minutes of the line. Also, isn't the NE corridor getting upgraded for trains up to 120 mph.
@12:10 "why not the direct route"? Look at a map. There's a reason the Central Valley is called "valley": it has mountains on both sides.
Also, the cities along the line have almost 3 million inhabitants in their respective metro areas. HSR, and rail in general, must be implemented with the word "network" in mind. Separate lines rarely ever make sense - it's mostly the synergies with other modes of transport, on a regional and local level, that make HSR successful.
If they had built the railway straight to SF from LA without going to the central valley, it would have been even more expensive given the numerous mountains through which they would have had to tunnel, and the lawsuits that would have come from those who live on the coasts.
Also, the rail alignment along the coast from San Diego to LA isn't the best place for a long-term rail alignment. Coastal erosion and general disruption from waves is starting to be a problem, though that is a preventable and fixable problem.
@@mrmaniac3 Exactly. All they have to do is look at Amtrak for an example of that bad idea.
@@TheRailwayDrone What do you mean? The Surf Line is operated by several railroads, both passenger and freight. And the company to blame for its construction never saw the light of the 20th Century. It's currently co-owned by two regional rail authorities, and Amtrak is required and expected to run passenger rail service along the line. I don't see how they are to blame for accelerating coastal erosion due to sea level rises. A realignment would be ideal, some ways inland, perhaps along the highway alignment, or further inland. But that's outside of Amtrak's purview as a non-owning operator. Maybe they can have some say in the decision, but it's up to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority and San Diego Northern Railway to go ahead with it.
@@mrmaniac3 I'm not blaming anyone for anything. I'm just saying it's not a good idea to have a railway close to a coast.
AND then like 90% of the state still wouldn't even be able to use it lmao
I remember being 4 years old and during a free week of the Disney channel (because back then you had to pay for it, and my parents certainly didn’t) seeing an episode of a Winnie the Pooh series, where Piglet asks Owl for the *shortest* way to where he’s going, only to find it’s an arduous route and takes him forever. When he complains to Owl, Owl says you should have asked for the fastest route or the easiest one. Don’t be Piglet about this.
For some reason a lot of people are being piglet about this.
The "middle of nowhere" as you put it has a population almost of the entire state you live in. Sacramento metro, Fresno Metro, and Bakersfield metro alone has almost 4 million people. Fresno and Sacramento are the 5th and 6th largest cities in California after San Francisco. Not to mention Stockton with over 300k, Modesto with over 200K Merced is pushing 100K, the Visalia Hanford area is pushing almost 200K. I love how all you folks on the east coast act like San Francisco and Los Angeles are the only two places in California . Also the reason they did not run it down the coast is the cost of land not to mention the terrain.
I would like to mention that the Central Valley had been a major focus of CAHSR to begin with, since it has historically had poor air quality and people who live in Central Valley cities do commute to SF and LA. One of the major holes in Amtrak California's network is a lack of a line through the Tehachapi Pass to connect Bakersfield to LA, since the Tehachapi Loop is closed to passenger trains and at capacity.
How many people commute from Kern county to the Los Angeles basin? As for people in Stanislaus and Merced counties, they already have ACE trains, and people in San Joaquin county have BART after driving to Antioch. OTOH, a better train line that the Capitol Corridor could make sense for Sacramento to Oakland. There are damn few who commute from Fresno anywhere else, and between Merced and Bakersfield there's really only Fresno.
@@harlangrove3475 A lot of people commute from places in the Central Valley to Silicon Valley for work. Their number has been steadily growing proportional to housing prices in the Bay. But now with partial or full work from home this category is exploding. This is an extremely viable lifestyle if you only have to drive to the office once-twice a week, or once a month, or once a quarter (yes, that's also a thing) for all hands meetings and socials.
It seems everyone from the state of California is telling you the same thing. Mountains and the population of Central Valley are why they didn’t just go the straightest route.
It's wild that well into the second decade of the project, so many people continue to get the route conversation so wrong. First, surely this isn't actually an argument that the route should've been a literal straight line, right? To not understand that is beyond parody. But even giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that what was really meant was that it should follow the I-5 alignment, the experience thus far should make it abundantly clear why that would've been a bad idea. For all the faults of the current construction packages and the eventual IOS plan, the only thing that would've been worse would be for all that money and infrastructure to not actually connect to anything at all and building on I-5 would've delivered on that in spades because it literally would be useless until finished at least into the Bay Area and LA Basin. Given that the price tag is ballooning for factors mostly not exclusive to the chosen alignment, the same would've happened on an I-5 alignment except 30 miles from an existing rail line and cities bigger than Los Banos and I don't see any reality where the same funding sources that can't fill the existing funding gap would somehow open up to fill a delta orders of magnitude larger before being usable.
It because these people aren't from California and can't bother to look at a map. They just incorrectly restate incorrect information they saw in other videos.
@@mushieslushie It's interesting how an entire misinformation "folklore" has developed to trash CAHSR. There's a bunch of this misinformation that opponents keep throwing into conversations but there are no original sources and none of them remember who started the rumors.
For example, they almost always say that the current route will take over 4 hours. But no one has ever been able to prove that or show an analysis showing this result. Everyone who did an analysis on the current route says that it takes about 2h38mins, just under the 2h40min legal requirement.
Same thing with the cost estimates. They all say that the original cost was supposed to be $33 billion. But the actual cost that was publicized in 2008 (when the bond measure was approved) is $44 billion. Where the $33 billion estimate even comes from is a mystery. Although, I think they are getting estimate that from an earlier failed HSR project from the 90s.
There's a bunch of this stuff that the opponents keep repeating that doesn't have a source. But it's so prevalent that no one remembers who told the lie first.
Not going in a straight line is so they don't have to TUNNEL THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, which could increase the cost exponentially
adding the connections to the central valley will stimulate economic development all along the route
I like how everyone is pointing out the reason for the route. Overall, I thought it was a good video, but wow did the creator completely miss an obvious one there 😅
He has a perpetual blind spot on anything related to California and CAHSR. And he’s not alone on this either. Not sure why so many foamers are so anti-California, but it certainly isn’t a rare thing at all. Somehow, the extremely nerdy and facts-and-figures rail community is completely OK reciting outright misinformation from plainly questionable sources when it comes to this project. It’s a little disturbing, I have to say.
Just look at a map of where CA's mountains are. Hills and mountains are always the biggest problems for rail and it should be obvious this is what caused the route to be what it is. I agree that starting by running 4 trains between 2 places that are unfamiliar even to those who live there is a bad way to sell the project and it would have been better to begin in LA, also making it harder to cancel or scale back once significant work had been done but I expect there's a reason for that too.
In reality Fresno and Bakersfield both have ~1 million people metro areas. They are not small cities at all. Just those two and the smaller cities in between could support an HSR route on their own without a connection to the larger coastal metros. It would be incredibly silly to build CHSR but _not_ to connect it to the SF and LA areas, sure. But financially it such a system could function on its own.
@@TohaBgood2 None of the Central Valley cities metros are large enough to support HSR trains every hour like San Francisco or Los Angeles. If you are going to build very expensive HSR you might as well as use it as often as possible... Not once or twice a day, every hour!
@@ronclark9724 That's not true! Fresno and Bakersfield both have metros of about 1 million people. That's plenty for one single HSR line!
Sure, the LA and Bay Areas are monstrous. But you don't need megaregions to support HSR. If this were true most current HSR routes wouldn't exist. It's just a train, not teleportation equipment!
And while Fresno and Bakersfield are certainly large enough metros on their own to support just one line of HSR, this is a moot point. Because there will be a transfer in Merced to ACE and the San Joaquins. Even just the San Joaquins, with it's one million passengers is large enough for an HSR speed upgrade!
This isn't rocket surgery. The demand is clearly there.
These Cali Socialists should have asked William Hood about the Tehachapi Mountains oh wait he has been dead for over a 120 plus years now smdh
@@ronclark9724 Given how I live in Germany which isn't known to have that big cities, your counterargument is completely bogus in my eyes. For example, here in Germany, only four cities surpass a population of at least one million (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, the next biggest city, Frankfurt, "only" has 760k resients) and connections to even more or less smaller cities are still made.
For example, Würzburg "only" has got 127k residents and is around 100km away from both, Frankfurt and Nuremberg but isn't just part of the German HSR network but also the end an HSR line (the Hannover-Wützburg line). Fresno (545k) and Bakersfield (408k) are more populated than that, being more closely populated to the other end of the line, Hanover (536k), and at a shorter distance to boot (167km compared to the 287km of the latter).
Take a look at the geography of coastal California. Crossing through 300 miles of mountains would be incredibly expensive involving many more tunnels to maintain a high speed geometry (as your suggested routing showed) and I-5 literally skips every city and hamlet in Central California.
Also, a rail line that only served Los Angeles and San Francisco was totally unviable politically. 4 million people live in the San Joaquin Valley. That is a significant underserved market that made total sense to serve. Any high speed route in the world has intermediate stations to serve intermediate trips. Tokyo - Osaka doesn't just serve Tokyo and Osaka. The Boston-DC corridor serves other major cities in between. Express routes serve more direct options. That's how transit corridors work.
As it is, routing I-5 along the unpopulated west side of the San Joaquin Valley did not contribute to the economies of the Central Valley cities like it does everywhere else. That slight is still felt in the Central Valley. If the HSR system wanted statewide support to pay for it, then the Central Valley is required. As it is, these Central Valley cities have become bedroom communities for the Bay Area and Los Angeles so, these communities are now a part of the long distance commuter shed that is integral for the Bay Area and Southern California. This is why the Altamont line is already extending ever further into the Central Valley but commute times are still very high w traditional rail. HSR will likely allow many people in the Bay Area and LA to move to more affordable cities and still work the SF or LA. The Central Valley cities are the most affordable yet economically depressed area of California and the HSR system will very likely stimulate much needed growth for the state by invigorating these important Central Valley cities (Fresno is CA's 5th largest city). Housing prices are astronomical and this would help mitigate that. The San Joaquins Amtrak route (Bakersfield to Oakland/ Sacramento) is the 6th busiest route in the US (just behind the 5th busiest Sacramento-Oakland line). Fresno and Bakersfield each have a metro area population of 1 million. About 90,000 people commute from the Northern San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area and 50,000 from Sacramento.
The one routing problem I do see is the Pacheco Pass route. This southerly route makes getting to the Bay Area from Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto, a circuitous route. Sacramento to Oakland right now by rail is 90 min. After planned rail upgrades to 125-150 mph it will be 45 min. Add another 40 minutes to get to SF on BART from Richmond (there is no connection to BART in Oakland). It takes 2 hours to get from Stockton to San Jose on ACE commuter rail today. Who knows how long the Modesto to San Jose commute on the Altamont Express will be. A much better route through the Altamont Pass down into Fremont would have allowed for more direct routes from both the south and the north. A branch to San Jose might have been required or a smaller circuitous around the south end of the Bay rather than crossing the Bay at Dumbarton.
How do you know that? It's a waste of money, being paid by people that will not see or ride the stupidest mode of transportation.
@@victorzapata5384 Average Latinx cope.
I'm very excited for these new high speed rail implementations such the namesake discussed in the video here and Brightline West. It'll be so interesting to see HST coexisting with the conventional and traditional American rail.
You should watch the newish Alan Fisher video on why CHSR is good, it explains why the trains go through the central cavalry really well. Great video and I’m excited for the rest of High Speed Rail Week 2!
I've been excited about this project since 2004.
People who are “direct line” advocates forget that those cities are still are part of the state, and if you thought this would’ve happened WITHOUT them, YOU’RE CRAZY. Also, with this going through the central valley, gives them the potential to expand into greater cities. When you have public transportation of this magnitude running through it, it becomes more attractive to other businesses and companies.
The reason they aren’t going in a straight line is because there are tons of mountains in the way that would be very expensive to build and maintain tunnels for. So it’s cheaper to just go around the mountains
Why does it not follow Interstate 5?
@@gregory596 That would be just about 50-60 miles shorter, but it would bypass all of the populated areas. Palmdale, Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced have almost 3 million inhabitants in their metro regions. It wouldn't make any sense to bypass those for just 15 minutes less travel time.
CHSR will be a huge boost for those cities and hopefully spur further development of a sustainable transit network.
@@stephanweinberger thanks. Now I'm wondering why I-5 bypasses the largest metro areas in the Central Valley.
@@gregory596 I guess it's because there is already another high-capacity road connecting those cities: route 99.
The thing with car traffic is: it's loud and smelly - hence you want to move it *out* of cities whenever possible. Plus, it's much slower than HSR, so those fewer miles actually make a significant difference in travel time between LA and SF. A 50mi detour by HSR is just ~15 minutes, but by car on the interstate it's the better part of an hour.
@@gregory596 Yeah, most of the Valley inhabitants were wondering the same thing when it was proposed. the 5 was a crazy boondoggle from the era of excessive highway building. It's very hard to justify it in retrospect. It bypasses the entire population of the Valley just a few dozen miles to the West of where all the cities and towns are neatly lined up north to south.
Also, the 5 is built in literally the very first possible highway alignment as far as possible to the west. This means that some sections clip hilly terrain that is appropriate for cars but not for HSR or even a conventional train. It would literally be more expensive to build CHSR in the 5 alignment vs the 99 alignment _and_ be slower. This is the type of thing that only makes sense if you don't look at a map too closely, but falls apart immediately if you do.
As mentioned in other comments, the main reason a direct line wouldn't work is geography. There's a bunch of mountain ranges along the coast which is why the amtrack takes 12 hours. And highway 101 takes longer than highway 5 to go from LA to SF or vice-versa.
Even so, there probably still is a more direct route taking into account geography. But the other major factor is probably land use and right of way.
No doubt they thought carefully in the planning stages and had to make compromises and pay for right of way even though the line is not as direct as they might have preferred. I imagine many proposals were rejected for a lot of frustrating reasons.
Regarding the rolling stock of high speed rail in California perhaps some of these types of trains will be proposed:
1. Alstom: TGV POS
2. Siemens: Velaro
3. CRRC: Fuxing CR400AF (just like Indonesia high speed rail known as KCIC)
4. Hyundai Rotem: KTX Sancheon or maybe EMU-320
5. Kawasaki: Shinkansen 500 or 700 series but it can be E5 or E8 series
6. Hitachi Rail Italy: Zefiro V300 (just like Frecciarossa 1000) it can be run 350 km/h
7. Talgo: Avril (known as Renfe AVE Class 102)
And I also think that if CRRC wins the tender for high-speed rail rolling stock in California, there will be some workers from Indonesia or KCIC who are ready to be deployed.
The proposition from Alstom would most probably be a choice of AGV (TGV distributed motorization), TGV M single deck (new type with power cars half occupied by passengers), TGV M Duplex and maybe AGV Duplex if Alstom manages to sort the double decker vs distributed motorization issue soon enough. (They're working on it).
The M in the new TGV M stands for several features, one of them being "modular". It offers quickly and easily modifiable interiors and train length / composition.
They might also additionally offer variants of Bombardier (Zefiro) inherited designs or parts.
The TGV POS is just a type quite specific to work in France, Germany and Switzerland, primarily on the Paris Strasbourg South Germany line that has Duplex looking power cars with single deck TGV like passenger cars. Much like one of the 2 Thalys TGV derivatives.
So CAHSR could choose between trains with power cars and partially distributed motorization or fully distributed ; and between single or double deck trains.
That would mean a choice of 3 to 4 different types of trains derived from the same common base with Alstom only and possibly other types from Bombardier's legacy.
I really doubt that CAHSR would go with CRRC given the very poor state of the Sino-American relationship and the fact that it would need 35+ years of expected stability.
I don't really see them choosing Kawasaki / Shinkansen like trains either. Albeit not for political reasons but because Shinkansen derived trains are really tailored for the Asian markets with their seating, etc.
Some arrangement I hardly see the American public enjoying.
So the main candidates I'd see :
Alstom, any of the 3 or 4 types.
Siemens Velaro (but I'm not sure about the speed requirements)
Hitachi / Bombardier Zefiro (although there's quite a conundrum due to Alstom having bought Bombardier)
Talgo 350.
I really don't see CAHSR going with either CRRC or Kawasaki / Shinkansen derivative.
Do you have any information on the loading gauge and other dimensions (other than length) required by CAHSR ?
Given the current "air bridge" between LAX and SFO with dozens if not hundreds of flights per day, they'd better choose high capacity trains.
That's why I think a TGV M Duplex or AGV Duplex (if it's ready) derivative would be ideal.
These trains offer the greater number of seats for the limited length required while still providing common 2x2 seating.
@@KyrilPG There is no problem with the speed requirements with Siemens Velaros. The Chinese Velaro version actually managed to break the production train speed record at 486 kph (unmodified), so those Velaros are easily able to achieve all the required speeds.
In General don't forget about the legislation to buy made in America trains. This usually disqualifies half of the manufacturers. Siemens has a plant in Sacramento, Alstom in the Northeast (new Acela trains), and some of the others build at least some subway trains somewhere throughout the country.
@@MaxiAir Yeah but I meant sustained speed (especially under hot conditions).
There was a problem on the Madrid Barcelona line where they subsequently lowered the max sustained speed down to 320 or 330 due to the trains.
I know that all of the "valid selection" (factories in the US) of possible trains are capable of those speeds but it's about the sustained speed 18 hours a day that I had doubts with the Velaro.
@@KyrilPG The speed was reduced to 310 kph due to the signaling systems (ETCS level1) installed on the line. Nothing with the train. Even the Spanish Version reached 403 kph back in 2006, and apparently that wasn't the limit. Seeing the export history of other high speed rail products, the Velaro certainly is the most successful for a reason. Lower speeds in the 300-320 area instead of 360 or 380 are mostly a choice of power utilization
The Central Valley is the fastest-growing region in the state; the time to build in transit connectivity is while it's still growing. There's a reason _we in California_ decided _from the beginning_ to set the alignment along the Hwy 99 corridor rather than (a) the coast (geographically impractical) or (b) the I-5 corridor (literally the middle of nowhere). I've been following this project ever since it was first conceived of in the '90s, and that was _always_ the plan - and for good reason. It would sure be nice if "experts" like yourself and Real Life Lore would familiarize yourselves with those reasons before expounding upon them.
The reason why CHSR goes over the 99 highway alignment rather than the alignment you showed is cost. Plain and simple, the direct line you showed goes almost entirely over a massive north-south mountain range. And as a bonus it has to cross over the treacherous Grapevine mountain range near LA. This alignment would be significantly more expensive than the chosen 99 hwy alignment. It would literally be one or _more_ orders of magnitude more expensive to run HSR entirely over the more or less direct line between SF and LA. We're talking at least 10x more expensive. And it would be slower to boot, unless we go full crazy and tunnel the entire thing at even greater expense!
So the alignment was always going to veer off to the east to run in the Central Valley rather than over the direct, or near direct line between the two metros. The only question was how much to the east. There were only two choices: 1. The 99 highway alignment (roughly), or 2. the 5 highway alignment. The 99 hwy alignment was chosen as the clear winner for being both cheaper and faster. There wasn't even a contest here. All the arguments about the routing of CHSR has been about where exactly the 99 hwy ROW will be, but CHSR always hugged it pretty closely.
The 99 highway alignment is much flatter and is where most of the 6.5 million inhabitants of the Central Valley live. It is practically a continuous urban/semi-urban area. The 5 alignment is hillier. It was deliberately placed in the most western part of the Valley that can already support normal highway ROW curves and elevations. This was done to minimize SF-LA distances, like you are proposing for CHSR. The problem is that this alignment is too steep, curvy in some places for HSR. CHSR would have to run to the east of the 5 in the more hilly areas at the north and south ends and then join the 5 alignment only in the flatter center sections. This would look like a straight line with two giant S curves at the ends. As you can imagine this makes little sense, financial or speed-wise.
You could avoid building these two curves, but only by slowing down the line significantly, well below the 2h40 minutes it is legally required to have for SF-LA, and closer to 4-4.5 hours. Basically, the 5 alignment was so problematic that it was dropped pretty early from consideration. It was both more expensive and slower than the current 99 hwy alignment.
People keep looking at a CHSR route map without elevations and keep stepping on this rake over and over again. If they had just looked it, this endless conversation could finally end. The current alignment is the only thing that makes sense. This was all discussed publicly when the route was being decided on. All the documentation is public and can be easily researched, but practically no one bothers to do it for some reason.
There's a huge mountain range between LA & Bakersfield. The planned route goes around those mountains so you can avoid having to tunnel thru them. Also the reason for the route thru the center of the state is because of more mountain ranges. You have the coastal mountains, then you have the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range both going north/south sort of parallel to each other with the central valley corridor in between them.
I hope this project is completed in my lifetime. I REALLY want to take it.
It is being completed. The opponents have raised all hell and people briefly believed the propaganda. But they are only a couple of years off schedule and only have about a 47% cost increase. That's bad for sure, but nothing close to imperiling the project in any way. It's just a bunch of propaganda.
CAHSR has defeated every single lawsuit that the opposition tried against them. Now they have secured most of the land and are steaming ahead. The project is fine. Don't believe these doomers. They're either clueless or actively malicious.
I mean, the most direct route would have been along or near the 5 Freeway through the valley since the coast route is much too mountainous. At least more mountainous than the current project which will have to contend with three mountain ranges. As for why it goes through the central valley cities, AFAIK its one part politics to secure some kind of support from the cities served, one part to invest in a part of the state which has been historically neglected, one part to open the cities as commute options for increasingly overcrowded Bay and SoCal Metropolitan areas, and a final part of being required on a state and federal level.
Actually, no. The 5 is only the most direct route if you tunnel under the Grapevine. That is insanely expensive and wasn't ever a real option. They did look at it and just that one section would have cost more than the entire project as designed.
The only viable southern crossing is through the Tehachapis. This means that one way or another you end up on the eastern part of the Central Valley. From there the most direct route is in fact the hwy 99 alignment that they ended up choosing.
The fact that that alignment happens to pass through most of the town in the Valley is almost a happy accident. But then again, the very reason why those towns are on the 99 is because that was the most favorable alignment for rail over 100 years ago when that was built.
I hope Siemens wins the contract
I think they will. Their trains are already in all the marketing. They have a local factory in Sacramento that already makes 135mph Siemens trains for all of North America. Local manufacturing is required by CHSR. Also, Deutsche Bahn was already selected to be the operator and have started working on planning. They have the most experience with Siemens ICE trains so their input will definitely be in favor of Siemens too.
It's not quite a foregone conclusion yet, but Siemens is definitely the contender to beat here.
@@TohaBgood2 seriously I really hope Siemens Mobility wins this but I don't mind Alstom winning either
I definitely agree too! It would be great for a company with a large train presence in the state with manufacturing and such in Sacramento to win the high speed contract. A win-win for both.
They are built in CA, in the states capitol. It kind of would make sense.
a huge reason the HSR project is being built is to make it possible to commute from the central valley to either LA or SF, thereby reducing strain on the housing market in the big cities.
Sam - I hate to say the obvious, but almost the entire length of the straight line you mentioned early is mountains. Just overlay that line on a topo map and have fun imagining the cost. That made the choice to go up the Central Valley easy, and the next choice was whether to follow I-5 or go through the established cities. The valley cities have a combined population of 6M or so, while the west side of the valley has no one. That meant it could more easily be a California system, rather than just a SF and LA system. I know it's hard to see from the east coast because it just doesn't get talked about, but the central valley of Cali is its own place with its own needs.
Very exciting project! I look forward to experiencing a train ride on it one day.
Hard disagree with your opinion on the route.
1. The pacific coast is filled with mountains and it would be extremely difficult to build a “straight line” between LA and SF
2. Why shouldn’t the Central Valley cities deserve a high speed train line? Millions of people live there and while it is true that they aren’t as populated as the two big cities this would greatly convenience those people and ultimately have less cars on the road.
3. The one point I’ll give you is that this would exclude cities like Ventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Salinas, Santa Cruz, etc. We can only hope they add another line that way
Knowing you're from Massachusetts makes a lot of sense. There are huge mountain ranges in the way preventing a straight line from LA to SF. Additionally, the California central valley is historically underserved and in dire need of transportation. The proposed route follows a large segment of the I5, one of the most high traffic segments of interstate in the country. So suggest that the California HSR should skip the central valley almost misses the point entirely, which is to alleviate traffic and congestion along California's busiest roads.
(I grew up in California, have lived in both the bay area and LA, and commuted between them often)
I see this is the typical "Hurr Durr, this project is dumb because they didn't go in a stright line." without remotely thinking of why.
You even draw you line straight down the mountain ridge.
It's appropriate that CAHSR was covered first after the controversial video that RealLifeLore made on it, which was almost immediately met by Alan Fisher's response video. Good review on this line, but the parts I find the most disturbing is that they considered initially opening a single track in 2021 before reversing this decision a few months later. Furthermore, I remember there being discussion of CAHSR considering battery or hydrogen powered trains instead of overhead electric, but this plan may be called off as well. I would just find it hilarious if they pulled a Metra and ordered ex-Amtrak Acelas or other intercity/commuter equipment.
Speaking of which, a Boston based company called Rolling Stock Solutions just announced they'll be leasing F40s for commuter railroads, which makes me wonder which F40s they'll be using for this company, and where they'll be deployed first (maybe they'll be used for CAHSR..?/j). Can't wait for more videos in this series.
The only people pushing battery or hydrogen was some state politicians in LA.
None of those would come even close to 220mph ops. Getting F40 over 100mph is hard
The single track idea was simply because that’s all they could afford given the funding at the time. They were just able to scramble together finishing all the environmental reviews, the remaining construction on to Bakersfield and Merced, but then they only had enough left for trackwork and electrification of a single track. A couple of public meetings ago the CEO of the authority was well aware how much more expensive it is to lay one track at a time (rather then double tracking from the get-go) and voiced high hopes for some federal funding (which they got I believe) to prevent this extra cost.
Don't worry, we've got the greatest state of the art trains!
You see, there are some metroliners...
Why choose the Central Valley line?
1. Because it's a high-speed rail instead of a high-speed subway. Taking a train that goes quickly in the tunnel is absolutely uncomfortable.
2. Digging tunnels would be bloody expensive and probably require more foreign technologies involved, which would be not favoured by local companies.
Some brief opinions about choosing the rolling stock:
1. Because the train will go at high speed up to 220mph, the train cabin must be well sealed, or the passengers would find it uncomfortable. I'm not sure how many Americans have ever travelled on a 200mph+ vehicle, not aircraft, but the feeling would be pretty different.
2. Hitachi's Zefiro high-speed train, previously named Bombardier Zefiro, is a new and cheap solution designed for China. However, it is told not stable on the high-speed move.
3. For a better maintenance convenience, I highly recommend the California high-speed to choose the same rolling stock as the Brightline West so that the manufacturer can build a big warehouse and related facilities nearby, which could significantly reduce the maintenance cost.
AFAIK Brighline West is only gonna operate 180 mph (290 km/h) trains. And-as of now-they are not planning on interlining with CAHSR. Their current plans are only as far Victor Valley (9 miles north-east of the Amtrak station in downtown Victorville)They have a notice of intent to extend over the Cajon pass to San Bernardino (in an adjacent station to metrolink). The link to Palmdale-and interlining to LA union station-is only conceptual at this moment. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to settle on a common trainsets between Brightline and CAHSR to save on maintenance (at least for now).
That said, Siemens does have a pretty big operations in California, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the CAHSR would end up going with Siemens Velaro trainsets as well.
@@rokksula4082 Well... It's Brightline so there's a lot of unsubstantiated marketing in their claims. Originally they claimed 150mph for LA-LV and that is still unchanged based the route they are targeting. Nevertheless, they released this new 180mph claim with zero details. I won't believe it until I see it substantiated somehow. The ROW they chose certainly can't sustain more than 150mph for most of the route. Also, they simply don't need more than 150 mph anyway so it's unlikely that they will spend a bunch of extra money trying to reach that.
Basically, let's wait and see on this speed claim. But keep in mind in the meantime that Brightline West is a vanity project for Brightline to continue to be able to call themselves "high speed" without earning it, even though their current and planned services are all conventional commuter rail in every sense and by any metric.
@@TohaBgood2 Agreed. I’ve gotten used to the excellent public announcements and general open communication behavior of the CAHSR authority, that it was quite frustrating actually trying to find out what the intentions are exactly for Brightline West. From their hole schtick you might think they were offering one seat ride from LA to Las Vegas, and their website certainly is not trying to deny it. But if you look closely-and you have to actively look closely-you see no such promises.
I was hoping to find some environmental studies etc. but I only found vague promises. However, one such promise says top speed of 180 MPH (and I realize now how that doesn’t mean a lot if they only reach that speed on a tiny section). They do say “planned future connection to California High-Speed Rail in Palmdale” on their website, however I can’t find anything about the planned alignment etc. let alone any plans to interline to LA (except for the possibility hinted on the maps around Palmdale from CAHSR authority).
Siemens is big in California.
I never knew that someone is covering American Railways, I am glad to see that you're putting your hard work to gather all the information but American Railways progress is seems to be really slow, I am from India and they started railroad projects but modern railway just four years ago and already fast trains are running and Bullet train by 2027, trains made by Alstom, it's a French company and some other manufacturers including Indian companies really reaching their targets. I am Railway fan, love to ride in the trains and love to see fast and beautiful trains in California soon, thanks for sharing.
2:24 Building a straight Line would cost Billions more and destroy and hopes for a Sacramento Extention.
Also, tunneling under the Grapevine would be insanely expensive. The Tehachapis are the only option for a rail crossing and even that requires extensive tunneling. So one way or another you end up on the eastern side of the Central Valley after crossing the mountains from the LA area. From there the current 99 alignment is indeed the shortest route to the northern crossing at Pacheco Pass.
Because of the coastal mountains, the line has to run through the central valley to avoid astronomical tunneling costs. While the line could have taken the shorter route and followed the I-5 corridor along the sparsely populated western edge of the valley, trekking the extra 50 miles across the valley to the CA-99 corridor allows you to loop in millions of additional potential riders and several intermediate destinations along the highly populated eastern edge of the valley. Since the train will be travelling at 200+ mph in nearly-straight lines across the valley, this excursion only adds a small time time penalty for express services. Given the budget limits you to building only one line through the central valley, the chosen route is definitely the superior option.
What reason is their not to connect the inner valley? It connects more people to more places and allows for growth and aswell it avoids the mountains.
Ignoring the fact that any costal route would have way more hills and mountains to deal with. There’s also the whole equity and trying to connect the regions that currently have lots of super commuters.
The valley is also home to some of the poorest areas in the state.
San J are getting cut back to Merced. They expect you to transfer there
Bright line west is LV to Rancho C. Palmdale to Victor Valley is a LA metro project instead of a freeway expansion
Looks like 2-3 editing mistakes slipped though as you double said something.
The coast is very rugged and prone to landslides. The central valley has a lot of large economically disadvantaged communities that would benefit from being connected to the high-speed rail. Current service runs there now and it’s very popular the only missing point is between Bakersfield in Palmdale which the high-speed rail is going to connect.
9:57-I like how you chose JetBlue. They are my favorite airline (despite never flying on it), and I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and it was slow, but very pretty, and it is not that hard to get across the bay taking BART or a bus.
Hope everything will complete as planned! It's exciting to have HSR for to SF and LV from LA.
Yes the alignment could have gone along the western side of the Central Valley (getting anywhere near the coast is a non starter because of the topography), but the east side of the Valley is better since it will serve the cities along the 99 corridor. They are underserved and absolutely need the connection.
problems with a more direct route:
1) Mountains the entire way
2) fault lines
the central valley is much more level, and geologically stable, making construction cheaper and easier. In addition to allowing the rail line to link into the historically under-served and highly impoverished cities there, spurring economic growth. Not to mention cheaper land (also part of why it's sharing right of way with CalTrain, historically a bad idea for high-speed rail.)
People still thinking that trains are planes on wheels.
Here’s a Thumbs down 👎🏼 for repeatedly insulting those of us in the Central Valley; your cheap attempt to caste us off as insignificant. We are very much looking forward to the high speed rail train which will alleviate heavy traffic through the Grapevine.
I love this series keep up the good work, love these documentaries, hope that they can get this done by the dates that are to be meeted! Once again nice job!
Looks like someone didn't learn from the last guy who didn't do their homework
You would NEVER be able to use the straighter route the he's talking about. The terrain and property would never allow it. Please do your home work before insulting the professional people planning this project. I think they know what they'll doing.
Interesting video. I understand your points of view on this project.
The 2 routes compared - Coastal vs. Central Valley actually sort of exist on Amtrak, and the central Valley route is faster even though it requires Bus Transfers at the start and end
Ugh... So disheartening to hear that this project is still like 10+ years away from first trains running. I remain hopeful, but like... is money the main construction bottleneck? If so, throw down that cash and let's get some gosh darn track laid! All I've seen so far is miles of dirt cleared and a few over/underpasses being worked on.
I know right? We needed this finished years ago... lets put the money into finish it faster before the costs for the land go up even more.
You're so lucky to still be in 2019. It sucks here in the present year of 2022.
worldwiderailfan, do you know what a "mountain" is?
how hard is it for people to look at a map and realize a direct route between sf and la is dumb because you'd have to cut through the pacific coast range and spend hundreds of billions to do so
Why do people keep insisting that the Central Valley is "the middle of nowhere"? I can tell that most of the people that say that have never set foot here or else you would stop with that nonsense. Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Merced, Stockton, hell even the capital of Sacramento are in the Central Valley. The region has certainly been undeserved compared to other areas of CA, but it is most definitely not "the middle of nowhere". I live here and I'm sure anyone else who lives or has been through here can agree with me.
People have already taken you to task on the route so I won't pike on.
But I will say "Tulare" rhymes with "hair". It does not rhyme with "carry".
Also, as you were making this video talking about lack of funding and oversight, the state legislature passed a new state budget that addressed issues of funding and oversight.
Your one opinion is overshadowing the rest of the video in the comments. But the video wasn't too shabby as a whole.
I think the direct route is very mountainous, the Central Valley was chosen because it's the flattest route possible between the two cities
There's still a huge mountain at each end.
@@tonyburzio4107 And? Dealing with two small mountains is certainly better than dealing with one huge one, isn't it?
To add to what UwU Caffeine Addiction wrote below, the coastal mountains also have a plethora of fault lines whereas the Central (San Joaquin) Valley does not. The Central Valley has something like a mile of silt from the Sierra Nevada filling it (mostly on the east side) which acts as a shock absorber for earthquakes. Additionally, many of LA's and SF's population is moving to the Central Valley due to high costs of living, horrible traffic, high crime, etc. Fresno will be a maintenance and service center for the HSR trains with a population to support that effort. One thing not mentioned in the video was that the cost overruns and mismanagement of the project are horrendous. I may be mistaken, but the project has cost over 100 billion and we aren't even a third of the way completed. It will make the Boston Tunnel project look like small potatoes cost wise when completed.
WOOOO HSRW2 HERE WE GO BOY
LOL "Why didn't they just build over an entire mountain range for 500 miles and instead go where everyone lives and is pancake flat?"
And at three minutes I am done watching lol
It’s much cheaper to build on flatland then to build on mountains so a more direct route would actually be more expensive and more harder to build. It’s important to do extensive research before doing videos.
Its not just the grade, or the mountains. The proposed route parallels existing commercial lines, meaning it will be easier to aquire land for the right of way and places the line, as noted to several cities that have no real transit connections. Also paralleling existing lines means at least some of the grading work has been done, lowering costs, etc
You done fucked up in your first point...
You don't build a high speed train just to service the two big cities, but connect everyone...
If you build it, people can commute from Stockton and Modesto and Palmdale and Bakersfield and completely revolutionize the interconnectivity of the state... and it will improve the lives of everyone not just people trying to go from sf to la...
Awesome video!
None of these plans have been met. So far they have spent over150 billion, it won't pay for itself, heavily subsidized by non riders, not able to provide enough electricity to power it, the disaster continues. It's a deep pocket joke.
Excellent.
That would have been an entire missed market. The Valley has a higher population, higher economic value and is cheaper to build than through sparsely populated mansions inside of mountains and would have ONLY served two cities which is next to useless.
One development that no one anticipated was for the I-80 between the Bay Area and Sacramento to explode into a "Mega-Region" as people move out to inland cities. So maybe the economic and population centers as they exist today will shift inland to the central valley and the "train to nowhere" will serve more than an alternative to getting from LA to SF but the new commuter service between communities that didn't exist 20 years ago.
The direct route means cutting/tunneling through mountains and thus costing a lot more than building tracks on flat valley land, that is what you are not realizing.
good - we need more trains
The direct route is a bunch of mountains so idk how you could possibly be confused why they didn’t use that route
Like the TGV & LGV in France, HSR total ridership is higher when many cities, including those as small as 400K pop. are spaced 50-90 miles apart are connected. With 4-track HSR stations, you can always run Express or Limited-Stop trains past smaller cities. That is how California HSR will achieve 2 hour 40 minutes (Express) and 2 hour 56 minute (Limited Stop) service.
The coastal route you showed has almost no population and is extremely mountainous this is so dumb
While the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, it isn't always the fastest, something that becomes obvious if you've taken physics.
No matter how fast the politicians' toy trains go, they will fail. They always do.
The central valley makes more sense than along the coast for a few reasons. First the central valley is not the middle of nowhere. It has many growing populations, and people travel regularly to and from there and the major cities. There's a reason why a major highway already goes through the central valley, while a narrower less used one goes on the coast. Second the California coastline north of LA is quite mountainous, so the amount of space for construction is quite narrow. Third the coastline gets a lot of mudslides and fires that would slow down construction and possibly prevent trains from running due to safety.
Nice 😎 Greetings from South Florida
Yes that sounds good.
You should watch Alan fishers video on California high speed rail
Prop 8 would have never passed if it was just going to serve LA and SF, along the I5. If those 2 cities were just going to pay for it no one would really care but taking money from the CV to pay for a direct route. No Dice.
No this is a great project. Highspeed bullet trains should have been done decades ago. But damn it takes America so long to do things. 2033 for full service? In 10 years the Chinese would have 5 lines completed. They completed a beautiful train station in 9 hours. Nine hours!!! California, step it up!! Get to work!!!
It’s the Palmdale to union station that’s really holding up the project and the expansion south . Big portion of money need to go to it .