Comments on: How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails

By: Garth

Garth — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 18:07:46 +0000

For the price of this investment ($100 billion? $200 billion?) you could buy at least 1,000 Boeing 737’s, which will get you faster between LA and SF or SJ than any train.
There’s about 300+flights a day between LA and SF. Since one plane can make more than one trip a day, the actual number of planes you need is a lot less.
And there’s little present demand to do from Modesto to SF, and the existence of HSR isn’t going to increase it.
I don’t know if I should be happy that given my age I probably won’t live long enough to see whether this boondoggle gets finished and operational or not.

By: M.T.GUNN

M.T.GUNN — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:33:57 +0000

It’s been a year since I last dropped in here, nice to see “Stupid People” are still wasting billions on the high-speed trainwreck to hell.
Bring it all down man, Bring it all down!

By: HB

HB — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 21:31:35 +0000

Dear Mary:
You are exactly what is wrong with politics today. You cannot make a rational decision based upon the facts. You merely go right to name calling.

The train cannot get you from SF to LA in a couple (or even a few hours) when they have added stop after stop after stop. Do some math and see how long it takes a “bullet train” to get up to speed and how long it takes to reduce the speed to stop it. How long do you have to stay in each station to load people and their baggage? Operationally it is a joke.

Now let’s talk money. There isn’t anyone who understands the project who believes that it will come in anywhere under $200 billion. What will a ticket cost? And the train will still have to be subsidized every year by the tax payers. Look at the revenue from ridership at any public transit authority, Bart or toll bridges. Some of the budget always comes from taxes and government grants.

So if you are, G-d forbid, correct and we actually waste the money and the thing is finished in 15 or 20 years, It will cost a fortune to ride, the taxpayers will have to subsidize it, and you can drive their faster than this Milk-Run Express get you there.

Whilst I would never call you a Left-Wing Shill, you do sound a wee bit shrill. Have a nice day, I am off to my weekly shill meeting. ?

By: Local Yokel Reprise

Local Yokel Reprise — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 18:58:25 +0000

Here is the article on speed and end-to-end times, “like BART, but on steroids”

https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=c9c58bd5-795e-4393-afe2-62d34eb93348

Here is the graph of the simulation run, as of making San Jose-Gilroy conventional, at-grade, assumed 110 mph as on the Peninsula. Note that this graph also illustrates another defect of the Palmdale dogleg besides the additional 40-50 distance than the Grapevine route, namely that it requires two (2) major mountain crossings in the south instead of one. (No base tunnel for part 2)

https://www.courant.com/la-me-cahsr-performance-calculations-20180730-story.html

By: Bill Hough

Bill Hough — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 16:42:00 +0000

Too bad this project is now “too big to fail.” Too bad it took so long to get this report on what went wrong with this project.

By: Local Yokel Reprise

Local Yokel Reprise — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 05:12:05 +0000

Say, y’all should remember this, 10 minutes, 39 seconds of HSR bliss.

Newsom is here, and Fiona Ma, involved with as well as pushing rail projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2K_IoK_qk4

And the best is yet to come. After earlier years of wanting to avoid tunneling as much as possible, even hosting a tunneling conference in Marina Del Rey about it, the project has been diverted south through San Jose, then made low-speed to Gilroy, then sent through Pacheco Pass away from where the tech and other commuters live, with a 13.5 mile tunnel. (Contractors rejoice even more than the San Jose boosters seeing trains forced to visit and stop there.)

By: Local Yokel Reprise

Local Yokel Reprise — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 04:49:38 +0000

I’m surprised any left-leaning publication in California dares anti-religicult-cheerlead for the farce, debacle, and contractor pork-o-rama that this project has so much amounted to so far, dare to publish any of Vartebedian’s articles.

Heresy! Blasphemy! Sacrilege! says the zealot robot cheerleader crowd.

(Like Climate ReligiCult Lite)

Those of us who want rail in the state to succeed, those of us who want high-speed rail to succeed, and those of us who don’t like Taxpayer Pillage, have been critical of the failures from the start of the project officially in the 1990s.

By: Mary Tracy

Mary Tracy — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 01:01:18 +0000

No matter how many right-wing shills write articles for Exxon opposing high speed rail, the fact remains that California is getting it built.

By: Work90

Work90 — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 17:47:52 +0000

I’m pretty sure EVERYONE saw this coming, except maybe the Climate Crusading Religious Zealots and their Politically Corrupt Brethren in the State Assembly who have probably made a fortune off of potentially the largest boondoggle in American history.

But what do i know…..