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A Maglev may mean an airport or two can be eliminated.
No one has seriously talked about closing an existing airport, but efforts to build new ones have met with huge resistance.
I think that most countries in Europe would like to eliminate domestic flying as much as possible (except for islands). I know that Spain wants to have all of it's provincial capitals within 3 hours by train of Madrid, and to bury a train tunnel under Madrid to connect the two train stations in the North and center of the city. Domestic flying will be primarily to Balearics and Canary islands.
California is one of the most urban states in the USA, and it's airports are nearing capacity. But interstate flying is extremely heavy. It is 338 miles from LAX to SFO. A fleet of tiny airplanes flies from San Diego and Santa Barbara and a dozen other smaller cities to LAX. Attempts to use buses on these routes have met with derision. As the runways are severely overtaxed, these small planes with limited passenger capacity, and the requirement for triple the normal time intervals between landings create much of the problem.
Southern California will lead the State’s growth over 2012 to 2060, growing by 8 million to a total population of 31 million. Population projections for 2050 are 50.37 million which will make it as large as present day England (if not the whole UK).
The projected cost of High Speed Rail network seems to grow outside of any relation to inflation, and though the idea is widely supported in concept, it's reality is grim.
Ideas that were formerly considered unthinkable are now on the table. One of them is building 20 mile tunnels under earthquake prone mountain ranges. I have never heard of commuter flights being considered.
I have to admit I have never heard of this concept before.
Think of a hybrid car like the Chevy Volt that only has the wheels turned by an electric motor and the engine is only a generator wit set of batteries to act as buffer. The plane is the same with an electric motor turning just a propeller. The Wankel engine is used because it is very small, light and very efficient when running at its "sweet spot" at a constant speed - Wankels do not like being revved up and down as in normal car driving. Have set of batteries between. Have the plane run on batteries only on take off and landing. There could be an induction track on the runway with a pickup shoe on the nose wheel to pick up electricity to aid take off and preserve the batteries charge, which could be charged from the grid while the plane is on the ground. Use the batteries for landing and for reserve in case of generator engine failure.
The setup can be scaled up to multiple propeller planes, just needing a small electric motor to turn the prop on the wings. The wings will not be supporting heaving combustion engines as the light and small Wankel engine(s) and battery banks can be in the fuselage. A 200 seater plane can easily be built with this setup.
A small inner-city airport could have 5 of these plane fill up with passengers simultaneously and take off within minutes of each other. 1000 people could be shifted quite quickly in peak hours.
Avionics can sort out the air traffic. The noise problem is sorted by using electric motors to take off and land. Technology has moved on and this leaves high-speed train behind in many respects and especially in flexibility and costs.
No one has seriously talked about closing an existing airport, but efforts to build new ones have met with huge resistance.
No one wants an airport near them - understandable.
Madrid wants to eliminate the terminal stations having only through stations. Berlin did this but took 50 years to do it (with a war in the way). Liverpool eliminated north and south terminal stations using a tunnel and sinking stations underground. Terminal stations are a dead loss as people have to alight and travel across a city to another terminal station. London should have done this decades ago, but spending £18bn on an east-west Crossrail. But does not eliminate terminal stations.
If the projected population increases in southern California are realized, then they have no option but to go to regional rail as the feeders for airports - inter modal. At London-Gatwick the train station is on ground floor of the terminal with passengers moving up to the floor above to check in for the planes - all seamless. High-speed rail from LA to SF would make sense using double decked trains. In the UK the situation is very different with large clusters of cities rendering high-speed rail unnecessary.
The authorities have to take control of the planning, to avoid conflict with air and rail companies. It must all be meshed in.
I have to admit I have never heard of this concept before.
Think of a hybrid car like the Chevy Volt that only has the wheels turned by an electric motor and the engine is only a generator with a set of batteries to act as a buffer. The plane is the same with an electric motor turning just a propeller. The Wankel generator engine is used because it is very small, light, reliable and very efficient when running at its "sweet spot" at a constant speed - Wankels do not like being revved up and down as in normal car driving. Have a set of batteries between. Have the plane run on batteries only on take off and landing.
There could be an induction track on the runway with a pickup shoe on the nose wheel to pick up electricity to aid take off (a lot of energy is used to take off a plane) and preserve the batteries charge, which could be charged from the grid while the plane is on the ground. Use the batteries to get out of the urban area, for landing and for reserve in case of generator engine failure.
The setup can be scaled up to multiple propeller planes, just needing a small electric motor to turn the prop on the wings. The wings can be light as not supporting heavy combustion engines as the light and small Wankel engine(s) and battery banks can be in the fuselage. A 200 seater plane can easily be built with this setup.
A small inner-city airport could have 5 of these planes fill up with passengers simultaneously and take off on a ski-jump runway within minutes of each other. 1000 people could be shifted quite quickly in peak hours.
Avionics can sort out the air traffic. The noise and pollution problems is sorted by using electric motors to take off and land. Technology has moved on and this leaves high-speed trains behind in many respects and especially in flexibility and costs.
If the projected population increases in southern California are realized, then they have no option but to go to regional rail as the feeders for airports - inter modal. At London-Gatwick the train station is on ground floor of the terminal with passengers moving up to the floor above to check in for the planes - all seamless.
High-speed rail from LA to SF would make sense using double decked trains. In the UK the situation is very different with large clusters of cities rendering high-speed rail unnecessary.
The idea is heavily discussed, but so far little action other than San Francisco connected to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit. There is, of course, bus service.
CA is over 38 million at present. The present airport system spends a huge percentage of it's resources flying people intra-state. There is a single daily train that connects San Francisco to Los Angeles and it takes roughly 14 hours (much longer than the bus).
California Large Airports
LAX Los Angeles
SFO San Francisco
SAN San Diego
California Medium Airports
OAK Oakland (northern CA)
SNA Santa Ana (southern CA)
SMF Sacramento (northern CA)
SJC San Jose (northern CA)
ONT Ontario (southern CA)
BUR Burbank (southern CA)
California Small Airports
LGB Long Beach (southern CA)
PSP Palm Springs (southern CA)
FAT Fresno (central valley CA)
SBA Santa Barbara (southern CA)
Last edited by PacoMartin; 04-26-2014 at 09:55 AM..
Members of Parliament have rejected a call for the proposed HS2 rail link between London and the West Midlands to be abandoned after a six-hour debate in Parliament.
The House of Commons threw out a proposal by former minister Cheryl Gillan for the plan to be halted by 451 votes to 50. So it looks like this inappropriate, hyper-expensive and unneeded folly is going ahead. High-speed rail in the UK does not address the real needs of rail transport.
It now appears a matter of what form it takes. The current form is ridiculous only serving four cities centre to centre. It need effective pressure from interested groups to get some sanity into the flawed plan.
The mayor of London (who is no bright spark) on about the new high-speed rail lines. Land Value Taxation would automatically compensate any losers in building a new rail line. If the house price (read land price) drops, so will their tax contribution - for ever, not just once in a one-off compensation package. I doubt he knows what LVT is.
“But with HS2, we should be more French in our approach. People are in the humiliating position of having to pretend that there’s some environmental objection that they hav...e, that the great crested grebe is going to be invaded or whatever. What they care about is their house prices. They don’t care about…it’s tragic we have protest groups talking about ‘this ancient woodland’ when actually there’s no tree in this country that’s more than 200 years old…most mature trees die at about the age of my age, the average life expectancy of a tree can’t be more than about 60 years. There aren’t that many ancient woodlands around is the point I’m trying to make.
“It’s bol**cks. They’re not campaigning for forests, they’re not campaigning for butterflies. They pretend to be obviously, but what they’re really furious about is that their house prices are getting it.”
Take a look at HS1. I used one from St Pancras at peak time and it was less than half full, despite being quicker. Two reasons. It costs even more than extortionate older routes, and terminates somewhere no commuter wants to be. Before they proceed with HS2, someone needs to take a serious look at the financial and passenger projections of HS1. London to Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes is great, but the line is a businessman's plaything. HS1 and HS2 won't even connect in London.
Members of Parliament have rejected a call for the proposed HS2 rail link between London and the West Midlands to be abandoned after a six-hour debate in Parliament.
The House of Commons threw out a proposal by former minister Cheryl Gillan for the plan to be halted by 451 votes to 50. So it looks like this inappropriate, hyper-expensive and unneeded folly is going ahead. High-speed rail in the UK does not address the real needs of rail transport.
It now appears a matter of what form it takes. The current form is ridiculous only serving four cities centre to centre. It need effective pressure from interested groups to get some sanity into the flawed plan.
It doesn't mean it's going ahead just yet, it has to have finances put in place and that's a long way from happening and will be up to future Governments and dependent on future competing demands for treasury resources and budget deficits.
It doesn't mean it's going ahead just yet, it has to have finances put in place and that's a long way from happening and will be up to future Governments and dependent on future competing demands for treasury resources and budget deficits.
That is true, but all the hurdles so far have been jumped by the HS2 fans.
Many think phase two of HS2 will not go ahead if the Crewe Hub is built as a part of phase 1. The extra cost of many billions to run a HS2 line to Manchester, Manchester airport and up to Wigan/Preston for the little extra time gained will meet with great disapproval. But so far no Crewe Hub has been approved and the flawed project is progressing as planned.
Last edited by John-UK; 05-12-2014 at 05:26 PM..
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