Ultra High Speed Rail in the Pacific Northwest? (Seattle, Longview: transfer, construction)

[CrazyDonkey]

A way to do this would be in conjunction with a Cascadia Olympic Games: Vancouver, Bellingham, Seattle, Olympia, Portland, Eugene, with other stations filled in later. Most facilities already exist or are being built. We'd mostly just need the Ultra-High Speed Rail to connect them.

[pnwguy2]

Originally Posted by leastprime

Would be nice. I made the Salem-SEA round trip 12x in 2018-2019 (9 months), The one way is 5.5 hours, 210miles. I recommend the Cascades' train bistro; Ivars clam chowder is a little cheaper on the train vs Ivar's restaurant . Avoid the Amtrak Starlite, northbound, which originate s in SanFransico/oarkland..

The Coast Starlight originates in Los Angeles. It does not go anywhere near San Francisco or Oakland, however Amtrak does offer bus service to the Bay Area. It is an option for many who want to board in Eugene or Portland, and other stops to get to Seattle.

https://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by pnwguy2

The Coast Starlight originates in Los Angeles. It does not go anywhere near San Francisco or Oakland, however Amtrak does offer bus service to the Bay Area. It is an option for many who want to board in Eugene or Portland, and other stops to get to Seattle.

https://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train

It doesn't go anywhere near San Francisco, but does stop in Oakland.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by bartonizer

LOL What kind of milk delivery service are you receiving? Express service from Seattle to Vancouver would take 47 minutes, Seattle to Portland in 58 minutes. Regular service would be around an hour between those stops. Top speed would be 220-250 mph.

https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/sites/defau...dices-2019.pdf

If top speed is 220 mph, why would the trip from Van to Seattle take only 15 mins. less than regular service? The thing is, there are too many stops already. The train can't reach its top speed and stay there for very long, because of that. This always happens with high-speed services; all the municipalities want their own stop, so before you know it, the service has become closer to a regular train service. This happened with BART. Lots of wrangling over who gets a stop, so the train rarely reaches its max speed. Why have a train with that super-high-speed capability, if it's not going to use it hardly at all?

High-speed rail in CA ran into the same thing; so many little burgs outside LA wanted their own stop, that it did, in the design phase, become a milk run route. If the greater LA area wants a rapid transit system, they should build one, instead of hijacking the HSR project. Anyway, HSR in CA is dead in the water. Maybe the NW will have better luck.

[pnwguy2]

Originally Posted by CrazyDonkey

It doesn't go anywhere near San Francisco, but does stop in Oakland.

I stand corrected. Apparently need a new eyeglass prescription!

Bottom line, the Coast SL is effectively the same as the local Cascade trains, in terms of fare. The train itself might even be better.

[Botev1912]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

If top speed is 220 mph, why would the trip from Van to Seattle take only 15 mins. less than regular service?

What are you talking about? The regular train takes between 3.5 and 4 hours between Seattle and Vancouver or a lot more than a 15-minute difference.

[pnwguy2]

Look to California for reasons why high speed trains are not a real answer.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cali...ed-rail-2019-2

[bartonizer]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

If top speed is 220 mph, why would the trip from Van to Seattle take only 15 mins. less than regular service? The thing is, there are too many stops already. The train can't reach its top speed and stay there for very long, because of that. This always happens with high-speed services; all the municipalities want their own stop, so before you know it, the service has become closer to a regular train service. This happened with BART. Lots of wrangling over who gets a stop, so the train rarely reaches its max speed. Why have a train with that super-high-speed capability, if it's not going to use it hardly at all?

High-speed rail in CA ran into the same thing; so many little burgs outside LA wanted their own stop, that it did, in the design phase, become a milk run route. If the greater LA area wants a rapid transit system, they should build one, instead of hijacking the HSR project. Anyway, HSR in CA is dead in the water. Maybe the NW will have better luck.

By "regular service" I'm still referring to HSR, not current speeds. Right now it takes 4+ hours to go from Seattle to Vancouver, and just less than 4 hours from Seattle to Portland, while the high speed train would take about 1/4 of the time, which is pretty significant. The proposal calls for dozens of trains per day, with about 1/2 to 2/3 being regular (all stops) and the balance being express (just Vancouver and Seattle).

Regarding "many little burgs" in competition, you're right that determination of station location can hold up progress on regional and local transit, but in this case they're really only considering several additional stops in either direction from Seattle, with each either stop a large city/suburb/exurb or central spot of a small metropolitan area. It's clear from the analysis that the planners view intercity traffic on non-primary city stops as an essential part of the system's feasibility-at 200+ miles an hour it competes with multiple modes of transportation and even commuting much more possible from all stops on the network.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by bartonizer

By "regular service" I'm still referring to HSR, not current speeds. Right now it takes 4+ hours to go from Seattle to Vancouver, and just less than 4 hours from Seattle to Portland, while the high speed train would take about 1/4 of the time, which is pretty significant. The proposal calls for dozens of trains per day, with about 1/2 to 2/3 being regular (all stops) and the balance being express (just Vancouver and Seattle).

Regarding "many little burgs" in competition, you're right that determination of station location can hold up progress on regional and local transit, but in this case they're really only considering several additional stops in either direction from Seattle, with each either stop a large city/suburb/exurb or central spot of a small metropolitan area. It's clear from the analysis that the planners view intercity traffic on non-primary city stops as an essential part of the system's feasibility-at 200+ miles an hour it competes with multiple modes of transportation and even commuting much more possible from all stops on the network.

Thank you for explaining your post. Where would the track right-of-way go?

[bartonizer]

Originally Posted by pnwguy2

Look to California for reasons why high speed trains are not a real answer.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cali...ed-rail-2019-2

I'm not sure how you can come to that conclusion from the link you sent. In fact, the article makes the completely opposite point- that we need to catch up with the rest of the world and build HSR.

We don't know if it's the answer here or not because we don't actually have them here, which is the whole point- that we need to figure out a way to make HSR much easier and less expensive to construct to make it viable. Price per mile and cost overruns have sunk CA's efforts and have generally made it cost prohibitive in the US.