Quote:
Originally Posted by BrownTown
Just to be clear there are only 6 tracks there. That's not enough to adequately serve both HSR and commuter rail. The transit center is a huge bottleneck and limits the entire system.
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As a terminal station, certainly. As a thru-station, hardly.
If a standard gauge 2-track transbay tube is built, they will be able to operate 12-15 trains per hour per direction (a mix of commuter rail and HSR) through the station. All peninsula commuter rail will continue to the east bay and vice verse. HSR will detrain, be cleaned and restocked in 5 minutes (the Japanese do this in this amount of time), receive a fresh crew, and then head back to LA on the opposite side of the bay. The crew will take a 30-60 minute break in SF, then operate a later train back to LA.
There has been a lot of chatter re: a new 4-track transbay tube with 2 tracks for commuter rail & HSR and a second set for BART, but I suspect that we will see a 3-track or 4-track standard gauge tube built instead.
I suspect that the BART line to Pleasanton & Livermore will be converted into standard gauge commuter rail compatible with Caltrains and HSR. That will open up capacity in the old Transbay Tube for more service on the other three BART lines. It will also enable current blue line riders to skip 5 BART stops, so save 10~ minutes en route to DT San Francisco.