I want to talk for a minute about the other Virgin Trains USA project - the one between Las Vegas and 'Southern California.' It just got (probably) delayed for 2-ish years until the state of Nevada can convene the legislature again and hopefully give the company '
tax abatements' whatever those are.
Meanwhile, VTUSA has 2 more years to evaluate what its service will look like, which is good because there is a huge problem with what is currently proposed:
The line ends in Victorville, CA. In order to ride the train, people first have to drive their cars through LA and Cajon pass for at least an hour before they finally get to the train station. By then they might as well keep on going, because they are already in their cars and taking the train will cost at least $60 and only save them
80 minutes (according to this article)
Everyone with common sense can see this isn't going to be excellent.
There are really only two defenses for the proposed project:
1) There will be a future connection with High Speed Rail in Palmedale. This is probably not going to happen anytime soon considering recent events related to the CAHSR...
2) This is only phase 1 in a multi-step process - the line will be extended into LA later once the first phase is bringing in revenue.
People with this second attitude will say that eventually a high speed rail line will be built - using private money - through the mountains and the LA basin. I just don't see this happening. Building through mountains and urban areas is far too expensive for a private company to take on.
Instead, I think the best strategy for VTUSA connecting to Los Angeles is to connect their new high speed tracks to the existing freight tracks at Victorville and then run in mixed traffic all the way into LA Union Station, following a timetable similar to Amtrak's Southwest Chief. Amtrak is able to run from LAUS to Victorville in
2 hrs and 55 minutes; Add to this VTUSA's claim of 90 minutes from Victorville to Las Vegas in 90 minutes and the total ride time from Los Angeles to Las Vegas will be 4.5 hours, which in most traffic conditions is
still faster than driving.
This brought me to wondering about the viability of constructing VTUSA stations at the four locations Amtrak/Metrolink currently stop at in the LA basin: San Bernadino, Riverside, Fullerton, and LAUS. Assuming that VTUSA orders more trainsets from Siemens similar to the ones they are using in Florida (a safe bet, I think), these cars would be single-level high-floor cars that work best at high platforms. Of course, California and Illinois are ordering the exact same locomotives and cars for their own corridor services, and these cars will be equipped with stairs in order to use the low platforms on these routes.
High platforms are better for passengers but until recently were limited in where they could be built because freight trains are often wider than passenger trains and could not use tracks adjacent to high platforms. Brightline in Florida solved this problem with gap-fillers that deploy from the passenger cars.
The trouble is, these gap fillers and their support mechanisms would take up the space used by a stairwell. Mechanical gap fillers are not like manual bridge plates - you cannot switch between high-level and low-level doors. This is important, because I think VTUSA would want to have high platforms at their Las Vegas terminal station, which is slated to become a huge real estate development similar to MiamiCentral. It would be weird for the terminal station to require passengers to tromp up steep and narrow stairs, and for ADA passengers to require a lift.
Perhaps VTUSA could have half their doors low and half high? But why forfeit half of your boarding speed?
Perhaps VTUSA could have additional doors for low and high platforms, like the Stadler Kiss units ordered for the Caltrain electrification project? But why add complexity to the car design and reduce seating capacity?
Also, would VTUSA really just use existing platforms at the four LA basin stations? Their whole thing is hospitality and professionalism. They are almost certainly going to want to build their own station buildings for waiting rooms, and if they are going to do that, why not build their own high-platforms directly on the mainline as well?
I did a little armchair designing on Google Maps, and found that the current VTUSA stations in Florida are 860 feet long. These are all 'island' platform stations with a building above them connected by elevators/escalators. For California, I am assuming they will also build their waiting rooms above or beside the tracks then connect to them via an overhead bridge and elevators/escalators. However, instead of an island platform, I used two side platforms that would be located beside the low-level platforms of Amtrak/Metrolink.
Here is an example. Fullerton, where passengers from San Diego on the Surfliners would connect:
Now with a VTUSA station:
The labels were attempting to designate the
yellow area as the STATION building (complete with ticketing areas, waiting rooms, passenger drop-off and pick-up area for cars, and all the other amenities seen on VTUSA in Florida), the
red areas as PEDESTRIAN CONNECTIONS including a bridge over the tracks to the ticketing and waiting areas, and the
orange areas as PLATFORMS, where passengers would be directed to trains just as they were arriving and departing - no passengers would be allowed on the platforms when other trains were passing without stopping (as currently done in in Florida).
The Riverton station would be similar. For San Bernadino I tried to fit two platforms in, but I just could not. So instead I have only platform placed just west of the brand-new Amtrak platform.
Current:
With VTUSA:
Again, the
yellow is the station building, complete with bridge over the Metrolink tracks. The
orange is the high-level VTUSA platform, and it is on the track that is otherwise used only by Amtrak and fright trains. The
blue line is a very slight reloaction of one of the cross-overs between the Metrolink tracks and the Amtrak/freight track. I do not think it is used during regular daily operation, so there is no need to make it high-speed.
I have no idea what to do about Los Angeles Union Station besides have VTUSA buy one of the tracks (possibly Track 15 - the farthest east?) and convert it to a high-platform.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
I think this concept would be a very popular alternative for travelers. Connections at Fullerton and San Bernadino would be very convenient for passengers who did not want to drive/ride all the way into Union Station but were also unwilling to drive up to Victorville. The Victorville station would still be a thing, and people could still drive there if they chose.
Remember, Brightline calculated that they could turn a profit on their train operations if they captured only 7% of the travel market between Orlando and Miami. Only 7%! Everything else is just gravy. For the LA-LV route, the profitability margin is probably even lower. This train doesn't need to be convenient for everybody - it only needs to work for a small amount of passengers for it to work, and I think by blending conventional-speed trains in the urban LA basin and the mountain pass with high-speed service through the desert, it will be convenient for more than enough passengers for it to be profitable.
Even though the trains would clearly not be operating at a high speed from Victorville into Union Station, they could still travel at about 80 mph, which is currently the top speed on VTUSA in Florida (until the Orlando extension opens). The Florida operation also has to deal with mixed traffic on all but the future Cocoa-Orlando segment, so dealing with Amtrak/BNSF/Metrolink is not an impossible task. It is also possible that, just like in Florida, VTUSA is able to make some money in the commuter market as a friendlier alternative to Metrolink, just as some people commute into Miami from Fort Lauderdale on VTUSA instead of on TRIRAIL.
I think VTUSA really ought to look a the cost of constructing their own stations in these locations, because a fully connected system is FAR superior to a disconnected high-speed system, even if trains travel only at conventional speeds.
Thoughts?
Prev
Linear Mode
