Ok, but what is the flight time and costs for comparison. It's all horses for courses.

Flight times are only relevant when you factor in all the delays, like journey time to airport, how long do you have to report before flight time, time waitng for baggage and the time from airport to destination city. Plus any delays if the journey consists of two or more flight or landings.
You can save ~15% by going via Chicago from San Francisco to New York at the expense of 2 or more hours travel time.

Trains tend to go from city centre to city centre, and if they do stop at intervening cities it is only for a few minutes.

Which is a big big factor is suburban anti-urban California. You have to factor in travel time to the train station, cost to travel to the train station, waiting to check in and go through security, delays etc.

Not that HSR is a bad idea, but construction costs must balance the utility of the infrastructure. Later projections are not showing a good balance with lower ridership numbers and higher construction costs than the original forecast. Today in California, water has also entered the picture. It is time to ask the people the question, is the utility of water more important than the utility of HSR?

I think we all know the answer unless someone thinks there is an unlimited supply of money.

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Ok, but what is the flight time and costs for comparison. It's all horses for courses.

Flight times are only relevant when you factor in all the delays, like journey time to airport, how long do you have to report before flight time, time waitng for baggage and the time from airport to destination city. Plus any delays if the journey consists of two or more flight or landings.
You can save ~15% by going via Chicago from San Francisco to New York at the expense of 2 or more hours travel time.

Trains tend to go from city centre to city centre, and if they do stop at intervening cities it is only for a few minutes.

Which is a big big factor is suburban anti-urban California. You have to factor in travel time to the train station, cost to travel to the train station, waiting to check in and go through security, delays etc.

Not that HSR is a bad idea, but construction costs must balance the utility of the infrastructure. Later projections are not showing a good balance with lower ridership numbers and higher construction costs than the original forecast. Today in California, water has also entered the picture. It is time to ask the people the question, is the utility of water more important than the utility of HSR?

I think we all know the answer unless someone thinks there is an unlimited supply of money.

It's False Equivalence Gary, Ridership is expected to be high, as most will be absorbed from Amtrak and other sources. Right now construction is happening and is under budget where construction is and is not happening.

Water has a $7.0 Billion dollar water bond(Prop1 from 2014), which was agreed to by both Democrats and Republicans, for Dam Construction Republicans got $2.5 Billion, instead of $1.5 Billion, polls are not reliable, since they rely on landlines and most who have landlines in California are old people, not younger people who do not vote Republican, but then I have 3 Republican relatives who did ride on HSR in France and are very much in favor of it...

"High speed rail can carry 10,000 passengers an hour in each direction"
-Denis Doute, SNCF

Source: http://www.ushsr.com/info/factvsfiction.html

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

British Airways London Heathrow to Edinburgh £180 return. Travel to Heathrow, book in one hour before, 1.5 hour flight, 1/2 hour to city centre.

London Kings X to Edinburgh by train, 4.5 hours, £210 return.

*cheaper flights from Stanstead.

Caledonian Sleeper overnight, Euston 23.50pm-07.20am £150 single for solo berth. £50 reclining seat.

For short journeys it is 50/50 air or train depending whether you want to save time or money.

Travel time Paddington to Heathrow 15 to 20 mins depending on terminal.
HS2 will reduce the journey time London to Edinburgh from 4.5 hours to 3hr 38min, competing well with the air times. Current journey time London to Manchester by train is 2hr 8min, HS2 will reduce that to 1hr 8min.

I would say that High Speed rail costs in for the shorter distances and air for the longer ones. In the UK at least.

Return journey KingsX to Edin Waverly, just been on one of the web sites they say ~£100 depending a bit on booking in advance and time of day?????

Source: http://www.ushsr.com/info/factvsfiction.html

Vic, quoting a high speed rail industry trade promotion group is about the same as quoting the coal producers industry group that global warming is a fantasy.

When CHSR was first surveyed it was at the height of tech bubble and there were lots of people going to and from the silicon valley. The bubble burst. So did the people who would have ridden the train.

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It is time to ask the people the question, is the utility of water more important than the utility of HSR?

If California weren't using Central Valley farm land to grow hay for export to Saudi Arabia for their dairy herds and the agriculture community were to use more efficient drip irrigation to name 2 prominent examples it would not have a water problem.

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Source: http://www.ushsr.com/info/factvsfiction.html

Vic, quoting a high speed rail industry trade promotion group is about the same as quoting the coal producers industry group that global warming is a fantasy.

When CHSR was first surveyed it was at the height of tech bubble and there were lots of people going to and from the silicon valley. The bubble burst. So did the people who would have ridden the train.

So you think HSR in California should be killed?

California has 38 million people living here, 50-60 million are expected in the near future according to the Census, our fwys can't handle this many people...

What other transportation alternative do you propose?

Freeways take up more land, are more expensive than HSR and can't handle the load, HSR can and does worldwide, some wrongly say California doesn't have the density to support HSR, that is a MYTH...

http://www.highspeedrailworks.org/about-us/myths-facts/

Amtrak is breaking records on ridership left and right

Hopefully no one here listens to the Reason(KOCH owned) Foundations crap, cause KOCH is Big Oil and they get hundreds of Billions in Subsidies, as does the Concrete industry(Paul Ryan's(R-WI01) family is in to building freeways, they make Concrete)...

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

It is time to ask the people the question, is the utility of water more important than the utility of HSR?

If California weren't using Central Valley farm land to grow hay for export to Saudi Arabia for their dairy herds and the agriculture community were to use more efficient drip irrigation to name 2 prominent examples it would not have a water problem.

That is not true. Large parts of the state are not connected to the state water project. Ask anywhere west of the Coastal range where does the water come from. Excepting Los Angeles the answer is local. They must rely on what falls on the ground in their area or what they can pump. Those areas also are not into agriculture.

Now as to drip, the farmers who ten years ago had to fallow their fields because they could not buy water will tell you they can't even get water to put into a drip hose. A few others who have some bankroll spent the $1million to sink a couple of wells into an aquifer that should not be tapped. Now they have electricity bills so sky high they don't use flood irrigation, only drip.

Now the senior rights holders, who just lost their free water are going to have to drill wells too and convert their farms to drip or go fallow until the reservoirs are full again. The necessity of sending huge amounts of water downriver to keep the delta smelt a happy fish can't be part of the reason either, or could it?

The rest of the US had better understand that huge brown field behind the harvest truck is growing the food you are going to eat.

Better get ready to eat imports which don't have FDA cleanliness standards for listeria and e-coli.

But CHSR or water is a California decision. Unless the other 49 want to float California a loan.

Of course there are those who think that California is made of money and doing both is easy. Well, just to deal with the local traffic mess in one county in California $700Billion http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20151117/glendale-to-palmdale-and-710-to-210-tunnels-in-reason-foundation-traffic-plan

As Vic says there is a puny 1/100 of that amount water bond out there now. People in general have no idea of the cost of infrastructure projects. To fully deal with the water issues in California might be on the order of a trillion dollars.

I think asking the voters of this state what they would like their tax dollars spent on isn't a bad idea.

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That is not true. Large parts of the state are not connected to the state water project.

Gary, it is true the deep the deep wells are using up the aquifer as they did in the Arabian Peninsula, which they drained. They may not be part of the state infrastucture but they are part of the states water.

Excepting Los Angeles the answer is local. They must rely on what falls on the ground in their area or what they can pump. Those areas also are not into agriculture.

That is a big part of the problem, the problem is regional not local.

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That is not true. Large parts of the state are not connected to the state water project.

Gary, it is true the deep the deep wells are using up the aquifer as they did in the Arabian Peninsula, which they drained. They may not be part of the state infrastucture but they are part of the states water.

Excepting Los Angeles the answer is local. They must rely on what falls on the ground in their area or what they can pump. Those areas also are not into agriculture.

That is a big part of the problem, the problem is regional not local.

Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all, water pressure is lower than it used to be here and the park has two wells on the 8 acre property. I used to use a swamp cooler to cool My 810sqft mobile home with, now I use window a/c with the a/c set to the default energy saving position, the thermostat for the a/c is set for 76F, which for 10,000 BTU's seems to cool off 1 bathroom, the living room and the kitchen or about 450sqft. Why the a/c, instead of the cooler? The area has gotten more humid, making the cooler not able to cool as well as it used to, on a/c where I have it set at, the electric bill is about the same, so the cooler has the water shutoff.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

There is a initiative that will show up on the ballot in 2016, called Prop 52, it aims to make any bond measure be approved in an election by the voters that is above $2 Billion in value, this includes the water bond, HSR, revenue bonds(that HSR could use with cap and trade money), for fwys, highways, streets, schools, you name it, even if the bonds had been approved already by the voters.

Those in favor of this initiative is a Farmer who put up $4 Million to get the signatures to get this on the ballot, the farmer is against HSR and from what I've read lives in Stockton CA, not exactly in the path of HSR. The guy is anti-HSR and says here that the $9 Billion was the price of HSR, which is false, $9.95 Billion($9 Billion for HSR and 950 Million for rail transit that connected or aligned with HSR or $9.95 Billion is state matching funds(Prop 1a of 2008 on HSR):

Proposition 1A approved the issuance of $9.95 billion of general obligation bonds. This money is supposed to partially fund an 800-mile high speed train under the supervision of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. In 2008, when voters approved the measure, the estimate for the total cost of the project was $40 billion.

$9 Billion(The HSR bonds could not be spent without a matching source of money, like Federal money or State money or Local money or Revenue Bonds) was the down payment and the estimated cost was $40 Billion, at least before the Feds stepped in and made the cost estimate be $50 Billion.

Right now the rates are cheap and construction on HSR is happening and the Contracts are not over budget and under Design/Build(the type of Contract issued by the CHSRA), the contractor is responsible for any errors, since they are issued an outline to flesh out, any problems are their problems.

There is a saying in drafting, "a picture is worth 1000 words", so I'll keep the pic small.


Prop52 wrote:

Supporters of the initiative refer to it as the "No Blank Checks Initiative."


Ballot title:
Revenue Bonds. Infrastructure Projects. State Legislature and Voter Approval. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Official summary:

"Requires State Legislature approve use of revenue bonds for public infrastructure projects funded, owned, or operated by the state or any joint agency that includes the state, if the bond amount exceeds $2 billion and repayment requires new, increased, or extended taxes, fees, or other charges. Requires that legislatively approved projects be presented on statewide ballot for voter approval. Applies to previously approved projects if remaining bond amount exceeds $2 billion. Requires that specified project information for all state bonds be included in voter ballot pamphlet."

Fiscal impact statement:

(Note: The fiscal impact statement for a California ballot initiative authorized for circulation is jointly prepared by the state's Legislative Analyst and its Director of Finance.)

"Potential reduction in large-scale infrastructure projects funded by the issuance of revenue bonds."

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

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Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here, the Mojave is only above ground from the Mojave Narrows in Victorville CA to the mountains, after the narrows the river is more like a creek that does a disappearing act, by the time the river gets near Barstow CA, the river is only sand on the surface, all cause of a flood control structure somewhere upstream.

This quote below came from Page 5 of 34 the PDF below:
http://www.nature.org/media/california/california_drinking-water-sources-2012.pdf

In addition, most southern California cities obtain some of their
drinking water from the Colorado River

And most includes this area, since where I live is in the Desert of Southern California.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Prop 52(Ballotpedia) wrote:

Arguments against

Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for Gov. Brown, said:[2]
“ This is a really bad idea that would cause costly delays in repairing our roads, colleges and water systems and make it harder to respond to natural disasters. The governor is strongly opposed to this initiative.[5] ”


Robbie Hunter, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council, argued:[2]
“ Our state is suffering from a massive backlog of essential needs across the state including outdated water systems that are vulnerable to earthquakes, crumbling roads and bridges and overcrowded hospitals and universities. This measure worsens an already grave situation and threatens our economy and job creation.[5] ”


Allan Zaremberg, California Chamber of Commerce president, said:[2]
“ This ballot measure is both deceptive and dangerous. Since neither the general fund nor state taxpayers are on the hook for repayment, it’s misleading and unnecessary to call for a statewide vote.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Concrete industry(Paul Ryan's(R-WI01) family is in to building freeways, they make Concrete)...

Railways also use concrete sleepers, as do platforms, car parks, and the infrastructure. Turning to rail rather than freeways won't harm the concrete industry.

HSR from San Francisco to Los Angeles makes sense, one from New York to California doesn't.

Agreed Chris S, now if only there was a Like button or an Up arrow and Down arrow like Discus uses here.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here,

And just where do you think well water comes from?

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Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here,

And just where do you think well water comes from?

So you think there is no recharge from the Colorado River to here, even though where I live at is in Southern California?

And after I put up proof, from 2012, which is still legally binding...

As the French say, Incredible...

I live near the i15 fwy(north of the fwy), not in the Central Valley, Barstow CA is also along the i15 and the i40 fwys and not in the Central Valley.

The Mojave River(what's left of it) is almost 2 miles distant from here.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here, the Mojave is only above ground from the Mojave Narrows in Victorville CA to the mountains, after the narrows the river is more like a creek that does a disappearing act, by the time the river gets near Barstow CA, the river is only sand on the surface, all cause of a flood control structure somewhere upstream.

This quote below came from Page 5 of 34 the PDF below:
http://www.nature.org/media/california/california_drinking-water-sources-2012.pdf

In addition, most southern California cities obtain some of their
drinking water from the Colorado River

And most includes this area, since where I live is in the Desert of Southern California.

Like right here Gary/\, see the pdf link?

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Oh and Gary, there is a Desal plant coming online in San Diego County(Carlsbad CA), it cost $1 Billion to construct and it's under budget, one 10 times as big in capacity couldn't cost too much more I'd think, since that one uses Reverse-Osmosis technology and the outflow is mixed with a power plants outflow, it's modeled after a Desal Plant in Port Hueneme CA that has been operating for decades, it has not had any problems with outflow bothering sea life. This one will produce enough water for 7% of the counties needs, so one 10 times bigger in capacity should make 70% or about 500,000,000 million gallons of fresh water per day, Carlsbad will make about 50,000,000 by comparison per day.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near

A worker walks by racks containing the reverse osmosis cartridges at the $1 billion Carlsbad desalination
plant in Carlsbad, Calif., on Monday, May 5, 2014. When completed in 2016, it will be the largest
desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere and will produce 50 million gallons per day.

The pic is 800x532 pixels and is well within the 1024x768 size for dialup that has been quoted in the past here on the forums.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here,

And just where do you think well water comes from?

So you think there is no recharge from the Colorado River to here, even though where I live at is in Southern California?

Yes.

I live near the i15 fwy(north of the fwy),

You have posted enough info on yourself for anyone to have found your mobile home on Google street views.

not in the Central Valley, Barstow CA is also along the i15 and the i40 fwys and not in the Central Valley.

The Mojave River(what's left of it) is almost 2 miles distant from here.

Precisely! And how far is it to the Colorado River? MWD's Colorado aqueduct comes through Palm Springs, not Palmdale! That is along the I-10 freeway, on the south side of the mountains well south of you.

Vic you are drinking Mojave River water, even if you don't want to admit it to yourself. Perhaps you should realize your proximity to Hinkley California and the aquifer contamination problems there. Does the name Erin Brockovich ring a bell?

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Even this area depends on water wells, We do get recharge from the Colorado River, but that's all

Your park sits almost on top of the Mojave river. I think that is where your recharge comes from, not the Colorado.

Actually the Mojave River is underground here,

And just where do you think well water comes from?

So you think there is no recharge from the Colorado River to here, even though where I live at is in Southern California?

Yes.

I live near the i15 fwy(north of the fwy),

You have posted enough info on yourself for anyone to have found your mobile home on Google street views.

not in the Central Valley, Barstow CA is also along the i15 and the i40 fwys and not in the Central Valley.

The Mojave River(what's left of it) is almost 2 miles distant from here.

Precisely! And how far is it to the Colorado River? MWD's Colorado aqueduct comes through Palm Springs, not Palmdale! That is along the I-10 freeway, on the south side of the mountains well south of you.

Vic you are drinking Mojave River water, even if you don't want to admit it to yourself. Perhaps you should realize your proximity to Hinkley California and the aquifer contamination problems there. Does the name Erin Brockovich ring a bell?

I live in San Bernardino County, not Los Angeles County where Palmdale is at, I'm north of Victorville and east of Barstow CA, do you need a map?

You obviously need a lesson in Geography, here's the map.


Yeah I know of Hinkley, our water is in a self contained basin and test results are provided every year, outside of Calcium Carbonate the water here is ok, hard yes, but ok and I've lived here since 2004, I don't have cancer or such.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's