Visible signs of Construction, multiple columns are sprouting out of the ground!

More signs of progress at the Fresno River Viaduct in Madera. A finished column and the form used to make it.

---

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

Looking at the marks on the concrete, that looks either to be very recent or rather crude.

Hope they have allowed good engineering margin for construction, earthquakes, and increased loading...


After TWO CENTURIES, we must have the ingenuity for something better than rail for 'high speed' travel... Cue the Elon Musk Hyper Loop? Can we get rid of all the old-school old iron rails hot air?!


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Looking at the marks on the concrete, that looks either to be very recent or rather crude.

Hope they have allowed good engineering margin for construction, earthquakes, and increased loading...


After TWO CENTURIES, we must have the ingenuity for something better than rail for 'high speed' travel... Cue the Elon Musk Hyper Loop? Can we get rid of all the old-school old iron rails hot air?!


Keep searchin',
Martin

Monorail?

---

I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

Looking at the marks on the concrete, that looks either to be very recent or rather crude.

Hope they have allowed good engineering margin for construction, earthquakes, and increased loading...


After TWO CENTURIES, we must have the ingenuity for something better than rail for 'high speed' travel... Cue the Elon Musk Hyper Loop? Can we get rid of all the old-school old iron rails hot air?!


Keep searchin',
Martin

The contractor did testing prior to making this column, the date on one pic is 11/30/2015, and the concrete looks like it would when recently released from the mold.

---

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

Keep searchin',
Martin

Monorail?
Monorail?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOI0cq6GZM

Monorail is stil a steel on steel technology, with wheels doing both the load carrying and guidance. In truth most so called monorails are actually twin rail systems, or even more. To break the steel on steel technology you have to look to the exotic such as maglev, or guided air cushion technologies, both of which have no supporting or guiding contact with the infrastructure. They both have high energy demands, but are OK for point to point operations. For both point work (turnouts, crossings etc. are a technological challenge). On the other hand land take tends to be smaller for a given passenger carry rate.
I suspect we are going to see steel on steel technology around for a good few years to come, and much of that will be "1435" based.

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_29424548/san-jose-back-running-early-high-speed-rail

California high-speed rail officials are considering junking a 2012 decision to build the first segment from Burbank north into the Central Valley -- and are now seriously studying the possibility of bringing the first stretch of track north to San Jose instead.

The alternative being examined would run from Silicon Valley to Bakersfield and be less costly than the current proposal to connect the Central Valley with Burbank because it wouldn't entail expensive tunneling costs, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
...
The first construction started in Fresno in July, 2½ years behind schedule.

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/high-speed-rail/article58793528.html

The threat of massive cost overruns has been a key to arguments by critics who question whether the California High-Speed Rail Authority can deliver a system that connects Los Angeles and San Francisco for “only” $68 billion.

Big infrastructure projects, after all, have a history of costing a lot more than expected. Replacing the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco ran a reported $5 billion over budget. The “Big Dig,” a Boston highway tunnel, ran about $12 billion over budget. And cost estimates for California’s proposed bullet-train system were a roller-coaster ride of their own even before construction began last year: from about $43 billion in 2010, to an eye-popping recalibration of nearly $100 billion in late 2011, followed in 2012 by the now-current estimate of about $68 billion.

For the first chunk of construction on California’s ambitious high-speed train program, a 29-mile section between the south end of Fresno and the northeastern edge of Madera, the authority established a contingency allowance of about $160 million for unforeseen costs over the awarded contract of about $1 billion to design and build the segment.

Through late January, about $14.1 million in change orders submitted by the contractor have been approved by the agency – and that includes some $5.3 million already included in the budget for dealing with asbestos and other hazardous materials along the route.
...
The agency also is receiving about $500 million a year from the state’s greenhouse gas-reduction program through at least 2020. That still leaves the agency significantly short of what it needs to build an operational segment from the San Joaquin Valley to either the San Fernando Valley or San Jose.

That’s a big reason the authority says it’s constantly monitoring cost risks. “There are going to be times when we wake up and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this cost looks like it’s increasing over here,’ ” Richard said. “At those moments we are not going to go off in a corner and roll up in a ball. Our job is to roll up our sleeves and see how we can find offsetting cost reductions.”

Money is a chief concern for the rail agency, but so is the schedule. The rail authority executed the contract for the Madera-Fresno construction in mid-2013, but while some building demolition and utility relocation work began in 2014, major construction didn’t begin until last summer. And, authority leaders told legislators, time is money.

Within the $68 billion budget, “almost $13 million of that is time, it’s inflation,” Morales said at the subcommittee hearing. “Like any big program, the faster we get this built, the less it will cost. The longer it takes, the more it will cost.”

Sounds like a project in a lot of trouble, because it has no money, which means cost cutting and that is safety and utility of use cuts.

---

Now a court challenge
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/07/plagued-by-delays-california-high-speed-rail-heads-back-to-court.html?intcmp=hplnws#

Plagued by delays, California high-speed rail heads back to court
...
n the second phase of a court challenge filed in 2011, attorneys for a group of Central Valley farmers will argue in Sacramento County Superior Court on Thursday that the state can't keep the promises it made to voters in 2008 about the travel times and system cost. Voters authorized selling $9.9 billion in bonds for a project that was supposed to cost $40 billion.
...
Other terms of that initiative also will be before Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny this week. A group of landowners in the Central Valley filed suit over the project, arguing that compromises made to cut the price mean the train won't be able to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes as voters were told. Critics argue trains cannot traverse the steep Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California at the necessary 220mph.
...
Kenny previously ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing the state had failed to meet the mandates that it identify funding for the first useable segment before starting construction and have all the needed environmental clearances in hand. But an appeals court reversed the ruling, saying the lawsuit was premature.

---

Can we pick a route?
http://mynewsla.com/government/2016/04/10/officials-to-consider-latest-california-high-speed-rail-proposal/

---