CascadiaCalling
NotMackinVilleKeep on dropping those drips into a massive $100 billion budget bucket and pretty soon you will be talking about real money:
The dream of high-speed passenger rail connecting Vancouver to cities in the Pacific Northwest inched a little closer on Thursday, with the announcement of millions of dollars in new U.S. government funding.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration announced $US49.7 million for planning on a proposed Cascadia High-Speed Rail project. Washington state has kicked in a further US$5.6 million...
And then there is British Columbia's micro-drippage:
Since discussions began in 2018 on proposed high-speed rail service through Cascadia corridor, B.C. has provided $900,000 in development funding to explore this connection between Portland and Vancouver...
Now.
While they do play a half-dozen or so big time college football games a year there, why the heckfire would anyone want to lay out an additional ten or twenty billion to push the line all the way south to Eugene anyway?
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Speaking of trains and tracks and all that...Meanwhile, very sadly, in Stanley Park...
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Speaking of trains and tracks and all that...Meanwhile, very sadly, in Stanley Park...
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2 comments:
The small BC contribution to funding this mega project is an example of what the forthcoming American President says is a $100,000,000 subsidy by his nation to ours.
Knowing something about railways and high speed rail, this will never happen.
Once rail speeds pass about 100 mph, both track vertical and horizontal curvature come into play and the faster the train service the broader the curvatures. This means more bridges and tunnels to accommodate the trains.
So, unless there is the ridership to sustain will a minimum of four trains per hour per direction, a Pacific Northwest HST is nothing more than a pipe dream.
One could cut about 60 minutes of travel time by:
1) Increase the track speed from Vancouver to the Boarder to about 60 mph. This would entail fencing in Whiterock and pedestrian over/underpasses to the beach at at least 10 locations.
2) Do away with the border check at Blaine.
3) Increase the maximum line speed in the USA to 90 mph.
4) Replace the bridges from Marrysville to Everet with higher speed, double track lift/draw bridges and increase the speed crossing the bridges from 10 mph to 40/50 mph.
The cost for this, including signalling, new trains, is under USD $10 billion, with about $300 mil. to $400 mil. investment in Canada.
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