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by inferiorhuman
1402 days ago
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Nothing prevents a high speed train from using an at grade crossing
Well… albeit at appropriate speeds.
Then you've just removed the "high speed" from "high speed rail". That's why HSR funds are paying for some of the cost of grade separation. Grade separation is hugely important (and hugely important to get right -- look at the consequences of the shit design of BART's Oakland Wye). While it would be nice for CalTrain (and most rail crossings) to be fully grade separated, it's incredibly expensive, doesn't add much value for rail users as the train already has the right of way, and it primarily benefits auto traffic.
There's significant value in not hitting pedestrians or automobiles. There are also ways to reduce the cost of grade separation.https://www.caltrain.com/media/1033/download?inline https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-exploding-cost... |
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I would love for Caltrain to be fully grade separated (and electrified and modern Signaling and Train Control with Automatic Train Operation), but this costs a lot of money and there's an opportunity cost with that. Even with cost optimizations that Clem's blog discusses we are still talking billions of dollars and many years to grade separate the dozens of remaining crossings in the Caltrain corridor. Not to mention the ~210000 road-rail grade crossings across the USA, ~100000 in Europe, [0][1] and however many else exist in the rest of the world.
That is the scale of the problem. It is not affordable or realistic to eliminate all of them, we have finite resources and have to pick and choose our spots based on an objective analysis. And the benefit of that primarily goes to road users who should be the ones to pay for it or taxpayers at large, rather than rail users and more limited rail funds.
While loss of life is obviously tragic, in almost all case these are the result of illegal actions of people trespassing or committing suicide-by-train. I dislike characterization of "trains hitting people," as if it were the fault or malicious of the train. Trains operate on rail tracks which are fixed to the ground. Trains don't go anywhere all willy nilly like cars can, including right into people's houses (which has happened to a relative and a neighbor). It is not reasonable to compel a rail organization to spend billions to "fix" this problem, if it even can be. I've even endured a more than hour long Caltrain delay, because someone drove a truck into a structural support column of a Caltrain grade separated overpass, and we were not cleared to cross until structural engineer could come out, inspect it, and give the OK. So let's not act like this is some panacea.
HSTs are never going to operating at 200+ mph on the Caltrain corridor. It's going to be limited to "standard speeds," which can still be 100+ mph. Last I checked the US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) allows up to 110 mph with grade crossings, and up to 125 mph with specialized upgraded crossings. This is plenty fast, and common in urbanized areas in other developed countries like Germany and Switzerland.
[0] https://railroads.dot.gov/program-areas/highway-rail-grade-c... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_crossing