[WS:] Mountains are a bigger problem for freight rail where the grade cannot exceed 4% if memory serves. For passenger rail it can be higher. For that reason, building a high speed passenger rail in the mountains can be less costly than building low speed freight rail - paradoxically.
While we are at that, in the last spring I took a train from Istanbul to Eskisehir in central Turkey. This is pretty mountainous terrain. The existing rail system was build at the turn of the century by Germans. Right now, a new high speed rail is being built http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Turkey.
It was quite amazing to see the new high speed tracks being routed through an elaborate system of bridges and tunnels. And it is even more amazing that Turkey went for high speed rail as opposed to, say, flying. And it is still more amazing that when it comes to the US, there is a whole army of shysters trying to prove the impossibility of building high speed rail in this fucking shithole. It seems that the very existence of the United States is a major obstacle of the future progress of the humanity.
Wojtek
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
> anything involving any kind rail passing through San Mateo county was DOA
> due to visceral resident opposition over "property values." Maybe that
> changed, but I doubt. A more realistic scenario involved rail alignment on
> the eastern side of the Bay, connecting San Jose and Oakland. I would
> imagine this would work with high speed rail as well, especially if it was
> extended to Sacramento.
>
> Wojtek
> -------------
>
> I pretty much agree. BART can be extended on the East Bay lines to meet a
> HSR system. The southern westside of the bay below SFO is a nightmare maze
> of freeways, traffic jams into San Jose, where a similar maze and open
> season development has created a nightmare.
>
> Another lurking issue are the mountains that surround the northern LA
> complex. Getting over those is a real pain in the ass. I got so tired of
> that I stopped going down to LA for holidays. I have no idea what it's like
> these days.
>
> CG
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