MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

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froggie
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby froggie » September 1st, 2015, 7:21 pm

EB-5 is also being used for a reportedly big biotech endeavor here in northeastern Vermont. It's been reported that the buy-in here was $500K. Not sure what the status of the project is...the "owner" has been having some issues lately.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby FISHMANPET » September 1st, 2015, 8:35 pm

That would be a targeted employment area. Those are either areas with high unemployment (150% of nationwide median) or rural areas (outside an MSA).

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Tiller
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » September 19th, 2015, 2:10 pm

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

So the private company that was trying to build an LA to Las Vegas high speed rail line,
which has been unable to secure adequate private investors in the United States or a $5.5-billion federal loan, announced that it had formed a partnership with China Railway International USA, a consortium led by China Railway, the national railroad of the People’s Republic of China.
reminded me of our own mysterious consortium here. ;)

mattaudio
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » October 7th, 2015, 9:11 am

MnDOT considers hitting 'pause button' on Zip Rail
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/ ... 11f84.html

With no federal funding for high-speed rail on the horizon, Minnesota Department of Transportation officials are considering suspending work on Zip Rail once an environmental review is done.

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Tiller
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » October 9th, 2015, 1:58 am

Looks like we missed this:
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/ ... 7a43c.html

A couple excerpts:
The private company seeking to build a high-speed rail line from Rochester to the Twin Cities is also vying for the right to build four other corridors, including a proposed line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
Meadley declined to name all of the corridors that the group is seeking to build, but said one is "a significant corridor on the East Coast" and another one is in the southern United States. The group is also exploring building a Chicago to Rochester high-speed rail line, along with the Rochester to Twin Cities line.
Also, according to the comments, the "280 mph" thing was supposed to be 280 km/h. (280 km/h ≈ 174 mph)

Edit: There may or may not be an unmentioned 4th one, depending on whether or not Rochester-Chicago is considered a different coridor. The "declined to name all of the corridors" implies that MSP-Rochester-Chicago is one corridor to them, because otherwise she would have named all of them, though she could have also accidently mentioned the southern route later on or something (the PR skill involved here doesn't always seem top-notch, if you catch my drift).

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Tiller
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » October 9th, 2015, 2:41 am

Tangentially related (context I guess); a little recent information on some other corridors around the country:
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/09/ ... em/406927/
Mentions: LA-Vegas, California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, NEC, SE rail corridor.

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mulad » October 9th, 2015, 7:14 am

The speeds they've mentioned continue to be a red flag for me. Even if they were intending to say km/h, they don't really mesh with high-speed services that have been talked about before. 300 km/h (186 mph) has been a pretty standard top-end number since at least the TGV in the 1980s. Speeds have been pushed up since then to 320 km/h (199 mph) and 350 km/h (218 mph) on some lines. Those three speeds are often quoted at 185, 200, and 220 mph when discussing them in the U.S.

Of course, the true top speed for any service is likely to have a strange-looking number. There always needs to be a significant amount of headroom for safety and practicality anyway. The rate of acceleration drops off as trains go faster. It doesn't make sense to push the envelope too far when implementing new services since the penalty from any unplanned slowdown increases dramatically as speeds go higher.

260 and 280 km/h are perfectly valid speeds, and I'm sure there are certain lines that use them (high-speed service on German ICE lines often doesn't try to push the speed as far as French TGVs, for instance), but when you're talking about building something brand new across fairly flat land, it doesn't make sense to me to put forward a number that is a step or two below the state of the art of 1980.

That makes me pretty sure that NAHSRG really does intend to say 260 or 280 mph in order to dazzle people with numbers that are higher than anything anyone else has to offer. But what does that mean? That's certainly an achievable speed range under good conditions, but most likely impractical for day-to-day service. If there's a technological leap that makes that practical, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to be the first ones to get it.

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mulad » November 4th, 2015, 12:57 pm

There's a "What's on Tap?" event in Rochester this evening to discuss the the rail proposals. I'm not sure what it will be like, but I'm going to try to attend:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1514297038881207/

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » November 4th, 2015, 1:26 pm

I was going to ask... you driving there for the meeting?

grant1simons2
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby grant1simons2 » November 4th, 2015, 1:35 pm

Shuttle from the airport is $38 for a same day round trip. Just have to leave Roch by 8.

bubzki2
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby bubzki2 » November 4th, 2015, 1:45 pm

I'm going to try to attend this as well, but I'm not sure what I'm expecting to get out of it...

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mulad » November 5th, 2015, 4:38 pm

This event turned out pretty well -- the people who attended were mostly from Rochester and seemed to either be in favor of having a service be built or were basically just trying to learn more about it. Nobody seemed strongly against it, which was a nice change of pace from the periodic anti-rail letters to the editor that are sometimes the only chatter I hear about anything.

It's sounding more like the Zip Rail study will be mothballed once this current Tier I study wraps up. A fact sheet put together by the guy who does the Med City Beat blog mentioned an initial two-year term for the exclusive rights for US-52 and other highway corridors that the NAHSRG folks have been asking for. I'm not sure I'd ever heard of that two-year sunset before -- that makes the idea of letting them run with the project more palatable.

Still, my support of them is all contingent on NAHSRG being a real organization with real money and (access to) expertise. Something currently bugging me about them is the fact that they've expressed interest in the Los Angeles to Las Vegas corridor, at least according to local reports here in Minnesota. I haven't seen their names pop up in any reporting out west, but maybe I haven't looked hard enough. That corridor has recently seen proposals from companies that are even more questionable -- 250-mph suspended monorail, anyone?

Of course, allowing NAHSRG rights to the highway corridors might still allow the state study to proceed along the old Chicago Great Western corridor as a backup plan of sorts...

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » November 5th, 2015, 5:46 pm

I just hope they negotiate that if a private venture goes bankrupt, the state is somewhere in the line of creditors where they can pick up the assets as infrastructure.

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Tiller
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » December 13th, 2015, 11:10 pm

It seems that there have been more data requests over the past month, and more released information. These are the links to the articles I've read. Some of the information contained therein doesn't mean much to me nor CCARL (lacking proper contextual knowledge), but may mean more to some of you (like the biographical information at the end of the Business Plan). Lots of embedded docs that may make it clearer whether or not this proposal is serious, probably more informative than the articles.

A limited summary of the various happenings over the past month:
http://www.cannonfalls.com/main.asp?Sec ... leID=26659

http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestem ... hands.html (public-private cooperation)
http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestem ... count.html (public engagement & Lobbying)
http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestem ... -plan.html (NAHSRG business plan!!?)

I'll probably post some take-aways after going through the docs. This certainly has a deeper rabbit-hole than the other "consortium" ;)

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VacantLuxuries
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby VacantLuxuries » December 14th, 2015, 9:32 am

Using a photo from Snowpiercer is a little jaded.

grant1simons2
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby grant1simons2 » December 14th, 2015, 10:18 am

And the Simpsons mob scene

mattaudio
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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » December 14th, 2015, 10:26 am

I don't understand why Sally Jo Sorensen, a progressive, seems so up-in-arms about high speed rail. Anyone from these parts who sees HSR as a good thing should maybe let her know that in the comments.

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby RailBaronYarr » December 14th, 2015, 10:40 am

"The snowpiercer, which we believe to be more real than this idea."

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby QuietBlue » December 14th, 2015, 11:07 am

I don't understand why Sally Jo Sorensen, a progressive, seems so up-in-arms about high speed rail. Anyone from these parts who sees HSR as a good thing should maybe let her know that in the comments.
I don't think she's being critical of HSR so much as she is about the way this particular project is taking shape. Concerns about public to private wealth transfers, transparency, and effects on local communities are about as traditionally progressive as you get. Especially when dealing with an organization that has no track record :D to speak of. I'd love to see HSR between the Twin Cities and Rochester, but I think her concerns are valid.

FWIW, Sorensen has defended increased spending on Metro area transit in the past; she certainly isn't a "why does the Metro get all the spending" type at all.

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Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby VacantLuxuries » December 14th, 2015, 11:14 am

"The snowpiercer, which we believe to be more real than this idea."
Snowpiercer is a cornerstone of the UN's Agenda 21, so of course it's real.


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