Passenger Trains > LA-SD curve improvements?

Good article about possible improvements in the Soledad Canyon area of San Diego:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/oceanside/article_08bf120a-bd5d-5e26-825e-ab522ea53337.html

Why not bore a tunnel straight north and skip the hill all together?

MEKoch Wrote:
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> Why not bore a tunnel straight north and skip the
> hill all together?

It all comes down to WHO will foot the bill and WHO will grow a set of B***S
to tell the NIMBYs to go pound sand when they complain about their property
values and how THEY don't want it to happen!
Mike

MEKoch Wrote:
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> Why not bore a tunnel straight north and skip the
> hill all together?

Just bring money... you can make your check out to me if you'd like...

"It all comes down to WHO will foot the bill and WHO will grow a set of B***S
to tell the NIMBYs to go pound sand when they complain about their property
values and how THEY don't want it to happen!"

An economic aside: Interesting article in yesterday's LA Times Housing is the only item we celebrate increases in price.

YankeeDog Wrote:
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> An economic aside: Interesting article in
> yesterday's LA Times Housing is the only item we
> celebrate increases in price.


...but it's only those who already own a house that celebrate the increase.

According to the article, the slow section of track is about 2 miles long. If my math is right, it takes about 5 minutes to go 2 miles at 25 mph, and 3 minutes to do it at 40 mph. Sounds like a pretty big investment to save two minutes of travel time. The double-tracking aspect of the project is probably more important than raising the speed limit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/11 10:58 by wlankenau.

Passenger speed limit is 35mph.

Current single-track and how it relates to the overall curvy/hilly portion of the line, as shown on Google Earth:



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/11 11:52 by GenePoon.

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After viewing this trackage, and the trackage on Miramar Mesa, on Google Earth, I never realized how much freight traffic there was North of Miramar Road. I always knew that Frost Hardwood, Frazees Paint, and the bulk plastic unloading yard South of Miramar Road had lots of movements but there are many tank cars and bulk cars some distance North of Miramar Road. Does anyone know what industries are serviced or are these cars just stored there. The track itself is in awful shape but there are cars beyond the bad track.

I also wonder how often the cars are moved. I occasionally see a pair of SD-38 stopped there some days while the crew use the restaurants across the street.

Rick
San Diego

The PacSun usually works the Miramar Lead on Monday and Wednesday nights. Traffic on the lead is only a shadow of what it was like, even just two years ago.

The tanks are all just storage cars - no new customer. The beer distributed at the end of the line closed down, and PacSun's been using that trackage for a bit of revenue.

I have a radical idea....place the track on the west side of I 5, and by pass the hill. Make it one of Obama's shovel ready jobs.

CPRR Wrote:
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> I have a radical idea....place the track on the
> west side of I 5, and by pass the hill. Make it
> one of Obama's shovel ready jobs.


I assume the grade is too steep on a route paralleling I-5 in this area. Meaning
a very deep cut, or a tunnel, would be required to build train tracks alongside I-5.

If you needed extra power to follow the grade of I-5 it would seem like adding extra power would be cheaper than the other ideas for solving this problem.