I'm European and I travel in California yearly. I really want Metro and Metrolink to succeed, and Nanderts videos help understand the complexity of transit construction in USA a lot. PLEASE make more videos Nandert. Your performing an amazing public service
Same, I came from Canada and have family who live in Riverside and Orange county. My siblings doesn’t know much rail transit routes in the area, but know it exists.
To be fair not much has happened. The only things that I can recall happened last year are -Vista Canyon Station Opened -increased frequencies on the AV Line -increased frequencies on the Ventura Line via code share agreement with the Surfliner.
I would love to get rid of my car. LA/California has always been a complete cluster f*** with rail. Love your videos, thank you for putting in the insane time and effort. Keep it up!
Honestly, I feel that the only way to force the government to help fund any rail or transport project is to convince it that it will benefit the military in any way. It's the only reason why the interstate system even got built. There's so much engineering work done here in LA and Long Beach which is largely for many branches of the military. I kind of hope (sadly) that one day there's a traffic jam so bad amongst all if not all freeways, that military projects or whatever military thing is going on is severely affected and action is finally taken by the government. That also means it would be a catastrophic event for LA that might hurt the city for days to come, but it feels like we need either that or for the three horsemen from the apocalypse to actually create some action. So, let's go convince the army, navy and airforce.
Feel like it could work, maybe to even connect military bases? I know San Diego Trolley have stations to the Pacific Fleet Naval base and Purple line proposal goes to Miramar Airbase. I think some Metrolink stations are by other Airbases too, so if it can benefit military, specifically personnel it could work. Either peacetime or wartime like mobilization and transport.
@@TheRandCrews Naval Base Ventura County and NAS Point Mugu house numerous advanced maintenance and R&D activities that regularly service ships and aircraft in Naval Base San Diego, and they're served by the Ventura County Metrolink Line in Oxnard. The Navy also operates research and lab facilities in Corona, which is served by the Perris Valley and Inland Empire Lines. Camp Pendleton is serviced by Metrolink and Coaster in Oceanside. NAS Lemoore will be served by the Cross Valley Corridor connecting to CAHSR at Kings/Tulare Station.
The only way I see more than local initiatives in the US is if the Army Corps of Engineers takes over Railway construction with federal agencies taking over the rail companies. On that not imagine enlisting and being asigned to build railways.
7:41 the Antelope Valley Line runs in the same corridor as Union Pacific through Palmdale and Lancaster. The AV Line uses the western track going up to Lancaster Station, while freight uses the eastern track
34:00 I need to voice a significant issue with you saying that Hydrogen is a far cleaner alternative. Simply put, the vast majority of hydrogen (95% worldwide) is produced using steam reforming using coal, oil and natural gas. When you take into account all of the inefficiencies and energy loss from conversion, the numbers are so bad that it is quite literally more environmentally friendly to just burn diesel. In other words, until we find a better way to produce hydrogen at scale, it is little more than greenwashing.
We need to regard long-distance, intercity rail lines as chains of medium-distance connections. High-speed trains operating as frequently as "short-hop" plane flights would compete valiantly with flying. At the same time, all modes of transportation, including intercity and regional rail, should connect conveniently with major airports in order that those airports serve as intermodal stations, not to incentivize flying. International airports serve passengers whose only other transportation alternatives would be by cruise ship. San Francisco, LAX, San Jose, and SeaTac connect widely across the Pacific, yet there is no incentive to change travel mode at the international airport where they arrive in order to complete their trip to their ultimate destination. A passenger going from Tokyo to Fresno should be able to go directly through customs to a comfy seat that will speed to Fresno as quickly as a connecting flight-without the layover-as well as seamlessly connect to regional and metropolitan once in Fresno. Oklahoma City is a four-hour drive from DFW and only three from Wichita, but the flight takes half the time. On the other hand, flying still takes longer overall because both airports require driving to ultimate destinations in these grossly spread-out metros. Rather than take a connecting flight and deal with the inevitable layovers and waits, it would be awesome to fly the long segment and ride high-speed train the rest. Thinking of intercity rail as chains also permits much more frequent long-distance trips. I can drive from the Bay Area to Oklahoma City in less than 48 hours, and it's much less frustrating and disempowering than flying. Flying tends to be anywhere from two to four flight segments and requires most of a day for layovers and complicated airport to destination arrangements. I would gladly trade driving for a high-speed rail trip, however, even for such medium-long distances as Bay Area to Oklahoma City in order to let the voyage be an excursion. Riding rail has the capacity to retain far more quality time than other modes of transit, allowing me to sleep, eat, drink alcohol, work, read, play games, watch scenery, chat, game online, or whatever. Its capacity to serve high density (read tall) districts also better feeds regional and commuter transit. Traveling abroad is illuminating. I've taken high speed raid in Europe, connecting locally by riding the frequent subways and buses. For all its quirkiness, Paris's transportation is absolutely amazing. It is served by dense networks of subway lines and surface street buses, regional and intercity rail, high speed rail, and the regional express rail called RER that has far fewer stops and thus connects more far-flung locales, while appearing to be a subway. The City and County of San Francisco is somewhat similar, if grossly less served, with Its decent bus system, MUNI rail system, and BART and CalTrain regional systems. Despite having much less service frequency and density than Paris, San Francisco still sports a majority population who do not own cars, some of whom never bother to attain driver licenses. What helps is that San Francisco sells day and month passes that include access to all modes of transit within the city, including cable car and BART stations (within city limits). People against high-speed rail and dense transit have never experienced these conveniences, albeit most rail in the USA remains woefully inadequate, even where embraced. Oil companies and the American Automobile Association spends many millions of dollars to fight alternatives to driving, as do airlines that specialize in "short-hop" flying, e.g. Southwest Airlines. As long as Americans seldom have a taste of the potential, and while such well-funded big corporations lobby against improvements, the political situation will continue to have us waste our lives in traffic, with all its noise and air solution, subsidizing gluttonous oil and rail corporations, subsidizing suburban sprawl, and subsidizing the ultrarich even while they refuse to subsidize transit and social safety nets. They're bilking us of our money from all directions, and of our limited time on Earth.
In addition to what's mentioned in this video, there are two or three rail corridors that need to eventually be built to close gaps in Southern California's rail transit system. One is a line (likely a Metrolink line) connecting Irvine and Santa Monica via the Orange County coastal cities that provides service to both John Wayne Airport and LAX, as well as Costa Mesa, Westminster, Seal Beach, San Pedro, and Redondo Beach/Torrance, with transfer points to LA Metro lines in Long Beach, Redondo Beach, and Santa Monica, as well as near LAX. A second is a rail line connecting San Diego to the Inland Empire. In addition to a commuter rail line connecting San Diego and the Inland Empire roughly on, or near the route mentioned in this video (with stops near Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, and Temecula included), a light rail line) connecting San Diego and Escondido is also needed to serve communities on, or near the I-15 corridor, such as Miramar, Mira Mesa, and Rancho Bernardo, as well as the major mall near the I-15/Via Rancho Parkway interchange, as well as downtown Escondido. And should there be a way to get Metrolink down to Escondido on the proposed line mentioned in the video, then the Escondido Transit Center could serve the I-15 corridor the same way the Oceanside Transit Center serves the I-5 corridor.
Fantastic video, hell, fantastic channel! Words can not describe how much I hate hydrogen power. It is the lamest excuse ever. Mississauga transit in Ontario plans to electrify their bus fleet with hydrogen busses at some undefined point, meanwhile the TTC already has battery electric busses today *sigh* stalling tactic is a stalling tactic.
The whole OC to Burbank route should be at least quad tracked and turned into a high-frequency (q 15 mins or better all day every day) electrified regional route, particularly with the future High Speed Rail route coming in to So-Cal. The other lines can remain diesel for the time being. A dedicated track for freight, with 3 or 4 dedicated passenger tracks that are electrified, including those for HSR. We have a new quad+ track corridor in Toronto which has allowed for q 15 minute service on the UP Express and future upgrades to q 15 minute service in the regional rail line to Kitchener. You create a new “regional rapid transit” route. As for the San Diego extension - I would just put it on the back burner - at least until a SF to OC line is finished. At that point extensions to San Diego and Sacramento can be done as true Phaee II. But really they need to get going on the SF and Bakersfield to OC line *now* so it opens within a couple years of the initial line.
It would be interesting to get an update on this video centered around the new Metrolink schedule coming in October 2024. 22% more weekday trains, a shift of some trains from peak to off peak and increased service off peak in general, making the system more Regional Rail in concept from just Communter Rail, as well as a clock based schedule where trains are mostly spaced exactly an hour or two apart, with most trains arriving at Union Station a few minutes before the half hour (except San Bernardino which gets half hourly service, with every other non peak train being short runs to Covina getting to Union near the hour) and most trains leaving Union a few minutes after the half hour, allowing for quicker, easier transfers at Union Station and more predictable schedules overall.
Great video as always. Think Anaheim really sums up metrolink's 'getting people to where they actually want to go' problem quite well - the station is placed in an ugly industrial area far away from residents, surrounded by warehouses and highways, meanwhile it runs past the downtown and doesent even have a station there! madness
A much larger share of freight is moved by rail in the US is a wrong statement. While the modal split accounting for tkm in the US is higher the modal split for total tonnage moved on rail is basically the same as f.e. Germany (1.7 billion tons or 8.9% vs 387 million tons or 8.2%) or lower (Sweden moves 67.8 million tonnes or 10.1%). The difference in tkm all comes down to distance (the average rail ton in the US is moved over 1500 km which is 700 km longer than the farthest distance a ton can travel on the German rail network).
The problem with electrification is the freight railroads will fight it to the end. The main reason is clearance issues. There are many places on the US rail system where double stack trains *just* barely fit through tunnels and under bridges. There is NO room for 25Kv 60Hz catenary. The freight railroads will be loath to give up double stacks, Tri-level autoracks and other high cars. This is why they're trying Hydrogen, fuel cells, batteries and anything else they can think of OTHER than hanging catenary. It will take a huge increase in the price of diesel fuel or stricter environmental laws due to climate change to force them to do so. I always figured California would be the first to mandate electrification on environmental grounds so I guess we'll see. The other thing holding back freight electrification is the cost. In most countries around the world the railroad systems are owned by the government. The decision to electrify was made account most countries didn't have the vast oil reserves we used to have. Freight railroads in the US simply don't have the capital needed to electrify large sections of their systems. Either you're looking at nationalization (unlikely in this country) or having the government pay for the OCS with the railroads buying the electric locomotives. This would be done as part of climate change reduction. Sadly climate change will have to get a LOT worse before that happens. What I figure will happen in southern California is you'll end up with electrification on the lines that Metrolink and the state own. Through trains to other parts will require diesel powered through trains, dual mode locomotives (like the ALP45's) or a change of trains. In Toronto GO Transit is electrifying the lines that they own but CN and CP have said a hard NO to catenary over their lines no matter how high the wire is. Like I said things will have to get a LOT worse climate wise (and it will) before this log jam is broken. One last thing while you did mention the through connection at LA Union Station you failed to mention the fact that this will allow through running of lines increasing through put through the terminal. A through route between say Oceanside and Lancaster would be possible. This would give LA an "RER" or "S Bahn" type of service. I'm sure other pairs could be done as well.
A catenary is expensive and dangerous to maintain. The main reason for Europe to use electric trains was lack of crude oil for diesel. Most freight trains don't take advantage of the high horsepower available from an electric catenary locomotives anyway because they are limited by the traction ability of the weight of the locomotive for starting and accelerating a freight train.
Make metrolink and amtrak 2-3 min frequency and doing round trip from all final destinations, and for la metro built lines both south and north railways one station at the time simitimnsly, with all stations with basic restrooms.
The best way to get HSR done on the cheap is the Brightline West model... Use Interstate ROW's for 97% of the trip which saves land acquisition costs and stick to a 125 mph/200 kmh or maybe a bit higher top speed in most sections so that you really don't need as much high end infrastructure such as extra wide turning radius, more bridges, tunnels, etc. Think European tiling trains that can handle sharper curves... The California HSR when completed will be world class but also the most expensive ever built. Maybe it's time to try an different approach...
Amazing video, thank you!! 51:50 your list of goals is absolutely perfect. CAHSR can't come soon enough. And as you hinted, Metrolink expansion to the Westside is a totally unfunded, unstudied but necessary upgrade to the rail network. Living in San Diego, I have plenty of friends who need to commute to Playa Vista, Santa Monica, etc. and decide against taking the Surfliner because of the complexity of transferring through multiple Metro lines after passing through DTLA, vs. just driving up the 405. Note that there's another San Diego tunnel in the works south of Del Mar: the Rose Canyon bypass which will straighten tracks between Sorrento Valley and Old Town, with a transfer station to the Trolley at either UCSD or UTC. Should cost another couple billion dollars and cut ~10 minutes from end-to-end travel times, plus add a very helpful transfer station. Combined with the Union Station run-through tracks, the trip will become a lot more competitive with driving. Double-stacked tunnel under the Harbor Sub is a billions-of-dollars impossibility. Crazy that we decided to turn the Harbor Sub into a bike path. Just lay ground-level tracks. I'd also say that the High Desert Corridor and LA-Phoenix HSR are probably too expensive for the ridership gains- would rather have that money go toward speeding up the CAHSR extensions to SD and Sacramento which currently have no planned construction dates. I wonder how high Metrolink's ridership can become. If it's indeed 40k per day in a metro area of 20 million, I'm inclined to think we should put all our energies into EV incentives. We'd need to get Metrolink ridership somewhere like 20x what it currently is to make a meaningful dent. (I say this as a proud Metrolink and Coaster rider) Some last thoughts: I found it a little strange that there were inconsistencies in talking about EVs pulling from a dirty grid, whereas EMUs were described as being powered by clean electricity. Also you called Hyperloop cursed but brought up Maglev in a positive light, when Hyperloop is essentially a somewhat improved Maglev system.
Although the San Joaquin-Thruway Bus option to NorCal may seem inconvenient, it is actually a quite good compared to other options. In particular, it provides good access to a wide range of locations thanks to BART and the Thruway buses. For example, one can leave from a location like Santa Monica or UCLA or Glendale, head to Bakersfield and catch the San Joaquin, with no need to go to the airport. CA HSR will cut more than an hour from the rail time, and thus make rail-bus a much more attractive option. The San Joaquin is also the best overnight travel option, with the Thruway bus leaving Los Angeles at 1 a.m.
20:30 The "we suck at infrastructure" in many cases is a direct result of not enough standardisation. We really like to customise things in North America. In Japan, if you take a good look on Google Earth, you will quickly notice that they've only built 3 or 4 different types of viaduct in the last few decades. The result is that they can build them far more efficiently than we can. Everybody from the engineer, the factory, and the construction worker know exactly how to assemble and build those bridges. Almost every project in North America has an initial cost that is the direct result of having to learn initial lessons and ramp up. If you standardise everything that can be standardised, you eliminate a lot of that learning and ramping up process.
Yesterday I took photos & video of level railroad crossings in Anaheim used by Metrolink Orange Line, Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, and BNSF freight rail (2 trains/day). The level crossings were at Orangethorpe, La Palma, Sycamore, Broadway, Santa Ana, South, Vermont, Ball, Cerritos & State College. One of the videos includes Pacific Surfliner causing a gate-wait at 6-lane Ball Road. Broadway and Vermont are the most challenging crossings to address. IMO, only Santa Ana St and South St are not worth attempts to grade separate or close with pedestrian underpasses. Instead, those 2 need additional upgrades to Quad Gate Systems. What say you?
In 2018, OCTA planned for grade seps at Orangethorpe, La Palma, Broadway, Vermont, Ball, Cerritos & State College, if public funding is secured. A street closure with a Pedestrian Underpass at Sycamore is doable now that Lincoln Ave has a grade sep and once La Palma grade sep is built. If Anaheim is awarded more grants from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that will attract more California DOT and OCTA matching funds within 4 years. Unfortunately, I don't foresee Anaheim grade separating or closing Santa Ana St. and South St. anytime soon. California DOT-Metrolink-OCTA-CAHSR collectively plan a 17-hour Regional Rail schedule thru Anaheim for 3 RT/hour Metrolink, 2 RT/hour Amtrak, 2 RT/hour CAHSR & 3/day BNSF freight by 2040. If plan goals are met, Train Movements & Gate-Waits will increase from 41/day in 2023 to 241/day (est.) in 2040. If 7 grade seps & 1 pedestrian underpass are built, Train Schedule Reliability will significantly improve and train speeds will safely increase to 90 mph in some segments. Upgraded tracks, signaling & Quad Gate Systems (QGS) enable Passenger trains to run 79 mph in an unsealed corridor with 35-40 second Gate-Waits. QGS can also enable 1.5 minutes (avg.) Gate Waits per 40 mph BNSF freight train. But QGS will not prevent nearly 3 hours of Gate-Waits by trucks, cars & cyclists. Nor will QGS reduce what the FRA calls the significant Risky Pedestrian Behavior Problem at rail crossings. Will these factors spark public demand to seal the corridor with more grade seps or street closures?
Respectfully, I think the importance of electrification in southern California -- before CA HSR is complete to LAUS -- is wildly over-rated. CalTrain requires electrification because many stations are very close together. Coaster, for example, is diesel-electric, and all their stations are at least two miles apart, while still matching the speed of Amtrak's limited-stop service. Coaster manages to be only about 10 minutes slower between Oceanside and San Diego as Amtrak, despite stopping four more times in 40 miles of distance. Train speeds are mostly determined by track geometry and the local environment, not acceleration rate.
The 2 biggest culprits for that are of course the sorrento valley pass and the constant switching between double and single tracking. If the Surfliner has to keep slowing down from 90 to 60 for switches, it really hurts travel times. Hopefully with SANDAG committed to double tracking the entire 40 miles, hopefully that helps. Idk if there have been any sort of talks about a tunnel through sorrento valley to slash travel times, but that could also be huge. The Surfliner also stops way too many times when heading north to Santa Barbara. I’ve always seen the Surfliner as an intercity styled train, so it should be making very minimal stops. Hopefully that gets addressed once Metrolink bumps up frequencies on the Ventura county line. Amtrak should probably only be stopping at stops such as Burbank Airport, Oxnard, Santa Barbara and Goleta. Maybe also stops (or limited stops) in Van Nuys, Chatsworth, and Simi Valley. Electrification is great and all, but if you do it for routes that are just extremely slow (like the Surf Line up to SB and SLO) you really aren’t going to help speeds significantly. So I definitely agree with you
I don’t think hydrogen will ever be realistic. Sounds like a good way for freight companies to ‘have a solution’ even if it isn’t an actual solution and avoid it all together. I personally think battery electric is the way to go. Catenaries can be built in strategic locations and where track is publicly owned and built out over time, whilst still delivering electric trains in the shorter term. Battery electric trains are getting better and better every year and are very mainstream compared to hydrogen
At a minimum, every dollar spend on maintenance and upgrade of highways should be spent on regional and intercity rail - high speed or conventional. $21 billion in highway money - even if half of that went to rail instead it would be a game changer.
That two year delay was a big mistake, anyone else is fed up with those lazy officials who can't build a proper railway system here in Los Angeles. If you love your city Los Angeles ditch the car and demand the transport officials to get thire act together and stop making excuses. Also sharing with firght train like what ? The frequency every two hours, unacceptable it should be every 3 minutes. We are fed up with excuses and unesscary delays. Like when they are going to do it until the human race will be extinct ?
You lost me at diesel... As an asthmatic, it's the worst possible option. Hydrogen Multiple Units are entirely a thing in Europe and every North American manufacturer has their own line of hydrogen commuter rail products now including Alstom Coradia iLint which is in commercial operation in Europe and in demonstration projects here in Canada including between Quebec City and Charlevoix, their main ski town besides Tremblant... I'd obviously prefer electric but hydrogen is a technology that has a 1400 km range now and refueling is very fast and can be done while trains are stopped at stations... Ditto for battery electric trains with fast chargers... Great Western Railway in London is also rolling these out... The options and there now...
why caucasain race's metrolink, la metro, amtrak and san diego trolly so un-united from each other? and thats the real quesiton, and why they are not compete with each other on who complete the southeast gatway lines first? who complete the line and who owns it, they weak in general and competition in usa is a huge lie.
