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Abu Dhabi – Dubai high speed rail construction tenders called

And they’re building a 350km/h high-speed rail line to Abu Dhabi. Hopefully they stop throwing away money on the other stuff, and double down even more on the HSR & automated metros. www.railwaygazette.com/high-speed/a...

railwaygazette.com

UAE: The executive councils of Abu Dhabi and Dubai have signed a co-operation charter for the development of a 150 km high speed rail link between the cities which would be designed for 350 km/h runni...

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Also for good transport ideas, though. In addition to all this silly stuff, they’re doing a huge expansion of their automated metro.

The Chamartín Station project in Madrid will double the number of HSR platforms while constructing a deck over the railyards, opening up 700 acres for development, for which the high-speed rail operator will receive 1 billion euros, more than covering the cost of the infrastructure improvements.

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Obviously we've done this before in the U.S., but I think there are plenty of opportunities still out there, both for transit and intercity rail, and both for new projects and station overhauls.

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It wasn't malpractice on the part of CHSRA. They just weren't set up with the right structures in place (e.g., their charter, FRA/FTA rules) to play a role in station area development. The site plans show mostly surface parking at station sites--more surface parking than even Brightline Florida.

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One of the biggest missed opportunities to capture land value is in San Jose. Diridon Station is benefiting from $10s of billions in public transit investment. Who has bought up all the land? Google. They have a beautiful plan, but Google did not need a land value windfall. CHSRA and VTA did!

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Brightline probably pulled in ~$0.5 - $1.0b in property sales, mostly at the Miami station, to fund the $6b system. But they probably could have 2x-3x'ed that with a more aggressive strategy and financing. As the article indicates, all *six train stations are emerging as major commercial centers*.

Homes prices and new developments are booming along South Florida’s train line

High-speed rail increases land values! With questionable federal support over the next four years, rail & transit project sponsors should think hard about how they can capture more of this value to help fund projects. This is how it works overseas, too. 1/ nypost.com/2025/02/14/r...

nypost.com

The right track: It’s full steam ahead, as luxe towers chug along Brightline route.

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I think it’d only work if you had a 10 minute high-speed rail connection to downtown

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Seikan is 33 miles—I’m not sure if it’s possible to use the “parallel tube” solution at even longer distances.

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

I think the ventilation isn’t the issue as much as evacuation. The two longest undersea tunnels (Seikan and Channel Tunnel) both have a parallel tube that runs the entire length of the tunnel just for emergency evacuations.

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Reposted by Lucas Peilert

Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

what scalable decarbonization tech actually looks like: e-bikes and e-cargo bikes bicycle networks passivhaus retrofits w/ prefab exterior straw wall panels bus priority lanes pedestrian zones

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

If you had room for service access/emergency egress points and vertical ventilation every 10-15 miles, cross passages every ~300m, and a few rail crossover tunnels, you can go quite far, in theory.

Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

With electrified trains, your main issues in operations are ventilation, fire suppression, dust/cleaning, and emergency egress in the case of a disabled train. Gotthard is currently the longest tunnel and mostly solves these problems using two access tunnels and a large firefighting operation.

Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

The real constraint is cost, but setting that aside, it mostly depends on how much access you have through vertical or graded horizontal access tunnels. During construction, these access points are important for getting equipment into the tunnel and taking excavated material out.

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

They’re definitely industrial espionage issues on chips, etc., but they’re winning trains fair and square

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Seating capacity isn’t really relevant. And top speed records are cool, but those speeds were totally unsustainable financially for SNCF. A big point of national pride, to be sure, but a total money burn. They were melting pantographs to make it work. youtu.be/EOdATLzRGHc?...

youtu.be

TGV speed record 574,8 km/h

YouTube video by Sándor Csaba

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Most European trains top out at 300kmh/186mph, unchanged since 1981. A few stretches track now support 320kmh/199mph. China started operating their first 350kmh train a decade ago, and no one in Japan or China or anywhere else has been able to match it in service.

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No one in the west can even come close to this

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Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu is the biggest HSR projects underway in China today. It’s opening in 2027 and will connect Chongqing to Shanghai in 5 hours.

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Prof LCB @proflcb.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

I’m definitely with you that shorter routes (in the 200-500 mile range) have the best bang for buck over the next few years! Just putting into context what China is doing—not necessarily arguing we should replicate it 1:1 in the US

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Reposted by Lucas Peilert

Connecting these routes by high speed rail would dramatically change both traffic-ease and carbon footprint in this country. Heck, you could connect half the country with a Chicago hub. Truly the dream.

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Yeah they’re obviously not the same distance apart, but the point is that they’re all roughly in the same range where a China-style high-speed rail service would connect them in less than four hours. ATL-CHI: 590 miles ATL-DC: 540 miles ATL-NYC: 750 miles

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Brightline Florida is designed for 10 cars and 2 locomotives

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More city pairs in the 600-750 mile range: - ATL-KC - ATL-DFW - ATL-OKC - OKC-CHI - DEN-DFW - DEN-MSP - DEN-LV - DEN-PHX - SLC-LA

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These are new trains that are faster than the current ones. The idea is, they can run on existing track infrastructure but at a higher speed. Beijing to Shanghai is 4 hours and 20 minutes today, and the faster top speed with the new trains could take it down to 3 hours and 20 minutes.

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(Beijing-Shanghai is ~670 miles; these examples are 600-750 miles)

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China unveils the future of high-speed rail with a next-gen prototype

The new train will connect Beijing and Shanghai in just 3 hours and 20 minutes. Here are some US city pairs that are a similar distance apart: - NYC-CHI - CHI-ATL - DC-ATL - ATL-NYC - ATL-MIA - CLT-BOS - ORL-DC www.scmp.com/news/china/a...

scmp.com

The CR450 is expected to become the fastest commercial vehicle of its kind and has been several years in the making.

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China hopes to use this train to break France’s world speed record of 575kmh (357mph), set in 2007 with the TGV

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Improvements in China’s new homegrown high-speed train vs. prior generation: - speed up from 217mph to 248mph - air resistance down 22% - weight down 10% - interior noise down 2db - interior space up 4%

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Lucas Peilert @lpeilert.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

I’m surprised that there’s not enough space. 300 meters of platform isn’t enough? Looks like it’s the same length as at Hialeah.

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pedestrianobservations.com/2018/05/22/c...

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Reposted by Lucas Peilert

Brandi @brandita.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

All the top ten metro areas in the US should be building these.

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Electrified commuter rail is the low hanging fruit in so many US cities! Boston, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas, DC, Houston, LA, Seattle, and South Florida all come to mind.

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We need to stop thinking one-dimensionally about a successive rapid transit hierarchy that starts with BRT, then light rail, then subway, and then electric regional rail only for the largest cities.

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One bright spot is SF: Caltrain just electrified 51 miles of tracks from SF to San Jose, allowing for 25% faster trip times and 15 minutes frequencies at many stations. $2.4B, opened 2024. Future plans include a tunnel into downtown and a connection across the Bay to Oakland.

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Ironically, the US’s sprawling cities mean we desperately need good transit that can deliver at this scale. Instead we’re building the world’s longest light rail lines, which are far too slow to ever deliver the cross-region connections enabled by electrified regional rail.

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Are projects like these happening in the US? East Side Access, Penn Station Access, and Gateway will all make huge improvements to commuter rail in NYC, but fall short of the kind of transformational investments other countries are making in region-wide electric rail networks.

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There are many examples of 100mph “express metros” across China: Guangzhou Lines 18 & 22, Chengdu Line 19, Beijing Line 22, and a number of planned lines in Shanghai.

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Chongqing Line 27 is an 89km interurban using 86mph rolling stock. It includes passing sidings for express services, and was completed in 2024.

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In Asia, the lines get blurred between “express metro” and mainline rail. Whatever it’s called, there are common features that define this mode: - access to city center, often via tunnel - regional reach (>30 miles) - high speed (>80mph) - stop spacing >2 miles - electrified

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