High Speed Rail: TGV commercial speed will top 360 kph

Posted on December 17, 2007 by Matthieu Desiderio

“223 mph” aka “San Francisco to Los Angeles in only 2 business hours”…

Google Maps™ says “382 mi – about 5 hours 49 mins, up to 7 hours 10 mins in traffic“. And, there is always traffic, isn’t it? Anyways, why driving when we can fly? But, how long would it take you to get from your office in LA to your meeting in SF on a cheap Southwest flight? Let’s say 45 minutes to get to the airport, 45 minutes going through security and board, 45 minutes flight, and 45 minutes to get to your destination, supposing you are not delayed anywhere (we will discuss on time performance someday…): it looks like 3 hours to me, during which you can work… at most 30 minutes, incomfortably seated in an aircraft.

I tell you something else: “LA to SF, CBD-to-CBD, downtown-to-downtown, in 2 hours“. The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), High Speed Rail (HSR) train from the French manufacturer Alstom is not only a record beating machine (even if it surely broke the speed world record on April, 4th 2007 reaching 574.8 kph or 357 mph): it is operated everyday to over 300 destinations by 430 TGV trains riding at 300 kph.

A ride in a HSR train between LA and SF would allow passengers to hop in until two minutes before “take-off“, have their seat, plug and turn on their laptop without waiting for “the light to switch off“, work and/or relax for two hours, get out of the station, and be already right in the city center… What do you think?

Reliable networks + high speed = traffic

In France, most of the existing infrastructure, built since the 1980′s does not allow trains to ride at 360 kph. However, most of the French network, which proved to be the most reliable in 26+ years of operation, is already operated at top speeds of 320 kph (that is already a LA to SF trip in only 2 hours 25 minutes!).

New infrastructure will be designed so that trains at 360 kph can cross each others with a not too important wind effect: existing rail tracks are actually too close to allow such speeds, even though SNCF (the French railway operator) experimented it successfully on the Paris to Marseille line in 2006. Note that in Spain, another HSR technology (Siemens trains) already operated by the Spanish railway operator (Renfe), trains will be reaching 350 kph between Madrid and Barcelona when the infrastructure will be adapted.

Anyways, there is no need to worry: the Californian project, studied by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, would definitely be built so that trains can cruise at 360 kph and the anticipated cost of around $40 billion (for the whole 700-mile high-speed corridor, not just the SF-to-LA section) must not be a barrier. Compared to other expensive alternatives to relieve congestion (eg. $82 billion to build 3,000 miles of freeway and two more airports, see the article in the LA Daily News), the high speed rail line would be half the price. Useless to say it would also be largely more environmentally friendly: the new Alstom AGV (stands for Automotrice à Grande Vitesse, high speed automotive) will have the same (already low per passenger mile) energy consumption as the existing TGV trains for a cruising speed 20% higher (360 kph instead of 300 kph).

One last thing for those who are still skeptical: on a two-hour ride, HSR has a market share of 80-90% against plane. The best example in Europe is between Paris and Brussels where airlines do not operate anymore… The new lines that will be built in France to finalize the link between Paris and Toulouse via Bordeaux (southwest of the country) will bring both cities in a three hour range from the French capital: the market share of Air France on its Paris-Toulouse line is expected to fall to 30% (today around 80% of the total traffic). The same thing should definitely happen between Los Angeles and San Francisco…

Forecast ridership of 100 million, annual revenue of $3 billion by 2030: let’s fund it!

The CHSRA may have optimistic forecast for its HSR corridor but I think it still makes sense. Even though population densities are not comparable in Europe or Japan (where HSR trains are operated) and in California, ongoing traffic of both roads and airlines and population expected growth in the next 20 years will make this possible. The question now is: how to fund such an investment?

The $10 billion bond measure that would fund the system is set for the November 2008 ballot after being postponed twice in 2004 and 2006. Since Governor Schwarzenegger declared that “State [California] must build high speed rail” (see Fresnobee article) after a San Francisco Bay Area freeway collapsed, there is a great chance this measure is finally adopted. The CHSRA will then have to look for federal and private funds to complete the $30 billion missing part.

The brand-new case of private funding through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agreement to finance the new HSR infrastructure in the southwest of France may be a good example for the Californian project…