Rail Through the Valley

While California's bleak fiscal outlook presents significant challenges to the implementation of state's planned high-speed rail network, and substantial debate and planning is underway to determine the alignment of the system through the Bay Area and into the Southern California basin, one of its strongest elements will be its passage through the San Joaquin Valley, which will represent the longest swaths of trackage on the network.

Already served by five daily roundtrip trains on Amtrak's conventional San Joaquins service between Oakland or Sacramento and Bakersfield, the Valley that is one of the world's most verdant and productive agricultural regions also exhibits the perfect conditions for a high-speed rail line: flat, straight terrain unencumbered by narrow rights-of-way or shoehorned-together urban densities. In fact, these very conditions pose the biggest obstacles to the line's corridors approaching San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Both Union Pacific and BNSF operate heavily-utilized freight corridors through the Valley – the former which hosts Amtrak's San Joaquins (see above photo of the UP corridor paralleling Highway 99). California's high-speed rail route will not operate over those tracks, however, but most likely parallel one of the routes, depending on factors such as right-of-way availability, population density, and infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels. Regardless of the exact alignment chosen, the path through the San Joaquin Valley will allow California's high-speed trains to reach their highest speeds on the route, reaching up to 220 mph in some sections through the Valley. Some trains will make all stops along the line, including Valley communities like Fresno and Bakersfield, while other will operate as expresses between the Bay Area and Southern California, allowing for even shorter trip times. Fortunately, in Fresno, ample space is available downtown to locate a full-service intermodal station. Consider the images below contrasting the current area around the Union Pacific's tracks through Fresno with the renderings of the high-speed station planned for the city. (NOTE: Tune into the Potomac Express tomorrow for a comparison of the existing historic train stations in Fresno)