HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: johnf@Auspex.COM (John Fereira)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation,ba.sports
Subject: Re: Getting to the 'Stick
Date: 8 Jan 93 19:44:55 GMT
Followup-To: ba.transportation
Distribution: ba
Organization: Auspex Systems, Inc.

In article <1993Jan7.214505.1866@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt) writes:
|In article <1993Jan6.213018.24740@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, vaf@Valinor.Stanford.EDU (Vince Fuller) writes:
||> Does Samtrans or Santa Clara transit run express busses from major
||> Peninsula points to Candlestick? Is there a good way to get from one
||> of the north Peninsula Caltrain stations (maybe Bayshore?) to the
||> park?
|
|SamTrans often runs special buses to Candlestick.
|
|The Bayshore CalTrain station is the closest one to Candlestick.
|I'm told that Candlestick is about a 15-minute walk from there.
|
|Call the SamTrans/CalTrain information number: (800) 660-4287.
|
Yesterday on the radio they were saying that if you don't have reserved 
parking that public transit or pooling with someone with a reserved spot
is almost a must this weekend.  The dirt lots are mud puddles.
From: lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: CalTrain Article
Date: 11 Jan 1993 17:55:13 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: boom.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <unklqjs@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
>
>But you're getting less money from fares, since riders aren't going as
>far, because they are transferring to BART.  You're assuming that
>ridership won't change (in both count and distance per rider) when
>you say that X extra trains could be run.  Taking away the fiscal
>aspect, we could run X extra trains today.  So I thing that your
>tangible gain is not tangible at all.

Cost != price. The cost of the JPB providing to the consumer an
effective trip to San Francisco goes down if they no longer travel
those 11.6 miles, miles that result in very few extra passengers
getting on board. So apart from anything to do with price, the cost
very tangibly goes down, and it is possible to express the cost
reduction in equivalent extra trains as well as dollars.

Now lets take a look at price. To break even, the extra 18 trains a
day would have to attract enough new riders to equal the money lost by
not transporting all the old riders from San Bruno to 4th and
Townsend. This needs to be scaled by the number of Zones a traveler
rides. A study or a trial period would be needed to see the result; the
increased frequency could bring in more, less, or about the same revenue
as the old service, and the number of new trains that could actually be
added, given the same goverment subsidy, would need to be adjusted up or
down accordingly.

Other factors also come into play; Caltrain accepted MUNI Fast Pass's inside
San Francisco, for example, and I don't know if the compensation provided
for that was a net gain or loss for Caltrain. Also, since BART stands to
pick up a lot of passengers on this, "financial considerations", perhaps
expressed in the form of a special "BART Plus" type ticket for Caltrain
commuters, could help the balance sheet as well. 
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
From: whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Subject: Re: SCCo Measure A challenged
Reply-To: whheydt@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:45:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.002648.17974@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt) writes:
>This is the first half of an article that appeared in the San Jose
>Mercury News on Thursday, January 7, 1993, page B-1:
>
>
>Transit tax is targeted
>
>Coalition files suit to nullify Measure A

I think this could be viewed as the reverse of the endless
environmental suits filed against various freeway projects.

	--Hal

-- 
Hal Heydt                    |    
Analyst, Pacific*Bell        |            You!
510-823-5447                 |    Out of the Gene Pool!
whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM    |
Xref: sparky ba.transportation:2995 rec.railroad:10343
From: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation,rec.railroad
Subject: Grade Separations (was Re: CalTrain scheduling musings)
Date: 4 Jan 1993 21:25:32 GMT
Organization: lbl
Distribution: ca
Reply-To: b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.154

In article <1993Jan4.183645.19174@ntmtv>, adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
writes:
|> 
|> Grade separations are already planned for Ralston and all of San Carlos.
|> It'll be several years until they're done though.

This brings up something I've long wondered about, which is how car
roads are put under rail roads when the railroad is under heavy use.
(Building an overpass over a railroad seems obvious enough).

I can imagine several scenarios, including:

* A temporary rail bypass is built around the construction area

* The rail bridge (over the underpass) is built adjacent to the
  operating tracks so the track alignment is permanently shifted

* The underpass is built in two stages, with one track always in
  operation  (with close tracks this sounds very difficult)

* Several other scenarios too elaborate to mention

The bridge itself could be put together elsewhere and dropped into
place, but I'd think building the foundations for it would take
some time.

I'd be interested in general comments on this, as well as the
particular crossings mentioned on the SF Peninsula (which as far
as I know might be overpasses anyways).

Bruce Nordman
B_Nordman@lbl.gov
From: karplus@cse.ucsc.edu (Kevin Karplus)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: MtView CalTrain shuttle (Castro Station) to... (John Ciccarelli)
Date: 8 Jan 93 04:23:15 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (CE/CIS Boards)
NNTP-Posting-Host: ararat.ucsc.edu

If John's figures are accurate, 130 riders a day for 260 working days
a year is 33,800 riders.  At $80,000, that is $2.37 a rider.  It
certainly seems reasonable to ask businesses to chip in 1/4 of that.
In fact, it would be fairly easy for a business to figure out what their
fair share is
	.25 * $2.37 * # using service * 260 working days
	(about $155 per rider per year)
	
Really public spirited companies would pay the whole cost, rather than
1/4 of the cost.

Kevin Karplus


-- 
Kevin Karplus		karplus@ce.ucsc.edu

Due to budgetary constraints the light at the end of the tunnel is
being turned off.
Newsgroups: ba.transportation,ba.sports
From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: Getting to the 'Stick
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Distribution: ba
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:45:05 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.213018.24740@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, vaf@Valinor.Stanford.EDU (Vince Fuller) writes:
|> Does Samtrans or Santa Clara transit run express busses from major
|> Peninsula points to Candlestick? Is there a good way to get from one
|> of the north Peninsula Caltrain stations (maybe Bayshore?) to the
|> park?

SamTrans often runs special buses to Candlestick.

The Bayshore CalTrain station is the closest one to Candlestick.
I'm told that Candlestick is about a 15-minute walk from there.

Call the SamTrans/CalTrain information number: (800) 660-4287.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
From: ed@wente.llnl.gov (Ed Suranyi)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Century Freeway (was Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert))
Date: 6 Jan 93 00:45:45 GMT
Organization: UC Davis Dept of Applied Science at LLNL

In article <1992Dec23.174540.11794@adobe.com> pngai@adobe.com (Phil Ngai) writes:
>I would not be surprised if the new Century Freeway (coming soon to
>an LA near you!) cost close to $1 billion/mile. It has interchanges
>with at least three very large freeways in a fairly short distance 
>(maybe 10-20 miles?). Talk about big/high/expensive connecting ramps...

In fact, the intersection of the Century Freeway with the San Diego
Freeway will be the most complicated/expensive one ever built!
First, cars must of course be able to go from any direction of either
freeway to any direction on the other freeway.  Second, both freeways
will have car pool lanes, and these car pool lanes will form their own
full intersection, so that cars will not have to merge into the regular
lanes to change freeways.  Third, the Green Line light rail goes down
the median of the Century Freeway.

Ed
ed@wente.llnl.gov




Xref: sparky ba.transportation:3030 la.general:1127 oc.general:137
From: loren@shell.portal.com (Loren Louis Hart)
Subject: Re: CalTrain Article
Organization: Portal Communications Company
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Distribution: ba
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 21:04:51 GMT

Loren I. Petrich (lip@s1.gov) wrote:
: 
: 	In the railfan magazine _Rail Classics_ (Jan/Feb 1993), there
: is an article on Big Ding-Ding, er, CowTrain, er, CalTrain that some
: of you folx might be interested in. I found entertaining the
: description of the upper-level seats; from the lower level, they look
: like seats mounted in the luggage racks.
: 
: 	Some of you Peninsula Rail 2000 people might take exception to
: some of the characterization of the system, so you are hereby invited
: to flame away. The stations were described as "much less sophisticated
: affair than their BART cousins", and the proposed CalTrain tunnel to
: Market St. was described as "appear[ing] to be prohibitively
: expensive".

I have a better Idea!  Run CalTrain to the Embarcidaro station and have 
BART stop there and not run down the peninsula at all.  That way we can
avoid the expensive extension of BART to the Airport. :)

--
=============================================================================
Mr Loren L. Hart                                       The Ada Ace Group, Inc
loren@netcom.com                                       P.O. Box 36195
				                       San Jose, CA  95158
From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: CalTrain Article
Date: 11 Jan 93 02:44:04 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <1ini4o$ma0@agate.berkeley.edu>, lazzaro@boom.CS.Berkeley.EDU (John Lazzaro) writes:
> In article <jyc.726615803@Leland> jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:
> >
> >In other words, the best argument that
> >can be made for the San Bruno option is that it is somewhat less stupid
> >than the present situation.  This is a case where the better, if it is
> >better, is still the enemy of the good. 
> 
> No, you gain something tangible in addition. Here's the logic in math
> form:
> 
> Number of miles saved on each train by terminating at San Bruno: 11.6 miles
> Number of trains on a weekday: 60
> Total number of miles saved each day by new termination: 696
> Number of extra trains that could be run with this milage: 696/(48.9 - 11.6) = 18.7
> 
> That's what you gain by going to an option that is, in the best
> argument, "less stupid than the current situation." Kicking SF county
> off the JPB is an extra bonus.

But you're getting less money from fares, since riders aren't going as
far, because they are transferring to BART.  You're assuming that
ridership won't change (in both count and distance per rider) when
you say that X extra trains could be run.  Taking away the fiscal
aspect, we could run X extra trains today.  So I thing that your
tangible gain is not tangible at all.

jeremy
From: robertw@informix.com (Robert Weinberg)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Propane conversion info request
Date: 5 Jan 93 23:06:45 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

Sorry if this is in the FAQ - I haven't visited this group before.

Is there information available on converting an automobile to propane? An ftp site,  
book, magazine?

Anyone out there actually done it?

Thanks for any leads - e-mail preferred.

Rob

--
+================================+================================+
|         Rob Weinberg           |  Workstation publications tech |
|   Email : robertw@informix.com |        Graphic designer        |
|   Voice : 415-926-6754         |     <imagine your ad here>     |
+================================+================================+
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: CalTrain Article
Organization: LLNL
Distribution: ba
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 00:41:23 GMT

In article <28261@dog.ee.lbl.gov> b_nbca@icarus.lbl.gov (Bruce Nordman) writes:
>lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>>> I've learned of a cute nickname for BART:

>>> Bay Area Reckless Transit

>After last months derailment "Bay Area Wreckless Transit"
>would be obsolete!  :)

	There have been two other major BART accidents in the system's
history:

	Late in 1972 (early in 1973?), a train kept on going through
Fremont station and wound up in the parking lot there.

	In the middle of 1979, there was a train fire in the Transbay
Tube.

	So, BART has not quite been "wreckless".

>PS: Am I the only person who thinks that "s1.gov" can't possibly
>be a legitimate address, particularly from "Organization: LLNL"?

	Yes, that is a legitimate address.

-- 
/Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
/lip@s1.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: CalTrain scheduling musings
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Distribution: ca
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:36:45 GMT

In article <1516@dosbears>, mikel@dosbears.UUCP (Mike Lipsie) writes:
On grade crossing separations:
|> My guess is that 15 minute headway and "major sub-roads" (the larger
|> roads near most stations in San Mateo county (e.g., Ralston) is over
|> the pain threshold.

Grade separations are already planned for Ralston and all of San Carlos.
It'll be several years until they're done though.


|> Adrian then goes on to flame BART for needing to separate the train
|> from pedestrians and auto traffic.  The major reason, in the way
|> he worded it, is that BART uses a third [electric] rail system.

Yes, the third rail and it's low "buffing" (collision force) strength
are both technological "gating" factors that require full grade separation
independent of its service frequency.

|> He ignores the fact that BART also has (and was designed from the 
|> start) a very short headway.  (Before one of the anti-BART nuts
|> chimes in: 1.5 minutes -- currently 2.5 minutes.)

No.  I didn't ignore it.  It's just that for the reasons I just pointed
out, BART *has* to be grade-separated *regardless* of its headways.  So,
for the purposes of this discussion, BART's headways are immaterial.

Oh, and by the way: when are the headways on any of the 3 predominantly
non tunneled arms of BART (such as the Fremont or Concord lines) 2.5 min?


|> >has anyone noticed how good CalTrain on-time performace has been lately
|> 
|> Now that you mention it, no I haven't.

Pity.  I hope you're not one of those people that seem to be plagued
by a small (metaphorical, of course) thundercloud perpetually hanging
over your head.

|> I am in the unfortunate and [probably] foolish position of living
|> and working in the South Bay and having my doctor in SF and my
|> dentist in Oakland.  The last few trips to visit them have been
|> horror stories.

You'd better check for that thundercloud I was talking about.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation,rec.railroad
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Subject: Dates of structures (was: Grade Separations)
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 22:09:46 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

From article <930106161231@cream.ftp.com>,
by jbvb@vax.ftp.com  (James B. VanBokkelen):
> My belief that the grade separation dates from the '20s is based on
> the bridge.  It shows no signs of significant stregthening, and it
> was capable of carrying R1 4-8-2s, which implies that it was built
> when engines that large loomed on the horizon ...

But that's not necessarily a good way to date a bridge.  I can show you
bridges that were built in 1890 for service under American 4-4-0 engines
that survived until 1984.  Some culverts with 10 to 14 foot spans were
roofed with used 60 pound rail that was pulled up around 1900, and these
spans continued to serve (miraculously, as far as I am concerned) until
the modern era.  Between then and now, they managed to support such
things as trainloads of taconite without collapse.

(As an aside, yes, Minnesota taconite was indeed hauled south through
Iowa to the Chicago and Gary steel mills.  I assume it was in the winter,
and the Rock Island wanted a share of the market, so they hauled it south
from Minneapolis/St Paul via Vinton and Cedar Rapids to their east-west
main at West Liberty, and thence east through Rock Island to Chicago.
At least one carload of taconite derailed and dumped its contents just
North of West Branch, leaving evidence of this traffic for posterity.)

					Doug Jones
					jones@cs.uiowa.edu
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:28:53 GMT

In article <1530@dosbears>, mikel@dosbears.UUCP (Mike Lipsie) writes:
|> If CalTrain upsets you, try BART.  2.5 minutes headways thru SF, 3.0
|> minute headways in the rest of the system.

You must be talking about BART's minimum headway *capability*, right?
Currently, they don't run 3 min headways on any one of their 3 east bay
"arms" (Richmond, Concord, Fremont).  The average headway on the Concord
line must be about 15 minutes.

|> And, CalTrain's 8 * 148 is probably close to BART's seating capacity
|> (not to mention standing room.)

A BART car seats about 70 people, a little less than half what a CalTrain
car seats.  However, BART is designed for standees and so has lots of
grab bars on the ceiling that tall people (such as myself) could hit our
heads on.  (I have no problem hitting my head on a CalTrain car either.
But a CalTrain car doesn't have any pretension of un-encumbered standing
room above seats, so one is not tempted to try standing up at the seat.)


|> Just try to get more than 1.1 people/car.  Judging from some of the
|> asocial people posting here, there would be bloodshed.  I think 1.5
|> is probably an upper limit.

Based on some recently published figures I saw, Santa Clara County has
the lowest AVR (Average Vehicle Ridership) of Bay Area counties.  I
don't remember the figure, but it was below 1.1--something like 1.07,
I think.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 19:45:23 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.164607.5327@pbhya.PacBell.COM>, whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec30.002600.12884@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
|> >>Actually, a light rail line can carry the equivalent of a freeway, I 
|> >>am told. They can reach 55 MPH or more.
|> >
|> >Actually, I believe that a heavy rail line can carry far more than any 
|> >freeway full of SOVs, so is in a class by itself.
|> 
|> I wouldn't be *too* sure about that....  LA (for instance) has some pretty
|> wide freeways...

Time for some BOTECs (Back Of The Envelope Calculations).

At best, a freeway lane can handle 1,800 cars per hour, an average of a
car every 2 seconds.  Using a typical 1.1 people per car average, that
gives a lane a people throughput of 1,980 (which I'll call 2,000 just to
be generous).

Now, a railroad track and its associated signalling typically allow for
a maximum of a train every 2 to 5 minutes, depending on the system.  For
CalTrain, a locally well-known heavy rail system, I'll use the 5 minute
figure with 8 car trains.  Each car has seating for 148 people.  So an
8 car train seats 1,184 people.  Trains every 5 minutes means 12 trains
per hour which means seating for 14,208 people per hour per track.

This suggests a single track can easily move as many people as 7+ lanes
of freeway running at optimum throughput with a little over 1.1 people
per car.  With closer headways (such as 2.5 minute), the single track
can move as many people as 14+ lanes of freeway.  But all but the lowest
frequency services are double tracked (one track per direction), this
means a typical rail line running at high capacity can carry the equivalent
of anywhere from a 14 to 28 lane freeway.  (Of course we're assuming full
trains and 1.1 people per car here!)

Are there any 14+ lane freeways in LA?  I doubt there are any 28 lane
freeways anywhere in the world.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation,ba.sports
From: derek@netcom.com (Derek LeLash)
Subject: Re: Getting to the 'Stick
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Distribution: ba
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 23:27:26 GMT

In article <1ileciINN9dc@renoir.hal.COM> charly@hal.COM (Charly Rhoades) writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.214505.1866@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt) writes:
>>
>Has anyone actually walked from the Bayshore CalTrain station to
>Candlestick??  I`d be interested in learning about the experiences
>others have had doing this.
>
I've done this, and it takes about 15-20 minutes.
I did it on a nice September afternoon, with a few folks from the train for
company.  I wouldn't bother with it at night or if the weather were bad.

>This is another BIG reason why the baseball experience is so much
>more enjoyable at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum than at Candlestick.
>
Darn tootin'.
>
>PS:  I'm mostly interested in walking to Candlestick *before* the
>game.  Since I think I'd be content to *leave* at about the same
>time as most other people, and at the time I think the shuttle
>busses leave.  (Although I have heard some claim that getting to
>the busses after a game can be difficult, and that there is a
>narrow window in which you must catch them, or be stranded!  Any
>comments on this as well??)  I don't think I'd be walking from
>Candlestick to the Bayshore CalTrain station at 11:00 PM...not
>willingly at least.

Me neither.  What I did was, I caught one of the shuttle buses into SF,
hung around there for a while, then caught the CalTrain from the SF station
to go home.  Still, *much* more of a pain than getting to Oakland, despite
the comparable distance from my home.

Derek
-- 
Derek LeLash (derek@netcom.com)   "My friends say I'm in denial, which is,
Tech Writer/Multi-medium           of course, a total lie..."
BASYS Automation Systems, Inc.
Sunnyvale, CA  408-SEX-LLAMA       DISCLAIMER:  Wash before wearing.  :-) 
Newsgroups: ba.transportation