This is not specifically
Salt Lake transit news, but it is related to Utah:
Feds approve $647 million grant for Caltrain electrification project
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/05/2...ime=1495478103
The relation to Utah is that the electric trains will be built by Stadler here in Clearfield, if that factory gets approved and built.
The other connection to Utah is that UTA wants to eventually electrify FrontRunner, while CalTrain actually is electrifying their line. Currently they have diesel locomotives pushing bilevel push-pull commuter cars, just like our system. By switching from diesel to electric propulsion (with EMU trainsets) they will increase the speed of their trains, decrease travel time, and increase frequency to a
train every 10 minutes.
Can you imagine what a 10 minute frequency would do for FrontRunner ridership? And can you imagine what that ridership would do for density in downtown Salt Lake? Now take that and add what will happen when trip times are reduced by 25% due to faster acceleration and higher speeds? (FrontRunner is already constructed to a 90 mph standard in certain stretches but does not reach them due to slow-accelerating diesel power). Provo to Salt Lake Central in 45 minutes instead of an hour; North Temple to Ogden in 38 minutes rather than 51. And that isn't counting in the 17 minutes that was added into the schedule when the South line was first opened and the original tighter schedule proved to be unreliable (electric trains would be able to keep that schedule).
Back to Caltrain.
This isn't exactly a 1:1 comparison, however. Caltrain already had 2 tracks along its length, and it is only electrifying 51 miles of track. To electrify and double-track FrontRunner we would need to build nearly 70 miles of second track and electrify all 89 miles (I'm excluding Pleasant View - let that be dropped again until the Brigham City extension happens). I could argue that FrontRunner, with no express service, no passing tracks, no tunnels, and no stub-end stations (like King Street or San Jose) would be simpler and therefore cheaper to electrify, but that's just conjecture.
But Caltrain is also doing things that we would not need to. For example, they are
rebuilding all 26 stations along their route to make them all high-level stations (so that the High Speed Rail can share platforms later on). As a consequence, their trains are a very expensive custom order that includes doors for both low-level and high-level platforms. UTA would not need to rebuild any stations, nor would we need any extra-expensive custom-ordered trains (just the
regular off-the-shelf trains already in use elsewhere in the world). Also, having the trains build by Stadler in Utah would make them even cheaper, since UTA could test the trains frequently and send them back to the factory for modifications without huge transportation costs, lawsuits, and extensive delays.
What I'm saying is that we could very easily be the next North American commuter rail line to electrify, after both Toronto and Caltrain lead the way and set the precedent. We could do it cheaper than them, since we do not need to rebuild our stations and since the trains could be made in our state, even though we have more 2nd track to build and more overall length to electrify. It would still costs in the hundreds-of-millions of dollars to do, but we're already spending BILLIONS on freeways without much help from the federal government, so we have the means of paying for it on our own. Also, with the
EPA ranking Salt Lake as 'serious' for pollution violations, it might be easier for us to get federal grants to do things that would clean up our air, such as eliminating diesel locomotives and adding significant capacity to our non-polluting commuter rail line.
This is in my opinion a no-brainer. I want to hear our elected officials begin planning for this project now, while the window opportunity is wide open.