Another Hurdle for HSR in California

[marknewton]

Politicians are usually clueless when it comes to the railway industry, but this is bizarre, even by Californian standards.

 

http://www.smh.com.au/world/railway-bidders-must-admit-wartime-roles-20100816-126wa.html

[westfalen]

The world will eventually become so politically correct nothing will ever get done for fear of offending someone somewhere.

 

What American or Allied railway or railway manufacturer didn't also play a large part in the war?

[Guest ___]

This is exactly why I could never live on the left coast.  They'd run me out with pitch folks. Even to our DC standards this is idiotic. As a Jew, even I find that California proposal to be ridiculous. That's almost on par with a proposed Japanese import ban on iPhones cause we dropped two atomic bombs on them seventy years ago. Of course, that proposal died faster than a crackhead running down the center of the Yamanote Line tracks at rush hour.

[bikkuri bahn]

Israel has no problems buying (lots of) German-built railway rolling stock, it has Bombardier (rail transport division based in Berlin) as well as Siemens products running on its lines.  I have a feeling this is more of a front for either protecting a non-existent American HSR industry or, (more likely) a move to try to delay or kill the whole project by throwing up obstacles to sensible HSR development. 

[disturbman]

It's clearly a political move but I can't really fathom what it's achieving.  Is there an upcoming election in Ca?

[David]

I doubt it has anything to do with being PC, more likely it's just a way excluding a bid from JR East. Who is going to get the money has probably already been decided, now the bidding process is just being rigged to ensure it excludes everyone else.

[cteno4]

This part actually happened a while back and i think it was a purely political move at the time. i have a client that works on ca hsr stuff and ill see what they think it was motivated by.

 

ca hsr is a real mess as it goes through both north and south california along with the central valley. these are really almost three different stated in reality. California is tough as its huge in size, population, and economy so its really like running a mid sized country. thus you get all the politics, power plays, and just having to please a lot of people, which is a fruitless game.

 

other big issue with ca hsr right now is the fact that its going through so many different jurisdictions. everyone wants to set how the whole thing wants to be done along with it going through the complete political spectrum from far right to far left. lots of NIMBY going on. big fight over the south bay route right now. the hsr authority wants to route the train over pacheco pass for some odd reason instead of altimont and there are a huge number of better reasons to go over altimont. this decision is a much murkier there is something going on behind the scenes thing than the war issue.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[marknewton]

Jeff, I'd be fascinated to learn the real reasons behind this bill. I'm surprised no-one has pointed a few simple historical facts to Blumenfield to counter his position. SNCF didn't "build trains" then, nor do they now. The French railway was under the control of the "Verkehrsdirection", the German military transport administration. But I suppose politicians have never let an issue be clouded by facts...

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[CaptOblivious]

It's clearly a political move but I can't really fathom what it's achieving.  Is there an upcoming election in Ca?

 

I'm willing to bet it's not just to exclude JR, but to exclude everything non-American…Or perhaps to reduce the options to China only?

[cteno4]

no word back from my contact in CA politics on this one yet. ill give her a few more days then give a poke...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[quinntopia]

Wow....The lack of self-awareness demonstrated by this politician is unbelievable.  What I find really offensive is that this clown is using this tragedy for his own political benefit, not that 'a company' hasn't made reparations for something that happened 70 years ago.  Unfortunately, we tend to breed a lot of these kind of political hacks out here on the west coast.

[Guest ___]

Wow....The lack of self-awareness demonstrated by this politician is unbelievable.  What I find really offensive is that this clown is using this tragedy for his own political benefit, not that 'a company' hasn't made reparations for something that happened 70 years ago.  Unfortunately, we tend to breed a lot of these kind of political hacks out here on the west coast.

 

No surprise in the least. From having just had to cover the 828 rally yesterday in DC, some of the things I saw protesters, and counter protesters doing in front of Metro Stations near the rally... err, a half mile away, in itself is amazing. Politicians will use anything they can to hack east or west coast. Makes me wish I lived in Iowa sometimes.