If CA can’t build bridge, what about bullet train through mountains?

08 Dec, 2014 by Chris Reed

If the state of California can’t build a bridge, how can it handle the huge technological and engineering challenge of building a bullet train through two mountain ranges laced with seismic faults?

Such questions are inevitable after the latest Sacramento Bee report questioning progress on the state’s current big infrastructure project:

An independent report … sharply criticized official tests of high-strength steel rods that secure the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, concluding the analysis was flawed and that some bridge parts should be replaced.

The report said assessments by the California Department of Transportation and its expert advisers – that the bridge is safe and durable – were based on “unscientific” and “erroneous and misleading” evidence.

The critique was authored by Yun Chung, a retired metallurgical engineer who has studied the matter since some threaded rods on the eastern pier of the span snapped in March 2013. Chung said Caltrans’ test protocols, data analysis and conclusions about the reliability of the suspension span “could not be supported.”

Chung proposed replacing most of the suspect bolts and rods with others whose qualities remove vulnerability to cracking.

Caltrans had concluded in a report issued in September that, based on multimillion-dollar tests, the suspect anchor rods can be left in place.“Based on the findings of this investigation, nothing further is needed to ensure the integrity of the (suspect) rods,” other than additional protections for rods on the eastern pier of the span, and usual maintenance, according to the Caltrans’ report.

Building bridges not normally considered difficult

This raises fundamental questions about the competence of the state government. As CalWatchdog has noted …

Mankind has been building bridges for more than 3,000 years. A bridge built in the 13th century BC in Greece is still in use.Building durable bridges over water is not a modern accomplishment. The Roman Empire liked to build simple arch bridges over rivers and put up hundreds and hundreds all over Europe. Quite a few are still in use.

But building more complex bridges over water, such as the suspension Brooklyn Bridge completed in 1883, is also old hat. It’s not rocket engineering, as Sergio Garcia would say. It’s daunting to outsiders but no big deal to those in the biz.

Except if you’re the genius engineers working for the state of California, who somehow managed to botch the $6.4 billion east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge by neglecting basic practices meant to reduce water corrosion on giant steel beams and by tolerating flawed welds and an abnormally high number of broken bolts.

‘Viaducts as high as a 33-story skyscraper’

This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the state will be up to the task that awaits it in the mountains north of Los Angeles if the bullet train project moves forward. The Los Angeles Times laid out the challenge in November 2012:

The plan calls for bullet trains to shoot east from Bakersfield at 220 mph, climbing one of the steepest sustained high-speed rail inclines in the world. It would soar over canyons on viaducts as high as a 33-story skyscraper. The line would duck in and out of tunnels up to 500 feet below the rugged surface. It would cross more than half a dozen earthquake faults heading toward L.A.

Tunneling machines as long as a football field will have to be jockeyed into mountain canyons to do the heavy, back-breaking work once left to Chinese laborers. New access roads and a corridor for high-voltage power lines will have to be carved through the Tehachapis to feed power-hungry trains. When completed and fully operational, the bullet train will need an estimated 2.7 million kilowatt hours of electricity each day — about a quarter of Hoover Dam’s average daily output.

Descending the Tehachapis, the trains will barrel through miles of creosote and sagebrush across the oven-hot Mojave Desert, and cut through neighborhoods of homes, churches, schools and businesses, some of which will have to be flattened. It will kiss the boundary of a top-secret Lockheed Martin aerospace plant and sail alongside a Disney movie lot in Santa Clarita.

Reaching the San Fernando Valley, it will pass through an industrial corridor before dipping underground near Glendale and running deep beneath the Los Angeles River. It will most likely pop up in Chinatown, where some of Hood’s laborers settled.

That would be daunting for the most sophisticated engineering and construction firm in the world. For a state government that can’t build a bridge over water, building a bullet train rail system through two mountain ranges might be, well, a bridge too far.