LOS ANGELES — Engineering firm HDR will provide, engineering, design, and advisory services for the High Desert Corridor high speed rail project, the company has announced.
The High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Authority, which seeks to build a 54-mile line between Palmdale and Victorville, Calif., that would eventually connect the Brightline West and California High-Speed Rail projects, has awarded a five-year, $42 million contract to HDR for services including rail design, systems and station integration, operations and maintenance facility design, bridge design, and right-of-way coordination. The contract was approved at an April meeting of the authority’s board.
“The High Desert Corridor will improve connectivity and accessibility for millions of travelers, generate billions in economic activity, and open new opportunities for the whole region,” Girair Kotchian, HDR’s project manager, said in a press release. “It’s a privilege to be involved with such a momentous project for Southern California.”
The project is currently developing its environmental report and preliminary engineering. It aims to begin construction in the early 2030s. More information is available at the High Desert Corridor JPA website.
If (and thats a big if) it actually gets done, it will probably serve as the Palmdale connector to Brightline West because CaHSR won’t be anywhere close to being ready anytime in the next 20-25 years.
I’m the only person posting on these pages who is skeptical of Brightline West. I just don’t see how you can build a two-track railroad in the median of a freeway —– a standard 70-foot rural median (including the two inside shoulders, ten feet each). Not unless the entire freeway is rebuilt, which usually doesn’t happen in a rural segment of that length.
As for HDR, today being the first time I heard of it, the world must be laughing at HSR in the desert, nowhere to nowhere.
Wake me up when CalHSR figures out how (and when, and at what cost) to get from Merced to San Jose, or from Bakersfield to Burbank to Los Angeles.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record in my sporadic comments here, how they plan to build the railroad has been a matter of public record for a while. It’s in the Final Environmental Impact Statement at the FRA’s website: https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/environment/environmental-reviews/brightline-west-las-vegas-victor-valley
Appendix F-C has profile drawings, if you really want to get in the weeds here. Note that the final alignment through the Mojave Desert is mostly *next to* I-15, not in the median between the north and southbound lanes. Mostly. 🙂
Finally, I should note that I have (and always have had) some doubts about the financial model of Brightline West, even with the massive giveaway in the form of free land from the states of California and Nevada. I guess we’ll all find out together…