|
|
Post by heckheckle on Aug 10, 2009 17:12:34 GMT -5
Looks like the big "Choo Choo's" are in. It won't be long before the Builders and the Real Estate people decide that there is a lot of money to be made in Northern California. Get ready for the Building Boom there. The big trains will speed up the process.
I've revised my plan somewhat. We will pospone Heckheckle's Bridge and get started in planning for the new Container Port
in San Pablo Bay.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 10, 2009 19:00:23 GMT -5
Revise this.... The goal, in case you hadn't read any of the supporting documents for the North Coast Railroad Authority (which is wholly seperate from SMART) is to open a rail linked container port on the shores of Humboldt Bay in Eureka. That plan assumes that NCRA can find the funding and the political will to re-open a couple of hundred miles of derelict and washed out line through the Eel River Canyon... which is no sure thing in this state of environmentalist douchebaggery. The idea is that Eureka becomes a satellite port with rejuvenated rail service connecting to the national rail network at Napa Junction near American Canyon. And of course the line would also serve any number of potential interests from hauling our trash out of the county to bringing in raw materials for manufacturing and infrastructure, hauling lumber and gravel from the North Coast (heaven and enviro-nuts forbid), to shipping our good Sonoma County wines out in bulk. And if you think shipping wine by rail is a bad idea, tell that to Cal Northern Railroad over in Napa.SMART is solely about a commuter rail service from Cloverdale to Larkspur. NCRA sold out it's interest in that segment of the line to SMART in exchange for perpetual trackage rights to move goods over the line. Keep dreaming pardner. |
|
|
|
Post by heckheckle on Aug 11, 2009 17:02:05 GMT -5
I talk about opening up Northern California. The money will
only become available for expanding Oakland Container Port
because it will bring in Builders and Real Estate people. That's
where the money will come from. Of course I think the "Marin
Gang" will object to this.
San Pablo Bay is the best Port of Entry to North California and
"Goods" can be shipped all over, from there.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 11, 2009 17:30:39 GMT -5
While what you propose isn't necessarily a bad idea, the "Marin Gang" wouldn't allow an airport at Hamilton. They are radically averse to anyone building just about anything within the county.
And you think all they would do is "object"?
|
|
|
|
Post by heckheckle on Aug 11, 2009 17:37:34 GMT -5
Oh yeah. Hamilton Airport should be kept as an Airport.
tear down the Housing that was built on the runways.
That was done to keep it from becoming a Commercial
Airport. That Airport will accept all Planes that SFO does.
Everything is in place to have a full size operational
Comercial Airport. I wish Chris Coursey would start
talking about it. What happened to him?
|
|
|
|
Post by capttankona on Aug 11, 2009 18:44:53 GMT -5
If you want to build a port of entry in San Pablo Bay, you dont need Marin County to do it. A great deal of the San Pablo Bay is in Sonoma County, right on the Petaluma River, with an existing Rail Road Spur to serve Northern California.
My Sister was born at Hamilton Airforce Base. I don't consider it a good location for an Airport, since there is one less then fifty miles to the North in Santa Rosa.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 11, 2009 23:37:23 GMT -5
I think I need to find another facepalm for Heck. Captain..... a few points to ponder: ** The reach of Sonoma County onto San Pablo Bay runs from the middle of the Petaluma River to the middle of the Richard "Fresh Air" Jordan bridge on SR37. That's maybe six or seven miles, tops. ** All of the land along the water is protected wetlands. Several large chunks are permanently set aside for refuges. ** Large swaths of the land between those two points is agricultural and quite a bit of it is already got perpetual conservation easements on it which will forbid any form of development. ** A rail spur... no, that is the mainline. And a small container port with a full intermodal capability would require several hundred acres, at minimum, to be devoted to rail / truck interface, fully paved, with many miles of stub tracks and service roads in and out. ** All of this would need to be built on reclaimed bay bottom land protected by levees... which is what the runway and aprons at Hamilton were built on and which is being reverted back to wetlands there with the blessing of government. ** San Pablo Bay at it's northern reaches is very shallow, sometimes mere inches. Massive amounts of dredging would be needed. A fifty foot deep ship channel, dock area and maneuvering basin, if not deeper, would need to be created and maintained. See this page for a photo and data that gives some idea. ** And about the photo on that link. If one wanted to build container ports in the north bay, the logical choice would be along the Mare Island straits. The former shipyard has the berthing facilities in place and there is an extensive rail network already in place in the yard. Across the strait near the old General Mills plant there is also potential berthage and well developed rail is in place there also. Fold in that, sitting just on the other side of the Petaluma River is Marin County. There is no way in hell that they would allow that kind of megadevelopment just on the other side of the river and not squeak about it. The City of Novato held up NCRA in court for close to a year over ticky-tack BS that they had no standing to quibble with. I am all for development and for growth opportunities. But reality is still reality.  |
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 11, 2009 23:46:59 GMT -5
That Airport will accept all Planes that SFO does. Ummmm no, not really. I worked at Hamilton for many years. The single modern runway was 8000 feet with 1000 feet of overrun at each end. That took it within twenty five feet of the bay marsh at the south end and a few hundred feet of ponds to the north end. There is no room to make it any longer. By comparison, the shortest runway at SFO is 11,000 feet if I remember correctly. The longest there is something like 16 or 17,000. A crosswind runway at Hamilton to handle large jets would be impractical given the topography to the southwest. This is why when the runway was expanded in the 1950's to handle fighter jets, the old crosswind runway was closed and turned into part of the taxiway system out to the parking pads. The infrastructure was crumbling there when the base was closed. The fuel farm was decrepit and barely usable. All of that is gone now and would cost billions to replace to a modern standard. The roadways in and out are not capable of handling even a moderate sized airport's worth of traffic, and neither is US 101. Again... I am all for opportunity, but the opportunity at Hamilton passed in the mid 1970's. And I have to agree with the captain, the Sonoma County Airport makes much better sense as a feeder / regional airport.... which is all Hamilton could have hoped to be. |
|
|
|
Post by heckheckle on Aug 12, 2009 19:01:06 GMT -5
Santa Rosa Airport has no place to expand to. Can't extend runways.
Hamilton had Air Space and could accomodate all Commercial Planes
at the time. It can still be a full service Airport. Just pull down the housing
that was built on the runways.
Dredging can move mountains, "So to speak". Treasure Island came
from "Nowhere".
Isn't SFO built on fill? And besides, "They" want to extend, or build new runways there with fill. But! But!There is only so much
expansion before the Highways will become clogged, and the
Cities would be jam packed with people and cars, and Planes running into each other. I happened to be just outside of the fence once when there was a "Near Miss".
No, I'm afraid there is no hope of expanding anything around San Francisco, or SFO Airport. We may as well accept that Northern California Will be separate from the rest and will start the Building of a Huge New type of State. One that needs True Visionaries to Plan the Overall outcome of all of Northern California. The Independant State of California.
|
|
|
|
Post by ferrous on Aug 13, 2009 8:27:26 GMT -5
That Airport will accept all Planes that SFO does. Ummmm no, not really. I worked at Hamilton for many years. The single modern runway was 8000 feet with 1000 feet of overrun at each end. That took it within twenty five feet of the bay marsh at the south end and a few hundred feet of ponds to the north end. There is no room to make it any longer. By comparison, the shortest runway at SFO is 11,000 feet if I remember correctly. The longest there is something like 16 or 17,000. A crosswind runway at Hamilton to handle large jets would be impractical given the topography to the southwest. This is why when the runway was expanded in the 1950's to handle fighter jets, the old crosswind runway was closed and turned into part of the taxiway system out to the parking pads. The infrastructure was crumbling there when the base was closed. The fuel farm was decrepit and barely usable. All of that is gone now and would cost billions to replace to a modern standard. The roadways in and out are not capable of handling even a moderate sized airport's worth of traffic, and neither is US 101. Again... I am all for opportunity, but the opportunity at Hamilton passed in the mid 1970's. And I have to agree with the captain, the Sonoma County Airport makes much better sense as a feeder / regional airport.... which is all Hamilton could have hoped to be. I was once told that the concrete runways at Hamilton were several feet thick (Blast proof) so the plan was to breech the levees and flood them rather than try to remove them. From the work I have done on the pumping stations in and around around the area, I would imagine that the runways are now under water and mud. There is no runway to expand. |
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 13, 2009 11:57:14 GMT -5
Yes, the runway is something like 6 or 8 feet thick. It wasn't built that thick to be blast proof, per se. That kind of thickness is required to handle heavy aircraft, which is understandable because Hamilton long had a transport mission until Travis was built and really took off. When they had the final Wings of Victory air shows there in the 1980's the air force flew in a C5, a C 141, a KC-10 and a B-52 as well as a number of various fighter types. That 8000 foot runway handled them all.
The pump stations on the south side of the perimeter serve the storm drainage across the entire base, as well as the airfield area. THose will remain in service to my understanding.
They haven't breached the levees yet to my understanding. But they eventually will. And all those people who've bought homes and put offices in down along the old flightline will wake up every morning to the lovely smell that is a bay bottom salt marsh.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Big Dog on Aug 13, 2009 12:28:30 GMT -5
Santa Rosa Airport has no place to expand to. Can't extend runways. Actually, yes. You could expand the runways at Santa Rosa but there really is no need. It is a regional airport and is already fully supportive of large turboprop passenger aircraft and up to large business jets. No, it could not. A fully loaded 747, Airbus 300 or greater, or a DC-10, needs at least 10,000 feet of runway with substantial overruns at both ends. The runway is oriented so that most takeoffs would be over the bay, but that makes all landings coming in directly over downtown Novato and final would be to come in over Mt. Burdell. For those days where the winds are counter, the climb out would be directly over Novato. Think there wouldn't be an issue with that? And as I mentioned above, a cross wind runway would be impractical. The orientation of such a runway would put hills less than 1000 feet from the end of the runway, and the climb out from there would be directly over Marinwood, Terra Linda and San Rafael. There is no housing built on the runways. And for all the reasons I've outlined already, not to mention that the airfield portion of the property has already been designated a protected wetland and the Greens would hunt you down and have you hung for merely suggesting it, the airport potential of Hamilton went down the drain in the 1970's. Treasure Island was not a product of dredging. The island was created with the spoils from the excavation of the tunnel through Yerba Buena Island and the excavations for the footings of the towers and piers of the Bay Bridge. It was built specifically for the World Fairs of 1939-1940 with the idea that it would become an airport servinc Pan American clipper service afterward. World War 2 ended that and the NAvy took over the island. Most of SFO is built on dry land. The expansions of the main runways to the south and the east have required fill and plenty of it. There is no room at SFO for new runways and if they have to lengthen again they will only be able to push out into the bay so far. This is where SFO differs from your Hamilton dream. SFO is a working international airport. Hamilton, once the Air Force abandoned it, fell into a whole different set of rules. Since then the rules have been changed ever more to make the dream of any airport type activity at Hamilton impossible. You have also, in the above paragraph, hit the nail exactly on the head why Hamilton would be impractical. There is not enough infrastructure, mainly roadway and ground transportation, to support a full service airport there. And there is neither the money, the public stomach, nor the political will to build that infrastructure. Between SFO, Oakland and San Jose / Minetta, something over 15 million passengers are served annually. Oakland also is the Northern California Fed Ex hub, as well as other carriers. All three airports are continuing to expand their capacity (San Jose in particular) and their ground transportation infrastructure. BART already goes to SFO and it eventually will to Oakland as the BART district is planning a loop track similar to what they did for SFO. I would wager that the eventual expansion of BART to San Jose will ultimately tie in with both Caltrain and Amtrak at Diridon Station with the idea of ultimately getting to San Jose / Minetta. Fold in the rapidly growing in popularity Sacramento International Airport, which is a joy to fly in and out of by the way, and you've got Northern and Central California pretty well covered. Then take into account regional and feeder facilities like Sonoma County Airport, tie together a well executed inter-city passenger rail system to feed those airports and you start to get to full spectrum solution. And... in closing, I do agree with you that California needs to be broken apart. I would split the state into thirds. But that'll happen about ten minutes after pigs start flying into Hamilton. |
|
