Amtrak California.....

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

… trains are doing pretty good lately. Here are a couple recent articles that suppurt that statement.

Both from Progressive railroading

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8/28/2006 Ridership
Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner reaches highest-ever quarterly passenger count

During its third quarter, Amtrak posted record ridership on its Pacific Surfliner route, carrying 703,857 passengers. Ridership rose 4.1 percent during the April-to-June period.

Ridership continued to climb during July, when the route registered more than 265,000 passengers, a 4 percent increase compared with July 2005.

The Pacific Surfliner provides 12 daily round trips between San Diego and Los Angeles, with five trips that extend to Santa Barbara and two that continue to San Luis Obispo.

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8/29/2006 Operations
Capitol Corridor authority adds trains on California line

Yesterday, the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) began operating six additional trains between San Jose and Sacramento, Calif. Coupled with a recent 30 percent increase in service between Oakland and Sacramento, the San Jose train additions mark the authority’s largest-ever service expansion, according to a prepared statement.

A total of 14 trains now operate to and from San Jose daily. CCJPA used $72 million in state transportation funds to upgrade track and add infrastructure.

CCJPA operates Amtrak intercity passenger-rail service along a 170-mile corridor between the Sierra Foothills, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. The California Depar

2

You know, I can’t say much about the Surfliner but I can tell you this, that when I was in the parking lot at the Corona North Metrolink Station, that placed filled up in a matter of 15 minutes. I think with gas prices being the way they are people are getting smarter and are using trains for travel and commuting. Plus you can’t beat the Surfliner view of the Pacific Ocean. It goes along the beach where there isn’t a road.

3

I took a trip up the coast a couple months ago and it was 100% full out of San Diego and stayed pretty full into LA but after a couple stops there were a couple empty seats. next time I take the train up to LA I think I am going to take Coaster / Metrolink to compare them to Amtrak. I hear that Herzog really dropped the ball on takeing over the Coaster though. When they first took over the crews were inexperienced and were missing stops and overshooting platforms, one guy even blew a red light (I think he was fired though). Mabee by now they have got it together.

4

Good morning, Chad…You’ll never find a more enthusiastic rider of passenger rail service than me, and I think it’s great that the CA Amtrak trains are doing well, but…given the current political climate and budgetary realities, with dark rumors of Amtrak being “zeroed out”, does any of this matter? Do you think Amtrak as we know it will exist in 5 years? Just curious…

Riprap

N.B. Oh, and my congratulations on #5,000. Is there a Golden Spike in your future?![;)]

5

I am dying for them to run more than two trains from Sacramento to Auburn. It would be cheaper for me than driving. They have the budget to add two more trains but UP has put a hold on it due to the traffic from Auburn through Roseville and into Sacramento. It would be a totally cool thing to be able to take the train into Downtown Sac on the weekends and not have to worry about driving. But its good to see that Amtrak is doing better every day.

Dave

6

I am really middle of the road on long dx Amtrak. I hate to see it limp along like it does. On the other hand the corridor trains like the Coast and Capitols and San JoaquinValley trains have a secure future here in California if you ask me.

7

Chad, I didn’t know that Herzog took over the Coaster. Weren’t they subing out the crew to Amtrak origionally? Also when you say that you would like to take the Coaster to the Metrolink, I not sure if Metrolink is still running to Oceanside or not. I’ve looked into Metrolink from Fullerton to O’side to do a price comparance, but everytime I looked they keep telling me that its through the Surfliner, and it comes out the same price. I’ve seen Metrolink down in O’side but I’m not sure if they run it anymore.

8

Yea, I don’t know exactly when but Herzog took over from Amtrak. Aparently they did not offer enough to get the Amtrak employees to make the switch so they hired off the street and ended up with very inexperienced crews.

I see Metrolink sets in Oceanside when I go past, but I don’t know if they connect. I just assumed they did.

9

Not AmCal but…

I took Amtraks Pere Marquette from Grand Rapids MI to Chicago a few months ago. Not really much to say about this train, it’s normally a P42 with 3 Horizon cars. Trip is quite scenic though. I always thought it was a lightlty patronized train. Guess not! That train was 100% full! It’s good to see that Amtrak ridership has gone up recently, mostly due to ga$ price$. Ridership in Michigan alone has gone up by 20% in the last year.

10

Has anyone heard of any upgrades that UP is undertaking to increase the number of passenger trains that can travel between Sacramento and Auburn? I can find reference to proposals by Caltrans to do everything from signal improvements to adding a third main line from Elvas to Roseville, but it looks like UP broke off the talks even though the state might have been willing to pick up the tab. I would seem that any improvement maid for commuter train sake would help UPs freight operations since passenger trains only run from 6am to 10pm.

Dave

11

SoCal rail traffic has been booming ever since the transit authorities made a rare good (for them) routing decision: they decided to locate the last station of the Red Line Subway in the basement of LA Union Station. This gave all-rail access to a much wider area. As a result, about 50,000 people a day pass through Union Station on weekdays.

Now if they would just rectify some previous bonehead moves things would be even better.

  1. Fix the rail line that goes from nowhere to nowhere: the Green Line should be extended into LAX (as was originally intended) on the west, and to the east to the Norwalk Metrolink station on the BNSF mainline. The east end extension would be the cheapest fix of a previous stupid decision.

  2. Extend the Red Line spur down Wilshire to Santa Monica. Or run a light rail line along existing tracks over a parallel route.

  3. Extend the Gold Line east through the foothill areas following the old Santa Fe Super Chief route.

  4. An old Pacific Electric right-of-way still exists that runs in a straight line from Santa Ana in Orange County to the Blue Line (Long Beach-LA) station in south LA. Run light rail down it. If it can be made to connect with Metrolink in Santa Ana all the better. A lot of Nimbys live along this route but, as gas prices increase, they may change their mind.

At any rate, one can dream.

Jack

12

Pardon me if I’ve asked this before, but has a mostly subterranean route for a RR running very close to I-5 over (through) the Grapevine ever been seriously considered, or did any such line exist? For those not familiar with CA, I’m referring to the stretch through the Transverse Range btw Bakersfield (roughly) and the Santa Clarita Valley. To partly answer my own question, it seems to me that the corridor traveled by California State Hwy 33 might be somewhat more navigable, or at the very least, not as long as, going through Tehachapi Pass and then doubling back through the El Cajon pass.

Riprap

13

Riprap,

I am unaware of any plans for something like that but I’m sure it’s been thought about. The Santa Fe has had plans in the past to cross Tejon, but not to get to LA. It was more so they could have there own route over the mountains. The plan called for the railroad to go over Tejon pass with 2 long tunnels but instead of continueing south to LA the line would have turned east and went to Barstow. It would have joined the current Barstow-Mojave alignment between Sanborn & Bissel (east of Mojave).