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Pacific Surfliner to add stops south of Los Angeles
Affect? Effect!
If you look at this proposal carefully, this “improvement” in Amtrak Surfliner service is essentially turning a regional express service into a commuter train on weekends so Coaster can avoid the expense of running some weekend trains.
The lengthening of the endpoint-to-endpoint running times to add these commuter stops may wind up impacting overall weekend Surfliner ridership. Hopefully this doesn’t become a case of squandering many dollars of lost revenue to save a few bucks for Coaster. Time will tell.
I don’t know if this is a good idea. Maybe one additional stop. Isn’t this going to slow things down.
In 1959 at Sorrento (now “Valley”) there was a main’, siding, signal shacks with phones to the Dispr., grass trees and a creek.
I know I can Google a pic. of it now, but do I want to realize just how long I’ve been away from San Diego State?..
The COASTER already runs a reduced commuter train schedule on both Saturday and Sunday. It does appear that all of these additional stops could be a bit too many. Besides, I doubt that the cost of riding the Surfliner from any of these stops down to San Diego will be less than the cost of riding the COASTER.
The headline is somewhat misleading. Maybe it should have read, “Pacific Surfliner to add stop south of Oceanside”. Saying south of Los Angeles implies that stops would have occurred north of Fullerton Station.
Also, I find no reference in the story addressing these changes as being on the weekends only?
Coaster service ends too early in the evening for anything but commuters. Adding stops in Carlsbad, etc., will make Amtrak more attractive to downtown dinner goers. Not sure if this market would not be better served with later Coaster trains.
RailPAC has written to Caltrans protesting the move. These are taxpayer funded “intercity” trains and these stops will turn them into milk runs. How many $37 round trip LA/San Diego passengers will they drive away to pick up a handful of $4.28 commuters?
Paul Dyson
RailPAC President
HEY G.H., GET A LIFE, WILL YA ? You’re nothing but a liberal intellectual elitist ! But then, with a name like “Gram Sherman” you have to be good.
Will weekend passengers who would otherwise use the Coaster be able to use the commuter rail authority’s tickets?
It’s high time both Coaster and Metrolink work together to set up “memory” schedules with convenient transfer connections at Oceanside with a minimal amount of layover time. NJ Transit and SEPTA does this at Trenton along the NEC.
What is needed is double track plus 3rd express track in certain areas over entire route and replacement of 1919 technology (loco hauled coaches) with light/fast accellerating DMU trains to be switched to EMU with prompt upgrade of the route to overhead electric power. Then local and express trains can share and serve the route. Unfortunately it only takes money and we know that must be spent on “money making” freeways.
Take it easy Klippel, Mr. Schurman is right about the typo in this story. I’m not sure how you get from that to your political tantrum, but no one here wants to hear it.
Typical ! Whether it’s Washington state or Wash. DC. , NO SENSE OF HUMOR !
Was he correct about the typo, really, REALLY !!! Just so happens that I believe MOST of us are hungry for TRAIN or RAILROAD NEWS not a correction of English grammer.
Why can’t Metrolink, Coaster, and Amtrak learn to play well together. Reminds me of Kindergarten.