Author on an overloaded surf line train SAN - LAX
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article201587844.html
amtrak endangers children, we must get rid of it altogether!
Joke aside, yes Amtrak could stand to be expanded in some areas and eliminated in others.
If Amtrak got rid of the LD trains they could convert the Superliner coaches to corridor service and put them to use where they are needed like this corridor and others. Or is it all not going to matter because California is going to secede from the union soon and they can provide their own trains. (We can only hope.)
Sorry, there is no provision for secession in the Constitution of the United States.
Like the Hotel California - you can check in but you can never leave
Adios America! ( Ann C. is right)
To be fair, isn’t at least some of the present overcrowding a direct result of diverting some of the LOSSAN consists to emergency service around Santa Barbara?
I’d imagine that service is over. Plus, they diverted Capital Corridor/San Joaquin equipment to backstop that. The traffic between SD and LA is a nightmare. For all the SoCal general congestion issues, but also because of the bottlenecks. Camp Pendelton being the worst. Waze can’t help you when there’s no other road to take. Perhaps the Pacific Parlour cars could be repurposed here? 
Only half joking. I know a lounge won’t really add significant per train capacity, but an upgraded cafe would probably go over well and add better meal service. I know I would have killed for this given the beauty of large portions of the trip.
That article indicates that busiest days are Friday and Sunday. Perfect days for a bar car.
Considering that California (like most blue states) pay far more in federal taxes than they receive in federal spending, they’d be better off financially leaving the union.
Not really, and you know why? The Environmentalists there have really done a number on the states self-sufficiency. California is now dependent on surrounding states for fuel, electricity and water. Prices of which would escalate if they left the union. Calculations for leaving the union are with horse blinders on and do not include trade or balance of payments if California were to become an indepenedent country and it goes far beyond paying taxes. In fact California would not be able to afford it’s current Debt load and would collapse just from increased interest rates on that…without the U.S. guaranteeing the debt. There would also be a little problem with selling additional bonds.
Also, would not want to live in a state myself where the only means of defense was the California National Guard…which also has some issues from what I read in the paper.
Might want to check 3 organizations that looked at this issue: Washington Post, Economist Magazine, and Tax Foundation. WaPo is liberal, Economist is a pro business magazine, Tax Foundation a conservative anti tax think tank. So all sides of the political spectrum did studies on this issue and all reached the same conclusion. Blue states overwhelmingly with a few exceptions (Texas also gets shortchanged) support red states. So California buys water, fuel and electricity from other states? And what does California export in return? Technology, movies, engineering, entertainment, math, science, finance, defense, and agricultural products. All of the highest quality and sold around the world. It’s the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. On par with Brazil, Germany, France or U.K.
Yeah, hope you don’t like almonds and Spinach 40,000,000 people across the economic spectrum is a lot of taxes regardless of their politics.
I heard that California is perioidically selling surplus electricity to Arizona. But don’t know how it nets out.
I heard that California is perioidically selling surplus electricity to Arizona. But don’t know how it nets out.
Expanding Amtrak service on the LA-SD corridor is up to the multi-county LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, not Amtrak. Amtrak supplies the ‘operational’ resources for now.
Texas already had the discussion after the Civil War and I will repeat some of the points of the Texas discussion. Your making way to many presumptions. The biggest being that California will remain unified as a territory if it did split off. Not going to happen and will more than likely split off with the majority of the land mass voting to stay with the United States. Oops! there goes your self-sustaining agriculture, along with a greater loss of your water and part of your tax base. Another presumption is existing trade and other agreements will remain the same once you exit…not going to happen as now your a foriegn competitor to other states. Another, is that California can afford to defend itself from China or other aggressors that would value the position on the Pacific. Yet another is those big companies would stake their Economic Future on staying with California when the remaining U.S. still represents the larger market. Some of them would relocate out of the state. Your economy is large as it is BECAUSE the United States
With our current politics we are well on our way to be the Divided States of America.
Instead of being ‘one for all and all for one’ we have become ‘what’s in it for me and screw you’.
Amen!
I just returned from a four day trip to California.
I rode the Pacific Surfliner from Santa Barbara to San Diego. At the last minute I decided to change my business class reservation to an earlier train. No problem!
Over the entire trip no more than 50 percent of the seats in the business class car were occupied. Moreover, when I walked through the quite car, which was next to the business class car, as well as the coach section of the cafe car, they appeared to have plenty of seats.
I also took the train from San Diego to Oceanside and back. I bought a roundtrip Coaster ticket, which is good on select Amtrak trains, and rode Amtrak to Oceanside, but I returned on a Coaster. I did not have any difficulty getting a ticket for the trip to and from Oceanside. There were plenty of seats on both trains.
My trips were on Wednesday and Friday. The loads probably are higher on the weekend, but the reports of people standing in the aisles appear to be the exception.
According to Amtrak’s January 2018 Monthly Operating Report, the average load factor on the Pacific Surfliners in January 2018 was was 28 percent. The average load factor for FY17 was 30 percent.