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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay cruises into its second year
The Schwinnbys and the banana slugs could be the undoing of what should be viewed as a great undertaking by Ed Ellis.
Back in October of 2012 when MH 89 arrived in Watsonville the Pacific Region General Manager at Iowa Pacific Holdings told me I better get my photographs of MH 89 now because it would be painted in a heritage SP paint scheme very soon. Well over a year has passed since then and I have taken hundreds of photographs of MH 89 and I am still waiting for the scarlet and gray SP paint scheme. I must say the F9’s are stunning and a joy to photograph.
I bicycle and think the rip up the tracks and install a bike/walk trail folks are just NIMBYs that have sniffed way to many car fumes! One thing that could be done in the USA would be to work at elimination of 115+ train horns at crossings. How? By adapting realistic grade crossing barrier and warning systems plus education of motorist. Somehow European level crossings (grade crossings) death rate is low without waking the neighbors within 20 miles (ok, kilometers). Many train haters would fade away if the nasty horns were not such a nuisance. Yes, there is a safety issue but there should be a way to mitigate this situation short of tearing up the tracks.
Recently spent a weekend in Monterrey. Traffic was bad, and couldn’t help thinking that the old spur should be remade just as the Santa Cruz line is being re-furbished, to enable tourists an alternative to the automobile.
Not to nitpick or anything, but the picture of the 89 on Walker Street is in Watsonville, not Santa Cruz…