Year: 2012

  • Planning for Rail Service up to 2030 in the San Joaquin Valley

    Here are some excerpts from a report from October 26, 2012 by Stacey Mortensen and Dan Leavitt of the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission. This report makes very clear that the San Joaquin Trains will continue to run on the BNSF with possible additional stops after 2020  with express trains using the new HSR tracks.…

  • Riding the Train the Day the World was suppose to End

    Report and Photos by Noel T. Braymer Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them I woke up early on December 21st and noticed that the world hadn’t ended so I decided that it was good day to go for a train ride. I arrived at my local station in Oceanside for the 7:35 AM…

  • eNewsletter for December 24, 2012

    There are 3 potential LAX Light Rail Station sites being considered. One is a possible subway station at the airport terminal area, the second at Lot C on the east side of Sepulveda Blvd as part of a larger transportation center and the third along the old Santa Fe Harbor Right of Way (seen as…

  • eNewsletter for December 17, 2012

    Buying 40 ACELA cars as a small stand alone order was uneconomical from the start and that plan should never had gotten this far. If the ACELA is “profitable” as Amtrak claims, then shouldn’t those “profits” finance the purchase of these new cars? Again Amtrak is ignoring the most crowded trains on its system with…

  • 2012: A look Back in Pictures

    Edited by Noel T. Braymer Much happened with rail service in California and the best way to show it is to look back with photos. To enlarge a picture place cursor over the picture and left click with mouse.

  • Why Not Lease the Coast Line?

    Opinion and Photos by Noel T. Braymer Amtrak is leasing for at least the next 25 years 95 miles of railroad from the CSX of the Empire Corridor in upstate New York. The reasons for doing this are so Amtrak can dispatch their train to improve their on-time performance and have a free hand in…

  • eNewsletter for December 10, 2012

    Rumor has it? Back in 2011 Amtrak announced its intentions to buy 40 additional ACELA cars to add capacity to the ACELA Trains on the NEC. There was no discussion of “off the shelf” cars or a larger car order with economies of scale for cars to be used on other services besides ACELA. Since…

  • LA Busy Building over 35 Miles of New Rail Transit over the Next 10 Years.

    Report by Noel T. Braymer with illustrations from LA METRO Los Angeles County has two major Light Rail extensions under construction now that are planned to be finished by 2015 which will be added to its existing 87.8 miles of rail transit. There is the 6.6 mile extension of the Expo Line using an old…

  • eNewsletter for December 3, 2012

    The following is from the 276 page Environmental Report from Caltrans NB San Joaquin Corridor Programmatic Environmental Impact Report – 2035 Vision – Project Description — Page 26 Attachment 1 Caltrans envisions that the intercity system, including the bus feeder system, will serve as a feeder system to the high-speed rail system, much like the…

  • The Mission of LOSSAN

    Analysis and Photos by Noel T. Braymer LOSSAN started out as a loose coalition, a network really of local elected officials, mostly city council members and mayors along the route of the San Diegans in the early 1980’s. Most of these elected officials were from cities that had or were planning to build or improve…