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Neil Bjornsen, 1945 – 2014
Photo from about 2010 with RailPAC Director Neil Bjornsen on the left with then Chairman of SCRRA (Metrolink) Keith Mullhouse of Moorpark at center and at right RailPAC President Paul Dyson. The passenger rail advocacy community, the Los Angeles Count Metropolitan Transportation Agency (“Metro”) and the Citizens’ Advisory Council (CAC) are dealt a great loss…
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LOSSAN”s Top Priority
By Noel T. Braymer Increasing ridership and passenger revenues on the LOSSAN Corridor, particularly on the Surfliners should be the priority for LOSSAN. The question is how to do this? What is needed to get passenger growth is a combination of faster running times for trains with better on-time performance for better connections by train…
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Capitol Corridor Statistics for December, 2013
by David B. Kutrosky, Managing Director Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority Ridership on Capitol Corridor in December 2013 was 111,722, an increase of three percent over December 2012. This was the first time in FY2014 that for a given month was higher than the ridership of its prior year month. As a result, revenues for…
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People Want More Rail Passenger Service
By Noel T. Braymer A quick check of news stories finds many about local efforts to expand rail passenger service across America. These efforts are not just in the major urban areas on the West or East Coasts either. These include local groups calling for returning service on the Sunset east of New Orleans back…
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What Do The Long Haul Trains Really Cost?
By Andrew Selden, President, Minnesota Rail Passenger Association The great Amtrak myth is that long distance trains cost a ton of money (one recent report we saw, which loaded them up with shares of every cost imaginable, including NEC costs and all the non-cash ones like depreciation of fully-depreciated Superliners, alleged a net loss last…
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Is Shipping Oil by Rail a Good Idea?
By Noel T. Braymer In the last 6 months of 2013 there were 4 explosive accidents with fires in the US and Canada of unit oil trains carrying unconventional oil made from shale or tar sands. The latest accident in North Dakota on December 30th involved an 104 car train of oil tanker cars. While…