Month: March 2014

  • Paul Dyson Testifies at Senate Transportation and Housing Committee

    On March 27th, Paul Dyson represented RailPAC and NARP while testifying before the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.

  • Rail Photos of the Month – March 2014

    Here are this month’s photos by RailPAC photographers. Click on each photo to see it full size! Contributions to this page are welcome. Send your jpeg rail photos to Russ Jackson, RailPAC Photo Editor, at [email protected]. 1. Work is underway at the Sacramento Valley Station, as experts begin to restore the historic mural. Small portions…

  • Paul Dyson Testifies at Senate Select Committee on Passenger Rail

    On March 19th, Paul Dyson represented RailPAC and NARP while testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Passenger Rail.

  • Pasadena is a Great Rail Destination

    Story and Photos By Noel T. Braymer Most modern train stations are little more than parking lots with platforms far away from someplace people want to go to. Your busier stations are transportation centers with good connections to other trains and other travel modes like bus and rail transit. Few train stations today are destinations.…

  • eNewsletter for March 24, 2014

    Squirrel Blamed for San Jose Power Outage NBC Bay Area – Mar 19, 2014 One of the customers affected was Caltrain’s San Jose dispatching center, according to Tell. The outage caused the dispatching center to fail and led trains to stop, causing major system-wide delays. March 24, 2014 The above copy of this enewletter is on…

  • Capitol Corridor Monthly Report (February, 2014)

    Reported by David B. Kutrosky, Managing Director Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority Service Performance Overview Capitol Corridor ridership and revenue for February 2014 were slightly below last February’s results: -1.6% and -2.7%, respectively. A total of 104,308 trips were made on the Capitol Corridor in February 2014 vs. 105,964 in February 2013. I attribute this…

  • Rail Passenger Projects in the San Joaquin Valley

    By Noel T. Braymer Most of the attention now in the San Joaquin Valley is focused on High Speed Rail Construction. This would build 130 miles of new railroad between Madrea and Bakersfield in the next few years. This railroad would be first used for up to 11 express San Joaquin round trip trains a…

  • eNewsletter for March 17, 2014

    One of the changes coming to Union Station will be the end of Gates E and F at the mouth of the tunnel to the platforms.Amtrak passengers now wait in line behind these gates for their trains. Amtrak passengers will be encouraged to sit in the waiting room until their train is called. This will…

  • Amtrak budget request hits the Long Distance trains with a cost shift that doesn’t make sense

    Report and Commentary by Russ Jackson and Andrew C. Selden, URPA Amtrak published its budget request for the year beginning October, 2014, on March 18. To read the full document, go to this site: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/412/537/Amtrak-FY2015-Federal-Budget-Request-ATK-14-028,0.pdf In summary, here is what Amtrak has in store for the western Long Distance Business Line, which includes the Coast…

  • California’s Cap and Trade and its Impact on Rail Service

    By Noel T. Braymer In effect since 2013, California’s Cap and Trade program uses market forces to reduce Greenhouse Gases (GHG) by having those who release too much buy “credits” which are sold by those who come under their “carbon budget”. Cap and Trade is on track to meet its 2020 goals of cutting back…