Rail Passenger Association of California & Nevada

By Noel T. Braymer

The reality of most travel without a car is you have to transfer to get to where you want to go. Good rail passenger sevice depends on quick and easy connections. Perhaps the best feature of BART is it is designed to allow passengers to transfer easily within BART. Connections are repeatedly announced at transfer stations where the wait between trains is usually on the same platform and often last no more than 5 minutes. While such levels of connectivity are still off in the future for Southern California, simple steps can be made to publicize the connections that exist and improve or create more connections with little effort.

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How has Amtrak train 3/4, the Southwest Chief, (and others) been doing lately?
Commentary by Russ Jackson

When a long distance train has a very good on time performance it’s a time to celebrate, and while the Southwest Chief regularly has one of Amtrak’s best records it’s good to look once in a while.

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By Noel T. Braymer

The recent collapse of the I-35W Freeway Bridge in Minneapolis highlights a problem that has been growing for years: the deferred maintenance of much of America’s infrastructure. There is an old saying in Economics: “There is no such thing as a free lunch“. The “free lunch” referred to was the practise in the past of Bars serving a “free lunch” with the purchase of a beer. The purchase of the beer paid for the “free lunch” and besides the lunch was usually made up of salty foods which tended to make the bar patron thirsty for what else; more beer. The point is one way or the other you or someone pays for what you get. Any money “saved” putting off work on the I-35W Bridge was more than lost when the bridge collapsed. To quote another old saying “a stitch in time save nine.”

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Document closely follows RailPAC policy.
Commentary by Paul Dyson, RailPAC President
At the regular Santa Barbara City Council meeting on Tuesday August 21 the Council unanimously adopted the staff’s report that outlined a policy of passenger rail improvements.

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By Noel T. Braymer

I think everyone was shocked at news reports that an Amtrak crew left a diabetic man stranded in the middle of an Arizona forest near the Grand Canyon.

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Issues Commentary by Russ Jackson, RailPAC

We all know that Amtrak trains 5 and 6, the California Zephyr, have been late regularly. From August, 2006 to June, 2007, the combined on time performance of both trains at their endpoints, Chicago and Emeryville, was 0.0%. On June 21, 2007, after arduous negotiations with the Union Pacific the schedule was lengthened. Before that date the scheduled arrival time for train 5 in Emeryville was 4:49 PM, including a generous pad of almost an extra hour between Martinez and the endpoint 27 miles away. The scheduled arrival time for 6 in Chicago was 3:30 PM, including a generous hour of pad time for the 28 miles from Naperville.

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June 1 Editorial by Noel Braymer

In mid June of this year there were several news stories about a U.S. Census survey which showed that Americans, particularly Californians where driving alone more than ever. This is despite millions of dollars being spent to encourage car-pooling and ride sharing. Many of the stories in the papers harped on the old clichés about peoples so called “love affair” with their automobile and so on. One newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily News got it right. Their headline for the story by Brent Hopkins on June 13th said it all: Southland drivers are the loneliest in the U.S.; jobs, housing key reason.

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Meeting Report and Commentary, May 23, 2007
By Russ Jackson, RailPAC

The California High Speed Rail Authority, with four RailPAC members in attendance, met at the State Capitol on Wednesday, May 23, to adopt a definitive “Phase 1″ of its project, “taking into consideration the cost, ridership, and revenue data presented to the Board on April 18, 2007.” The adopted Phase 1 is also based on “early utilization of some segments, some degree of local and regional participation in the early construction and funding, serving many regions, significant operating surplus to include a private partner in the construction and operation, development of a high-speed segment of around 100 miles, for building, testing, and commissioning the high-speed trainsets, equipment and systems, and completion in less than 10 years from today.”

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Letter to the Daily Californian from Chris Flescher, RailPAC Associate Director, Salinas To Dave Nordstrand: I read your article (May 19, 2007) about trains and the city of Salinas, and I wanted to make a few comments.

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Editorial By Noel T. Braymer

This article was in a recent edition of the Los Angeles Times:
STATE BUCKS TREND
Californians buying less gas
By Elizabeth Douglass
“THE PRICE of gas really does matter after all. California added cars and drivers in 2006, but we bought less gasoline than the year before for the first time in 14 years. The drop in sales was meager - less than 1 percent - but surprising given that nationwide, drivers as consuming more gas than ever.

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