Rail Passenger Association of California & Nevada

By Noel Braymer, Editor, Western Rail Passenger Review

San Diego no longer calls itself “America’s finest city.” As it is, San Diego is trying to avoid being called America’s most corrupt city. There is of course former San Diego Congressman Randy Cunningham who pleaded guilty to corruption. A City Councilman and Deputy Mayor of San Diego were convicted of accepting bribes from a strip joint owner last year. The city pension plan is 2 billion dollars in the red and under Federal investigation. The Mayor during this time was Dick Murphy, who was re-elected on a technicality despite his write-in challenger getting slightly more votes in December 2004. However Mayor Murphy resigned in disgrace by July 2005. Dick Murphy ran for Mayor claiming he was going to get things done. On the top of his agenda was a new airport to replace Lindbergh Field. A small old airport of 660 acres, it is not able to handle fully loaded jumbo jets and has no room to add a second main runway to handle future expected air traffic growth..

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By RailPAC President Paul Dyson. — I met with Mr. Kummant for 45 minutes at the Amtrak Offices in Washington D.C. Joining the discussion were Cliff Black, Amtrak Director of Media Relations and Marcus Mason, Senior Director of Government Affairs of Amtrak. My meeting was very cordial and covered a wide range of topics. This ranged from the lessons of British Railways privatization to dealing with the Union Pacific. Also covered were specific issues such as NEC infrastructure costs, the long distance trains, and California Corridors.

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By Noel T. Braymer, Editor, Western Rail Passenger Review — Most of what is being said about the new Amtrak President Alexander Kummant is speculative. Mr. Kummant is largely unknown to the general public. It is understandable that people are uneasy when dealing with the unknown. What is known is that Mr. Kummant is 46, and has a B.S. in mechanical engineer from Case Western Reserve University. He also has a master’s in manufacturing engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from Stanford University. Among the jobs Mr. Kummant has had were as an executive with the Union Pacific from 1999 to 2003 where he rose to Regional Vice-President. His next job was as President of the German Heavy Equipment manufacturer Bomag. This year he started work as the executive Vice-President, Chief Marketing Officer for the U.S. division of Komatu, the Japanese Heavy equipment manufacturer.

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By Noel T. Braymer, Editor, Western Rail Passenger Review — With Washington in control of intercity passenger trains now for over 30 years, we have seen a slow but steady decline of service. Yet again we are hearing veiled talk of cut-backs to eliminate “money losing” trains. California is a proud leader of local control for its rail passenger service. Caltrans Rail Division can teach Washington a great deal about how to schedule and market rail passenger service. But Caltrans can’t do everything by itself. Local organizations like LOSSAN, the San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee and the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Board (JPB) all have a major role in the progress we’ve seen in California. LOSSAN started out as a network of cities on the SAN DIEGAN route in the 1980’s.This networking was started by then Oceanside City Councilman Walter Gilbert with help from RailPAC’s Byron Nordberg. One of the battles the locals had to fight was the SAN DIEGAN METROLINER. Washington thought an express train was just the thing between Los Angeles and San Diego. This didn’t go well with the cities which had invested money in new train stations to find themselves losing service for this express train. Washington was also told by the locals that an express train would fail, which it did.

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Commentary by Paul Dyson, RailPAC President

Funding For Rail Expansion In California - Grade Separation Projects.

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By Noel T. Braymer, Editor, Western Rail Passenger Review — The late Dr. Adrian Herzog was a very smart guy. It helps to be smart when you’re a college professor at Cal State Northridge. This is even more so when you teach Astronomy and Physics. Adrian’s love for trains seems to have been his birth right, inherited from his native Switzerland which has more trains per capita than almost any other country. As a college professor, one of the benefits of the job was the right to conduct independent research. This research doesn’t have to be directly related to the professor’s normal field of study.

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By Paul Dyson, RailPAC President — Once again our public officials have failed to propose expanding a transportation system that is both affordable and practicable and could link LAX to over 60 stations in 6 counties. Our underdeveloped Metrolink service could be extended along an existing, publicly owned right of way from south of downtown to the proposed transit center next to the Green Line, and on to the south bay. In addition to providing a link to LAX this Regional Express opens up job opportunities to South Central communities with direct links to areas like Burbank and Anaheim.

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By Frank Busalacchi –Travelers across America and throughout California are voting in record numbers for expanded passenger-rail service in the United States. These “votes” are coming in the form of record passenger-rail ridership. Amtrak ridership increased in fiscal year 2005 to 25,374,998, marking the third straight year of passenger gains for the national intercity passenger railroad, despite service disruptions that included major hurricanes in the South and repair work that impacted Acela Express service in the Northeast. Gains in passenger rail travel are occurring in all parts of the country.

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By Richard Silver, Executive Director — RailPAC has just heard that there will be a change in the California portion of the Sunset Limited Route in the Ontario/Pomona area.

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By Noel Braymer, Editor, Western Rail Passenger Review –Since last October, the COAST STARLIGHT on-time performance has dropped to about 2%. Most of the delays happen between Dunsmuir, California, and Chemult, Oregon. In this mountainous area rail breaks are so common that welding crews can’t keep up with the repairs and 10 mph slow orders are common. There are many rumors about possible changes to deal with these problems. One rumor is that the STARLIGHT might be cut back “temporarily” to between Los Angeles and Oakland. The constantly late STARLIGHT has forced Amtrak to use an additional trainset to run the STARLIGHT despite Amtrak’s acute equipment shortage.

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