(W. Graham Claytor, Amtrak President 1982-1993) was credited with helping to revive the ailing passenger railroad by many experts, and even some critics of its operations. By the time he retired, fares and other revenues covered 80 percent of Amtrak’s expenses, up from 42 percent in 1980. Mr. Claytor predicted that Amtrak might be able to cover all of its operating costs, something that no national railroad system in the world does now, by the year 2000. (From the New York Times obituary for W. Graham Claytor of May 15, 1994.)

From Amtrak’s start over 40 years ago politics and misleading information has swirled over the funding of passenger rail service in the U.S. Once again there is talk of eliminating long distance trains to end the “waste of taxpayers money.” The “common wisdom” in Washington is that the trains on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Boston and Washington are “profitable” while the long-distance trains are losing a fortune. This conclusion is fed by the accounting practices of Amtrak. W. Graham Claytor was the most successful Amtrak President. The following quote explains how he did it.

“That is one of the ways we hope to reach it and to get additional equipment in order to increase our revenues faster than our costs. That spread is what counts. With the new order for locomotives already in [to General Electric], and with the orders for new Superliner cars we hope to make this year, these would give us the additional capacity to increase our revenues. We are up against the stops on many ways, because many times of the year we can’t carry more people. We have more people wanting to go than we can carry, because we do not have the capacity .{emphasis added} The first priority is to get more capacity on the routes we serve. The second priority will be to start new routes that we think have a good possibility of working.” – Interview with Graham Claytor, Trains magazine, June 1991  Note: Amtrak has fewer long distance cars today than under Claytor. NB

From Mr. Claytor’s own words we see that he saw the long-distance trains as valuable for increasing revenue. Before Mr. Claytor came to Amtrak it was facing massive cost increases. Amtrak costs went from 306 million in Fiscal year 1972 up to 891 million by fiscal year 1978. This led to a deficit of 578 million dollars for 1978. It should be noted after April 1, 1976 Amtrak, by act of Congress, was given ownership of the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston which greatly increased its costs. To “save money” train service was cut in 1979, all of it outside of the NEC. This included four long-distance trains. By 1981 Amtrak’s deficit had risen to 729 million dollars.

After Claytor left the company the management of Amtrak concentrated its resources on the Acela “high speed” train between Boston and Washington. Buying new trainsets capable of speeds up to 150 miles per hour and track improvements cost a great deal of money, much of which was borrowed. At the same time management cut 2 more long distance trains to “save money.” By 2002 after the inauguration of the Acela, Amtrak with high debt costs and flat revenues almost ran our of cash and faced shutdown.

During the build up to Amtrak’s near shutdown in 2002, Congress created the Amtrak Reform Council in 1997. The ARC gave it’s final report with suggestions of how to get Amtrak to break even. This is from that final report given in 2002.

Ownership and maintenance of the Northeast Corridor divert Amtrak’s attention and resources from its primary mission as a service provider. The Northeast Corridor will require $20 billion in capital funding over the next 20 years for a wide range of capital improvements and to put the southern portion of the Corridor in a state of good repair. The Council believes Amtrak’s management should be spending its time on improving passenger operations and customer satisfaction rather than on infrastructure maintenance. Ownership and control of the NEC rail infrastructure is not essential to Amtrak’s operations. Of the 1,200 trains operating daily on the corridor, only about 100 are Amtrak trains. The Council believes that a reasonable remedy to this problem is to appropriately separate Amtrak’s train operations from ownership and maintenance of the Northeast Corridor and other infrastructure.

The ARC suggested that ownership of the NEC should be transferred to a separate agency with funding for needed capital improvements. Amtrak has resisted any attempt to have the NEC taken from it. The NEC involves a great number of Amtrak employees and is in the Northeast which is the center of much of Amtrak’s political support. The states of the NEC have joined Amtrak in opposing transferring the NEC to a new agency. This maybe because these states fear they would be expected to pay part of capital burden with the Federal Government for the NEC and see the charges for using the tracks for their commuter trains raised as well. Much of the overhead cost of Amtrak and of the subsidy the Federal Government pays to it is related to the high cost of the NEC. Amtrak hides much of this cost by charging it to their other trains. Overhead costs are charged by route miles at Amtrak, and since Long Distance Trains have long routes they are charged more. Years ago an absurd example of placing NEC costs on other trains was found for the COAST STARLIGHT trains for maintenance of all-electric locomotives which are only used on the NEC.

Mr. Claytor knew the best way to improve Amtrak’s cost recovery was by increasing revenue with more passengers, not by cutting service. Mr Claytor knew the best way to do that would be to improve the long-distance trains that criss-cross the American heartland. After he left the new management bet the farm and lost hoping for increased revenue from the Acela trains would make Amtrak profitable. Amtrak’s debt costs with government help have come way down over the last nearly 10 years and with record ridership Amtrak’s cost recovery is now back up to 76 percent, almost what it was 20 years ago. But if Amtrak is to break even it either has to improve long-distance service with more cars to handle traffic they still often turn away and expand to new markets, or lower their overhead cost which are dominated by the NEC. The NEC is a critical part of the transportation system in the East for commuter rail. It needs to be funded to keep the infrastructure in good shape. But, passengers in the country’s heartland should not be held hostage to fund the NEC in order to keep Amtrak service.

I grew up in Orange County in the 1960′s. In Orange County all the TV stations were in Los Angeles and my family subscribed to a local newspaper and the Los Angeles Times. Even as a child I followed the news and read the newspapers. I remember all through out the 60′s and 70′s Los Angeles every few years would propose a new “Rapid Transit” rail system which after months of publicity and criticism would die out until the next attempt was made. The proposed projects were usually fully grade separated and while they might share existing rights of ways including rail ROW no attempt was made of using the existing railroads. These projects were very expensive and often got the support of major construction companies and Labor Unions. The proposed cost and the questions about ridership usually shot these projects down. Finally in the late 1970′s Los Angeles concentrated on just building a Wilshire Subway by applying for a Federal Grant instead of depending on voter approval for a county wide system. In the early 1980′s the voters of Los Angeles County approved the first sales tax increase for improvement of all forms of transportation not just for rail transit.

In 1981 San Diego opened the first leg of its San Diego Trolley service. For many people this changed everything: it certainly did for me. I was living in Los Angeles at the time and I and a small group of advocates started promoting Light Rail between Long Beach and Los Angeles to be built in time for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. The San Diego Trolley had been built for 86 million dollars in 1981 in a short period of time and we hoped to replicate the Trolley’s success using the existing Pacific Electric right of way. At the Los Angeles Caltrans Office planners wrote a feasibility study on how this could be done with a bare bones single track service like San Diego’s and proposed using Washington Blvd and Flower Street in Los Angeles to get trains from the P.E. to the west side of downtown Los Angeles at 7th Street. One of these Caltrans planners got a meeting with then Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor member Kenny Hahn who’s District would be served most by a Long Beach to Los Angeles Light Rail line. Kenny Hahn who remembered the Pacfic Electric Trains was won over to the project which was the turning point to getting Los Angeles County to adopt the project soon named the Blue Line.

The then Los Angeles County Transportation Commission now found itself with a project to build Light Rail between Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Commission was a fairly new organization with a small staff and the job of overseeing the road and transit services of the county. One thing the Commission was sure about was it didn’t want to give Caltran responsibility for this or any transit project. Caltrans was a very unpopular state agency with local governments  in the 1970′s. The Commission awarded a contract to a major consulting firm to write a new feasibility study which took about a year to do. Other than being on better paper, in color and more expensive it mostly replicated the work Caltrans had done. But now the project was fully double tracked and much more expensive with several grade separations. This pushed back completion of this project to 1990. At the same time the RTD or Los Angeles County Rapid Transit District was working to secure Federal funding and start work on the first leg in downtown Los Angeles for the subway which would go from Union Station to North Hollywood. Many people supporting the subway didn’t like the LA-Long Beach project which they saw as competing for funding and attention from their dream of county wide Rail Rapid Transit.

Well the Blue Line was finished first before the first leg of the subway. Ridership for the Blue Line exceeded projections and the service was popular. Because of this the decision was made to put Light Rail on a transitway to be built in the Century Freeway just starting construction. During this time early ridership of the subway was below projections  plus construction and accidents in construction were very disruptive particularly in Hollywood. The high cost of subway construction sucked up most of the available money for rail transit and delayed many future projects. The Green Line which was mostly built in the Century Freeway was expected by many “experts” to be a disaster with few people riding it. Again ridership exceeded projections with many passengers transferring to the Blue Line. Also interesting and unexpected by the RTD was that a significant number of people were transferring to the subway from the Blue Line. This grew after the Green Line was opened. Instead of hurting the subway Red Line, the Light Rail Lines where a major factor in feeding traffic to it.

Another factor the Rapid Transit believers didn’t expect was the creation of Metrolink. This grew out of the success of rail service on the state supported Amtrak trains between San Diego and Los Angeles. Many of the routes planned in the 1960′s for Rapid Transit in the Los Angeles region were finally being served by Metrolink. Using existing resources Metrolink service was much cheaper to build than Rapid Transit and ridership grew.

What does this have to do with High Speed Rail? Like the original planning for Rail Rapid Transit, most of the estimates for High Speed Rail are very expensive and the ridership projections attacked as unrealistic. Also like Rail Rapid Transit most of the planning for High Speed Rail has largely ignored connections with other services and had no desire to share trackage or facilities with other rail services. Modern Light Rail started in Frankfurt, Germany. In the 1950′s as Germany was recovering from the destruction of World War II, Frankfurt was working on what to do about transit. The city did a study looking at either building a Rail Rapid Transit system, a Monorail system or upgrading the existing Streetcar system. The study discovered that upgrading the Streetcar system was not only cheaper to do, but would attract more riders and allow faster trip times for most riders. The reason for this was by using a larger network with the old Streetcar lines passengers would have more direct service and save time because they wouldn’t have to transfer as much. Despite higher speeds the increased need to transfer with Rapid Transit or Monorails meant trip times were often longer. Frankfurt built miles of subway tunnels and upgraded the rights of ways and bought larger and more modern trains for their new Light Rail system. Over the years Frankfurt and other cities have evolved their rail service building incrementally a fast and extensive transportation network. Much can be learned about creating a rail service based on the experiences of Frankfurt.

There are hints that the revised Business Plan now due on November 1st for the California High Speed Rail Project will reflect current economic realities. The October 16th Wall Street Journal reports the project will be built incrementally with greater use of existing track. The possibility that the new trackage could be used at first by the San Joaquin Trains is being raised. In the article California High Speed Rail Authority CEO Roelof van Ark “said private investors, including rail operators and construction companies from Europe and Asia, have voiced interest in high-speed rail. The catch: Investors want to see a link to San Francisco or Los Angeles closer to completion before they put in billions, he said. It is precisely that link for which the state needs money. Mr. van Ark said the new business plan would include scaled-back options that would link the new track to existing commuter transit lines in the two cities and, as a last resort, perhaps Amtrak lines.”

What could this look like? The new Bi-level Corridor Cars which California will be getting in a few years are rated for 125 miles per hour. New locomotives are also being built that will be geared for 125 miles per hour. Federal Railroad Administration regulations allow operation of speeds up to 125 miles per hour with grade crossings. For speeds above 79 miles per hour improved signalling such as in-cab signalling which automatically apply brakes if a red signal is passed is required. This will be available with Positive Train Control which will be available State-wide by the end of 2015. For speeds above 90 to 110 miles per hour grade crossings would have to be upgraded to “Sealed Corridor” standards. For speeds between 111 and 125 miles per hour grade crossing would have to have movable barriers capable of stopping a truck to block a grade crossing when a train passes. While these improvements will not be cheap they will cost a great deal less than full grade separation.

There is the possibility that we could see these new faster Corridor trainsets on the San Joaquins and greatly reduced running times if new HSR trackage and upgraded trackage for speeds above the current top of 79 miles per hour was available on the BNSF in the San Joaquin Valley. This brings up the question of expanded service with faster San Joaquins ?  That would require additional and possibly even faster equipment. That also brings up the UP. The Union Pacific Railroad is unlikely to allow speeds faster than 79 miles per hour on their tracks used by the San Joaquins west of Port Chicago or north of Stockton. It is also unlikely that the UP will allow many more passenger trains on their lines. Faster San Joaquins will increase demand for more and express trains bypassing some smaller towns in the Valley to allow shorter running times. The Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) hopes to buy their own right of way and tracks which would allow faster and more frequent commuter trains between Stockton and San Jose. A bit out of the way if this happens this could be an alternative route for additional San Joaquins with possible direct service to San Francisco. Another alternative is possible if an agreement was reached with the BNSF is to extend additional trains to Richmond. This would bypass Martinez and high speed ferries would be needed to get passengers to San Francisco as well as shuttle buses to the Richmond BART/Amtrak Station. But there might not be many other options short term in the Bay Area.

The big issue is creating a new rail connection south of Bakersfield to Los Angeles and Southern California. That is the market potential investors want to see before getting involved with High Speed Rail service in California. A new rail connection south of Bakersfield will be expensive, in the billions of dollars. Once connected to Metrolink tracks interim service could start serving most of Southern California until High Speed tracks could be built. Los Angeles County is now studying with Metrolink upgrading service between Los Angeles to Lancaster for speeds above 100 miles per hour. A bare bones largely single tracked line south of Bakerfield would be enough for start up service and it wouldn’t have to be built for 220 miles per hour speeds from day one. But if the State is to create a north/south rail passenger service the key for it is between Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

It would be worthwhile for the state to concentrate its limited resources towards building as much faster passenger rail service for the public to use as soon as possible instead of trying to build a dream service. That would mean finding funding to prioritize the construction of a bare-bones passenger rail link between Bakersfield and Metrolink. Much of the planning for future High Speed Rail connections outside of the core service should be put on hold. Construction in the San Joaquin Valley could be largely shifted to double and triple tracking large segments of the BNSF and upgrading or eliminating grade crossings for higher speeds. This work should be seen as stage one to using much of these improvements for the future High Speed Rail trackage much of which will share right of way with the BNSF. This will require much less environmental review and avoid fights with land owners as long as most construction stays in the BNSF right of way. Expensive and controversial segments such the Hanford and Corcoran bypasses should be delayed until there is more support for rail service which will come with improved service. A goal of Los Angeles to the Bay Area and Sacramento rail passenger service of under 5 hours in less than 10 years with hourly service to the San Joaquin Valley is possible with limited funding.This will not compete with air service in this corridor but is faster than traveling by auto legally. Today passenger rail service can take 12 hours to get from Los Angeles to the Bay Area and there is no direct rail service from Southern California to the San Joaquin Valley. A good start is better than a perfect nothing.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is currently conducting a study of what to do with what is left of about 20 miles of what was the Pacific Electric’s West Santa Ana Branch. This right of way has been publicly owned by the Counties of Los Angeles and Orange since the 1980′s between Paramount and Santa Ana. The SCAG study is looking at several modes including Mag-Lev, Commuter Rail, Light Rail, Busway and so on. SCAG plans to complete their study of what to do with this right of way by the end of this year. SCAG is studying service between the Green Line and 710 Freeway to Santa Ana with possible connections to LAX and or downtown Los Angeles. It would be possible to use street running on Santa Ana Blvd in Santa Ana for Light Rail connections from the Santa Ana Transportation Center to the West Santa Ana Branch. In fact the Cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove have proposed doing that as a local streetcar service that would run as far as Garden Grove on the right of way. This right of way is eligible for $250 million in funding in Los Angeles County from the Measure R half cent tax as of 2015 and for possible Federal Funding after the completion after the SCAG study.

Here is where it gets interesting. There is the Orange Line Development Authority or OLDA which is composed of 13 cities and Bob Hope Airport. Some of the cities in this authority include Santa Clarita, Glendale and Bellflower. All of the cities in the OLDA are in Los Angeles County. Some of the cities such as Bellflower, Cerritos and Paramount are on the West Santa Ana Branch Line. This government authority is proposing a fast transit service from Orange County up to downtown Los Angeles and Santa Clarita. The Authority’s original plan was for building 110 mile per hour fully grade separated Mag Lev service. Their webpage has several images of elevated Mag Lev stations but the Authority is flexible about the technology.

How can this be done? Getting from Paramount to Santa Clarita is the easy part. Where the West Santa Ana Branch ends in Paramount is next to the old UP Harbor Line which connects to downtown Los Angeles and could be connected to Los Angeles Union Station and continue to Santa Clarita. The former UP Harbor Line is now owned by Los Angeles County but would need upgrading for passenger service. There are studies underway now for Santa Clarita and the San Fernando Valley about possible fast service over 100 miles per hour on Metrolink . North of downtown Los Angeles OLDA’s proposed service would need the cooperation of Metrolink since it controls the only viable right of way. The main problems will be on the West Santa Ana Branch. To have connections with the Santa Ana Transportation Center would likely require either street running or a tunnel under Santa Ana and would be competing with the streetcar project. One solution might be to run the streetcar service to Stanton Junction. At Stanton is a UP branch line that runs past the West Santa Ana Branch and can connect with the Anaheim Station. This route goes around Disneyland but not to it, there is a mile of street running and would require the cooperation of the Union Pacific. This UP Line goes almost to the back of the Disneyland Hotel and if there was a tunnel under Disneyland and the 5 Freeway, there could be a station for Disneyland and a faster connection with the future Anaheim Regional Intermodal Transportation Center (ARTIC). A problem with the West Santa Ana Branch is the major streets are laid out in a grid and the rail line runs at a diagonal across them. This complicates grade crossing and there will be strong local demand for grade separation.

It would make sense if the West Santa Ana Branch was built as Light Rail since this would allow connections to the Green Line from Orange County to LAX and much of the rest of the Los Angeles Metrorail service. But the plan of the OLDA is for service on both the old UP Harbor Line and PE West Santa Ana Branch. LA Metro shows possible service from the West Santa Ana Branch to downtown Los Angeles on their map of projects being funded by Measure R but doesn’t show this line going to Santa Clarita.  One possible solution would be to fix up the UP Harbor Line and have Metrolink take it over. Service could begin in Long Beach or maybe even San Pedro and connect with the Blue Line. Near the Century Freeway there could be a transfer station with Light Rail trains from Orange County for the Green Line and LAX. At BNSF’s Hobart Yard a connection would be needed to get these trains to Los Angeles Union Station on the route of the Amtrak Surfliner and Orange County Metrolink trains. Such a service would need run-through tracks at Union Station to operate efficiently. From Union Station the service could use existing and future tracks improvements to Santa Clarita. Linking to the LA-Long Beach Blue line near downtown Los Angeles would be both slow and overwhelm the already busy Blue Line.

Linking the West Santa Ana Branch to the Santa Ana and Anaheim Transportation Centers makes a get deal of sense. The UP Harbor Line has a great deal of potential as a new connecting link. The OLDA has plans for a fast, fully grade separated project costing over 3 billion dollars.  Given economic realities most of this project should be run as a Metrolink train using mostly available trackage. Depending on funding it may be possible to run this as Metrolink service to Stanton and on to Anaheim. It may be possible to share right of way with both Light Rail and Metrolink.This could connect with Light Rail in Orange County at Stanton to Santa Ana. Whatever happens will be determined by how much money is available.

Most people heard about the power outage on Thursday September 8th in the San Diego area. I was caught in the middle of it. Nothing forces you to realize how much “civilized” life depends or how much we take infrastructure for granted until it fails. People couldn’t work because because they were in the dark, the computers were down as was the air conditioning. Traffic was a mess with people trying to get home and with the traffic lights out. Most stores had to close for the same reason most people couldn’t work. If you were driving the gas stations were closed because they couldn’t pump gasoline. If you were away from home you couldn’t eat because most restaurants and stores were closed. And if you had to go the bathroom where would you go? Away from home most people use gas stations and stores bathrooms. Also with pumps not running sewage in some cases was dumped in the Ocean. At the time it seemed the outage might last for days, fortunately it was only for hours.

In San Diego the Trolley was shut down because it runs on electricity. The diesel powered trains generally kept running. Most people don’t realize that railroads by law have to have battery back up power for signaling and at all grade-crossings for the flashing lights, bells and crossing gates. Failures of infrastructure is becoming more common. This is the result of aging infrastructure and Trillions of dollars of deferred maintenance and replacement.This recent power outage started in Arizona near Yuma when repair work on a major power line connected to California had a problem. This caused a domino effect which shut down power plants in California and disrupted substations to dozens of communities. We can expect more problems like this in the future. Not only is infrastructure aging faster than we are repairing it (in an effort to “save money”) but weather is taking a toll on it as well. The fact is we are seeing more heat, flooding and wind storm damage which destroys infrastructure in addition to earthquakes.

With the 10th Anniversary of the 911 attacks we are hearing more about American security. Yet we have more to worry about failures of our infrastructure than from terrorist attacks. If terrorists really wanted to damage this country they would go after our electrical system. This could be done with coordinated attacks with metallic balloons at major power lines which would short-circuit them.We need major upgrades to our infrastructure in general and to our electrical system in particular to be less vulnerable. The electrical grid needs to be less centralized so the whole system doesn’t crash because of  a local problem. We need more back up power from generators, wind, solar  and batteries. Our transportation system needs upgrading too. In Japan which after recent earthquake and Tsunami damage has lost much of its electrical production. Despite this it was found it was easier to charge electric cars in many cases at night during periods of low demand than it was to pump and transport gasoline which was disrupted after the earthquake and flooding   Recently the trains between Philadelphia and New York were down for several days recently due to flooding. With more train electrification we need to assure that the trains can run even when there are power problems. All of this will cost money. But it will not only make our lives safer, it will create jobs and increase the efficiency of the the economy which in turn will make money in the long run

Building run-through tracks at Union Station to eliminate the need to back trains in or out of the station is a long held dream. This will be critical for High Speed Rail service for travels from Orange County to points north of Los  Angeles. Construction is now underway to put back 3 former station tracks into service which are needed before construction of run-through tracks can begin. These additional tracks will be needed to handle current traffic as other tracks are pulled out of service for conversion to run-through operation. Run-through tracks are a high priority for LA Metro which owns Union Station. But it is unclear when funding for construction of run-through tracks will be available. Even at current track levels Union Station is often congested: a small yard was recently acquired to store Metrolink trains waiting to be positioned at Union Station. A possible solution could be to build a mini-station along the banks of the Los Angeles River that would serve downtown Los Angeles and allow some trains to bypass Union Stations. Such a station could be built near First St. There the maintenance facility and tracks for the Red and Purple Subway Lines run next to the tracks for SURFLINER and some Metrolink trains. The Gold Line crosses the river on First Street and a mini-station here would be near to a Gold Line Station.

This site currently has a small freight yard which might be used as the basis of a station which would separate station tracks from the mainline passenger tracks along the river. A simple start up station could be built with one low level platform on the west side and a high level platform for subway trains west of the passenger train tracks but on the east side of the subway tracks. This would be for limited service for just a few trains a day and all passengers would have to transfer on the subway to Union Station.  A more elaborate plan could have fieldside platforms for both passenger and subway trains with a pedestrian tunnel linking them and providing an access to nearby streets for pedestrian traffic to the and from the mini-station to downtown Los Angeles as well as connections to local bus service and possible shuttle bus connections to the Gold Line.

Why would anyone want to build another station near Union Station? One reason would be to save time. If the current SURFLINERS Trains didn’t have to pull in and out of LAUS between San Diego and Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo these trains could save up to 10 minutes on their running times.That doesn’t include the long station dwell time at Union Station that might also be reduced with run-through service. Future Metrolink express trains that wouldn’t terminate at Union Station could also use it in the near future to have connections to downtown without the time penalty of going to Union Station. Another problem at Union Station is that its tracks are already congested and demand will increase for more trains to serve this area. Using run-through tracks with quick connections to the subway would be able to handle more than double the traffic as the same number of the current stub-end tracks at LAUS. Problems happen from time to time and tracks, even station throat tracks are out of service. This would give Union Station a handy back up when problems happen.

Los Angeles County is already working on plans to upgrade and run faster trains from Los Angeles to Palmdale. This will include providing run-through service at Los Angeles. Coordinating service with Metrolink and Amtrak could see a transfer station at Palmdale with High Speed Rail.There will be capacity to run lots of trains from Palmdale to the San Joaquin Valley. There will be a need for a good transfer station at Palmdale. But not all the San Joaquin Valley trains need to terminate at Palmdale. We are seeing on going track improvements between Palmdale and San Diego. While not as fast as the final projected service, trains could be extended at least as far as southern Orange County and depending on the improvements made by the time trains run to Palmdale maybe all the way to San Diego. These extended trains can be run by adding a diesel locomotive or run with diesel or turbine engines the whole distance.This opens a much larger market at small cost which means more income for this service.

When people in the San Joaquin Valley talk about the High Speed Rail Project there is very little talk about how quickly they will be able to get to Los Angeles or San Francisco or about the cost of the project. If you are a farm owner in the San Joaquin Valley the issue is about what impact construction of High Speed Rail will have on their property. For most everyone else the issue is how many jobs High Speed Rail will create. No wonder considering that the recorded unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley ranged from a ‘low” in Madera County of 15.3 percent to a high of 18.9 percent in Merced County compared with a Nation average unemployment of 9.7 percent as of  July 2010. Jobs or lack there of is the most pressing issue for most people in this county, not that you would see it on TV news.The United States has a large backlog of construction projects in the trillions of dollars. We don’t need many new roads, but the roads we have are in poor shape, particularly the bridges on many of these existing roads.

Transportation is at the heart of an healthy economy. Any study of geography shows that major cities are always at major junctions of transportation. This includes harbors, rivers. rail and roads.California voters have shown their support for transportation spending with the passage in 2006 of Prop. 1B for almost 20 billion dollars for transportation construction with bonds; with just over half for highway construction and over 20 percent for rail project. Again in 2008 the public passed Prop 1A with almost 10 billion dollars of bonds for High Speed Rail and improved rail service state wide. Also in 2008 several counties in California passed by over 2/3 majorities increases to local sales taxes for improved transportation. In Los Angeles County the sale tax was increased to a full 1 percent to help pay for major construction projects, much of it for rail transit. Much of this support for transportation projects in California was both recognition of the terrible shape of our transportation infrastructure and the stimulus effect of construction on the economy by the voters.

Spending money for infrastructure is nothing new during bad economic times.When we think of the Hoover Dam many think of it as a great engineering achievement from the depths of the great depression of the 1930′s.The reason it is called the Hoover Dam is because the project was started during the Administration of Republican Herbert Hoover. Many of the public works projects built by the Roosevelt Administration had its roots during the Hoover Administration. Historically tax supported public works projects like  transportation have been a non-partisan issue and should continue to be.

The urban area between Washington D.C. up through New York City to Boston is heavily populated at around 38 million people. This is also roughly the population of California. Because of the population density in this area it is clearly a good candidate for good rail passenger service. Many people for years have felt that high speed rail is the answer for this region. This corridor already has the fastest scheduled running times of any passenger trains in the United States. The question is will faster service be affordable in the region to build and will faster speeds greatly increase ridership. To answer these questions we should compare the NEC to other High Speed Rail projects.

The original French TGV line from Paris to Lyon looks like a poor candidate for High Speed Passenger Rail service compared with the NEC. The Paris Metropolitan Area’s population is “only” 10.4 million and Lyon’s is 1.4 million while the two cites are 299 miles apart. California by comparison has the Los Angeles region including Orange County and the Inland Empire with 19 million people. The Bay Area has 6.4 million people and the distance by road is 382 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The San Diego region has a population of 3. 5 million and is 504 miles from Sacramento which has a regional population of 2.5 million. When we look at the North East Corridor we find two thirds of the population is in the New York region at almost 20 million and in the Philadelphia region with 6 million only 91 miles apart. Combined the Washington/Baltimore region is 8.2 million and is 226 miles from New York City. That leaves Boston with 4.5 million people 231 miles north of New York City.

When speaking about revenue and transportation distance matters. Revenue is based on passenger miles since most transportation is charged by the mile. The further you travel between 2 points the more passenger miles you generate. Also for High Speed Rail average speed is more important than top speed. The fewer times you have to stop and the greater the distance between stops the higher your average speed. Most people have seen this in action on long road trips by either car or bus. You will often see drivers going very fast passing the vehicle you are in. After a few hours you notice that it is often the same drivers that are speeding past you over and over again. They are driving very fast.  But when they pull over for a break you catch up and pass them. The result is the average speed of most vehicles on a highway is very close. Between the urban areas of the Bay Area and Southern California you have the largely rural San Joaquin Valley. You have over 340 miles between Los Angeles and San Jose and about 500 miles between San Francisco and San Diego. While the NEC is 457 miles long, most of the population is centered in the middle so that most of the travel at best for high speed rail is around 230 miles on the NEC. To raise average speeds on the NEC, eliminating stops would accomplish more than running trains at higher speeds. The problem with that is which cities lose service? Amtrak has tried to increase ridership several times by reducing station stops without success. By comparison there are roughly 9 million people in Northern California who are 400 or more miles from the 22 million in Southern California. On the NEC you have about the same population but most of that population is only 226 miles apart at the most.

What is the best answer for improved rail passenger service on the NEC? The problem with speeds above 120 miles per hour is you usually need dedicated trackage for it. Unlike a freeway, a railroad needs crossovers for trains to go around each over. The greater the difference in speeds of trains on a line the more complicated it is organizing trains passing each other. On the NEC even though Amtrak owns most of it, it must share it with 10 rail commuter agencies and 50 freight trains a day. Amtrak is proposing to build a 220 mile per hour railroad on the NEC over the course of 40 years for 117 billion dollars. To accomplish this would require a largely new railroad separate from the existing line and built in largely urban areas which is very expensive to build often requiring viaducts or tunneling. The highest price estimate for the Anaheim to San Francisco High Speed Rail leg is 62 billion dollars by critics of that project which sounds like bargain compared to 117 billion between Washington and Boston.

The extensions are rather obvious and have been proposed by others. A good place to start would be extending service to Richmond and Charlotte. At New York City there is possible service extension to Albany, Montreal and or even Buffalo. Direct service on Long Island or at least an Amtrak Station on Long Island to connect with local commuter trains would be a start. Direct service from Harrisburg or better Pittsburgh to New York City and to Boston is a good candidate. Such services would require some track upgrades but at less cost than largely building a new railroad between Washington and Boston. Full electrification wouldn’t be necessary; diesel locomotives have been added to TGV trains to operate on non-electric lines.

The two sickest railroads of the 1960′s were the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad. Many factories relocated away from the North East and Mid-West by this time and the rust belt had begun. While freight traffic declined for these two railroads, they were the less than proud owners of the busiest rail passenger lines, particularly commuter services in the county. The two railroads claimed the solution of all their problems would be solved if only they could merge. After years of delays finally the old ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) approved the merger in 1968 as the Penn Central Railroad. The next year the Penn Central Railroad declared bankruptcy.

The hope was that by getting the Penn Central out of the passenger business it would be able to get out of bankruptcy. The plan for this new Passenger Only Railroad originally called Railpax was modeled on the old Pullman Company. Pullman not only built rail passenger cars, but for years contracted with the railroads to provide the first class service for sleeping and dining car passengers. The point of this plan was to free this new passenger rail service of the cost of owning the overhead of the infrastructure and instead just to pay rent for the part that they used. To make this new company look less like a bail out for the Penn Central an effort was made to include all intercity rail passenger service in it. Most of the Class 1 railroads had only long distance passenger service, unlike the Penn Central with short haul and commuter service mostly in the North East. The railroads were not excited about turning over their passenger service to Railpax. The railroads preferred to have full control over the traffic on their railroad. The long distance passenger trains weren’t making money, but operating them didn’t cost the railroads much either. The biggest headache was the cost of maintaining secondary rail lines to passenger standards. With some incentives most but not all the railroads joined Railpax which when opened for business as Amtrak in 1971 ushering in the elimination of half of the passenger rail service in this country.

Amtrak ran at a loss and the government subsidized operation: in 1973 Amtrak lost a grand total 159 million dollars. Not long after this an effort was made to reorganize the Penn Central to make it profitable. During this time many of the commuter operations were transferred to local governments and in 1976 ownership of most of the trackage between Boston and Washington was given to Amtrak which was counter to the original concept of Railpax. Conrail as the reorganized Penn Central finally became profitable and the government sold it off to private investors in 1987. By 1980 after being given ownership of the Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor, Amtrak’s subsidy needs exploded to over a billion dollars.

In the 1990′s Europe started to privatize rail service. Today as part of this process most of the counties of the European Union have separated ownership of the rail infrastructure from the operation of rail service. Some counties still have national rail services such as France and Germany but these operations are expected to run at a profit. Some services such as commuter service receive subsidy from their government. With infrastructure no longer owned by the operators this is opening up more trans-European freight and passenger rail service. German national railroad DB is aggressively working on expanding freight and passenger service to Britain and France. Each country has different methods of ownership of rail infrastructure. Ownership of infrastructure is not highly profitable. In many countries the rail infrastructure is subsidized to varying levels. In the 1990′s Britain tried to operate Railtrack, the owner of the British rail infrastructure as a for profit corporation. Track conditions got worse not better and by 2001 Railtrack was bankrupt and soon reorganized as Network Rail as a non- profit.