RailPAC: Rail Passenger Association of CA & NV

Month: October 2012

  • Rail Improvements in California over the Next 5-7 Years

    Story and Photos by Noel T. Braymer With all the talk about High Speed Rail and 130 miles of new construction in the San Joaquin Valley by 2018, what can we expect between Los Angeles and San Diego? The projects we can be sure of have been in the works for years. In San Diego…

  • eNewsletter for October 22, 2012

    Amtrak snack bars lost $84.5 million last year; $833 million in 10 years Washington Examiner-Oct 16, 2012 Federal spending over the past 20 years has surged 71 percent faster than inflation, much of it on bloated and wasteful programs and services, …The use of Fully Allocated Accounting by Amtrak opens it to these misleading headlines.…

  • PHOTOS of the Month: October, 2012

    5 new Rail PHOTOS taken by RailPAC Photographers! 1. Amtrak’s Capitol Limited arrives at Cumberland, Maryland, on September 28, 2012. Lots of CSX trackwork in the area caused 90 minute delays, but the tracks are much smoother. Photo by Mike Palmer. 2. The Galloping Goose is now running on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic in…

  • Caltrain Modernization Program

    Report by Bruce Jenkins, RailPAC Director Caltrain is the commuter railroad operating on it’s own Right of Way (RoW) from San Francisco to San Jose with a limited six train service further south to Gilroy on Union Pacific RoW. The San Francisco/San Jose leg has been a rail commuter line since 1863 and was known…

  • Where I Would Like to Go by Train; but Can’t

    By Noel T. Braymer  The best places to go to by train are those with lots of traffic, congestion and expensive parking. One place like that which is hard in California to go to by train are airports. There are several California airports with transit connections to train stations. The last time I tried to take…

  • eNewsletter for October 15, 2012

    The diner was operated by a crew of four—two chefs and two waitresses, who, fortunately for the passengers who had paid thousands of dollars for the privilege of riding, worked their tails off to feed everyone. (That is not an exaggeration—the last bedrooms sold for the astonishing price of $1,478 on top of the rail…

  • The Texas Eagle in Illinois and the San Joaquins in California

    Commentary by Ralph James, RailPAC contributor On October 2, 2012, the Railway Age “blog” contained an article by Lyndon Henry, “Texas Eagle highlights passenger train success,” which was included in the October 8 RailPAC weekly e-newsletter. In that article a statement is made that the Chicago-St. Louis upgrades on the Union Pacific will not affect…

  • YES, Long-Distance Amtrak Trains are Crowded!

    Trip Report on the Southwest Chief and the Empire Builder Commentary by Andrew C. Selden, MinnARP, Minneapolis Recently I rode Los Angeles-Chicago on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief #4 over a weekend and it was jammed the entire way. There were two sleepers and just two coaches, which the crew—conductor and service crew alike—reported was a standard…

  • Highway or No Way: the Need for Transportation Alternatives

    Article and Photos By Noel T. Braymer Man: An argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says. Other Man: It is NOT     Man: YES It Is…   The Argument by Monty Python What is missing at the national level for transportation is the middle…

  • To Sacramento by way of the Sunset Limited-Texas Eagle

    Photo and Trip Report in newly rebuilt Superliner cars by Russ Jackson, RailPAC “It isn’t the destination it’s the journey.” That’s what the retired doctor sitting across from us in the Sunset Limited dining car said about train travel. He was the personification of that statement, as his trip started in Seattle on the Coast…