The Peak Oil Crisis: California’s Bubble Pops Falls Church News Press-Dec 11, 2013 Rapid increases in production, however, mean that the faster we use up something the sooner will come the day when production starts to decline and that may not be very far away…As the U.S. burns about 7 billion barrels of oil a year we…

Expo Line leads to drop in driving USC News-Dec 16, 2013    Los Angeles residents who live near a Metro Expo Line station on Exposition Boulevard reduced the number of miles they drove and tripled their rail ridership since the rail line opened last year, according to a new USC study. December 23, 2013 The above…

To try to reduce the number of homeless at LAUS, LA Metro now only allows ticketed passengers to sit in the station for 2 hours max with separate sections for Amtrak and Metrolink passengers. Transit passengers can’t sit in the main station. December 16, 2013 The above copy of this enewletter is on a PDF…

A 220-mph NEC? A contrarian weighs in RailwayAge Magazine (blog)-Dec 3, 2013 But as a contrarian points out, the infrastructure improvement costs of upping maximum Northeast Corridor speeds to 220 mph is equivalent to almost $1 billion per minute saved, and when one arrives a half-hour earlier at origin to await boarding, and then stands in a…

Editorial: High-speed rail proceeds in fits and start Sacramento Bee – Nov 27, 2013  In a mixed ruling on Monday, Kenny did not question going forward with the project. So the gleeful comment that “The high-speed rail project is derailed,” by Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is an extravagant exaggeration. The judge…

Boardman fires more Amtrak upper managers Trainorders.com Nov 19, 2013 On Monday Nov. 18, Amtrak fired more upper managers, eliminating twenty senior positions. Causalities reportedly included a 40-year Amtrak veteran and visionary whose last two decades were directly involved with the long distance trains and customer service, with many innovations to his credit. Comment: The person who Gene Poon…

Amtrak Serving Free Wine to Steak Loses Millions on Food Bloomberg-Nov 14, 2013 …Almost all of last year’s $72 million in food-service losses were from providing meals on long-distance trains, Inspector General Ted Alves said in testimony at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing today. I remember at least 30 years ago I heard the…

At the November 7th Board Meeting of the California High Speed Rail Authority in Sacramento the board approved the HSR route between Bakersfield and Fresno. The route shown above in red is still subject to possible changes before construction. Most of the approved alternatives have local acceptance in the San Joaquin Valley. The route in…

One thing that needs to be made clear; much of the funding recently approved for projects such as Caltrain electrification, run through tracks at LAUS, the LA Metro Regional Connector, track upgrades for ACE and Capitol Corridor among others were part of the package for High Speed Rail. Last year the legislature approved 13 Billion…

This is the plan for overhauling Los Angeles Union Station just approved by the Board of LA Metro. The old pedestrian tunnel will be replaced with a large open area under the tracks to eliminate crowding and add more retail space at the Station. A new 2 story bus facility will be build along side…