-
San Joaquin JPA Board Report November 16 – Doug Kerr
I attended the November 16, 2018 San Joaquin JPA Board Meeting in Merced. Here is a summary: Administrative items were approved including moving expense items from one budget account to another. The Board gave recognition to board members Don Tatzin and Tom Blalock who will be leaving the Board due to retirements. The City of […]
-
High Speed Rail Board Comes to Burbank
CHSRA Board Meeting November 15, 2018 Burbank While I was not able attend the recent Board meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) I did view the video and as President of the Rail Passenger Association of California (RailPAC) I wanted to provide my impressions of the meeting and public comments. The overall emotion […]
-
Southwest Chief – Too Early to Claim Victory
Some of you may have received a post from Jim Mathews of RPA claiming a victory in the fight for the Southwest Chief. We urge caution and continued vigilance. Here’s a more realistic assessment from Evan Stair from Passenger Rail Kansas: THE TRUTH COMES OUT – BUS BRIDGE WAS NOT FOR SAFETY Apparently, and we […]
-
Andy Selden talks to the Private Car owners
https://youtu.be/LWHDzS1sec4
-
Steel Wheels Conference This Saturday 9/29/18 – Sacramento State Railroad Museum
Don’t miss this year’s conference! We have over 60 people registered and it will be sure to be an interesting day. Coffee and light refreshments and registration/check in will be available from about 9.30am at the Stanford Gallery. The event itself is in the Museum Auditorium which opens at 10, the program will start at […]
-
RailPAC’s Senate Joint Resolution is Adopted by Both Houses
This was our first attempt for many years to obtain legislative support for our position re the National Network interstate trains. It was heavily amended by Assembly staff and some of the stronger language removed. I would have pushed back on some of the changes but we had only two weeks to line up support […]
-
Our Most Important RailPAC Steel Wheels Conference Ever
2018 has become a critical year for passenger rail in California. The threat to the interstate network trains, California Zephyr, Sunset Limited, Southwest Chief and Coast Starlight, puts them on the brink of fading into history barring radical action by Amtrak management and the Federal government. Two decades of under-investment would have been enough to […]
-
Another unanswered letter – RailPAC to Amtrak Chair Coscia
In this letter I tried to be polite, and not as hostile as I might have been. At about the same time as this was sent the New Jersey ARP wrote specifically calling for Anderson’s dismissal. There is now a clear pattern, as reported by Bill Vantuono of Railway Age, of simply ignoring the media […]
-
Amtrak’s Accounting – George Chilson
Amtrak’s Route Accounting: Fatally Flawed, Misleading & Wrong August 23, 2018 The Rail Passengers Association (RPA) strongly believes that the ongoing debate concerning the future shape of Amtrak’s national network has been distorted by its use of fully allocated costs rather than avoidable costs as required by statute. The adverse outcome of using fully allocated […]
-
Anderson and crew have it all wrong about Raton Pass
In their recent employee bulletin Amtrak management, (Anderson and crew) upped the ante by demanding over $100 million for the route of the Southwest Chief between Kansas and New Mexico, including “full PTC”. If you want to hold politicians to ransom you wave the safety flag. An elected official can be no more be against […]