A well-informed source has told RailPAC that Pacific Parlour Car service will be missing from the Coast Starlight in the coming weeks because the FRA has some concerns about the glazing. Apparently one car has already been fixed and Amtrak is awaiting delivery of material for the rest of the fleet. Unfortunately we cannot offer…
Napoleon used to say that he liked his generals to be lucky. Presumably he would not have employed the first CEOs of Metrolink, who suffered considerably from ill fortune, particularly the Glendale accident. But bad luck is only one small part of the picture that has brought about the near collapse of Metrolink. After 23…
Every few weeks or so the Los Angeles Times publishes stories by Ralph Vartabedian which are highly speculative, thinly researched and critical of the California High Speed Rail Project. The worst time for the media is when the news is boring. So for as long as there has been stories, spinning a story has been…
In a surprise move at the Los Angeles Metro Board Meeting on October 22, 2015, an agenda item was voted on and approved to make changes to the Southern California Regional Interconnector Project (SCRIP). Part of the change will coordinate SCRIP’s construction of run-through tracks at Union Station with the construction at the same time…
Whenever a passenger is ready to travel by Amtrak, has a ticket in hand and is ready to go to the station to board the train the first anxiety is always whether the train will be on time or be running late (in many cases hours late). For this trip let’s get the on time…
Even the best plans can get derailed. I planned to catch a mid-afternoon train out of Oceanside on a recent Friday to see a friend and his wife off who were taking the Sunset to travel home after a California vacation. The plan was they would meet me at LAUS when I got off the…
There are major changes coming in the near future to transportation, and this will impact rail passenger service as well. All forms of transportation are under pressure to save money, be more energy efficient and run more cleanly. Autos, truck and bus builders are looking for solutions to these problems. We may find that the…
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief, Railway Age The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has released H.R. 3763, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015, commonly referred to as the “highway bill.” Buried deep within the document (p. 504) is language with provisions to extend the PTC deadline to Dec. 31, 2018, with…
San Diego County has 3 intra-county rail passenger services. There is the Sprinter, a 22 mile DMU service between Oceanside and Escondido. There is also the Coaster, the 40 mile locomotive hauled commuter service between Oceanside and downtown San Diego. And the oldest service since 1981, the San Diego Trolley, has 53 miles of Light…
Metrolink ridership has been in a slump for several years. Efforts are being made to boost ridership with discounted tickets. Metrolink though needs to increase revenues too, not just to get higher passenger totals. Are there any models to copy that Metrolink can use to increase ridership as well as revenues? Of course there are.…