May 10th, 2014 National Train Day Celebration! www.nationaltrainday.com Theme:Why should everyone be stuck in traffic? With 101 construction to last over a decade, the obvious solution is waiting at the station. Ventura to Goleta commuter rail is needed NOW! Who: Rail Passengers Association of California & Nevada (RailPAC) Coalition for Sustainable Transportation (COAST) Alliance for…
Report and PHOTOS by Robert Manning, Executive VP, RailPAC The combination National Train Day and 75th anniversary for LAUS was a success even though the temperature hit 91, which made for a very hot day. In spite of this thousands attended making it very hard to move about. The photo below shows the main waiting…
Here are this month’s photos by RailPAC photographers. Click on each photo to see it full size! Contributions to this page are welcome. Send your jpeg rail photos to Russ Jackson, RailPAC Photo Editor, at [email protected]. 1. This is one of the new departure boards now installed at Los Angeles Union Station in the ongoing…
By Noel T. Braymer It’s expensive to build a new railroad. Even improvements to existing railroads aren’t cheap. Plus there are few places to build railroads today at any price, particularly in cities. As it is funding is always tight for any form of transportation construction. This is why is it often better to share…
Commentary By Bruce Richardson, URPA Once again, for the 43rd time, here we are on May Day, the anniversary of the official day of Amtrak operations beginning on May 1, 1971. It was the day most of the still-operating passenger trains in the country disappeared, and the freight railroads breathed a sigh of relief because…
By Noel T. Braymer Technically most trains already run on electricity. Diesel-electric locomotives use a diesel engine to generate electricity to power the electric motors in the locomotive’s trucks. The question is will trains continue to be powered by fossil fuels? The cost of energy is a big issue for train operators. In North America…
David B. Kutrosky, Managing Director Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority Service Performance Overview In March 2014, both ridership and revenue for the Capitol Corridor were below last year’s March- results by 1.7% and 3.5% respectively. A total of 118,518 passengers rode Capitol Corridor trains in March 2014. The ridership decrease was primarily due to the…
By Noel T. Braymer On April 9th the Metropolitan Transportation Commission had a committee meeting to reallocate money from stalled projects to others ready to go. Among the stalled projects in the Bay Area is the effort to repair the Dumbarton Rail Bridge between Redwood City and Fremont and establish rush hour commuter rail service…