RailPAC: Rail Passenger Association of CA & NV

The complicated history of the Sprinter

Report and Photo by Noel T. Braymer, RailPAC e-newsletter Editor The Sprinter started out as a simple project to serve the 22 miles between Oceanside and Escondido. The original proposal by RailPAC’s Byron Nordberg back in the 1980’s was to rebuild the existing single tracked short line railroad between these 2 cities for about 70-80…

April 11, 2013
RailPAC President writes Caltrans about the Surfliners becoming Coasters

NOTE: This letter from Paul Dyson and Noel Braymer’s article below express the RailPAC opinions on this subject. 8th April, 2013 Mr. William D. Bronte, Chief, Division of Rail Department of Transportation 1120 N Street MS 74 Sacramento, CA 95814 Surfliner: Degrading Intercity Schedules to cover gaps in Commuter Service a bad policy and contrary…

April 9, 2013
Amtrak plans to stop Surfliners at Coaster stations too

Report and Comments by Noel Braymer, RailPAC 3-newsletter Editor Amtrak has already listed all the Coaster Stations in the latest April 1, 2013 Surfliner Schedule . It has the footnote : (21) Service begins at a date to be announced. That won’t confuse anyone will it? This is a really bad idea from North County…

April 9, 2013
The Railroad Destroying Santa Margarita River

Story by Noel T. Braymer Finally this year, 2013 (due to the need to redo more work on this bridge the opening date now is in 2014.)the new double track railroad bridge over the Santa Margarita River will replace the old single track bridge there since 1916. Well not exactly, the current bridge is a…

April 5, 2013
eNewsletter for April 1, 2013

U.S. Report Backs Bullet Train Revenue Forecasts Los Angeles Times Mar 29, 2013 The GAO study says that the project’s ridership and revenue forecasts are reasonable but it renews concerns about future funding. The lesson from this is you may not like what your asked for. The GAO admits that the current Cal HSR project…

April 5, 2013
RailPAC PHOTOS of the Month (March, 2013)

Here are 5 photos by RailPAC photographers. Click on each photo to see it full size! Contributions to this page each month are welcome. Send your jpg rail photos to RailPAC Photo Editor, at [email protected] 1. Riverside, CA, station on March 22, 2013. A long BNSF container train is on the double tracks in the…

April 4, 2013
March Trip report with video to Riverside, Los Angeles and Santa Monica

Report by Noel T. Braymer What a way to celebrate my 61st birthday, but I’m still too young for a Metrolink senior discount. I got to the Oceanside Station in time to get my ticket to Riverside for Metrolink train 850 and get on board before the 7:35 AM departure. I still had the same…

March 30, 2013
eNewsletter for March 25, 2013

Corbett reaches deal to pay to maintain Amtrak route to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review-Mar 21, 2013 Tom Corbett said the state will pay $3.8 million a year to subsidize Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian route, a daily round-trip that provides the only …California is already paying over $30 million to run each of their existing State services and each produce much more…

March 29, 2013
Capitol Corridor Monthly Report (February, 2013)

By David B. Kutrosky, Managing Director, CCJPA For February 2013, once again we find Capitol Corridor’s monthly performance report to be a mixed bag of results. Ridership in the month of February was 8.2% below February 2011 and revenue was down 2.7%. On a positive note, on-time performance (OTP) was 97%, the best in the…

March 25, 2013
Report of the First Ever San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority

Report by Mike Barnbaum, Associate Director of the Rail Passenger Association of California & Nevada, on Sunday 24 March 2013 The New San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority, created by legislation from Cathleen Galgiani (AB 1779) and signed into law by Governor Edmund G. Jerry Brown on September 29, 2012, held its first meeting on March…

March 25, 2013