In the media the rule for running a story is “If it bleeds it leads”. The High Speed Rail project has bled a great deal. That doesn’t mean it is dead. There is still major support for this project by powerful interests. There is also strong support by the public for better and economical rail…

Amtrak admits that the average age of its equipment is older now than it was when it “inherited” its original equipment from the railroads in 1971. Most of the Superliner equipment is now 32 years old and even the newest is 19 years old. Of the 479 Superliner cars originally ordered at least 49 over…

Mr. Boardman (Amtrak President) is on record saying that there are no plans to eliminate Long Distance Trains in the face of reductions of Federal subsidies for Amtrak. Also on the record are claims by Mr. Boardman that the Long Distance Trains are the cause of much of Amtrak’s deficits. There are also reports that…

The State of California owns the locomotives and cars used on the San Joaquins, has paid with local governments for improvements or replacements of the stations on the route and paid for Amtrak’s maintenance base in Oakland which services the San Joaquins. And Amtrak thinks the San Joaquins are their trains? January 3, 2012 The…

Speed is attractive on any travel mode. Higher speeds can lead to greater productivity. But ridership is also determined by other factors such as price, comfort, safety, convenience and the number of markets served. Speed can be very expensive which can make the price of the service uncompetitive. By-passing towns to improve running times will…

This is from testimony by retired Republican Congressman and current Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood given on December 6th before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. It didn’t get much media coverage… The effort to derail the California HSR Project is part of a larger partisan effort to derail the presidency of President Obama by…

Total public spending on transport and water infrastructure has fallen steadily since the 1960s and now stands at 2.4% of GDP. Europe, by contrast, invests 5% of GDP in its infrastructure, while China is racing into the future at 9%. America’s spending as a share of GDP has not come close to European levels for…

Duh, they are just now noticing that building a 220 miles per hour railroad is expensive? While speeds of up to 220 miles per hour is a reasonable long term goal, first we need to look at getting service up to 125 miles per hour in California in the near future. Full funding won’t be…

This is what I find really interesting. Comparing the 563 which replaced the 565 we find that it had 39% less ridership and 23% less revenue. Despite the less than stellar On Time Performance of the Surfliners the 563 was the only train to lose ridership and revenue compared to the year before. But what…

This is the way progress has always been made in California for rail service, one grant at a time. A million here and a million there and soon you are talking real money. Local projects and High Speed Rail will continue to be built one step at a time. When you try to build rail…