There is no doubt that sleepy drivers are as dangerous as drunken drivers and have almost as many accidents. Another possible explanation is the monotony of driving often causes drivers not to pay attention as they drive: the so called “white line fever”. But a common problem at grade crossing is people speeding up to…

What RailPAC is about is seeing the creation of a coordinated transportation system with good rail connections for airports, intercity bus, and urban transit. We also seek coordination and seamless ticketing between intercity rail, corridor rail and regional commuter rail for easy transfers. In other words using a nation such as Switzerland as a model…

Truck collides with Amtrak train in Nevada  Reuters – Dan Whitcomb – Jun 24, 2011 The truck drove into the side of an Amtrak train carrying 204 passengers and 14 crew members at a railroad crossing east of Reno, Amtrak said in a written statement. The westbound California Zephyr was en route from Chicago to…

It would seem that the engineers working for the Los Angeles MTA think there is not enough room for a track 16. This 8.5 million dollar project will repair all the canopies and build matching ones for the restored tracks. There will be other upgrades and track 7 will be upgraded and used as a…

“We don’t want the West to go and find alternatives,” Alwaleed, a nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, said in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” scheduled for broadcast today. “The higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives.”June 13, 2011

There is still room for improvement of much of the planning of the CHSRA. But the Federal Government has made it clear that the money promised for HSR must be spent in the San Joaquin Valley with construction beginning next year or California loses the funding! NB enewsletter for June 6, 2011

The plan to turn over planning and operation of High Speed Rail on the 437 miles between Washington and Boston to a private company is based on experiences in other counties. The 117 billion dollar, 30 year plan for 200 plus mile per hour service proposed by Amtrak is daunting at best. What is not…

“You are not going to cut costs far enough on the long-distance trains to make the long-distance trains profitable,” Boardman said…The kindest thing that can be said of Mr. Boardman’s testimony before the Senate Appropriation hearing last week is that he spoke nonsense. If we go back to the 1980’s and early 90’s when W.…

U.S. Department of Transportation to Allocate $68 Million for State-of-the-Art Train Cars in California. The award for California fleet cars was included in the US DOT’s $2.02 billion in high-speed rail awards, which were announced yesterday on May 9, by US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood.  In addition California received $300 million more for construction of High…

It appears at least to this editor that after almost 15 years of planning, economic reality is forcing major replanning for the California High Speed Rail Project. In most cases this seems to be for the best. The possibility of bypassing Palmdale may be motivated to save 30 miles and time to meet the goal…