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High Speed Rail: Don’t Forget San Diego!
By Noel T. Braymer The earliest San Diego can hope now to get direct High Speed Rail service is sometime after 2029. By 2029 the planning of the California High Speed Rail Authority is for 500 miles of High Speed Rail service between Anaheim and San Francisco. San Diego is the second largest city in…
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LOSSAN Highlights from the September Board Meeting Agenda
By Noel T. Braymer Much of the time reading agendas can be rather boring. Much of the material is either technical or legalistic. But like digging for gold if you dig in the right places you can hit paydirt in the LOSSAN Board Meeting Agenda. The latest meeting was held on September 15th. The minutes…
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Pros and Cons of a Burbank-Palmdale Underground HSR Short Cut
By Noel T. Braymer After years of studies and public meetings when it seemed the California High Speed Rail Authority was ready to make a final decision for the route between Burbank and Palmdale: they are studying a new route. This comes at the request of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich who’s district includes…
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We Need More Connections to California High Speed Rail
By Noel T. Braymer It is looking more likely with secure funding from Cap and Trade money that the first 300 miles of High Speed Rail will be running between Burbank and Merced in the next 8-10 years.The High Speed Rail Authority is planning to finish 800 miles in California in about 16 years. However…
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Why BART has Faster, more Direct Service than LA Metro
By Noel T. Braymer I am not a big fan of BART. One of my biggest complaints about BART is their less than ideal connections to Caltrain, Muni Metro and Amtrak. But between BART routes, the connections are excellent. I can’t say the same about LA Metro. Transferring between the Blue Line to the Red…
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LAX Rail Connections: What a Mess!
By Noel T. Braymer The two most important passenger transportation hubs in Southern California, the 2nd most populated area in the country are Los Angeles Union Station (LAUS) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). In terms of passenger miles generated, LAX is more important. Road traffic to LAX is also a major source of traffic…
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What’s So Great about Run-Through Tracks at LA Union Station?
Story and Photographs By Noel T. Braymer When the city of Los Angeles originally proposed building a Union Station on the current site, the railroads opposed it. One of their reasons was that site would have station tracks that would dead end as stub tracks. This would require departing trains to back in to the…
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Cap and Trade Funds
Paul Dyson You know that a program has established itself when it sports an acronym. Cap and Trade is now CnT (or CapnTrade to others) and has everyone at the State Capitol excited as it appears to represent a way to pay for a lot of people’s favorite environmental programs. As I write in mid-May…
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How to Increase Rail Ridership to Sacramento
By Noel T. Braymer The Sacramento station is already one of the busiest Amtrak Station in California. There is excellent ridership from the Capitol Corridor, Coast Starlight and California Zephyr trains. The same however can’t be said about the 2 round trips a day on the San Joaquin trains to and from Bakersfield. Why is…