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A Photo Tour of the southern Coast Line
By Noel T. Braymer The railroad that hugs the Coast along Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties is both picturesque and has a great deal of potential for ridership growth. What is holding it back is as usual, lack of funding and cooperation from the Union Pacific. It is only a matter of…
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Los Angeles Union Station 75th Anniversary event
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…
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Capitol Corridor Monthly Report (March, 2014)
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…
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Pasadena is a Great Rail Destination
Story and Photos By Noel T. Braymer Most modern train stations are little more than parking lots with platforms far away from someplace people want to go to. Your busier stations are transportation centers with good connections to other trains and other travel modes like bus and rail transit. Few train stations today are destinations.…
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Time is On the Side of Rail Passenger Service
By Noel T. Braymer Progress for improved Rail Passenger service in California is often uneven. But through the years progress continues to be made. Track work and plans for expanding service are ongoing for the Surflners, Metrolink, Coaster, San Joaquins, ACE, Capitol Corridor and Caltrain. Rail transit service throughout the State is also improving and…
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Notes on the February 1st RailPAC/NARP Conference in Los Angeles
By Noel T. Braymer On my way to Los Angeles on the train I could see much progress recently on the railroad. It looks like the long delayed bridge over the Santa Margarita River in Camp Pendleton is now almost finished. I recently rode the train to San Diego and found the new mile of…
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LOSSAN”s Top Priority
By Noel T. Braymer Increasing ridership and passenger revenues on the LOSSAN Corridor, particularly on the Surfliners should be the priority for LOSSAN. The question is how to do this? What is needed to get passenger growth is a combination of faster running times for trains with better on-time performance for better connections by train…
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Here’s What’s Happening on the LOSSAN Corridor in 2014
Complied by Noel T. Braymer There is a great deal of construction that will be finished as well as started during 2014 along the LOSSAN Rail Corridor. This is largely centered in the Counties of San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles. This is a quick review of some of these project underway now. August 2013…
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What’s Needed for Great Rail Passenger Service
By Noel T. Braymer When rail service is good, people will take the train in droves. When there is great rail service, many traffic congestion problems can be solved or reduced. The problems today with depending on cars for transportation are: they take up lots of space, we can’t build enough roads or parking lots…
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Notes on the October 5th’s RailPAC/NARP Meeting San Francisco
By Noel T. Braymer I wasn’t in the mood this time to ride buses for 2 night in a row for this year’s meeting in San Francisco. So I got a flight out of San Diego at 7:56 AM for an arrival at 9:35 AM at San Francisco. Since the first Coaster Train to San…