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The Coast Rail Coordinating Council September meeting
Meeting Report September 19, 2008 Reported by Bruce Jenkins, RailPAC Director, Sunnyvale The Coast Rail Coordinating Council met September. 19, ’08 in Soledad, CA, at the Paraiso Winery. Track and Access for the future Coast Daylight train: A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for track access and project negotiation has bounced back and forth between Caltrans…
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Where are Amtrak’s “Material Handling Cars?”
Stored in the weeds and on the rusty rails of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, east of Guadalupe. A PHOTO report by Russ Jackson including views of the Guadalupe Amtrak station. 9/1 UPDATE Steve Grande of Trainweb sent us the following information: “Don’t forget that there are a couple of Amtrak ex-MHCs out in La…
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RailPAC Roundtable PHOTOS
Reported by photographer Mike Palmer Los Angeles Union Station was BUSY on Saturday, July 10. Lots of people on the trains. The line waiting for the Northbound Surfliner #775 around 2:45 (scheduled departure at 2:55) was very long. Metrolink had tons of people getting off the trains at the station. The RailPAC Roundtable met for…
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The current status of passenger rail in Southern California:
Commentary by Paul Dyson, RailPAC President Overcrowded Trains? No New Cars Available? Time to Use our Brains! Here are a few statements that I believe reflect the current status of passenger rail in Southern California: Demand is outstripping currently scheduled supply on most days. While scarce Amtrak (Surfliner) equipment operates up to 18 hours a…
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LOSSAN TAC June MEETING Report
06/17/08 Report by Paul Dyson REPORT: LOSSAN TAC MEETING, LOS ANGELES, 06/17/08 Key items: Surfliner Revenue up 16.3% in March over previous year, but down 13.1% in April, all attributed to an early Easter this year. Overall growth still about 3%, which is very poor given the demographics of the region. OTP Is averaging between…
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Coast Rail Coordinating Council Meeting Report
April 25, 2008, San Carlos, CA Report and Commentary by Russ Jackson “I cannot make a statement that there will be no train-offs,” said Amtrak’s Jonathan Hutchison in reply to a question from this reporter. “But,” he added, “I cannot say there will be train-offs, either.” A “train-off” is the discontinuance of an existing train…
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RAILPAC MEMBERS MEETING – SACRAMENTO 4/19/08
State of the Association By Paul Dyson, RailPAC President Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: While it’s normal at an Annual meeting of members to hear a number of reports from Officers of the Association, in the interests of putting together an interesting program, and our activities and plans into a single “State of the Association 
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Now is The Best and Worse of Times
Editorial by Noel T. Braymer Ridership on Amtrak, commuter and transit trains is growing and reaching all time records. Los Angeles will see the extension of the Gold Line from LAUS out to East Los Angeles by late next year and the start up of the Expo Line to Culver City by 2010. Metrolink will…
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California High Speed Rail Might Be On The Ballot This November
Editorial by Noel T. Braymer On this year’s November ballot if the governor doesn’t postponed it again, will be a bond issue for 9.95 billion dollars from the California High Speed Rail Authority. This money will go towards building a start up High Speed Rail (HSR) service between Anaheim and San Francisco. The assumption is…
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Resolution re ADA and rail platform heights
By Paul Dyson, RailPAC President, and Member Burbank City Transportation Commission I’m very proud to report that Burbank and RailPAC are leading the fight to get the ADA station platform heights ruling nullified. As you know the USDOT (in their ignorance) wants to put subway platforms at commuter and intercity stations and it just doesn’t…