TrainBlog - Blogging about passenger trains, high-speed rail, Amtrak, Caltrain, VTA, railroads, transit, public transportation, passenger rail advocacy and related politics.
Since the recent timetable change, smoking is now officially forbidden in all trains, buses, etc. in Switzerland. I just now ran across the advertising campaign that they do to make this change public and I thought that these are pretty funny:
Source: VoeV
According to an announcement by the Public Transport Union, there are now 2 million half fare cards in use in Switzerland. For those who don’t know, this card enables you to buy half fare tickets for almost all public transport systems (trains, buses, trams, etc.) in Switzerland. It costs ~150 swiss francs per year (slightly less if you buy it for more than 1 year).
I tried to do the math - at the end of 2004, Switzerland had a population of 7.4 million people. If you take into account that ~17% of the population is below the age of 16 (and therefore doesn’t need a half fare card), that means that roughly 32.5% of the population uses a half fare card.
In fact, the percentage should be even higher, since a fair amount of people actually own a “General Abonnement“, which allows them to travel for “free”.
Update: Yes, of course the “General Abonnement” costs a fair amount of money and therefore, the word “free” is not really the correct one.
Somebody emailed me this today - looks pretty interesting… Except that the database doesn’t seem to be very complete. But maybe there’s a more complete database out there? Or if not, maybe I should create one? And then use Google Maps to create a similar thing?
Congressman Sessions of Texas has recently proposed new legislation that would eliminate several Amtrak long distance trains. He actually listed what trains should be eliminated specifically and that list includes the Southwest Chief, California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Coast Starlight, and Silver Star trains. Hmm, did you notice that the Sunset (running through San Antonio and Houston) and the Texas Eagle didn’t make the list? Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?
Seriously, how much longer will we have to endure these politicians, whose only goal it seems to be to maximize the government services for their own constituency, but who apparently don’t give a damn about the big picture? How would this possibly have a positive effect on Amtrak? For California, the only train connection to the rest of the US would be the slow, three-times-a-week and notoriously delayed Sunset Limited? You’ve got to be kidding …
In This Edition:
* Bush Board Fires David Gunn
* Running On Empty
* New Regs May Ban Amtrak Discounts
* Coast Observations
* 50 Euro Nationwide Fare Promotion On German DB
* Interstate for Trains
* All Aboard: Aggravation For Amtrak (cont’d on page 5)
* N.J. Rep Grills Laney On Asset Sale (cont’d on page 5)
* TRAC Headquarters Grows
* Multi-Ride ACE Tickets Proposed
* Davidson Retires At U.P.
* Bay Area Regional Rail Study May Settle Pacheco Vs. Altamont Fight
* Amtrak & Subway® Team Up On Fresh Food Idea
* Highlights Of Cal Rail 2020 Burbank
* New TRAC President, Board Members
Over the weekend, I had a chance to ride the Las Vegas Monorail. This is an unusual and certainly interesting operation, serving most of the big Casinos along the Strip. But in my opinion, the ride was quite bumpy and the ticket cost $3 for a single ride - not really cheap … I wonder if the city wouldn’t have been better (and cheaper) served by a Light Rail line connecting downtown with the main Strip and McCarran Airport. Oh yes, one note about traffic conditions at the airport on Sunday morning: terrible. Make sure you leave your hotel with plenty of time before your flight departure… Some means of public (rail) transportation would definitely help with that.
Rumor has it that SBB Cargo ordered 3 additional Re 484 locomotives from Bombardier. This after they had cancelled part of their Re 474 order with Siemens. Guess they’re happier with the Re 484 than with the Re 474. I think that actually makes sense - the Re 474 was supposed to be a gap-filler anyway, because it was originally thought that they would be available earlier than the Re 484s. Which then turned out to be the other way round. Plus, the Re 484 is part of the same family as the Re 482, which should offer advantages in maintenance cost, etc.
This looks interesting - once they get more data in there than just Portland, OR …
(via Google Blog)
With F40PH-2C #920 (Operation Lifesaver) in the lead, the train has just arrived at the Sunnyvale station.
