TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

David Gunn, former Amtrak CEO, gave a talk about “The Future of Rail Transportation in America” as part of a forum at University of Delaware. Here are some interesting quotes:

“We are losing mobility for freight and passenger service in this country at a fairly alarming rate,” Gunn said. “All you have to do is look at the statistics. Demand is growing and the physical plant is inadequate, whether you are talking about highway, rail, or even air.”

[…]

“We are hitting some really important physical and environmental walls as far as what we can do,” Gunn said. “If you look at the highway network, particularly in urban areas, it is full. You can’t solve problems like this as you did in former years by adding lanes.”

[…]

Fixing Amtrak Gunn said that while there is arguably a lot wrong with Amtrak, there also is a lot right with the system. “Amtrak was not set up to promote passenger rail service in this country. It was set up to save the freight rail system from going bankrupt and destroying the railroads,” Gunn said. “Something went wrong. What went wrong was that passengers started to come back and governments from states like California said, ‘We need this thing.’”

Among the changes that are needed to improve the rail system in America are reform of the Railway Labor Act and empowering states with money and decision-making ability to address their individual transportation situations, Gunn said.

[…]

“When you are talking about creating operating efficiency, you had better include changing work rules or you are never going to get away with it,” Gunn said.

[Transit troubles ahead, ex-Amtrak head warns]

Why is this so unusual in this country? It goes even further than that - even walking 10 minutes is unusual here in suburban California. Our neighbors think we’re “walkers” because we sometimes walk from our home to downtown Mountain View. And that’s about a 15 to 20 minute walk. No big deal really …

Every Friday, Bakar, 38, leaves his car at home and walks more than four miles to Pleasant Hill, where he is the marketing director for AssetMark Investment Services Inc., a financial company.

[BATN : Message: Stop the presses! — Lafayette man walks 4.5 miles to work]

Metrolink - the Los Angeles area commuter rail network - will receive additional trailers and cab cars for its rail services.

This morning, the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA) board took action to award a contract to Rotem Company, a Korean firm, to manufacture the next generation of Metrolink passenger rail cars. Rotem is the rolling stock subsidiary of the Hyundai Automotive Group. The company began operations in July 1999 and has delivered over 4,000 passenger rail cars to customers in 31 countries. In addition, Rotem has a pending order for 32 diesel powered train cars for North Carolina’s Triangle Transit Authority for use in future commuter rail service in the Raleigh-Durham area.

The SCRRA contract is for a base number of 54 trailer cars and 33 lead position cab cars at a total bid price of $176,334,755. Also approved were the first two of four SCRRA options in the contract. Option one is for 10 additional cab cars at a total cost of $17,788,200. Option two is for 10 more cab cars at at total cost of $17,859,400. These two options will be implemented as additional funding becomes available. Three additional contract options are included for 14 trailer cars and 10 cab cars to be delivered to the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, operators of Tri-Rail commuter train service. The total value of the contract with all options exercised would be $305,974,486.

[METROLINK | News Update]

This is an interesting idea - somebody has started creating a webpage with a Google Map that shows Amtraks routes and stations. I guess eventually, the idea is to build a complete map of all rail systems of the US (and maybe the whole world).

USA Rail on Google Maps and Google Earth

A piece on the website of the Central Valley CBS station KGPE reports that an Amtrak San Joaquin train was delayed by about 12 hours last Thursday - and there was a group of fifth graders on the train, returning from a field trip to Sacramento. If it were not for these students, the incident would probably never have made the news:

A field trip turned into an overnight ordeal for some valley fifth graders.

31 students and eight chaperones from Corcoran Elementary were stuck near Denair overnight. They were stranded inside an Amtrak train.

[KGPE - CBS TV47 - Fifth graders experience Amtrak delay]

But what did really happen? Gene Poon posted the following on the All_Aboard Yahoo Group:

Okay, now for the real story.

The initial cause of the delay was vandalism. Somebody stacked tie plates on both rails at approx. MP79 on UP, approx. five miles (railroad) west of Stockton, CA. San Joaquin Train 704(23) with CDTX 2009 struck the tie plates; the engine sustained broken air hoses and a punctured fuel tank. The fuel leak was confined and emergency repairs made to the air hoses; after a delay of 3 hr 05 min, train proceeded to Stockton (ACE Station) where it tied up pending further arrangements for the passengers. Meanwhile San Joaquin Train 715(23) was coming west, bound for Oakland with two units and an extra set of San Joaquin cars in its consist. At Stockton (on BNSF tracks) the extra set was cut off along with AMTK 160; that equipment proceeded to Stockton (ACE Station) which is on UP. After 1 hr 51 min., with the passengers transferred, that equipment departed Stockton (ACE Station) as a stub Train 704 to Bakersfield.

At Turlock (Denair), the operating crew’s Hours of Service expired. Train sat for 6 hr 05 min waiting for a relief crew.

[All Aboard Message #125117]

So they were on train #704, which was scheduled to leave Sacramento at 4:25pm and arrive at Corcoran at 8:32pm. According to the Amtrak train status page, the train left Sacramento ontime at 4:25pm. Scheduled arrival in Stockton (ACE station) was 5:20pm, but according to the information quoted above, the vandalism incident caused a delay of 3hr 5min, which would have put the train in Stockton at 8:25pm. So at that time, train #718 from Oakland to Bakersfield was already gone (scheduled departure 7:37pm, actual 7:49pm). Leaves the question whether a bus might have picked up the passengers at the site of the incident and taken them to meet train #718 at the Santa Fe station in Stockton. But for some reason, they decided not to do that.

So they took that extra set of equipment off train #715 (really? that train arrived Stockton at 6:23pm - with a delay of 57 minutes - so that was a lucky conincidence and for once, somebody reacted quickly. But why did it take over 4 hours to move that equipment over to the ACE station in Stockton? Because the “new” train #704 then departed Stockton (ACE station) at 10:35pm, 5 hr and 15 min late. Oh, and by that time, somebody in the dispatching center should have realized that there was no way that the crew would be able to take the train all the way to Bakersfield within their service hour limit. They made it only to Denair - which is 47 min from Stockton according to schedule and still 3 hr 36 min from the final destination of Bakersfield…. And then it took them another 6 hr to find a new crew and take them to the train….

Well, while the vandalism really wasn’t Amtrak’s fault, they didn’t show a very good performance for the rest of the evening either. The train finally arrived in Bakersfield at 9:01am on the following morning, 11 hr and 18 min late. Total running time for Sacramento to Bakersfield according to schedule is 5 hr and 18 mins - so in the end, the train took more than three times the scheduled time to make it to its destination!

The biggest issue to me seems to be that nobody considered the service hours of the crew and made sure that a fresh crew was available to take the train from Stockton to Bakersfield. The delay would have been no more than 4 hr max and the children would have been at home shortly after midnight. Still not very good, but for this delay, the blame would have gone to vandalism and not to Amtrak - and hopefully even KGPE would have reported it that way (if at all).

Ever since I arrived here in the San Francisco Bay Area a bit more than two years ago, I was quite amazed at how inconvenient and outdated the fare charge and collection systems here in the area seem to be. If I want to ride the bus, I have to pay the bus driver. I have to have exact change available or else I need to overpay (the fare is $1.75, so if I don’t carry any change with me, then I most certainly will have to pay $2, if I even have a couple of one dollar bills with me). What’s even more surprising is the unfairness of the fare system - one bus ride with VTA always costs the standard fare of $1.75 - no matter whether I only ride to the next stop or all the way from Eastridge in San Jose to Menlo Park on the 22 bus. Same price. And there are no transfers. So if I’m unlucky and my destination doesn’t happen to be on the same bus line, then I have to pay twice. And I won’t even talk about scheduling (or lack thereof) of connecting buses here …

But it gets worse. If I want to ride from my home to someplace in downtown San Francisco, I need three tickets. One on VTA, one for Caltrain and another one for Muni. There is no single fare system for the whole region - every operator collects its own fare. On my recent trip around the bay, I had to purchase 5 tickets:

• Caltrain for Mountain View to San Jose
• Amtrak for San Jose to Oakland
• A ticket for the Ferry Oakland to San Francisco
• Muni for San Francisco Ferry Building to Caltrain station
• Caltrain again for San Franciso to Mountain View

Nowaways, every major metropolitan area (and most of the smaller ones) in Switzerland has a zone-based fare system, where you pay one fare for one ticket from your origin to your destination, no matter how many different modes your trip will use or how many times you need to make a connection. It’s just one ticket. And the same applies for passes - dail, monthly or yearly (granted, the situation on monthly passes is slightly better even here - I think if you buy a monthly pass for Caltrain, you may use that pass for one connecting local fare on VTA or Muni as well).

Now, a while ago I heard about this big, expensive project called TransLink, that the MTC is working on. I thought - oh well, they will surely fix all this then. But it appears this is not the case - what is TransLink really?

How Does TransLink® Work ?
Say goodbye to fumbling for exact change, smoothing crumpled bills, and standing in line for a new pass or ticket book. The TransLink® smart card contains a microchip that can simultaneously keep track of value equivalent to cash, passes, and/or ticket books. One card, that’s it.

[TransLink® Home Page]

So TransLink is “just” a SmartCard that allows you to pay for all these tickets without using cash. And it can store your monthly pass and will automatically apply it. Granted, this IS an improvement over the current situation - but it doesn’t fix the bigger issue - you still have to buy tickets for every single segment of your trip. What’s really needed is a “Verkehrsverbund”-type organisation, just like they have in Germany and Switzerland. The whole Bay Area should be split up into a number of zones - and you’d buy tickets according to the number of zones you travel - irrespective of the number of train or bus segments involved. The “Verkehrsverbund” would collect the money and contract with the individual operators for their respective services and lines. But it doesn’t look like anything like this is going to happen anytime soon.

Evan wrote a piece on benallaroundtheworld today, where he nicely describes the history of the various stations located in the city of Boston. I’ll be able to visit South and North Stations myself later this year, when my trip around the USA takes me through there.

I was digging around the net today, looking for some information regarding the history of Boston’s railroad network. It didn’t take long for me to realize just how extensive and complicated Boston’s network of railroads was at the end of the 19th century, and how 20th century railway consolidation has carved these systems down to what they are today.

[benallaroundtheworld: Boston Railroading Lives On… ]

According to an article in the Stockton record, ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) is planning to start midday service starting in April. This will be in addition to their current 3 morning Stockton-San Jose and 3 afternoon/evening San Jose-Stockton trips.

ACE plans to start its midday train route April 24. It will leave Stockton at 9:30 and arrive in San Jose at 11:40 a.m. The train will leave San Jose at 11:55 a.m. and return to Stockton by 2 p.m., said Gregg Baxter, ACE director of operations.

[ACE riders getting more options for commute]

I wonder how they will handle this from an equipment and scheduling perspective. I’m pretty sure that they don’t necessarily have any spare trainsets sitting around - so I assume the first train to arrive in San Jose (scheduled arrival 6:30am) will return empty to Stockton and start the late morning run. Same for the afternoon - after arriving in Stockton around 2pm, the trainset will return empty to San Jose to depart there at 5:35pm. But this is just my assumption - maybe they do have a spare trainset.

But if they indeed do it this way - I wonder why they don’t open up the empty moves for the public - after all, they need a crew anyway, so why not let people ride on the train? Because when I first heard about this new midday service, I had thought “oh great, this will finally open up a good way to ride ACE for me - as a round trip starting in San Jose, without having to stay overnight in Stockton”. But they way the scheduling looks now, I’ll have to look into connecting services - maybe I can take the 11:55am train in San Jose and then an Amtrak San Joaquin from Stockton to Oakland and San Jose. Would be quite a detour, but at least it would be an all-train same day trip …

Update (3/17/2006):
I emailed the guys at ACE, asking about what equipment they plan on using, and here’s the response:

The mid day train will consist of 1 engine 1 cab
car and 2 passenger cars. This will be expanded upon as need arises. The
equipment is not currently in use during our regular schedule.

Earlier this month, the Federal Transit Administration has released its proposed allocation of funds to so-called “New Starts” projects for Fiscal Year 2007. The following projects have been selected to receive funding grants:

• Denver, CO – West Corridor Light Rail
• Portland, OR – South Corridor I-205/Portland Mall
• Washington County, OR – Wilsonville/Beaverton Commuter Rail
• Dallas – Northwest/Southeast Light Rail
• Weber County/Salt Lake City, UT – Commuter Rail
• New York, NY Long Island Rail Road East Side Access
• Pittsburgh, PA – North Shore Connector

The following projects will also be considered for funding:

• New York – Second Avenue Subway
• Northern Virginia – Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project Extension to Wiehle Avenue
• Norfolk, VA – Norfolk Light Rail
• Seattle – University Link
• Washington, DC – Largo Metrorail Extension

In addition to these new projects, several already ongoing projects will also received funding under the proposed allocation:

• Phoenix, AZ – Central Phoenix East Valley Light Rail
• Los Angeles – Metro Gold East Side Extension
• Denver – Southeast Corridor Light Rail
• Chicago – Ravenswood Line Extension
• Charlotte, NC – South Corridor Light Rail Transit
• New Jersey – Hudson-Bergen (Second Segment)
• Seattle – Central Link (Initial Segment)
• San Francisco – BART Extension to San Francisco Airport
• San Diego – Mission Valley East Extension
• San Diego – Oceanside-Escondido Rail Corridor
• Chicago – Douglas Branch Reconstruction
• Chicago – Union Pacific West Line Extension
• Baltimore – Central Light Rail Double-Track
• Cleveland – Euclid Corridor Transportation Project
• Portland – Interstate MAX Light Rail Extension
• San Juan, PR – Tren Urbano

[Federal Transit Administration - New Starts Proposed Allocation of Funds for Fiscal Year 2007 Section]