TrainBlog - Blogging about passenger trains, high-speed rail, Amtrak, Caltrain, VTA, railroads, transit, public transportation, passenger rail advocacy and related politics.
Yesterday, all power was lost on the Northeast Corridor during the morning rush hour. Interestingly, a similar thing happened in Switzerland almost a year ago.
An Amtrak power failure during the morning rush hour Thursday brought dozens of trains to a screeching halt along the bustling Northeast Corridor, stranding thousands of passengers for hours.
I meant to write something about this myself, but I couldn’t quite figure out the proper words (didn’t want to sound too harsh or anything, after all, it’s people’s lives we’re talking about) - and then I saw this on BATN and decided to just point to it - it sums it up pretty nicely I think.
Why blame Caltrain?
First of all, my condolences to family members who have lost loved
ones in such a gruesome manner, and I don’t want to minimize that.
However, the response seems a bit off. Why are people blaming
Caltrain for deaths occurring on the tracks?Residents want Caltrain to spend money on signs that people will
ignore and fences that people will jump or cut, then boarding pass
prices go up and people complain that now they’re paying for
expenses that they asked for in the first place.How long have trains been in the Bay Area? It’s not like it’s
something that popped up out of the blue. I grew up near train
tracks for 20 years, and no one ever got hit. Are there really
people out there who don’t know that when you mess with a train,
you’re gonna lose?
So even Argentina seems to have a better transportation policy than the United States currently does. Kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? First Mexico, now Argentina …
Buenos Aires, May 9 (Prensa Latina) Argentina will begin constructing a high speed rail service early next year to link the three main cities of the country, Buenos Aires, Rosario and Cordoba. The project, estimated at 800 million US dollars, includes a first phase of 311 miles to Rosario, Santa Fe Province, with a double railroad track and the latest technology, to allow speeds between 155 miles and 186 miles per hour.
[ Prensa Latina ]
Note, though, how “cheap” the project seems to be - $800 millon for 311 miles?
This evening, on the way home from work, I was waiting with my bike at the Castro Street grade crossing here in Mountain View, just as it was time for the two express Bullets that don’t stop in Mountain View to pass - it was about 5:20pm. When the northbound train approached, I noticed that the engineer was really leaning on his horn. He must have been on it at least from the CA-85 overpass through the station and the grade crossing. I’ve never seen it like that, but it made quite some noise and it was really hard to ignore the train that way. It looks like some Caltrain engineers have gotten a little nervous by these recent accidents. I don’t blame them - after all, it’s not really their fault, if some people just walk onto the tracks right in front of a train. But then, those aren’t really grade crossing accidents either …
A while ago, I suggested that somebody should run special trains for Oakland Raiders football games - and back then, I got a response from ACE that they’re not allowed to do that.
But it looks like they were able to get that permission after all - they’re advertising a special train to an Oakland A’s game later this year (September 23rd).
Sometimes I get the impression, that things just haven’t been thought through - a token effort might have been made to provide a certain service, but it just doesn’t go as far as it should.
One example of this that I was able to experience first hand on a recent trip to Emeryville is the VTA-Amtrak connection at the Santa Clara/Great America Amtrak station. At that location, the VTA Light Rail line from Mountain View to Downtown San Jose crosses right over the Union Pacific rail line on Tasman Boulevard. The Amtrak station is located right below the road overpass (in fact, the bridge also serves as the only availabe protection from rain or sun at this station). There is even a staircase that leads right down to the Amtrak platform (no elevator though). So you would think that this is an ideal location for a Light Rail-to-Amtrak connection, right? Well, here’s where the problems start: there is no Light Rail stop at the top of the staircase. The closest Light Rail stop is about a five minute walk away from the staircase, near the next road intersection off the overpass. Not really very convenient …
35 years ago today was the day that all (well, most) passenger rail operations in the United States were taken over by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, more commonly known as “Amtrak“.
Whether this birthday really is a happy one - well, we’ll see about that later in the year I guess.
[amtrak]
