TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

Continuing with the October 30 Amtrak schedule change news, the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority just announced that they will add a fifth weekday round-trip to their Downeaster service (operated by Amtrak). The Downeaster currently operates four daily round-trips between Portland, ME and Boston. This new fifth service will operate Monday-Friday effective with the schedule change on October 30. At first, this new round-trip will be facilitated by operating the last trips of the day in each direction using a combination of buses (one for Boston to points in Maine and a second bus for Boston to points in New Hampshire). After completion of trackwork designed to add rail capacity to the route, the fifth trip should be switched to train instead of bus sometime next year.

Also, the schedules of the other four trips will be adjusted.

Link: The Downeaster - News

Amtrak and Caltrains announced that San Joaquin trains #711 and #718 will exceptionally continue to/begin at the Oakland Coliseum station for this seasons Oakland Raiders home games. This makes it possible for Central Valley residents to travel to a Raiders home game without having to change trains at Jack London Square. These trains will serve the Coliseum station on the following dates only: October 1, 22, 29, November 12, December 3 and 17.

Link: Amtrak News Release: Special Oakland Raiders Game-Day-Only Stop at Stadium Added for San Joaquins Trains

[…] From Central Valley stations, San Joaquins train 711 departs Bakersfield at 4:55 a.m., Wasco at 5:22 a.m., Corcoran at 5:54 a.m., Hanford at 6:12 a.m., Fresno 6:50 a.m., Madera at 7:11 a.m., Merced at 7:45 a.m., Turlock/Denair at 8:06 a.m., Modesto at 8:23 a.m. and Stockton at 8:58 a.m. Other locations along the route include Antioch, Martinez, Richmond, Emeryville and Oakland. Train 711 arrives at the Oakland McAfee Coliseum at 11:20 a.m. After the game, San Joaquins train 718 departs the Coliseum Station at 5:40 p.m. returning to the Central Valley[…]

Effective October 30th, additional trains will be running on the following state-supported routes in Illinois:
- Chicago-Carbondale
- Chicago-Quincy
- Chicago-St Louis

Earlier this week, the schedule for the additional train on the Chicago-Carbondale route was announced - the train will be named “Saluki” and will provide morning departures from both endpoints. Reservations for the new train can be made starting immediately on Amtrak.com and through Amtrak’s call centers.

The schedules for the additional trains on the other routes will be announced “soon”.

Link: Amtrak News Release: Governor Blagojevich Announces Amtrak Saluki to Start Running October 30th

I’ve been writing about delays recently - so I thought I should also take the time to point out positive things about our trains here in California when an opportunity arises:

On a recent trip, I took the following picture at the San Jose Diridon Station:

99.11% of all Caltrain trains were “ontime” this year so far (well, I wonder what exactly “ontime” means - does anyone know? Usually there is a maximum delay for a train to still be “ontime”. I know that “ontime” doesn’t usually mean really ontime to the scheduled minute). And only 1 employee injury so far - that seems pretty good as well.

So congratulations to all Caltrain and Amtrak employees for that achievement!

Google Transit - Google’s experimental Transit Trip Planner service - has just added a couple new cities to its map/schedule mashup. In addition to Portland, OR (which was the first city available when the service was introduced a couple months ago), you can now also search the transit schedules for Tampa, Honolulu, Eugene, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

I still get quite a lot of incoming traffic for last year’s holiday trains summary, so I thought I’d start a new post for this year’s holiday season.

If you’re looking for a “Polar Express”-type train ride, here’s a summary of Christmas/holiday-themed train rides around Northern California for the 2006 Christmas season:

Sierra Railroad, Christmas Train
Oakdale: December 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17-23

Railtown 1896 State Historic Park, Santa visits Railtown
Jamestown: Thanksgiving Weekend (November 24-26) and December 16-17

California State Railroad Museum, Santa’s Yuletide Express
Sacramento: Thanksgiving Weekend (November 24-26) and December 9-10, hourly departures 11AM-4PM

Sacramento RiverTrain
Woodland - West Sacramento, December 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 13, 16-23

Skunk Train
Fort Bragg: December 2, 9, 10, 16-23, Train departs 5PM

Skunk Train
Willits: December 9, 10, 16-23, Trains depart 3:30PM and 6:30PM

Niles Canyon Railway, Train of Lights
Sunol: November 24 - December 28 (selected days only) - ALMOST SOLD OUT

Roaring Camp Railroads, Holiday Lights Train
Santa Cruz: November 25, December 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad, “Fantasy Train of Lights”
Los Gatos: Mid to late December, Thursday through Sunday, 6-9PM. $5.00 Per Ride, No runs December 25.

Information provided as a guide only - please contact the individual railroads for details and updates.

Hope I didn’t miss any - if I did, please submit a comment below …

Today to the day 25 years ago was the day that the firt high speed rail line in France - the TGV Sud-Est line - was opened for commercial service. On that day - September 27, 1981 - the first section of the high speed line from St Florentin to Sathonay (north of Lyon) was inaugurated and starting with that day, 13 daily trips were offered on the Paris - Lyon line with a running time of 2h 40min. Two years later, the northern section of the line was also opened and running time dropped to 2 hours with a maximum speed of 270 km/h.

Since then, the venture seems to have been a complete success, and year after year, additional lines were opened, frequencies increased and additional destinations were served. The September 2006 issue of the French rail magazine Rail Passion has a nice overview of these developments, with a focus on the TGV Sud-Est network.

The TGV network has grown all over France now and almost all the regions and neighboring countries are served now:
- TGV Sud-Est serves the southeastern part of the country (Lyon, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nice, Grenoble, etc.) and connects Paris to Switzerland and Italy (a link to Spain will be added in the near future)
- TGV Atlantique connects the southwestern (Tours, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Toulouse, etc.) and western (Le Mans, Rennes, Nantes, Brest, etc.) parts of the country
- TGV Nord-Europe links Paris and the northern/northeastern part of France (Lille) and also reaches Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, plus - through the Channel tunnel - London
- and finally, as of the end of next year, the new TGV Est-Europeen will provide the long-awaited link between the capital and the eastern regions of Strasburg, Metz and Nancy, plus southern Germany and improved service to parts of Switzerland

Granted, France was not the first country to have truly high speed rail service (that honor goes to Japan’s Shinkansen), but it’s success has undoubtedly contributed to the revival of passenger rail and the proliferation of high speed rail lines all over Europe and in other parts of the world. Hopefully, one day this enthusiasm will finally reach California as well …

I was watching the arrival times of the Coast Starlight over the last few days - earlier this year, the Starlight was often delayed by up to 10+ hours, which led to it acquiring the nickname “Starlate”. Following those incidents, certain rail advocacy groups made quite a stink about it (here and here) and the matter was brought to the attention of the Surface Transportation Board, high-level Union Pacific officials and various Governors, Senators and Congressman.

And so, today - the Starlight is much better. In fact, it even arrived earlier than scheduled on 1 of the last 11 days southbound and 3 out of 11 days northbound. It was ontime or at most 1 hour delayed 7 (southbound) and 6 (northbound) out of these 11 days (see details below).

Does that mean all is well now? Unfortunately not - it looks like the delays have simply shifted over to the Californa Zephyr now … Hmm, let’s see, what railroad’s tracks is that one running on again? Aaaahhh …

Southbound (arrival time LAX) #11:
9/16: +54min
9/17: +3h24min
9/18: +34min
9/19: +5h50min
9/20: +2h33min
9/21: +38min
9/22: -16min
9/23: +2min
9/24: +1h25min
9/25: +11min
9/26: +50min

Northbound (arrival time SEA) #14:
9/16: +4h52min
9/17: +19min
9/18: +52min
9/19: +1h10min
9/20: +35min
9/21: -27min
9/22: +1h19min
9/23: -25min
9/24: -51min
9/25: +2h13min
9/26: +3h26min (est. as of 11:37pm)

When I got home from work today and checked my mailbox, I got a nice surprise: A big letter from the PR department of Kalmbach Publishing containing the latest Trains Magazine Special Issue - “Locomotive”. Looks like my blog here is now worthy of the attention of PR departments - who would have thought. Well, anyway, I certainly appreciate the gesture and the free magazine (thanks, Matt!) and last but not least the opportunity to take a look at it before most everybody else - since it’s actually only supposed to hit the newsstands on October 3 (BTW, you can also order your copy online).

I’ve only taken a quick look at the magazine so far, but it certainly looks interesting. It gives a good overview over modern motive power in the United States, also taking note of export models manufactured by the U.S. locomotive industry and what I especially appreciated is that it did not omit the passenger side of the business - there are dedicated articles about the recent success of MotivePower Inc.’s MPXpress passenger locomotives (aka MP36PH-3 - one of my personal favorites) and also reports about modern electric locomotives. Other sections detail the recent efforts by both GE and EMD to build modern, clean and efficient diesel locomotives (with the GEVO and EMD 70 series engines) and yet another article describes the recent trend towards GenSet-powered switcher engines.

But the “older” models are also given their due - longtime railroading stalwarts like the SD40 and F40PH, among others.

All in all, it promises to be an enjoyable read - and not to forget the 170+ photos!

Here’s an extract from the table of contents:

Cover Story:
“Evolution revolution”, GE’s Evolution Series

Feature Articles:
- Power for the people - a look at modern passenger locomotives
- Photo section
- Look at EMD now - new ownership and a new locomotive line
- Living legends - a photographic tribute to the SD40(-2)
- The need for speed - Amtrak’s Acela and HHP-8
- Pocono mountain majesties: Big Alcos on Delaware-Lackawanna

New Power Profiles:
- GE Evolution Series foldout
- EMD 70 Series foldout
- RailPower’s Green Goat
- GenSets: The next big thing

Old Soldiers:
A series of articles about older models

Caltrain Baby Bullet #368 in Mountain View Hosted on Zooomr

Also available on flickr.