Sprinter train at Cal State San Marcos
Just wanted to quickly post this photo of a Sprinter train (Siemens Desiro EMU) at the new Cal State San Marcos station, taken today during the joint TRAC/SDERA excursion. I’ll post more pictures later …
links for 2007-10-24
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On November 14 we move our London home from Waterloo to St Pancras International. Here you can find the latest news, read interesting stories and learn more about how travelling to and from Europe with us will become faster, greener and more enjoyable.
Gotthard Cab Ride
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Switzerland for a family event and since I was already flying all the way to Switzerland, I figured I might as well stay a day longer and take advantage of an offer by the Swiss Federal Railways: since they celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Gotthard rail line this year, they had some special events going on this year. One of them was that they offered tickets for cab rides on trains over the Gotthard line from Locarno to Arth-Goldau and vice versa. Well, it wasn’t cheap, but I decided that the opportunity doesn’t come along so often, so I went ahead and booked the trip. It actually seems like a lot of people decided to do the same thing, since I was told that they’re pretty much sold out through the end of the year.
My trip started in Locarno - we were two people who booked the trip that day. At the Locarno station, a retired SBB engineer was waiting for us - he would be accompanying us and provide explanations, etc. during the trip (since obviously the real engineer who was driving the train was supposed to be doing just that - drive the train …). So we ended up being four people in the cab of the class Re 460 engine, which was rather cramped, but still ok.
Our train - #2280 from Locarno to Zurich - had only 7 coaches and was rather light, at just 309 metric tons. Should be no big deal for our 6100 kW / 8000 hp strong class Re 460 engine. We left a couple of minutes late, due to the fact that the train had arrived just shortly before and they needed to switch out some coaches before being ready to depart again. We made up the time on the way over the Gotthard though and arrived in Arth-Goldau ontime.
(View these video clips on YouTube)
Unfortunately, the trip was already over after only 2 1/2 hours - but it was definitely worth it!
links for 2007-10-02
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The chief of France’s rail giant believes that the high-speed link between Paris and St Pancras will transform travel
Follow the People - Follow the Lights!
Image (c) Alan Miller, TRAC. Used with permission.
Which route should the California High Speed Rail Authority choose for the future bullet train - Altamont Pass (yellow) or Pacheco Pass (blue)? The choice seems obvious, doesn’t it?
links for 2007-09-13
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“Governor and Legislature a clear message
that they wanted gasoline sales tax
revenues to be used for transportation,
rather than the General Fund. They even
amended the state constitution by passing
Proposition 1A.” -
California’s two leading advocacy agencies for rail passenger service have settled issues between them and regret the filing of lawsuits, and such lawsuits will be dismissed.
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The success of high-speed rail in California … is based more on Valley ridershipthan going from Los Angeles to San Francisco. That’s one of the reasons state transportation officials … must consider the Altamont Pass as the primary corridor …
links for 2007-09-08
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We hope you find this tool useful in determining when your train is likely to arrive. We suggest using the reported average delay as a guideline for when you can realistically expect your train to arrive.
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Average Delays over the last month
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Online edition is freely available on their website.
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Canadian Pacific (NYSE:CP) (TSX:CP) Railway Ltd will buy Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp. and its subsidiaries for $1.48 billion cash, gaining access to the coal-rich Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
links for 2007-09-06
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Online edition is freely available on their website.
RailPAC on Gas Taxes
I couldn’t agree more with Noel on this one … This is what California should have done late last year, instead of issuing these bonds - we should just raise the gax tax and there’d be plenty of money to pay for all those projects, even high speed rail possibly. I did some calculations a while ago and the numbers aren’t actually that bad. Since the current gax tax is so low, it could easily be doubled or more and people might not even notice … they’d still pay a lot less for gas than people in Europe and other places.
The increases in gasoline taxes should be used for infrastructure and not just for road construction. Higher gasoline taxes will slow down gasoline consumption and be an incentive to conserve gasoline. As a tax on consumption it gives the taxpayer a choice of how much tax they want to pay. Don’t want to pay more gas taxes, use less gas! Expanding rail passenger service and public transportation will give people more economical choices besides driving and will conserve fuel. In the long run by raising gas taxes we will stabilize gas prices and consumption which will slow down rising gas prices in the future.
links for 2007-09-04
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The Surface Transportation Policy Partnership has released a guidebook that explores how federal surface transportation law can be used to support local and statewide efforts to build more livable communities and expand travel options.
