SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The state of California has announced grants to help improve and expand passenger rail service to Sacramento, and on Amtrak Pacific Surfliner service between San Diego and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The Valley Rail Project, a joint proposal by the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority and San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, received at grant of $500.5 million to benefit both Amtrak San Joaquin intercity trains and Altamont Corridor Express commuter service. It will include the launch of San Jose-bound commuter service from Sacramento, estimated to begin in 2020.
The money will fund track improvements on Union Pacific’s Sacramento Subdivision freight line to make it suitable for passenger service, and build new stations, to be shared by the San Joaquins and ACE, for Lodi, Elk Grove, Sacramento City College, Sacramento Midtown, Old North Sacramento, and Natomas. The latter will include a shuttle connection to Sacramento International Airport.
Also included are new stations for the San Joaquins in Madera and Oakley, and new ACE stations in Ceres, Modesto, Ripon, Manteca, and North Lathrop. More details on the Valley Rail Project are available here.
The state’s $188.3 million grant to the LOSSAN Agency, which oversees the Surfliners, includes $147.9 million for track, signal, and station improvements in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, including additional double track and siding extensions. Another $40.4 million is for work in San Diego County, including signal work and new fencing along the right-of-way, as well as a feasibility study for a new maintenance and layover facility in downtown San Diego.
Too bad the NE corridor states aren’t as responsible as CA putting in their own money instead of expecting the people in the rest of the country to ante up when we only get bare bones service & maybe none if Mr. Anderson has his way.
This all sounds good to me, but there’s no mention of equipment upgrades or purchases. The big order of high profile Surfliner cars was in 1999, meaning that those cars are nearing twenty years old. They look it, and as it stands now, there are not enough of them. One consist on the Surfliner route uses Amfleet equipment. Then just about all of the other consists have one silver Superliner coach in the middle of the cars with the special paint scheme that makes use of dark blue. It’s time to take a look at fleet modernization and expansion, too.
December 1957 Schedule – 3 trains on SP from LAUPT to Santa Barbara
May 2018 Schedule, 6 weekday trains on Amtrak, plus three weekday Ventura line Metrolink part-way.
I’m quite sure the other California corridors would show similar growth. Of course California population has increased, but where else has rail ridership kept up with population gains to the extent California’s has? My point is that intercity rail ridership bottomed out in 1971. Only in a few states has intercity ridership since skyrocketed, California among those states.
There are other places where train service has shown unexpected growth. In Massachusetts, MBTA suburban rail (Lavender trains) has fluctuated on ex-Boston and Maine and ex-New Haven lines without much overall change, but has gone from just about nothing to a whole lot on the Framingham – Worcester Line (ex-NYC/ Boston and Albany). And back to California, I really don’t know if ACE is a big deal or not, but who could have imagined even a single train on that corridor? Who could have imagined San Jose as one of America’s busiest rail hubs?
DANIEL – I stated my point very poorly. Here’s my point stated better: In the first years of Amtrak the California corridors didn’t exist except for token San Diego service. Amtrak has grown in California like nowhere else. Prior to Amtrak some of what are now the California corridors had service but the current Amtrak service is better. Also, commuter trains in California have grown like nowhere else: ACE, the trains north from San Diego, the entire Metrolink system, and the extension of the Peninsula trains to Gilroy, all that is better now than ever.
As a California native, this all sounds exciting.
None of these corridors even existed in the “good old days”. I’m not familiar with traffic on ACE, but the Amtrak corridors have gone from nonexistent to thriving.
I have no intentions to offend anyone. My definition of terms may be different from someone else.
I’m talking about LAX-SAN.
From about 1940 through the 1960’s there were from three trains a day in each direction to as may as ten a day in each direction. Sounds like a commuter train to me.
The trains to SLO And SAN did exist, since about 1938. What’s your point? The corrridor trains were not called corridor trains then, but there certainly was train service.
DANIEL KELLY – The first Amtrak timetable had something like two trains plus a tri-weekly, something like that, to San Diego. The San Joaquin trains did not then exist, nor the Santa Barbara or Sacramento Corridors, In commuter rail, ACE did not then exist. LA’s now-huge Metrolink didn’t then exist, nor the commuter trains north from San Diego that we now have. California in 1971 consisted of the LD trains, token Amtrak service to San Diego, and Espee’s peninsula trains only as far as San Jose, not as far as Gilroy which is now the case.
Isn’t it interesting that where money is spent on passenger rail, it costs less per passenger.
There was never as much passenger service between the bay area and Sacramento or as much as there is now between San Diego and LA as there is now. Of course we have many millions more people in the state now than we did when SP and the Santa Fe where passenger carriers. Glad to see the money being spent.
Not sure what is considered the ‘good old days’. SP served San Louis Obispo starting in the late 1930’s between San Francisco and Los Angeles. AT & SF ran the San Diegan between LA and San Diego also starting in the late 1930’s. Both ran until Amtrak took over service.