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Amtrak California today operates more bus service within the state than Greyhound does. Several years ago, Greyhound lobbied the state legislature to prevent this from happening. As a result, a law was passed that the dedicated feeder routes could only transport passengers who traveled a...

Good Evening, List Members, On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, 2007, I went to the Santa Barbara Amtrak station to create a pictorial history of the mid-day train and bus arrivals and departures. The Santa Barbara station was originally built by the SP many decades ago. Several years...

There has been talk about reducing on-board amenities on many Amtrak trains. However, most commuter railroads have very few, if any, on-board amenities. Take a look at this example: One can board Metrolink train 214 in Lancaster at 11:27 AM and arrive at LAUS at 1:20 PM. Take a walk over to...

Here is a quote from Amtrak's website concerning the transportation of passengers with oxygen canisters: "Oxygen Equipment To better serve you, and to ensure the safety of all passengers, we provide the following guidelines for transporting oxygen on board Amtrak trains. Notice and Advanced...

The case for a new, improved Amtrak by Peter A. Picknelly, an executive of Peter Pan Bus Lines This a cross-post from the Yahoo! Amtrak Group. Here's a link to the story: http://www.metro-magazine.com/t_featpick.c...cfm?id=90508780 As usual, I would like to add my own pithy comments...

With the Acela failure, all charter service was temporarily cancelled, so that the Amfleet and Horizon equipment could be moved to the NEC. Now that the Acelas are coming back, how soon will charter service be available again?

The Great Depression severely hurt both of these industries. The tremendous growth of passenger volume during World War II overwhelmed both industries. After the war, both industries experienced heavily declining ridership. What was the cause of this? During the war, military personnel were...

Here's a link to the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columni...ll=chi-news-col I fired off a nasty letter to the editor. The rest of you should too after reading this piece of crap.

I realize there was a lot of damage to the right-of-way caused by the not-so-recent storms. No passenger trains have passed through beautiful downtown Santa Barbara since early last month. UP has been operating freights through here at increasing frequencies and increasing speeds. Have there...

A Union Pacific Maintenance of Way train spent most of the day today in Santa Barbara performing all kinds of work on the right-of-way. It was such a pleasure to hear a train horn after all this time. Hopefully, soon the UP and Amtrak trains will be rolling through our beautiful city once...

On the Friday before Hallowe'en, we had a costume contest at my place of employment. Most of my co-workers wore their costumes all day. The contest was held at 4:00 PM, and I put the costume on just 15 minutes before, so no one knew about it in advance. We paraded through the entire building...

This afternoon, at approximately 2:00 PM, I saw one of the most unusual Amtrak trains that I have ever seen. The train was heading north (westbound) on UP rails. The ponies were a P-42 and a Dash 8 (in Pepsi-can colors), and they were followed by a mile-long string of MHCs, presumably empty...

For those of you that have not heard, a 6.0 earthquake hit central California at 10:15 AM PDT. According to Amtrak's website, the southbound Coast Starlight train # 11 has been severely delayed. The train was scheduled to depart San Jose at 10:57 AM. It actually departed at 11:55 AM, 58...

On Sunday, September 12, 2004, a northbound UP freight struck an auto carrier that was transporting a load of classic, restored Porches at approximately 3:45 PM. Here is what the Trains News Wire had to say about the accident: "Oh, the wreckage — UP freight takes out truckload of Porsches...

Please read my trip report at: http://members.cox.net/allendee/Surfliner.html Enjoy!! I would also appreciate any feed back. Read my newest trip report at: http://members.cox.net/allendee/Surfliner2.html

In this Saturday's New York Times on line, there is an article in the Travel section about a trip a family took aboard the Coast Starlight from Oakland to Los Angeles. Y'all check it out. It is a good read. In this article, the author refers to railfans as foamers -- as in foaming at the...

Let me know what you all think.

The first half of my trip report is available at: http://members.cox.net/allendee The return portion will be completed within a few days at the same URL. If there are any obvious errors on my part, please let me know so that I can correct them.

What is the correct title for the person who is in charge of the dining car (not the waiters or waitresses). On my recent trips these people announced themselves as "Dining Car Attendants." I would like to know this pertinent bit of information before I post my very long, and very detailed...

It has been years since the last time I traveled on an LD train while listening to a scanner. Several years ago the communications between the dispatchers and the train crews were very slow and deliberate. The transmission would go like this: (Location of Dispatcher) Dispatcher to Amtrak...