Amtrak California Operating Timetable # 34

[sechs]

For those interested, the CalTrans Division of Rail posted the latest operating timetable.

http://64.174.7.225/rail/amtrak/assets/Fil...cot_no_34.1.pdf

Of note:

One can now book three weekday ACE commuter trains (two from San Jose to Stockton, one the other way) via Amtrak instead of a thruway bus; it's still cheaper to buy ACE tickets, of course. One can book to San Jose-Diridon, Santa Clara-Great America, Fremont-Centerville, Pleasanton, Livermore, Livermore-Vasco, Tracy, Lathrop/Manteca, and Stockton-Cabral.

The Palo Alto-Mountain View-Sunnyvale bus service has been discontinued due to low ridership. Each of these cities has two Caltrain regional rail stations.

The bus to Yosemite from Modesto has been discontinued, as this was solely to support the Yosemite-in-a-Day from San Francisco, offered by Gray Line. Instead, 18-passenger buses have been redirected to carry passengers from Merced. (A rockslide in May blocked the normal path that buses take into the park from Merced. The temporary bridges being used for traffic do not allow full-sized buses. The service continues to be carried by YARTS.)

 

[George Harris]

While this is a very useful document with lots of information, I have never understood why they call it an operating timetable. My definition of that has alwasy been the railroad one: The timetable with speed limits, sidings and multiple track locations, meeting points, operating rules for the train crews, etc.

For the passenger wanting to use its services however, it is GREAT !

 

[battalion51]

George, while you are technically correct, a real employee timetable contains both. As far as I know very few of these true timetables still exsist. With Freight roads these days they run on ever changing schedules (or no schedule at all) so it is pointless to publish that document. Most times these days the employee timetables will have sidings, speeds, etc. and then be used in conjunction with General Bulletins and Public timetables.

 

[George Harris]

Very true. But depends upon what you are looking for. From my Civil Engineering perspective, I am always after line speeds, siding locations, the rules for grades and tunnels, etc. If I want to find the passenger scheduled meeting points, if any passenger trains, I can work that out reasonably well from the times in the public timetable plus the speeds and siding locatuions. But then there are these frustrating cases where the passenger stop locations are not even in the current employee timetables. For these old ETT's can be some help.

 

[battalion51]

Many times unless the issuing railroad is a passenger road they will not list passenger stations, because they are of no true significance to freight operations for the most part. In general the freight roads only have to worry about sidings, crossovers, and industry spurs (physically). The only time you'll really see anything about a passenger station in most freight books is if there is a special instruction (such as close clearance or key down gates) associated with the station.

 

[sechs]

We need to keep in mind that this is really a statement from the state to Amtrak on how the intercity rail system should operate, not to the crews on how to operate over the rails.

Over the years, however, I think that this particular document has gained features which allow the less educated state officials to see what's going on. This makes it far more useful to normal folks.