TrainBlog - Blogging about passenger trains, high-speed rail, Amtrak, Caltrain, VTA, railroads, transit, public transportation, passenger rail advocacy and related politics.
Santa Fe 2-10-4 #5021 is sitting outside the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento - she still looks pretty much as on the latest pictures shown here. Apparently there are some rumors floating around that she might be rebuilt?
The quote on the banner is “Railroads built California in the last century, and will build it again in the next”.
Today I happened to look at UTA’s website because I was wondering what was going on with their new commuter service over in Salt Lake City and oh, what did I see, they had actually published their schedules just yesterday. The Grand Opening will be on Saturday, April 26, followed by free rides through April 30. Regular service starts May 1. Check out the schedules here. I didn’t expect too much when I first looked at them - maybe a couple morning and evening commute hour trips like it seems to be customary for a new rail startup, but I was wrong… Their weekday schedule actually includes round-trips every half hour (every hour in the evenings) from ~5am through midnight. Saturday service frequency is hourly, no service on Sundays (which is a pity). That’s not too shabby …
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 …
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!
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?
