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 The following
shots are from the balcony shown above.
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 The Board room where the Conference would meet. |
 Ken Ruben
welcomed all attendees and directed them to the registration desk.
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 At the
Registration Table, we obtained our nametags and a packet including the
all-important lunch ticket.
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 The Gateway
Center had beautiful transportation-related murals.
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 Richard Silver
directed us to the cafeteria where coffee and pastries were provided,
with a view!
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 The dining room
(left) had large west-facing windows with a view across LAUS to
downtown on this foggy morning.
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 Those of us on
the dining room balcony enjoyed watching a Pacific Surfliner arrive at
LAUS
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 Soon a Gold
Line train arrived having just made its last stop before LAUS,
Chinatown. The steam was not RR related.
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 Anton L.,
Friend of TrainWeb.com, was in attendance.
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 Chris Parker,
Friend of TrainWeb.com, was in attendance.
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 Chris Guenzler,
scheduled to hit 1 million miles of rail travel in April, attended as
well.
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 Engineer
Richard and Nicholas were there to record the proceedings and will have
verbatim recordings at Let's Talk Trains so you too can hear the
presentations. http://www.letstalktrains.us/
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 It was near
capacity seating of the nearly 300 advocates.
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Paul Dyson, President RailPACHe mentioned
that this was a 2-day conference packed into one day so questions would
be limited after the speakers' presentations. In lieu of getting
to ask a question, attendees were invited to e-mail Mr. Dyson
with questions after the conference.
pdyson@railpac.org, 818-845-9599 |
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Ross Capon, Executive Director NARPMr. Capon
welcomed all to the Conference and showed slides of US Congress members
and their contact information who are involved with rail. He also
handed out membership forms to join NARP.
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Mr. Kummant is a veteran railroad
and
industrial executive responsible for Amtrak, a business in excess of $3
billion
in annual revenues, more than $9 billion in assets and 19,000 employees.
There
is a remarkable accomplishment by Amtrak in the West. He
has learned, Amtrak is more than the
Northeast Corridor and the Eastern Seaboard.
California is situated to contribute to the National debate on a national rail system. David Gunn rescued the Northeast Corridor. California and Illinois are the states driving rail in the US with their riderships and investments. His vision, in a power point presentation: Amtrak is a growth product with excellence and sound management. Amtrak needs to earn the right to grow our Intercity Corridors. He feels the Amtrak's long distance trains will not be profitable. • 22,000 route miles in 46 states • Serving 500 stations. • Long-distance ridership is up 1%, some entities are up 5 to 6% • Ticket revenues or $1.371 billion are up 10.7% • 68% on-time performance overall Investment: California is 1st in matching funds. $1.8 billion has been matched by California since 1990, to upgrade track and signals. There are 70 intercity trains and 100 CalTrain Commuters. There are 3,300 Amtrak employees in CA, including 500 at the Riverside call center where he said he was going to visit next. Outsorucing is no panacea, got unexpected applause from the attendees and surprised Mr. Kummant. Ideas: Los Angeles to Las Vegas, maybe the casinos will put up the money. "Moose to Mouse" Maine to DisneyWorld east coast program. It's all about partnerships and two big players are the freight railroads and realestate. S. 294 reauthorization bill should advance the partnership. It is multi-year funding for Amtrak, hopefully passed by summer. Current cash for Amtrak is down to $40 million and it is unheard of for a $3.5 billion dollar company in the private sector to be down that much. Issues: • On-time performance. 80% more capacity needed in the next 10-15 years for freight and passengers in US. California Zephyr across Nevada has the worst on-time performance in the country averaging over 5 hours late. • Long-distance trains Perhaps the CZ should be marketed from Chicago to Denver as a ski and business train and Denver to Los Angeles as an Excursion Train. • Labor (UP has spent $3.2 billion on infrastructure this year and share holders are getting a low return compared to other US companies.) •The Coast Starlight will be 'relaunched' after the current track work is finished. |
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After Mr.
Kummant's speech, Chris "The Amazing" Guenzler, spoke with Alex
about his approaching 1 million miles ridden on trains, and gave him a
letter inviting him to the celebration in LaPlata, MO, in April.
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 Anton L.
"CoastStarlight99," right in dark shirt, wanted a picture of him
shaking Mr. Kummant's hand. I did get a picture of Anton politely
waiting, then the gavel called us back to the meeting and I only got
Mr. Kummant, (right), after shaking
Anton's hand. That may have been the only time all day that Mr.
Kummant smiled.
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 Richard Phelps,
back to camera, has become a Vice President of Transportation in
Washington. We know Richard in the west as the head of Amtrak
here.
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 Moderator:
Art Lloyd, Vice President RailPAC
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 Bill Bronte, Division of Rail, Chief - Caltrans The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th highest ridership
corridors are in California with 20% of Amtrak's ridership.
Propositions gave needed money to get CalTrain, Calif. Amtrak, and the
Coaster going. California needs to segway with the current Amtrak
Bill.
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 Ross Capon, Executive Director NARP Long-distance trains are 47% of Amtrak's
revenue with 5.4 billion passenger miles. Amtrak is the only public transportation to a
growing number of smaller cities. Travelers need an alternative
to flying. Amtrak is the only train
for 23 states. PRIIA (S. 294) requires monitoring of on-time
performance. Amtrak uses less energy than planes and cars by
18%. Jet fuel is outpacing domestic fares. The Carbon Cost
of a trip is best by rail. Rail can sell carbon credits to
airlines when this goes into effect in 2009 in California.
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 Andrew Selden, United Rail Passenger Alliance Business strategy is the problem with
Amtrak. Amtrak mis-measures ridership. Pacific Surfliner
really increased profitability when it expanded north of Los
Angeles. Amtrak is investing $1 billion+ each year in the wrong
areas and not getting growth. He would: 1. Throw out
the route accounting. 2. Leverage the fleet assets to more
than the Acela Route which is getting negative profitability.
3. Pay frieght lines more for the use of their property.
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Governor
Michael Dukakis Former Amtrak Director 1988, Mr.
Dukakis was the Democratic Presidential Candidate. (He was
nominated in Atlanta and said today, "I peaked in Atlanta.") Governor
of Massachusetts 1974-78 and 82-90. He was on the Amtrak Board of
Directors 1998 - 2003.
Today he arrived on the Red Line and spoke first about three things 1. Northeast. He recently spoke at a regional summit about a megalopolis developing in the Northeast, including 12 states down to Virginia. He spoke about the infrastructure needed to serve the growing economy and population. Solution: A First Class High Speed Transit System between cities. 2. California. Mr. Dukakis is baffled by the CA state transportation policy with new proposals for highways since the transportation proposition passed. He credits Mayor V. of L.A. for transportation improvements. He said, The joy of the Pacific Surfliner is being able to look out at the poor people on the I-5...when are they going to stop widening the I-5? The first High Speed Rail Line in North America will be in Mexico (laughter). No, really, it will be from Guadalahara to Mexico City. High Speed Rail is the biggest Calif. state issue for the next 20 years. 3. The Next Presidential Election is Very Important. Impress upon the people running for President the importance of High Speed Rail and City Corridors. Be at political appearances and support a first class national rail passenger system and first class commuter rail systems. You (the audience) have no idea how important you are in influencing political candidates to support first class rail in the United States. |
 Moderator: Dennis Lytton, NARP Director |
 Mike McGinley,
Retired Southern Pacific Railroad and Metrolink.
Mr. McGinley responded to questions after Paul Dyson's Power Point Presentation. He wants to make sure that rights-of-way are not sold from old abandoned railroads. High speed rail can go to 5 - 6% grades when freight, and their abandoned rights-of-way, go to 2%. Thus, using old rights-of-way for high speed rail means miles of 2% grade when shorter routes could be used at higher percentages to cross the mountains to connect S.F. and L.A. |
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Paul Dyson, President RailPAC Mr. Dyson had a
Power Point with some of the points:
Southern California has: 64 stations 963 route miles (LOSSAN Corridor + Metrolink) 186 week day trains 3 main line rail operators 20 million+ potential customers Heavily congested freeways All the projects you've heard about today need money. There will never be enough government money. Switzerland comparison. Switzerland is roughly the size of CA from Santa Barbara to Indio. They have 250 rail and bus operators and still do transit on one ticket all day every day on all parts of the system. What Mr. Dyson feels we need in L.A. are: LAUS run-through tracks Laguna Niguel to Chatsworth Spine among other suggestions. |
 Moderator: James Smith, Vice President RailPAC |
 Melvin Clark, Deputy Executive Officer, Metro Rail Future Plans: • Eastside Extension,
6-miles in 2009 are opening. Some subway, but mostly street
running
• Light rail connecting the Blue Line to Culver City with new lightrail cars to operate on all lines with the flip of a switch, the 2550 Rail Vehicle. • Some thoughts to a "Subway to the Sea" as well. His philosophy, If we are not going fast, it is not Rapid Transit." |
 Bart Reed, Executive Director, The Transit Coalition Mr. Reed posed
a couple of questions, and
gave the answers he has researched:
• Why doesn't the Green Line go to the
airport? The
airport is in the parking business, and a rail line to the airport
would lessen parking.
• What about the People Mover? Originally it was to go from a parking lot to the airport. Now thoughts are for the greenline to go to the airport instead of a People Mover, so there would not be two imcompatible systems. |
 Jerard Wright, Vice President, The Transit Coalition Jerard spoke to
a downtown regional connector to
fill the gap, connecting the Green, Gold, and Red Lines to make one
regional system. This would change from the current "88 towns in
search of a city," using air rights (bases of new high rise buildings
to include subway station space and track.)
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 Dan Leavitt, Assistant Executive Director, California High Speed Rail Authority Mr. Leavitt first thanked all attendees for staying for this late portion of the conference. He then showed the current 10 minute 18 sec. video about California High Speed Rail available online at: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ (scroll down the page and select the format) Thanks to Steve Grande's posting of this site the previous week at TrainWeb.com, I had seen it. I still learned these facts from the video: By 2030, there will be 50 million people in California. This train will travel up to 220 mph in rural Central California. It will take under 1 hr. 20 mins. from San Diego to LA, 20 minutes from LA to Anaheim, 1:30 LA to Fresno, 2:30 from LA to San Francisco. They expect 100 million passengers per year by 2030. It will be an electrified train. (Author's comment: I had heard at another Conference how much more efficient electrified trains are than diesel since, "they don't have to carry the electric power plant.") It will use rail and freeway corridors to minimize the impact on wetlands and wildlife. It will stop in City Centers. Separated grades will help eliminate traditional crossings where cars and trucks have to stop. Finally, this High Speed Rail is a solution to the Global Warming Problem. Mr. Leavitt said there were both shorter (4 min.) and longer (20 min.) versions of this video being made for use on PBS. He also said that more recent models of the California High Speed Rail show 86-117 million riders with $2.6 - 3.9 million revenues by 2030. This is based on rising gas prices ($3.00+ per gallon on this date) and rising air travel prices. Project implementation is now funded by CA Legislature. LA to Anaheim and LA to Palmdale public meetings will be held first, between April and September. The Bond Issue will be on the 2008 ballot for California High Speed Rail, after being delayed being on the ballot by 2 or more years for various reasons. |
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