Mandatory railroad content:
Rainfall fills our reservoirs, some of which
produce hydroelectric power, some of which is
used to power the Muni's LRVs and trolley buses
and historic streetcars. But if reservoir levels
are too low, there will not be enough water to
make all that nice electricity Muni needs.

And Sacramento's LRVs run on electricity, some of
which is from hydroelectric cources. (Please correct
me if I am wrong. TIA!)

This will also have a huge effect on CalTrain's
plans to electrify its line between SF and San Jose,
because -- please correct me if I am wrong --
California gets one-third of its electricity from
hydroelectric sources. Less rainfall and less snowfall =
less electricity from hydroelectric sources.

Not having enough rainfall and snowfall to properly
power hydroelectric plants is a huge problem for
our fair state. This does affect light rail systems.

And this horrible drought will affect the operations
of steam locomotives, as that will never be seen as an
"essential" use of our very scarce water. (Doing the
math, I found that one 12,000-gallon tender full of
water would last the average person in the US -- who
uses 100 gallons of water per day for indoor use --
almost 4 months! This does NOT include watering any
plants of lawns. I am quite concerned that this drought
\will put an end to operating all steam locomotives in
the US west.

So, mook -- is this enough RR content?

To others who just might be interested in what I have to say
on the non-RR aspects of this huge proble of our horrible drought:

How can paying money create rail and snow when it
does not fall?

Yes -- California is full, but we all are part of the problem,
not only the brown-skinned people who are here illegally --
to do work we white folks refuse to do -- such as wash our
dishes at restaurants, mow our lawns, etc.harvest the huge
amounts of food we all need, You, too, can work in the
broiling heat of a Central Valley summer, being sprayed
with dangerous pesticides, with no decent restrooms or
sources of water to drink. No one is stopping you from
taking those jobs.

And as far as using too much of our very limited amount of
water here in California goes, what about wealthy people
and their swimming pools and huge lawns? What about the
orchardists who are still growing almond trees -- which need
one gallon of water per almond? and what about our appetite
for beef? To get one pound of edible beef, it takes 2,500 gallons
of water! Newsweek once put it another way: "the water that goes
into a 1,000 pound steer would float a destroyer..". This, also is a\
huge problem -- which has nothing really to do with the color of a
person's skin or their economic status, but what we eat. There is
not enough rain now with this horrible drought for farmers to grow
enough hay for all their cattle, so some of them have already
moved out of California. And the feds are not going to give any
water at all to a number of farmers and growers in the Central Valley.
\
This is a problem we all are part of creating, not just illegal aliens.
And the problems was caused long ago by the State of California's
decision to deal with California's normally dry conditions by using
engineering -- that is, by building the California Water Project --
the biggest public works project in California's history -- and not by
planning to live within our means as far as water is concerned.
Building that Project allowed California's population to explode,
and laid the foundation for our present problem with this horrible
drought.

California simply cannot handle the huge number of people now
living and visiting here. There are just far too many straws
in the glass.