Mike:

1) Caltrain has more than one track. SMART has only one track. If rail promoters
want to widen the row and go for two tracks, they need to speak up now because that would require
another Supplemental EIR. Someone would also have to explain who/how they'd pay
for the additional infrastructure. (SMART has yet to provide any financial plan to
the voters showing how it would fund its passenger rail service.)

2) Passenger trains run in both directions on SMART's single track system. Yes, more
of them run in the peak direction, but ---according to SMART's documents -- plenty still
operate in the opposite direction. How do they do this? With 30 minute frequencies and
sidings. However, this leaves no additional room for freight trains, nor for more frequent
rail service, which is a key determinent of ridership.

3) Freight trains that "could" run during the day could only operate
behind the last train in the morning and the first train in the late afternoon. Yes,
if they were stacked up, theoretically quite a few freight trains could conceivably
make it through without disturbing passenger trains, but so what? It's not how freight
will operate and much depends on the demand for freight service depends
on whether NCRA fulfills its commitment to the state and provides freight service to Eureka.

4) I also think getting Caltrain operational details on freight trains would be very helpful.
as well as the freight trains operating in the east bay. Communities up and down the state are being disturbed by freight rail noise and are in various stages of considering and implementing quiet zones. Given the cost of the infrastructure to qualify as a QZ, They wouldn't be doing this if the freight trains were confined to daylight hours of operation.

5) There is a lot of info on this at www.quietzonesd.info including a video of a freight train blasting its horn in the middle of the night in downtown San Diego. For those interested in communities and stories on rail noise, just google "rail noise quiet zones".