Think what you want, but don't ascribe my comments to Judy Arnold.

I would think you'd have read the November 27th letter from Stogner
to Lillian Hames on the question of sidings. It states:

"All of the existing sidings are expected to be used. All of the sidings that were
previously proposed by NCRA and NWP and that are shown in Volume 2 of the
“Preliminary Engineering Drawings” of SMART Working Paper #5 are expected to
be used. (See Drawing Nos. PP-081 through PP-083, PP-139 through PP-143, PP-
161, PP-190 through PP-191, PP-194 through PP-195, and PP-210 through PP-213 in
Working Paper No. 5.) In addition, NWP Co. is currently planning new sidings at the
following locations:
i. MP 63.4 to MP 64.4, near Lombard
ii. ES 1834+00 (PP-081) to ES 1873+00 (PP-084)
iii. ES 2486+00 (PP-126) to ES 2569+50 (PP-132)
iv. ES 2569+50 (PP-132) to ES 2617+00 (PP-135)"

Meanwhile, SMART DSEIR on the location of sidings, states

"SMART does not propose any new sidings in addition to those studied in the 2006
FEIR. NCRA may well develop new sidings for their use, dependent on market and other conditions,
but NCRA has not finalized freight siding locations at this time (See 2006 FEIR Master Response O). The NCRA Initial Study stated that all existing freight sidings would be utilized. In a letter dated November 27, 2007, NCRA identified four possible new freight siding locations, three of which would be along the corridor shared with the proposed SMART project. These possible new sidings are in locations where freight railcars would be stored, loaded and unloaded and would not be used for SMART/freight “meets.”3 In addition, the NCRA November 2007 letter stated that sidings identified in SMART’s Working Paper #5 (Parsons Brinckerhoff, 2003) would also be developed and used for freight operations. In January 2008, NCRA (NCRA, 2008) followed up with a letter clarifying that siding locations previously identified had not been finalized and that locations may be changed or modified based on future freight clients and market variables. Given the preliminary and uncertain nature of information on freight sidings, this SEIR analysis is necessarily qualitative."

You seem to know these operational details. The key public issue associated with the sidings
is their location, because if they're close to humans and used for idling locomotives, they can and do cause a great deal of grief. At least they have in Richmond.

As to your issues about the second track, I've always assumed both the NCRA and SMART
would be better off with a second track. For some reason, they haven't wanted to tell the
public about the advantages and costs. Maybe this is because even they can't cook the financial
books that much and would have to admit that they need a 1/2 cent sales tax to fund the
rail service they propose. (This is something that will not fly with Sonoma taxpayers, let alone Marin taxpayers.)

Again, thank you for your operational insights. Maybe SMART and NCRA staff could take a few pointers from you as to how to clarify the inconsistencies in their public statements
and presentations.