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Re: Salinas Capitol Corridor=are they a different guage? Huh?
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 09-06-2016 - 01:15
The Capitol Corridor service used to be Caltrans, which is "State", but with the relatively recent formation of the CCJPB, it isn't "the State" anymore but a regional authority. The PCSJPB is also a regional authority. The laws which set up these authorities define the limits of their territories, which for the CCJPB doesn't include Gilroy, WVJct, nor Salinas. On the other hand, from its inception the PCSJPB was set up to go all the way to Salinas. The only problem with either agency running psgr service further than Gilroy is that yellow and gray elephant in the room.
The only 100% Amtrak services in Calif are 5/6, 11/14, what used to be the Chief, and what was the Sunset (I forget the train numbers). The Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins are locally funded intercity rail, for which Amtrak holds the operating contract. I believe the Surfliner service is now a similar sort of set-up (i.e. funding agency+Amtrak).
>I'm confused but I thought that the intercity rail programs of this length were covered under the Federal Amtrak law.
Amtrak used to have a statutory monopoly on intercity rail, both Federally funded (5/6, 11/14, etc.) and locally funded -which includes State funding- (San Joaquins, the San Diegans, etc.). This went away sometime in the early 1990s. With the passage of PIR-IIA (or whatever it's called) this has changed again.
Metrolink, the PCS, MBTA, METRA, VRE, etc. are intracity rail, which is commuter service, and these services have always been contract operations, which is why the operators change occasionally (as in the case of Metrolink: Amtra->Connex->Veiola->Amtrak).
>The "State", through the governance structure of the Capitol Corridors, has "taken over" Amtrak state corridor services here.
Well, that's pretty difficult to do since they never were 100% Amtrak-funded services to begin with.
>The last time I checked, the Federal authority should trump the JPA's lesser State authority,
Apples and oranges -- besides, ever since 1990 the Feds have been backing out of funding all these "local" intercity train services.
>or any supposedly "exclusive" charter to operate that segment in the "Caltrain" charter or granted by state legislation....so what's changed?
The laws, sometime in the early 1990s. Besides, even back in them days, intrastate train services were regulated by the state PUCs, not the ICC.
The only 100% Amtrak services in Calif are 5/6, 11/14, what used to be the Chief, and what was the Sunset (I forget the train numbers). The Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins are locally funded intercity rail, for which Amtrak holds the operating contract. I believe the Surfliner service is now a similar sort of set-up (i.e. funding agency+Amtrak).
>I'm confused but I thought that the intercity rail programs of this length were covered under the Federal Amtrak law.
Amtrak used to have a statutory monopoly on intercity rail, both Federally funded (5/6, 11/14, etc.) and locally funded -which includes State funding- (San Joaquins, the San Diegans, etc.). This went away sometime in the early 1990s. With the passage of PIR-IIA (or whatever it's called) this has changed again.
Metrolink, the PCS, MBTA, METRA, VRE, etc. are intracity rail, which is commuter service, and these services have always been contract operations, which is why the operators change occasionally (as in the case of Metrolink: Amtra->Connex->Veiola->Amtrak).
>The "State", through the governance structure of the Capitol Corridors, has "taken over" Amtrak state corridor services here.
Well, that's pretty difficult to do since they never were 100% Amtrak-funded services to begin with.
>The last time I checked, the Federal authority should trump the JPA's lesser State authority,
Apples and oranges -- besides, ever since 1990 the Feds have been backing out of funding all these "local" intercity train services.
>or any supposedly "exclusive" charter to operate that segment in the "Caltrain" charter or granted by state legislation....so what's changed?
The laws, sometime in the early 1990s. Besides, even back in them days, intrastate train services were regulated by the state PUCs, not the ICC.
