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Re: Coast Ghost (aka Medflyer....) and the Daylight
Author: BOB2
Date: 01-26-2017 - 16:17
The Daylight dead, probably not quite, but neither is it at all imminent.
The Coast Line covering the increasingly congested, and many places gridlocded 101 for almost it's entire length, is another example of failed state rail policy. LOSSAN is doing some good things to improve capacity, with very limited funds, in Santa Barbara and SLO Counties, VCTC has become useless since Ginger left, and LACMTA is actually holding back projects like the SFV Double Track completion, to suck up to a scare mongering mob and a pandering Nimby Councilman........
Imagine a billion dollars spent and LOSSAN South levels of all day dirct service on the entire Coast between LAUPT and SFO, instead of amounts being wasted on the fiasco currently being built between Chowchilla and Fresno.......
I only got to ride the Coast Ghost (aka "Medflyer")once, overnight from LAUPT to Sacto. with Byron Nordberg and a few other hardy folks from the old "Citizens for Rail California", for a rail advocacy conference. That was long ago, long before the "religious schism" of competing egos, that formed the two fairly useless rail advocacy organizations we have today. It took the leadership skills of a Marine Lt. Colonel like Nordberg to maintain the kind of "discipline" for such an organizaion to be effective, and his passing was a great loss.
Service, amenities, and schedule on the Coast Ghost were horrible, it was designed to fail from the start by Caltrans "Divison of Fail" which didn't want to do it in the first place, and was an Amtrak "orphan" train that recieved no effective marketing.
The Coast Line covering the increasingly congested, and many places gridlocded 101 for almost it's entire length, is another example of failed state rail policy. LOSSAN is doing some good things to improve capacity, with very limited funds, in Santa Barbara and SLO Counties, VCTC has become useless since Ginger left, and LACMTA is actually holding back projects like the SFV Double Track completion, to suck up to a scare mongering mob and a pandering Nimby Councilman........
Imagine a billion dollars spent and LOSSAN South levels of all day dirct service on the entire Coast between LAUPT and SFO, instead of amounts being wasted on the fiasco currently being built between Chowchilla and Fresno.......
I only got to ride the Coast Ghost (aka "Medflyer")once, overnight from LAUPT to Sacto. with Byron Nordberg and a few other hardy folks from the old "Citizens for Rail California", for a rail advocacy conference. That was long ago, long before the "religious schism" of competing egos, that formed the two fairly useless rail advocacy organizations we have today. It took the leadership skills of a Marine Lt. Colonel like Nordberg to maintain the kind of "discipline" for such an organizaion to be effective, and his passing was a great loss.
Service, amenities, and schedule on the Coast Ghost were horrible, it was designed to fail from the start by Caltrans "Divison of Fail" which didn't want to do it in the first place, and was an Amtrak "orphan" train that recieved no effective marketing.
