LAUPT run through saves ten minutes per train, for every train entering and leaving LAUPT, because it saves changing ends, which you need to do in a "stub station", even with push-pull operation.

The run-through also shortens the travel distance by over a mile on trains arriving from LOSSAN south and from the UP (with the lower River crossing part of the project). It saves all LOSSAN and ML trains from having to "go around" Union Station and double back, saving another extra duplicative 2 miles of unnecessary reverse running. It also reduces congestion from trying to "stage" peak trains, which cuts the stations "fluidity", and ties up platform space.

These time saving are significant, with upwards of $800 per train hour operating costs. Which is why the cost benefit has been estimated to generate as much as an 8% return on investment, in direct operating cost savings alone. Now, multiply 10 minutes per passenger, for the 50,000 passengers a day going through LAUPT, times the calculated value of personal travel time, every single day, and you see why it is the highest cost benefit return on investment for a commuter or intercity rail improvement in the CA, if not the whole US, as of today.

Now, if only the blurb the CAHSRA were to be true...and this has been fully funded, that's good. It's about time Sou Cal got something that would be truly useful out of this unmitigated ongoing fiasco. It is a good sign, that CAHSRA is "on record" with that. But, this bit of news in the blurb, was not what I've heard, as recently as two weeks ago.