Free Republic

Picture it: A car-free trip to Santa Cruz, for an attractive fare, on a train that took you to the beach in the morning, back home that night, and showed you some great scenery along the way. That describes the Sun Tan Special, operated by the Southern Pacific railroad between San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Cruz on summer weekends and holidays for most of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. It was more than just a conveyance. “[It’s] a happy train, filled with people in a vacation mood,” says a 1940s Southern Pacific flyer. “It gives you six hours on...

Blended route” for the way to San Jose—and beyond. California’s ongoing bullet train project is late, over-budget, and politically assailed everywhere from Sacramento to the White House, but the nearly $80 billion venture still (pardon the term) chugs along, as the High Speed Rail Authority board voted Tuesday for routes that will eventually connect trains to the Bay Area. Out of four route proposals, board members favored a Merced-to-San Jose connection designated Alternative Four, one that “blended configuration between San Jose and Gilroy in the existing Caltrain and Union Pacific Railroad corridors before continuing to a dedicated high-speed rail alignment...

SAN FRANCISCO - The Trump administration announced Monday that it will fully fund a $650 million federal grant for electrification of a San Francisco Bay Area train system that also would help California's high-speed rail project.

In the first big hit to the Bay Area from the Trump administration, newly minted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric — and in the process pretty much killed for high-speed rail coming to San Francisco anytime soon. “It puts the (electrification) project in serious jeopardy,” Caltrain spokesman Seamus Murphy said Friday. Caltrain carries about 60,000 riders a day between the South Bay and San Francisco, but its diesel-driven trains are both costly to operate and slow. Officials see electrification as a way both to increase ridership and save money...

"U.S. Transportation department executive approved grant days before taking job with rail contractor" A top Obama administration executive at the U.S. Department of Transportation approved a $647-million grant for a California rail project in mid-January and less than two weeks later went to work for a Los Angeles-based contractor involved in the project, The Times has learned. The grant provides a significant part of the money required to install a $2-billion electrical power system on the Bay Area’s Caltrain commuter rail system, allowing the rail to retire its diesel locomotives.

That just-announced pact to plow $1.5 billion in high-speed rail money into electrifying Caltrain comes with some mighty major side deals - including a pledge by Bay Area leaders to build a 1.2-mile tunnel through downtown San Francisco to connect the line to the new Transbay Terminal. In the spirit of providing something for everybody, local transportation officials also agreed to go after another $1 billion in federal funds to complete the BART extension to San Jose. That's on top of the $900 million the feds just committed to get BART halfway there from Fremont.

A 47-year-old San Jose man was severely injured Friday night when a group of nine to 15 people robbed and attacked him at the Redwood City Caltrain station, authorities said. Late Saturday, the man remained hospitalized in critical condition, said Caltrain spokeswoman Christine Dunn. She said the man was waiting for a southbound train when he was attacked about 7:30 p.m. and then left on the ground at the station. The assailants fled before police arrived. "This is a very unusual situation," Dunn said. "We have almost 40,000 riders a day who have every reason to feel safe while riding...

In a blow to high-speed-rail critics lobbying for the train line from Los Angeles to end in San Jose, Caltrain officials said Tuesday that the idea would require the same Peninsula track expansion while harming local commuter service and stripping the agency of funding. For riders to take the bullet train from Southern California to San Jose and transfer to an express Caltrain to San Francisco — as some critics and planners have proposed — Caltrain would have to add tracks or eliminate commute service to accommodate them, said Bob Doty, Caltrain's joint high-speed-rail program director. As a result, whether...