Another Suicide by Metrolink?

Looks like it:

A 51-year-old Fullerton man was struck and killed by a Metrolink train in Anaheim, police said.

Police were called about 10:10 p.m. Thursday to the southbound tracks between La Palma Avenue and Sycamore Street, Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.

Officers found a man on the tracks. The man, whose identity has not been released, was pronounced dead at the scene, Dunn said.

The passenger train was en route from Fullerton to Oceanside.

The 800 block of Sycamore was closed in both directions for several hours as police investigated the fatality.

"The investigation is continuing as to what exactly happened that caused the collision," Dunn said.

This happens way too often and the poor locomotive engineers can't do a thing about it. They just have to watch it happen.

Airlines Doing Their Part To Encourage Train Travel

In the 50's the airlines began seriously taking traveling customers away from trains, thus ending the dominance of trains on many routes and essentially ending privately owned passenger train service by 1970.  Today the airlines are doing what they can to drive people back to the railroads with their never-ending fare and fee increases:

If you’re flying this summer, be prepared to kiss your family goodbye at the gate. Even if they’re on the same plane.

Airlines are reserving a growing number of window and aisle seats for passengers willing to pay extra. That’s helping to boost revenue but also making it harder for friends and family members who don’t pay this fee to sit next to each other. At the peak of the summer travel season, it might be nearly impossible.

Buying tickets two or more months in advance makes things a little easier. But passengers are increasingly finding that the only way to sit next to a spouse, child or friend is to shell out $25 or more, each way.

With base fares on the rise — the average round-trip ticket this summer is forecast by Kayak.com to be $431, or 3 percent higher than last year — some families are reluctant to cough up more money.

Southwest Airlines has to be loving this because they still don't charge baggage fees and since they don't assign seats, there are no seat fees either. There's simply no reason to fly any other airline on routes served by Southwest.

And on trips of less than 750 miles, I don't see any reason to fly at all.  I can drive that in a day easily and I don't have to get a TSA groping to do it.  And, thanks to Obama, traffic won't be all that bad:

Change you can believe in: “Traffic congestion dropped 30 percent last year from 2010 in the USA’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, driven largely by higher gas prices and a spotty economic recovery, according to a new study by a Washington-state firm that tracks traffic flows.”

All Aboard!

Heading to Union Station in Los Angeles for National Train Day.  I may post some photos as the day goes on.

One of the trains on display will be Santa Fe Steam Locomotive 3751.  I've videotaped that engine in action several times, the last time in 2010:

National Train Day

Looking for something fun to do on Saturday?  This weekend is National Train Day with events being held all over the country.  You can click on the link to find events in your area.

Los Angeles will have a big celebration at Union Station and thanks to Metrolink's $10 weekend pass it's pretty cheap to get up there.

 We're going to board the 9:16 am out of Laguna Niguel and that will get us to Union Station by 10:40.  That train stops in Oceanside, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano before we get on, and Irvine, Tustin, Santa Ana, Orange, Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park, and Norwalk before arriving in Los Angeles.  I imagine a lot of other folks will have the same idea and the train will be packed.  We'll ride the 4:40 home.

The displays at Union Station are free, but I'm sure there will be some significant lines for some of the stuff.  If things are too crowded we may take advantage of the free transfers to the subway system and head off somewhere else for awhile.  There are a lot of options.

If nothing else, riding the train past the I-5 freeway traffic will be worth the trip.  And it seems like something interesting always happens when we're on the Metrolink.  Somebody gets arrested, cited for an improper tickets, there are dead guys along the track...always something.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Enjoying God's Creation in Northern Arizona

We're going to be enjoying God's creation a little differently than the standard Easter services today.  Here's where we are:

That's the Grand Canyon Railway. We'll be departing from Williams, AZ about 9:30 and headed to the South Rim.

I paid a little extra to ride in one of the Scenic Dome cars. Our view today will look something like this:


GCR Dome Car in ArizonaIf I have time I'll probably post some photos of the trip and the Grand Canyon, but most of them will probably wait until we get home. I'm taking video and stills on this trip.

For how, here's a promo video put out by the Grand Canyon Railway that will give you an idea of how we'll be spending the next couple of days:

Third Suicide by Metrolink This Month

This is happening way too often:

A woman was struck and killed by a Metrolink train near the Anaheim station Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Police officers about 5:30 p.m. responded to reports of a woman struck by a train on the tracks near East Sycamore Street and North East Street, Anaheim police Sgt. Robert Dunn said.

A passerby reported that the woman had laid down on the tracks before being struck and killed, Dunn said. She has not been identified.

The person was struck by Metrolink No. 604, according to Metrolink's official Twitter feed. Passengers and other commuters were transferred to other trains and buses.

The accident marks the third time this month that someone has been struck and killed by a Metrolink train.

As I've said before, I feel bad for the engineers and conductors who have to deal with these things. If someone decides to throw their life away in front of their train there's just not much they can do about it.

Harry Reid's Train From Nowhere

It goes somewhere - Las Vegas - but it starts in nowhere:

VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- On a dusty, rock-strewn expanse at the edge of the Mojave Desert, a company linked to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to build a bullet train that would rocket tourists from the middle of nowhere to the gambling palaces of Las Vegas.

Privately held DesertXpress is on the verge of landing a $4.9 billion loan from the Obama administration to build the 150 mph train, which could be a lifeline for a region devastated by the housing crash or a crap shoot for taxpayers weary of Washington spending.

The vast park-and-ride project hinges on the untested idea that car-loving Californians will drive about 100 miles from the Los Angeles area, pull off busy Interstate 15 and board a train for the final leg to the famous Strip.

Planners imagine that millions of travelers a year will one day flock to a station outside down-on-its-luck Victorville, a small city where shuttered storefronts pock the historic downtown.

From my house to the proposed station is right about 100 miles and given that I'm a big fan of trains, I'd probably be considered a prime candidate to use this service.

I won't.

If I've already driven 100 miles I'm going to go ahead and drive the remaining 175 to Las Vegas and get there and leave there on my schedule. I'm not going to leave my car in middle of the desert just to save an hour off the trip. And that doesn't take into consideration the cost of the train tickets which are certainly going to be more than the cost of gas.

This is a political payoff, nothing more.

Another Suicide by Metrolink

Boy, there have been a lot of these lately:

A train struck and killed a pedestrian in Fullerton on Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Officers about 3:15 p.m. responded to reports of a train striking a pedestrian near State College Boulevard and Valencia Drive, Fullerton police Lt. John Siko said.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene, according to MetroNet, a fire dispatch service. It wasn't immediately clear if the victim was a man or woman.

Investigators are talking to witnesses to determine whether the death was an accident or a suicide, police said.

Metrolink officials confirmed that one of their trains was involved in the incident.

Metrolink No. 705 was traveling between the West Corona and the Fullerton stations, according to the official Metrolink Twitter feed.

No riders or crew members were injured, said Sherita Coffelt, a Metrolink spokeswoman.

I really feel sorry for the train engineers. I'm guessing some of these guys have had more than one of these incidents and that's got to take a terrible toll, even if there was nothing they could do to prevent the collision.

Canadian Pacific Trains Taking Up the Energy Slack Caused by Keystone Cancellation

At least somebody's doing something:

A Canadian railroad carrying millions of barrels of oil to Gulf refineries is hurtling full steam ahead through the Obama administration's block of the Keystone pipeline.

The amount of oil Canadian Pacific Railways carries down through the heartland has surged 2,500 percent since 2009, to 8.5 million barrels per year from just 325,000. The company expects to move 45 million barrels per year within the decade.

“We are responding to a growing demand,” Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for Canadian Pacific told FoxNews.com. “There has been unprecedented growth in the energy industry.”

The Calgary-based railroad is one of two that carries oil down from Canada's tar sands, but Canadian Pacific also carries thousands of barrels per day to the Gulf from North Dakota's booming Bakken Formation oil fields.

Experts estimate shipping by rail instead of pipeline adds anywhere from $5 to $10 to the price of a barrel, not to mention the high-capacity, 24-7 flow a pipeline affords. Rep. Fred Upton, (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says the explosive growth of oil delivery by rail underscores the missed opportunity of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that became bogged down by environmental concerns and was ultimately tabled by the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Senate.

"We need to be doing all we can to develop our resources, particularly now, with rising gasoline prices and the threat of supply disruptions overseas," Upton told FoxNews.com. "Most observers acknowledge that rail transport is the best option we currently have to get this oil down to the refineries -- but the Keystone XL pipeline presents us with a better alternative."

My friends in Harvey, ND have commented to me before about the huge trains they see pulling dozens of oil cars through their area on the way to refineries in the south. For those who panicked over the relatively small environmental risk posed by the pipeline, how do they feel about diesel belching locomotives - probably four to a train - traveling hundreds of miles through the country pulling huge tankers full of oil? What kind of damage would be done if there was a major derailment and fire?

Environwackos just don't think these things through.

Metrolink Hits a Pedestrian in San Clemente

This from the Metrolink Twitter feed:

IEOC Service Disruption Metrolink Train 851 struck a person by the San Clemente station. Calling buses to get passengers from incident...

I was just down there the other day and shot some video in that same area.

The OC Register is starting to cover the story here.

A Metrolink train fatally struck a person Monday afternoon between the San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente stations, Metrolink officials said.

The fatal crash occurred at about 12:15 p.m. in the 35000 block of Beach Road, authorities said.

The crash involved train No. 851 on the Inland Empire-Orange County line, which was headed southbound from Riverside to Oceanside, said Metrolink spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt.

Being that the area in question is single-tracked, until they move the Metrolink train nothing else will get through there, so Amtrak service will be disrupted too.

This Is Why They Call It "The Surfliner"

We headed back to the San Clemente Beach Trail this afternoon, the site of my recent crash and burn, and I just happened to be in a good spot to video the southbound Amtrak Pacific Surfliner as it passed along San Clemente Beach.

Another Suicide by Train in Orange County

There have been so many of these it must be tough to be a Metrolink locomotive engineer these days:

A southbound Metrolink train fatally struck a person Monday morning in Orange, authorities said.

The incident was reported just before 6:40 a.m. at Collins Avenue and Batavia Street, according to MetroNet, a fire dispatch service.

Orange police Sgt. Dan Adams said the train was headed sout just north of Collins Avenue when the conductor saw a man standing on the tracks.

"The train struck the male, who did not attempt to get out of the way, leading us to believe this may have been a suicide," Adams said.

The man died at the scene and the 108 passengers were not injured, Adams said.

I was actually thinking about taking advantage of the Metrolink's 2-for-1 fare special today and riding the same train line out to Riverside. Glad I changed my mind.

Big Obama Supporter Will Benefit From the Keystone XL Cancelation

Imagine my surprise:

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

The State Department denied TransCanada a permit on Jan. 18, saying there was not enough time to study the proposal by Feb. 21, a deadline Congress imposed on President Barack Obama. Calgary-based TransCanada has said it intends to re-apply with a route that avoids an environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska, something the Obama administration encouraged.

The rail option, though costlier, would lessen the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity, compared to the pipeline, according to the State Department analysis. Greenhouse gas emmissions, however, would be worse.

So, Obama cancels Keystone and gets a twofer - he appeases the environuts and potentially makes big bucks for a major supporter. Meanwhile, 20,000 Americans won't get good manufacturing jobs and America won't get 900,000 barrels of oil a day from our most reliable neighbor.

I believe Newt described the Keystone decision as "stunningly stupid". He was correct.

Bizarre Lawsuit Over a Train Accident

Train vs. pedestrian accidents are not that uncommon.  There have been multiple incidents in Southern California in the past year, many of the suicides.

However, a case from Chicago is particularly interesting given that the dead man's estate is being sued by someone who was struck by his flying body:

Ruling in what it called a "tragically bizarre" case, an appeals court found that the estate of a man killed by a train while crossing the Edgebrook Metra station tracks can be held liable after a part of his body sent airborne by the collision struck and injured a bystander.

In 2008, Hiroyuki Joho, 18, was hurrying in pouring rain with an umbrella over his head, trying to catch an inbound Metra train due to arrive in about five minutes when he was struck by a southbound Amtrak train traveling more than 70 mph.

A large portion of his body was thrown about 100 feet on to the southbound platform, where it struck Gayane Zokhrabov, then 58, who was waiting to catch the 8:17 a.m. train to work. She was knocked to the ground, her leg and wrist broken and her shoulder injured.

A Cook County judge dismissed Zokhrabov's lawsuit against Joho's estate, finding that Joho could not have anticipated Zokhrabov's injuries.

A state appeals court, after noting that the case law involving "flying bodies" is sparse, has disagreed, ruling that "it was reasonably foreseeable" that the high-speed train would kill Joho and fling his body down the tracks toward a platform where people were waiting.

Leslie Rosen, who handled Zokhrabov's appeal, said that while the circumstances of the case were "very peculiar and gory and creepy," it ultimately was a straightforward negligence case, no different than if a train passenger had been injured after the engineer hit the brakes.

"If you do something as stupid as this guy did, you have to be responsible for what comes from it," she said.

Being in Cook County, not only can the dead be sued, but he'll be able to vote for Obama in the coming election.

It'll Be a Little Quieter in San Clemente

Having walked the beach trail in San Clemente many times I know how noisy it can get down there when the frequent Amtrak, Metrolink, and BNSF freight trains pass through town.  The authorities are trying to make things a little less noisy for the neighbors in the very expensive ocean-side homes:

San Clemente and the Orange County Transportation Authority have scheduled a ceremony for 9:30 a.m. Dec. 21 to herald the launch of a railroad Quiet Zone at two train crossings in North Beach.

The public is invited.

Safety improvements installed by OCTA and the city led to the designation of a Quiet Zone, meaning trains no longer will be required to blast their horns four times when approaching each crossing. The driver of the train still will sound the horn upon seeing danger ahead.

At the Dec. 21 ceremony, announced by the city Tuesday, dignitaries will unveil signs designating the Quiet Zone at the entrance to Capistrano Shores Mobile Home Park and at the pedestrian entrance to North Beach.

Both railroad crossings have been upgraded with more-effective gates and an escape door for pedestrians who find themselves caught between the gates and the tracks after the gates come down. Fencing has been added along the tracks to prevent pedestrians from using them as a shortcut to the beach.

This will work until some surfer climbs the fence and gets wiped out by an approaching train. Trains are surprisingly quiet until they get right to you. I've been walking that trail and had a train suddenly appear right next to me that I didn't hear until the last moment.

Metrolink Holiday Toy Express

We decided to go over to the Irvine Amtrak Station and see the Metrolink Holiday Toy Express.  They collect toys, in conjunction with local fire departments, for needy kids.  They also put on a show for the folks assembled at the station, and there were quite a few people out there.  The train runs a number of weekends and will eventually cover every Metrolink station.  The schedule is here.

Here are some photos:

Grandson of Disney Legend Driving Steam Trains at Disneyland Today

This is kind of an interesting story for those of us who are rail fans:

For many, trips to Disneyland are a family tradition.

But for Nate Lord, it’s working at Disneyland that carries on a family tradition.

Lord is one of the engineers on the Disneyland Railroad, a collection of old-time steam trains that circle the park. One of the trains Lord drives is named the Ward Kimball — after Lord’s grandfather, one of Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men, and a Disney legend. Those men were Disney’s top animators on the films that made his company famous.

Kimball was known for his humor, which helped with what some consider his best work, the crow scene in Dumbo.

Kimball had a lifelong fascination with trains, even taking his wife to the tracks in Los Angeles on their first date.

“He was a big train enthusiast,” Lord said. “He had the first backyard railroad, and that inspired Walt (Disney) to build his own railroad.”

As in, the Disneyland Railroad, Disneyland’s first attraction. As in, the very tracks that Lord chugs along.

There's more of the story at the link.

When Lord mentions his grandfather's backyard railroad, I'm not sure what image that brings to mind, but let me show you the locomotive Ward Kimball was running on his property. I saw it on display at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in 2008:

That's not little garden railway, but a full blown steam locomotive that, as I remember the story, was purchased from a pineapple plantation in Hawaii where it had been a working train. Along with the locomotive was a tender and passenger car. That must have been a lot of fun to drive around.

California Bullet Train Costs Triple, and Yet Gov. Moonbeam Will Support It

If this ever gets built there's no way it will ever operate at a profit:

Faster than a speeding bullet train, the cost of the state's massive high-speed rail project has zoomed to nearly $100 billion -- triple the estimate given to voters and more than enough to run the entire state government for a year.

What's more, bullet trains won't be up and running until at least 2033, much later than the original estimate of 2020, although that depends on the state finding the remaining 90 percent of the funds needed to complete the plan.

The new figures come from a final business plan to be unveiled by the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Tuesday, though some of the details were leaked to the media, including this newspaper, on Monday. Officials at the rail authority did not respond to repeated requests for comment Monday.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday was expected to endorse the long-awaited plan, the first major update to the project in two years and the last before the federal deadline to begin construction next year. But state legislators, who were already skeptical, will tear through the plan starting Tuesday before deciding whether to start building, or to kill the project.

The new business plan pegs the price tag at $98.5 billion, accounting for inflation -- more than double the estimate of $42.6 billion from two years ago, when it was already the priciest public works development in the nation. It's a little less than triple the estimate of $33.6 billion voters were told when they approved the project in 2008. By comparison, the total state budget this year is $86 billion.

What I predict will happen is this thing will suck up billions of dollars before the project is finally abandoned. And in various parts of California there will be old right-of-way cuts, bits of rail infrastructure, and little else to remind taxpayers of this entire folly.

Republican Governors Chris Christie in New Jersey and Scott Walker in Wisconsin were smart enough to cancel their high speed rail projects when it became obvious they were going to go grossly over-budget.  Unfortunately, Gov. Moonbeam is not that bright.

Train Versus Pedestrian Near the Fullerton Amtrak Station

I'm hearing Fullerton Fire being dispatched on an Amtrak versus pedestrian accident in or near the Fullerton Amtrak station.  Police and fire are looking for the victim.

UPDATE:  Sounds like the incident actually occurred near the Buena Park Metrolink station which is just past the Fullerton airport.  OCFA is handling.

UPDATE 2:  From the OC Register:

One person was killed after being struck by a train in Buena Park on Wednesday night, authorities said.

Crews just before 9 p.m. responded to reports of someone being struck by a Metrolink train on the tracks near Lakeknoll Drive and Dale Street, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Marc Stone said.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene, Stone said. Authorities haven't determined the victim's gender.

The Vegas Train

Sign me up:

City officials have jumped on board with a proposal to run regular train service between Southern California and Las Vegas.

Fullerton's downtown station is one of the few stops on the proposed service's route, and city officials see an opportunity to hit the jackpot with Vegas-bound travellers taking advantage of downtown businesses.

The service has been dubbed the "X Train" by Las Vegas Railway Express Inc., the private company looking to start trains rolling in late 2012.

The ride would take about 4½ hours from Fullerton to the train's arrival in downtown Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Railway Express Chief Executive Officer Michael Barron said his company has made Fullerton its starting point because of the city's historic Santa Fe Railway station, downtown's cafés and bars, and most importantly, its central location in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

With all the cars headed up and down I-15 I don't know why this hasn't been done before now. The track is all there - you can see BNSF and UP freight trains moving along the freeway all the way to Vegas, so if they can negotiate a good deal on track rights, this should be a pretty easy thing to set up.

If the hotels in Downtown Las Vegas are smart they'd also get behind this, because the train station for all these people will be in downtown, not on The Strip. They could really pick up some business if 1,100 people step off the train at their front door.

I probably wouldn't take the train every time I went to Vegas, but I'd definitely try it at least once.