Regional Trains for Amtrak?

[Alexis Kasperavičius]

Here in Germany, I recently went to another city aboard what they call a "regional train."

Imagine what looks like two passenger cars attached to each other, underneath is what sounds like a bus engine. The sucker moves fast and probably sat 200 people tops.

Why don't we have these in California?

When living in Los Angeles I have to go to San Luis Obispo regularly and have taken the train a few times. They run a long train that I have only seen full on holidays. But on most routes, it stops halfway then you get on a bus for the rest of the ride - increasing the travel time.

It's really a joke as driving takes almost half the time in any case.

Does anyone know if these small trains have been looked into? It seems like it would work well in this circumstance.

[rubbertoe]

Alex,
The Sprinter down in Ocenaside runs from Oceanside to Escondido...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprinter_%28San_Diego_County%29

It is also being planned for the SMART corridor up in Northern California. That will be a 72 mile system...

www.sonomamarintrain.org/

Regional rail trips in the LA area are problematic because there aren't lots of dedicated tracks in place like Europe after they tore down the pacific electric system. And I believe a lot of the track is owned by freight railroads which makes scheduling a nightmare.

RT

[tonyw79sfv]

The San Diego NCTD Sprinter rail cars are definitely German technology like what Alex described for the same trainsets used in Germany: Siemens Desiro class diesel multiple units (DMU). When riding in one with your eyes closed, you'd think you're in a diesel bus due to the same sounds of the train accelerating and changing gears (albiet unlike a bus, gear changes are smoother).

[jeisenbe]

zierke.com/shasta_route/pages/43transit.html
Here is a proposed rural regional train system for the Rouge Valley (Grants Pass, Medford and Ashland) in Southern Oregon, as part of an upgraded Shasta route. The longer route would to connect to HSR in Eugene and Sacramento, with sleeper trains as well as day trains in the Sacramento Valley to Redding: zierke.com/shasta_route/ The website is impressively researched. The author suggests a two-train, two-person system could operate every 30 minutes, better than most bus routes in rural areas, and much faster. Upgrades to the existing rails and simple station platforms would only cost about $30 million (as of the date of the article).

Los Angeles County is dense enough to support more frequent, electrified train services, but many smaller cities along the coasts and in the Central Valley might benefit from similar DMU (diesel multiple unit) trains on exiting, underutilized rail lines.