Heavier trains require rails that are both stronger (more steel) and stiffer (taller with a wider base). They also need a beefier foundation for the rails. Finally, tracks that actually connect with the UPRR line at Castroville rather than merely running next to it will be limited to FRA-compliant equipment unless UPRR lets FRA grant a mixed traffic waiver.

US Railcar (formerly Colorado Railcar) does manufacturer FRA-compliant DMU equipment with mechanical rather than series electric transmissions, making it much lighter than the behemoth locomotives Caltrain and Amtrak use today. However, it’s still a good deal heavier than e.g. the UIC-compliant Siemens Desiro DMUs that NCTD uses for its Sprinter service between Escondido and Oceanside in San Diego county.

I think direct service from Monterey to SF and/or Sacramento is a good idea because Monterey is more of a destination than Salinas for anyone but commuters living in the latter city. However, calling the Monterey-Castroville branch line project “light rail’ in this context is misleading, even if it never again carries a single freight train.

But re the intercounty service, I really wish they wouldn’t drag Caltrain into this just for the sake of avoiding a cross-platform connection at Diridon station. If they just focused on Amtrak California service — probably extensions of the Capitol Corridor — I suspect they could get things going sooner and cheaper.

In the consulting business, we joke that we must multiply our cost estimates by the number of agencies involved. It’s not always good to bring more agencies to the table.

First, the Monterey Herald has totally misrepresented the city of Monterey’s position. The council is supportive of the train and wants it to serve downtown Monterey. A former mayor raised concerns about how the train would run through a bayfront park. The train would run along the side of the park, next to a busy thoroughfare, but this was not adequately explained to the council. Further, the council and TAMC came to an informal understanding at the meeting that if TAMC could provide visual simulations of the train through this park, the council would live with TAMC selecting the light rail option.

Second, to Winston’s point, it won’t serve the Aquarium (which is on Cannery Row). The trains will terminate either at Portola Plaza or Custom House Plaza, which are about 1/4 mile apart. There is no ROW available to use to continue the trains on to Cannery Row or to the city of Pacific Grove. PG would like the train to continue on to their city, and residents of the Cannery Row area (like me) would like the train to serve us as well. But since there is no ROW and since the corridor is already squeezed by the Presidio of Monterey, an active military installation, this is too tricky to plan out at this time. I am confident that if this is built as projected, ridership will be high and public demand will be generated for an extension westward to serve Cannery Row and Pacific Grove.

Third, as to service to the Bay Area, TAMC is talking not only with Caltrain, but with the Capitol Corridor about providing service to Castroville (for a cross-platform connection to the DMU service) and to downtown Salinas. Caltrain and TAMC were very close on an operating agreement, but the recent economic downturn and funding cuts have placed this in some uncertainty. Capitol Corridor is interested in serving Monterey County, whether to Salinas or to Monterey along the DMU corridor.

Fourth, as to the phasing, the initial segment stops in Marina because the bridge over the Salinas River (between Marina and Castroville) has to be totally rebuilt. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged the existing bridge (and caused the Highway 1 bridge nearby to be so damaged as to require a total rebuild).

i dont really understand having it end at marina, even temporarily, its seems to me it has to go to castroville or salinas at minimum. and what about extending it up to santa cruz?

i believe newport rhode island has a private DMU line called the islander though i believe it has morphed more into a seasonal excursion train. apparently the plan is to make it into more of shuttle train to bring visitors into newport without the traffic, but theyve gone so far as to bring in RDCs on a barge for this.

Once HSR is built, it would be very nice to have some kind of regular train service to connect Salinas with Gilroy. Caltrain is a possibility, especially since once they switch to non-FRA complaint equipment between San Jose and San Francisco they may end up breaking the railroad in two halves with the compliant half running between Salinas and San Jose and the non-compliant half running between San Jose and San Francisco. Extending the Capitols to Salinas would be another possibility, but doing so would make the capitol corridor awfully long end to end and might harm reliability. There is some money in the HSR bond to do this kind of thing and it would certainly make the Capitols an even better adjunct to HSR.

Nobody would commute from Salinas to San Francisco, but plenty of people commute from Salinas and Santa Cruz county to San Jose. The commuter service being talked about would use Caltrain’s gallery cars, which are the same 1950′s design used by Chicago’s Metra. The extension to Salinas would probably generate a fair number of commuters because the it will also serve Watsonville (Pajaro is a tiny town across the river from the 50,000 person city of Watsonville) and offer southern and central Santa Cruz county (Watsonville, Freedom and Aptos) commuters a faster way to get to San Jose than they currently have.