Operations
On the northernmost part, there are four trains per day in each direction; on the stretch from Los Angeles to San Diego, they are more frequent. Thruway Motorcoach connections are available between Santa Barbara and Paso Robles during hours when that part of the Coast Line track is in use by freight trains. The route is named after the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's (now owned by Southern California Regional Rail Authority) Surf Line. Over the years, the number of trains and passengers on the route has increased greatly; in the late 1970s there were only three round trips daily between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Because neither San Diego, San Luis Obispo, nor Goleta is equipped with a usable wye or a turntable, trains running on the Pacific Surfliner are arranged so that the last car of the consist (the Cab Control Car) is one equipped with engineer controls, so that the train can be operated in either direction, allowing for a quick turnaround. This is known as a "push-pull" configuration. Before the cab cars were used on the line, the trains were wyed in San Diego for their return trip. Los Angeles Union Station is a stub off the mainline which means trains leave Los Angeles facing the opposite direction that they enter. The locomotive is at the rear of the train, "pushing" the train from Goleta/San Luis Obispo or San Diego to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles, the train "backs into" the station, and, upon departing the locomotive "pulls" the train to San Diego or Goleta/San Luis Obispo, respectively. Currently a project is being prepared for run-through tracks at Union Station.
The 350-mile (563 km) trip from San Luis Obispo to San Diego usually takes eight and a half hours, for an average speed of 43 mph (69 km/h), including stops. The maximum track speed is typically 60 to 79 miles per hour (97 to 127 km/h) in and north of Los Angeles County; in portions of Orange County and San Diego County, higher track speeds of 90 mph (145 km/h) are afforded due to the usage of ATS. Current track improvements will raise the train's speed to 110 mph (177 km/h).
Much of the Pacific Surfliner's scenic route follows the Pacific coast, although trains travel inland through industrial backlots and expansive farmlands to traverse the Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley. The Pacific Surfliner operates 11 daily trains, each way, between Los Angeles and San Diego on weekdays and 12 trains each way on weekends.
The Pacific Surfliner is usually on time; however, train 796 may be held up to one hour if Train 11 (the Coast Starlight) from Seattle, containing transferring passengers, is delayed. The on-time performance is usually above 75%. Due to increasing conflicts with other lines, train 784 holds the worst on-time performance record currently below 62% as of October 2011.
Though operated by Amtrak, the Pacific Surfliner is primarily financed through funds made available by the State of California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and is operated under the Amtrak California brand. In 1989 local agencies along the corridor along with the host railroads and other stakeholders formed the Los Angeles – San Diego - San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency (LOSSAN) to improve the safety, reliability, capacity, and customer experience along the rail corridor. Recently there has been discussion regarding the local agencies take over administering the service (the SB 457 process much like the Capitol Corridor service has adopted). As of 2007, the route recovers 63% of its operating expenses through ticket sales.
Read more about this topic: Pacific Surfliner
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)