As far as I am aware there is exactly one rail transit system where one can ride to an international border and that's the San Diego Trolley's Blue Line. Because Los Angeles is on my black list of cities with poor urban planning that I will never set foot in, this year's cross country Amtrak trip began with a 24 hour stay in San Diego where the ( Read more... )

Wow, its only March and I am already posting photos of the M-W-T. It seems that my year long effort to reign in my photo backlog is finally starting to pay off :-) Anyway unlike the previous two M-WT's which were marred by first snow then rain, this one was a non-qualified success with around 18 participants showing up despite the rather cloudy ( Read more... )

Ever since the new Siemens Blue Line cars arrived a few years ago I have been trying to get out and ride them for more than a stop or two downtown. Well this year on a trip up to New Hampshire I had some extra time making my connection between North and South stations and so I decided to head out on a trip to Reveah Beach (as I wasn't sure if ( Read more... )

This kicks off the first part of what will probably be a 7 part series documenting my epic trip on Amtrak's Empire builder last year. The first part of this series will focus on the various Transit alternatives in the Seattle area. These include the SoundTransit Light Rail, the South Lake Union Streetcar, the King County Metro trolleybuses, the ( Read more... )

See, I'm making progress. Last year I was able to use the Mid-Winter Trip IX report as a promotion for Mid-Winter Trip X. This time around I haven't even gotten around to announcing the date, which just happens to be December 27th this year so mark your calenders. Anyway last year the originally planned MWT was postponed a day on account of ( Read more... )

In the second two parter in as many weeks we wrap up my trip to New Orelans and its growing Streetcar system. Unlike the Silverliner Farewell two parter, which warranted a "Previously On", this week I will forgo such formalities because the the way the photos turned out actlly did a nice job breaking things up into two distinct narratives. While ( Read more... )

Before I begin I would like to reassure everyone that I am not trying to spin myself off into a private investigation blog and the next two photo essays were the result of a simple two day tourist trip to the somewhat soggy City of New Orleans. Yes, the Crescent City is on the rebound and after 5 years and a hell of a lot of bleach they almost ( Read more... )

Much like last year, the 2007 RSA conference was held in San Francisco and in case you hadn't noticed a theme from my other photo posts I attended this conference and went around riding rail transit in the old Homeless capitol of the nation. So far I have covered the Caltran Caltrain and cable cars so this post will cover everything else, namely ( Read more... )

Last year when I attended a conference in San Fran I had enough time budgeted to ride the Powell and Hyde cable car lines. This year when I was there for RSA, I decided to ride the remaining, albeit rather boring, California Line. This line runs along California Ave, straight back and forth, with double ended cars. The grades aren't as severe as ( Read more... )

Ok, here is part two of my San Francisco Trip photos. Over the course of the conference I had some time to get around San Fran an ride the various modes of transit. I bought a weekly MUNI pass and tried to ride as many lines as possible. I managed to get out to West Portal, the Light Rail Center at Balboa Parque where the JKM lines terminate. I ( Read more... )