Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

One of the most impressive events of a three-week-plus vacation to England was the ability to travel where we wanted to go almost whenever we wanted without the need for an auto rental.  Most of this was by rail or The Tube (London subway).  And it was affordable.  Even missing your station became an adventure.

Now we struggle to pay for our auto mode of transportation when rail is an obvious answer.  Reading about the ACE train brought the idea, “Why couldn’t it tie into the AMTRAK San Joaquin?  This should be an obvious connection if not for Manteca, surely Stockton.  Maybe the ACE route could continue through Stockton to Lodi, Galt, Elk Grove, into Sacramento?  I bet this would have the “why nots” burning up the printed press and air waves.

I think many times they miss the obvious.  With the attempted revisions of high speed rail in California, I read for the first time the obvious as Palmdale is considered the connection point with Southern California.  The other point is Gilroy.  CalTrain runs from there to San Francisco and it is a great jumping-off place for the high speed rail to tie into Palmdale.  This is the quickest and easiest portion of the project and then the metropolitan areas can come along as their political battles allow.

You might be interested in an article I printed from The Weather Channel’s program “Earth Watch” and their interview with Andy Kunz, the President of the US High Speed Rail Association.  He discusses the feasibility of High Speed Rail, the California infrastructure decline, Big Oil’s opposition, and a 1930s conspiracy by the oil companies, General Motors, Firestone Tire and others to destroy rail and especially the vast American Streetcar System. 

Thanks for your interest in an obvious step in the right direction to solving many of our transportation woes and thanks for your article.

Craig Persons
Modesto
March 19, 2012