How about a very ordinary food/beverage car -- nothing like a Kahlua and coffee with a Danish while watching the countryside go by at 79 mph.....

Cheers

The most important thing that needs to be done is to provide some visibility into their largest expense. There is a huge opaque line item for their financial report covering their contract with Amtrak to operate the rail line.

What is Amtrak spending the money on? Who knows -- the report doesn't break it down.

I reviewed Caltrain proposed schedule cuts and I am afraid they do not make rational sense.
Instead of cutting the late night weekday trains with the lowest ridership: 196 (run at 18 % capacity) and 198 (run 11% capacity) they are cutting evening trains: 236 (run at 26 % capacity) and 192 (run at 35 % capacity)
This does not make any sense to me and these changes are going to affect a lot more riders than it should

Source: Caltrain Ridership Numbers

Just like our cities/towns/states and the country, caltrain is a badly run system by people of low ethics and no standards. Their budget is bloated because of of all the extremely high salaries , many officials pay themselves and their cronies. I bet 80% of the revenue that comes in is spent on these guys salaries,pensions,travel expenses,car leases and other perks. In essence , all that these officials do is same as the police officers,fire fighters,city managers,city attorneys,city council members do, which is, steal as much as you can in a legalized and unscrupulous ways.

I really think if they just sold advertising space on the side of the train-- sort of like VTA does with the busses-- it'd probably bring a lot of income. Think of a train going through many densely populated areas-- that's some good exposure for advertisement! Plus all the riders would see it each time they ride.

I know they have that Giants car or whatever...and it doesn't look too hideous.

jupiterk - Is that what you really think that this all has to do about salaries? In all these industries if you want them to run right you need good people with good benefits. If you don't then you would be complaining even more that the service was sub-par. The cost of living is so high that all those people you mentioned if they did not get at least a fair salary would go elsewhere. Especially police officers and fire fighters. I would hate to think that those organizations for any city around us would lower their benefits and salaries causing an unsafe public service work force with lower standards. I want high quality people protecting my family when a burglar is breaking into my house. I want a excellent and well trained fire fighter to save my family when the house is on fire or has a medical problem. I also want quality people working at CalTrain so I can get to work on time in a safe manner.

Save money by consolidating all Caltrain construction projects into the weekend, and allow contractors to work uninterrupted during the 48 hours from midnight Friday, to midnight Sunday.

As we did a few years ago, shutdown weekend Caltrain service for construction and maintenance.

This can be real money saved.

k, they tried that for a while. The passenger coaches had big ads (for Target, if I recall correctly) wrapped around them. Wonder how it turned out.

Really,

jupiterk is referring to a very real problem that many municipalities, counties, and states across the country are running into. Extremely generous salaries and pensions were granted to selected employees, and now many of these governments are at risk of bankruptcy, including Mountain View.

Please don't believe me on the issue. It's very serious and folks need to know about it.

Of course, jupiterk is just guessing that Caltrain has a similar problem. As I mentioned above, a good first step for Caltrain would be more financial transparency.

The biggest joke is that "really" actually believes the police will be there to protect him and his family when a burglar breaks in.

The police respond to and document crime. They certainly don't prevent it or provide any sort of protection from it. You're on your own when it comes to self defense....

Don't forget it.

Thank you Mike Laursen for taking the time to read these public financial documents and trying to make sense of them. I believe a public contact would come under the California Public Records Act and must be disclosed after it is signed. Would you please try to pry it from their hands? Contacting the San Jose Mercury News (which seems to love to pry out public documents) may be a good source of support.

Best of Luck

You're welcome, Steven. I didn't do much at all. Just quickly skimmed through the annual report. Wish I had time to really look into it.

I live by the tracks south of San Jose, every day I watch six empty train cars go by six times a day and at night I watch more empty trains going to Gilroy that are not even on the schedule. What a waste. No wonder there's a deficit.