Commuter Rail Coalition San Diego Pathing Study With NCTD and BNSF

In this Rail Group On Air podcast, part of our series with the
Commuter Rail Coalition, North County Transit District Executive
Director and CEO Matt Tucker, BNSF Assistant Vice President
Passenger Operations DJ Mitchell and CRC Executive Director
KellyAnne Gallagher discuss the San Diego Pathing Study with
Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono. Released in
November 2020, the study provides an implementation blueprint for a
unique NCTD/BNSF partnership that will bring capacity and service
improvements for commuter and intercity passenger rail and freight
rail to Southern California’s LOSSAN (Los Angeles-San Diego-San
Luis Obispo) rail corridor, the second-busiest rail corridor in the
U.S. In a typical year, the LOSSAN rail corridor moves
approximately $1 billion of freight and more than eight million
rail passengers. DB Engineering & Consulting USA, Inc., the
international consulting division of Germany’s national railroad
Deutsche Bahn, prepared the study, which identifies and prioritizes
infrastructure improvements that are tied to a specific increase in
service capacity over the near-, mid- and long-term future. DB
E&C applied an approach to rail operations and infrastructure
planning that allows rapidly iterating service design, operational
adjustments and infrastructure improvements in order to derive an
attractive solution. The blueprint will assist NCTD and its rail
partners in growing service along a corridor that is currently
bottlenecked by single track and other infrastructure deficiencies.