Saturday, February 26, 2011

Ponto Station - Why the 784 is usually late.

According to Amtrak's official schedule the 784 arrives in Solana Beach at 7:13pm. This rarely happens. One of the things that prevents this is the lack of a double-track along the entire system.

In some cases one train will have to wait for another to pass before proceeding to single track. The 784 has a special place to stop in between the stops of Oceanside and Solana Beach.

There is a strange dead zone of the Carlsbad coast inhabited by a defunct self-storage site called Ponto Storage. I extracted the Google map and satellite photo to give a feel for this odd locale. I'll try to get some views from the train later next week. The place is truly worthy of a Steven King setting.


On average I think we wait here an extra  ten minutes about four times a week. One idea would be just to incorporate the stop and call it Ponto Station. Perhaps the California High Speed Rail project would be interested.

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