Division of Rail
The California Department of Transportation's Division of Rail (DOR) manages and coordinates intercity rail passenger services that help to improve the state's air quality and reduce highway congestion and fuel consumption. More than 5million people used California's state supported trains in 2006.
DOR manages two state supported routes operated by Amtrak, and financially supports a third.
The San Joaquins, the fifth busiest route in the Amtrak system, operates six round trips from Oakland or Sacramento to Bakersfield. An extensive network of Amtrak bus routes connect this route to the Northern California Coast, Sierra communities, Lake Tahoe, the Central Coast, and Southern California, including the high and low deserts of California, and to Amtrak California's Pacific Surfliner Route and long distance Amtrak routes in Los Angeles (the Sunset, and the Southwest Chief). The San Joaquin route also connects to long distance trains (Coast Starlight and the California Zephyr) in Sacramento or the Bay Area. The Pacific Surfliners, the second most popular route in the country, has 11 weekday and 12 weekend round trips from San Diego to Los Angeles. Five round trips extend north to Santa Barbara. Of those, two round trips daily extend to San Luis Obispo.
Feeder buses, also funded by Caltrans, are run by Amtrak to extend the route, or supplement train service. Pacific Surfliner trains connect to all Amtrak long distance trains using Los Angeles and Fullerton, as well as supplementing (and providing weekend service) on Metrolink and Coaster routes through the cooperative Rail-2-Rail project.
The Division also provides operations funding to the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority, which oversees the Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains running between San Jose/Oakland and Sacramento/Auburn. In addition, Caltrans assists that service by recommending funding, requesting project programming, procuring rolling stock and managing track and signal projects.
DOR performs long-range planning, coordinates with Amtrak on operations issues, administers the state rail program marketing contract, procures and manages the rehabilitation of equipment and works with local agencies to manage the capital program for projects on the Capital Corridor, San Joaquin and Pacific Surfliner routes, including track and signal projects to result in increased train frequencies, reduced travel times and improved on-time performance.