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(The following story by Jake Henshaw appeared on the Visalia Times-Delta website on August 20.)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Amtrak San Joaquin train rolled to a new ridership record in July, surpassing 100,000 riders for the first time in a single month and adding to a national strain on rail cars.
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“This was the highest single-month ridership we have had on the San Joaquin corridor ever,” said Bill Bronte, chief of the rail division of the state Department of Transportation.

There were 100,564 riders on the San Joaquin in July, up 32 percent from July 2007.

The San Joaquin has had double-digit increases in riders every month since February, with the exception of April, when it dropped 2.7 percent, according to Amtrak, which operates the line for the state.

Amtrak attributes the April decline to the fact that Easter, which is a popular time for train travel, was in March this year.

The San Joaquin operates between Bakersfield and Oakland or Sacramento. For Tulare County residents, the closest stop is in Hanford.

The San Joaquin makes four round trips daily to the Bay Area and two round trips to Sacramento.

It is one of three lines that

Amtrak operates with state financial aid.

The other two — the Capitol Corridor, which operates between the Sacramento region and the San Francisco Bay Area; and the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to San Luis Obispo — also saw double-digit increases in July over the previous year.

Nationwide, Amtrak ridership on all of its rail lines was up nearly 14 percent in July over the previous July.

“Numbers throughout the country have just skyrocketed,” said Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham. “Many, many routes are in double digit throughout the country.”
Gas prices

She and Bronte attributed the increases in part to rising gasoline prices, but also said that ridership usually goes up during the summer vacation season.

The busiest times are the weekends but the crowding isn’t quite as bad on the San Joaquin, which has reserved seats, as it is on the Pacific Surfliner, which doesn’t have reserved seating and carries more peak-hour traffic, Graham said.
Need for new cars

But the increased demand nationwide has left train officials looking for enough rail cars to provide service.

“We are borrowing from ourselves where demand is high in other parts of the country,” Graham said.

In California, Bronte added, “we have capacity issues on all three of our corridors.”

He said the state has entered a lease arrangement with Amtrak and even received five damaged cars to rehabilitate for use in California.

He also said the state has budgeted $150 million from a past bond for equipment but it’ll probably take up to 48 months to get those cars.

It’s not clear how long the ridership surge will continue after the summer travel season, Graham said.

“We are interested in seeing what September and October will be like,” she said.
On-time performance

Bronte hopes the new riders will be impressed enough with what he said is a 90 percent on-time performance to continue using the trains.

“Whatever it is [attracting more riders] we’d like to put it in a bottle and save it forever,” Bronte said.