Metrolink

SACRAMENTO - The bullet train boondoggle is looking more like a bullet bull's-eye. But one big question lingers: Where are the bucks? And even if the state can find the bucks, should it spend them on building a high-speed rail line, a cool choo-choo? Especially when higher education in California is such a train wreck? Education - kindergarten through college - should be our No. 1 priority, for both moral and economic reasons. Producing an educated, skilled workforce for the increasingly competitive global economy is even more important than creating temporary track-laying jobs.

The Metrolink commuter railroad held a safety workshop Tuesday for officials responsible for overseeing transportation agencies that operate buses, trains, subways and light rail lines throughout the region. The one-day program at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles brought together federal and state safety experts, transportation agency executives and members of transportation commissions in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. The program included presentations by National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation Mortimer Downey, who now serves on the Washington Metro board of directors.

In a major shift in thinking about the state's bullet train, powerful transportation agencies in Northern and Southern California want to quickly obtain up to half the project's bond financing to upgrade local rail corridors that could become part of the proposed high-speed network. Until recently, the project was expected to draw down only $2.7 billion of its $9-billion bond fund in coming years to help pay for a 130-mile rail segment in the Central Valley. But the new proposals call for potentially spending an additional $4 billion upfront, which would leave just a few billion in the state's voter-approved finance package.

More than three years after the deadly Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, the commuter railroad is forging ahead with the most sophisticated collision avoidance system in the country despite efforts in Congress to relax requirements to install the safety improvement nationwide. Metrolink already has made substantial progress developing its $201-million positive train control system, which uses an array of electronic gear to monitor and, if necessary, take control of trains to prevent collisions and derailments.

Metrolink has a goodie that lasts  beyond Christmas: two-for-one fares for weekday travelers during off-peak hours. This discount applies to all lines through the end of the month and all day Jan. 2. The deal: The discount works for those traveling between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday-Friday on selected lines . It also includes two-for-one fares all day on Jan. 2, the day of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, though service is limited to San...

Heads up for those thinking about hopping on a train this weekend to go Christmas shopping in Orange and San Diego counties. Metrolink and Amtrak are canceling some rail service this weekend because construction crews will be installing a second main track and rail bridges along the L.A.-San Diego-San Luis Obispo rail corridor. Metrolink will cancel service on its Orange County and Inland Empire lines on Saturday and Sunday. It's also canceling trains 644 and 645 on Friday.

The ambitious plan to connect Anaheim and San Francisco with high-speed trains has encountered plenty of obstacles, including intensifying resistance from wealthy and poor communities lying in the track's path. But the bullet train's biggest threat could be its ballooning price tag, which this week doubled to an estimated $98 billion. Backers on Tuesday announced a major strategy shift, unveiling a reworked blueprint for the first leg that would delay completion 13 years to 2033.

The L.A. County Fair in Pomona is back -- with deep-fried Oreos, maple-bacon doughnuts and "zucchini weenies" (odd looking, for sure). Of course, there also are pirates, sharks, pig races, rodeo shows and concerts at the annual event, which opened Saturday. Metrolink offers a discount on admission prices and a way to skip the driving too. Fair tickets: You must register at Metrolink Rewards (it's free) to buy weekend fair tickets for $10 for adults (usually $17)

The U.S. and its debt Re "Stocks plunge worldwide," Aug. 9 President Obama may insist that Standard & Poor's was wrong in its credit risk assessment and that the U.S. is still an AAA country. Yet House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) remarked that that the S&P downgrade is the "the latest consequence of out-of-control spending that has taken place in Washington for decades. " Even China has communicated that "the U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.

When John E. Fenton took over Metrolink in April of last year, the government-run railroad had fallen off the tracks. Several million dollars in inventory was unaccounted for. Ridership was declining and staff morale had plummeted. After a head-on crash with a freight train in Chatsworth killed 25 people in 2008, the line had the worst safety record in the nation for a commuter railroad. Today — 16 months after Fenton arrived — Metrolink has changed by a number of critical measures.