LAX Union Station track expansion

What is the status of the proposed viaduct going south from US over the freeway? As i understood this will allow for all trains to not have to back in or back out. Understand that the 2 CPs will allow full train tracking both north and south without necessary changing directions or engineer locations of an inbound.
Also, various models do not show the 3rs tracks between platforms. Is that going to happen?

I believe the surliners (maybe 12 trains a day, if that, are the only "thru" trains at LAUS, afaik.

All trains, other than up to 3 LD departures and 3 LD arrivals a day, are push-pull. So there are just 3 back up moves in, and 3 back up moves out of the station max a day, and they are all non-rev yard moves.

Really seems that making the station run-thru is a lot of money for very little change in traffic. IMHO, the money could be much better spent elsewhere. Maybe others agree.

There are ~178 daily revenue services either arriving or departing LAX Union Station daily, with station dwell times for through services of 15-20 minutes for through trains. Rebuilding the through tracks (they did once exist, but someone tore them out to build a highway?) would allow 500+ services through LAX since the existing throat would no longer be the constraint for any operator adding or increasing services. (That 178 is a pre-COVID number--counting the trains on the current MetroLink schedule suggests there are ~150 moves revenue moves through the station now.)

In other words, the central constraint on rail services in the hub at LAX Union Station, and there isn't any cheap way to ease that constraint other than move the hub or make the hub a thru station.

Where are the passengers supporting these hypothetical 500+ services a day?

Metrolink is planning on operating all lines with 30 minutes service frequencies in each direction though out the day, which is 250 revenue train movements through LAX during the 6 hour peak, and 678 daily revenue train moves--assuming every train terminates and is reversed in LAX by 2040. This is not driven purely by population growth, but also by a desire to provide service frequencies that would cause people to move from private automobiles to public transportation (being stuck in traffic sucks regardless of being in a new Tesla EV or a 10 year old beat up Honda).

I'm not sure what they are planning but at the moment their farebox recovery ratio is under 20% and their weekday ridership is at 40% of their precovid levels. Who's funding this expansion?

west point wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 3:19 pm What is the status of the proposed viaduct going south from US over the freeway? As i understood this will allow for all trains to not have to back in or back out. Understand that the 2 CPs will allow full train tracking both north and south without necessary changing directions or engineer locations of an inbound.
Also, various models do not show the 3rs tracks between platforms. Is that going to happen?

Afaik when the station opened in 1939 those tracks were intended as escape tracks to permit the engine (generally steam) of an arriving train to cut loose after arrival while the train was still discharging passengers and head for the enginehouse; Idk how much they were so used. With all the push-pull operation today it seems unlikely they would be included now.

RandallW wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:13 am There are ~178 daily revenue services either arriving or departing LAX Union Station daily, with station dwell times for through services of 15-20 minutes for through trains. Rebuilding the through tracks (they did once exist, but someone tore them out to build a highway?)

I think almost all the trackage from Mission Tower to the present bumping posts dates from 1939; prior to that the SP's Central Station at 5th and Central served SP and UP, and ATSF had its own La Grande Station at 2nd and La Grande Sts. (scene of a 1940 Laurel & Hardy comedy). In 1939 the tracks at Union Station abutted (one level up) Aliso St., with Pacific Electric's double-track Eastern District running down the middle--so no railroad tracks there.

A note of continuity is provided by renting out the original 1939 ticket lobby for occasional video productions snd other functions.

I should also mention that the new through connection should save about five minutes ln each direction on the Oceanside and 91-Corridor routes; i.e., those via Fullerton. That's a lot of people, snd based on ridership during the day there seem to be indications that many of them are not going to desk jobs in LA. People closer to the scene will have a clearer picture of how many returning riders fit the the traditional 9-to-5 pattern.

Part of the plan for the extensions is that the non-platform tracks will be removed and platforms widened from 21 to 28 feet.