There’s another attempt underway for an SF-to-LA overnighter that would compete with airline travel, this time a train service, which has made progress on getting access to the existing train tracks the trip would require.

We’ve seen efforts to make an easy and affordable SF-to-LA overnight “sleeper trip” before. In 2016, someone claimed they were launching a overnighter bus called Sleepbus that would only cost $50, but that effort stopped as soon as it started. They rebranded as Cabin a year later, but that too seems to have gone out of business before the pandemic, and now has a defunct website.

The long-touted California high-speed rail has had so many delays that one wonders if it will ever happen, and of course Elon Musk’s Hyperloop idea (which Musk claimed would be able to make the trip in 35 minutes) was sent to the dustbin of history last year.

But someone’s trying to float this concept yet again. KRON4 reports that a Newport Beach-based startup called Dreamstar Lines is making progress on an SF-to-LA overnight sleeping train. While Dreamstar Lines has existed for nearly ten years and has yet to conduct a single trip, KRON4 reports the company has “signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Union Pacific Railroad, paving the way for the two entities to come up with a final agreement that would allow Dreamstar to operate its trains on the tracks owned by Union Pacific.”

“Our collaboration with Union Pacific Railroad is a significant milestone for Dreamstar Lines and for the future of private rail travel in the United States,” Dreamstar Lines CEO Joshua Dominic told KTLA. “By launching this service, we are not only offering a luxurious and eco-friendly travel option but also revitalizing the rich heritage of overnight rail travel in America.”

The rendering above is obviously unrealistic — these tracks leading to the Golden Gate Bridge do not exist, and they never will. Though SFGate reported last year that the company intended to approach the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board to use Caltrain tracks, so there is an existing track network to make the round trips. But there is no agreement yet with Caltrain, and even the MOU with Union Pacific is by no means a final agreement.

Pricing is not mentioned, so not it’s not clear if Dreamstar Lines is offering a product that would be cheaper than flying.

But they claim the amenities will be very nice. Their website touts a “premium overnight ‘hotel train’” experience, with a few renderings to back this up. The website is only in “Watch This Space” and “Join Our Mailing List” mode, but claims “We are working fast to begin service as early as the summer of 2025 on our first route -- the busy Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay Area travel corridor.”

There are also some vague references in the KRON4 report that you’d eventually be able to bring your car on the train for use on the other side of the trip. But yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That SFGate report notes that Dreamstar Lines is “working on lining up the railcars, financing, staffing and agreements needed.”

Summer 2025 seems exceedingly optimistic here. So for the time being, this SF-to-LA overnight trip is just a dream.

Related: Take An Overnight SF-to-LA Trip Aboard This Sleeper Pod Bus For Under $50 [SFist]

Image: Dreamstar Lines

Thanks to some concerns from neighbors up the hill (and possibly some booking difficulties) concert organizers from the America's Cup and Live Nation have agreed to scale back their summer concert lineup at the temporary waterfront music venue from 40 concerts to 30, while also promising to have someone on-call to handle any noise complaints.

The summer music lineup kicks off with Imagine Dragons on May 31st and the big headliner Sting a few days later on June 2nd. So far only seven family-friendly shows including Train, Heart and Fall-Out Boy, have been booked at the venue which will only exist from the end of May until it is dismantled after the yacht races end in the middle of October. In order for those shows to go on as planned, however, the venue still needs to receive approval from the Entertainment Commission today.

Working with touchy neighborhood groups like the Telegraph Hill Dwellers — one of the groups that denied us our giant floating jumbotron — A-Cup organizers and Live Nation representatives agreed to limit the number of summer concerts to 30, with only ten of those falling on weeknights. (Meaning: if they book out all 30 shows, there will be an average of one per weekend from May until mid-October, and a mid-week show every other week.) Shows will end by 10:30 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends, but if a band needs a little extra time for an encore, organizers can request up to six 30-minute extensions throughout the season.

For the neighbors' part, it sounds like they still want to see more restrictions on mom-rock concerts on the waterfront. "Numerous people told me during Treasure Island, it felt like band was playing inside their living room," Telegraph Hill Dwellers president Jon Gollinger said of the Treasure Island Music Festival, which is held over two miles away across the water from Telegraph Hill. (A full mile more than the distance from the Outside Lands main stage in Golden Gate Park to the tony mansions of Sea Cliff.) The sensitive listeners in the neighborhood group also want organizers to ensure the noise complaint hotline connects to a real human being, rather than an answering machine, so that they may be immediately addressed.

For their part, Live Nation hopes to do as much sound-dampening as possible at the city's only open air, waterfront music venue. The stage and speakers will face the water, presumably to lash back at Treasure Island residents for allowing such a nuisance to take over their little suburb once a year. Behind the stage on the Embarcadero side, the venue will raise a special curtain "manufactured by a company that specializes in sound mitigation" to keep things quiet on the city side.

The venue's permit goes before the Entertainment Commission today. Despite all the sound mitigation efforts, neighbors still believe post-show traffic will be a problem.

Previously: Sting Will Christen S.F.'s First Outdoor Waterfront Concert Venue
[SFEx]

The Boy Scouts of America lost the headlining acts for their 2013 National Scout Jamboree today after every scout's viral video crush and pro-gay lady Carly Rae Jepsen bowed out along with popular mom-rock, wine country band Train due to the organization's ban on gay members.

In a tweet today, Jepsen wrote that she won't be appearing in the AT&T Summit Stadium at Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia:

Train, meanwhile, explained in a blog post last Friday that the band was "not aware of any policy barring openly gay people from participation within the organization." A Change.org petition from GLAAD and Eagle Scout Derek Nance calling for both artists to withdraw from the show apparently got their attention, however. The petition has over 65,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

For their part, Train still has some respect for the Boy Scouts, saying in their blog post that they have "always seen the BSA as a great and nobel organization," but the band, "strongly opposes any kind of policy that questions the equality of any American citizen." Leveraging their clout with soccer moms everywhere, the band also hinted that they would be happy to play the Jamboree should the Boy Scouts reverse their anti-gay policy. In January of this year, the organization seemed ready to rethink their policy, but delayed any decisions under pressure from conservative groups.

So far, the Boy Scouts have only responded with a simple statement, "We appreciate everyone’s right to express an opinion and remain focused on delivering a great jamboree program for our Scouts."

Anyhow, time to break out the Save Me San Francisco Hella Fine Merlot and pour one out for the Boy Scouts, who are losing more and more support by the day.

Previously: Boy Scouts Possibly Doing An About-Face On Gay Ban, Under Conservative Pressure, Boy Scouts Delay Decision on Allowing Gay Members
[ScoutingMagazine]
H/T: Gawker

A southbound Amtrak train killed an unidentified person along the tracks between Hayward and Fremont a little before 7:45 a.m. this morning.

According to Contra Costa Times, "Amtrak train No. 523 left the Hayward station at 7:43 a.m. bound for Fremont and hit the person a short time later, public information officer Linsey Ehlin said. None of the 109 passengers on board were injured."

KRON 4 Morning News reports that the male victim was "walking a bike and dragging a dog" before being dragged to his death.

Resident Bay Area mom-rock band Train are in the middle of their intimate tour of San Francisco this weekend. This very friendly and excited group of ladies traveled from all over the country to rent a house together, attend all six of Train's club shows and generally be saved by San Francisco, as it were. When we spoke to them Saturday afternoon they had been camped out in front of the Independent on Divisadero since this morning. Train, meanwhile, will probably arrive later, possibly in a minivan of their own.

Previously: Train Announces Intimate Tour of San Francisco Venues

Shortly before 6:30 am this morning, a nine-car BART train headed from San Francisco to the East Bay through the tube "separated into two pieces." BCN (via CBS 5) reports: "A five-car section of the train was removed first with the operator on board ... Another operator then boarded the second, four-car portion, and moved it out of the way as well." Although service has since resumed,SFGate says you should "expect some residual delays ranging from 15 to 40 minutes" throughout the morning.

CurbedSF is reporting that the denizens of San Francisco's South Beach neighborhood are damn mad at the California High Speed Rail Authority and, as typical, they're not going to take it anymore.

The High Speed Rail Authority is currently in the process of completing a project level Environmental Impact Report for the San Jose to San Francisco segment of the high speed rail alignment that looks at alternatives to the fancy new Transbay Terminal for the final stop of the high speed rail line. Normally, this would be no big as the California Environmental Quality Act requires project sponsors to look at a full range of alternatives to their proposed projects so they can get a real feel for which one might kill more bunnies, drive more old ladies from their homes, so on and so forth. Here, however, it would appear that the High Speed Rail Authority is expressing just a little too much enthusiasm for a project alternative that would terminate the high speed rail line at Beale Street, a skosh south and to the side of the Transbay Terminal.

Couple this zeal with comments made last year by cranky old former Authority Chairperson, Quentin Kopp, pooh-poohing the Transbay Terminal, hysteria over reports that the Transbay terminal would never be able to accommodate the number of planned trains, and recent public presentations made by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (arch-nemesis to the High Speed Rail Authority), showing the Beale Street alternative toppling condo towers and destroying lifestyles left and right and, Houston, we've got an uh-oh! NIMBY Krakatoa!

For their part, South Beach residents have unfurled a petition demanding that this Beale Street rigmarole stop post haste. If you're a resident of South Beach, feel free to sign. Once they've gathered enough signatures, they will nail the petition to Quentin Kopp's front door or similar.

After four students at Gunn High School committed suicide "at or near the same Caltrain crossing in Palo Alto," a group of area parents have asked Caltrain to reduce the speed of trains to a staggeringly slow 5 miles per hour.

ABC 7 reports that area parents want to see train speeds reduced to between West Meadow Drive and Charleston Road, the area where the teens died via train impact. (Every week in the U.S., 7 people die by jumping in front of trains according to a recent study.) So much so, in fact, they've concocted a petition:

The Palo Alto community has been devastated by the tragic loss of lives on the Caltrain tracks. We now have a suicide hot spot in the section of the tracks at West Meadow and Charleston. We need time as a community to come together and address the underlying problem of teen depression. It is well documented that direct action must be taken at a suicide hot spot to deter further attempts.

We ask Caltrain to implement a schedule, effective immediately, of slowing all trains from West Meadow to Charleston to a speed of 5 MPH in order to prevent further suicides on the tracks in this area.

In preparing this request our research has turned up a number of facts that support this measure.

1. They will not go elsewhere. Research has shown that individuals bent on suicide at a hot spot will not simply move further down the tracks. See links.
2. If you restrict access to the ‘means’ you will reduce the number of incidents. It has been proven that even a small impediment at a suicide hot spot reduces the number of incidents at that spot. This is why we are also watching the tracks. We believe that this vigilance, in combination with slower trains will reduce the number of incidents and perhaps stop them.
3. In the case of a suicide hot spot the threshold for the individuals who may be considering suicide is lowered. This is especially true for teens . This means the existence of the hot spot and access to it is increasing the number of incidents.
4. Although teen suicide has many possible causes and there are many preventive measures we may take as a community, slowing the trains is a short term solution.

Although a train at 5mph may be no less deadly, we believe it will be less attractive while giving us the chance to clear the tracks and giving the driver time to stop... [read the rest of the petition here.]

Seeing as how the Bay Area is always in desperate need of decent, on-time public transportation, this simply cannot happen. (Any foamers out there want to calculate the delay time with a speed reduction of 5 MPH? Give us your figures in the comments.) But what say you, readers?

The area just south of the East Meadow Drive crossing in Palo Alto has turned into something of a destination spot for depressed teenagers looking to end it all. Since May of this year, there have been three teen suicides at the spot. Last night, at around 10:50 pm, it played host to its fourth.

Last night's victim, a male killed by an oncoming train, has yet to be identified. No word yet if he attended nearby Gunn High School, like two of the other suicide victims.

Hey, kids, are you looking to take your life? Don't. Instead, go here to get some help. Who knows. You could just be clinically depressed or suffer from some sort treatable mental condition, and your parents are too stupid to get you help. There are folks out there who can help you.

Yesterday's crash, that is.

SFMTA director Nathaniel Ford expressed deep sadness and frustration over yesterday's F-Market Muni crash, which injured 6 people and follows July's Muni train crash in West Portal, saying in a statement, "This accident was intolerable and deeply frustrating, I know that the riding public is concerned about Muni safety, and so am I. Our ongoing work to improve Muni safety is clearly more urgent than ever."

Supervisor Bevan Dufty was confused, and rightfully so. He told KRON 4, "my understanding form being at the scene last night, you're supposed to have space between streetcars."

"This accident was avoidable," said Dufty tells SF Chronicle. "Muni procedures require a minimum of one block spacing between street cars. I can't imagine any excuse. We're past the point of talking about improving safety on Muni. Improvements need to be seen. It's totally unacceptable."

Check out more Muni crash images here and here.