Is This the Bay Area's Finest Transit System? (Episode 2 - Caltrain)
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- All aboard! Welcome to the one commuter line connecting two of the nation's largest economic powerhouses: San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. The corridor is jam-packed with small, quaint towns with very walkable central business districts and dense, mixed-use developments just steps away from the platform. Join me in analyzing TODs around the 31 stations on this episode delving deep into Caltrain.
My Patreon!: / todgod
Music from Epidemic Sound
Sources:
Daggett, Stuart (1922). Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific. New York, New York: The Ronald Press Company. p. 120. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
Hayler, R.A. (September-October 1964). "Interstate 280: Design of New Freeway Stresses Aesthetics" (PDF). California Highways and Public Works. Division of Highways, Department of Public Works, State of California. 43 (9-10): 33-41. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
The Feasibility of Upgrading Peninsula Passenger Rail Service (Report). Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 1975. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
Intercity and Commuter Rail Services in California (PDF) (Report). California Transportation Commission. January 1985. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
Duncan, Mark (October 4, 2005). "The San Francisco Peninsula Railroad Passenger Service: Past, Present, and Future" (PDF). pp. 18, 92. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 18, 2018.
"Appendix C: Communications Hill Specific Plan Area Development Policy". Communications Hill 2 Project: Final Environmental Impact Report. City of San Jose. August 2014.
Pearce, Michael (August 2017). Santa Clara Valley’s Railroad Lines (PDF) (Report). Sourisseau Academy. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
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Just a minor point of clarification: while Bay Area does indeed have 5 _rail_ transit systems as you list, we have literally dozens of independent transit systems, most of which are bus-only. Part of what makes transit in the Bay Area work less well than you’d expect for a region of this size and density is the large number of relatively independent and uncoordinated transit services.
Interagency greed, at the end of the day they share many similar behaviors of the train barons they were supposed to unseat. If you could actually see behind closed doors how they defend their territory, oh and their pensions.
@@whyno713 It’s not interagency greed so much as there are so many governments and associated transit agencies to begin with. The SF Bay Area has roughly the Sam population as New York City. New York City has more or less a single transit agency providing coordinated transit services throughout the city. By contrast, the Bay Area consists of 9 counties, 3 major cities, dozens of smaller cities and unincorporated communities, as well as numerous special districts, with 27 distinct official transit agencies, numerous unofficial transit agencies like Marguerite, MVgo, and Emery Go-Round, for-profit transit providers like Tideline and Blue and Gold Fleet, and arguably the sprawling private transit operations provided by tech companies are part of our mass transit systems.
There is no other comparable metro region in the world with such a fragmented and Balkanized governance, and it has major implications for all kinds of regional issues, but transportation and housing are near the top of the list.
@@ScottAtwood I wonder why all the cities are so hesitant to work with each other. Doesn't LA only have 1 agency? I know the Phoenix valley only has 1 agency responsible for all transit, though only having 1 county makes it a lot easier, and if the agency wants to expand into the other county (Pinal County) of the valley, it's made easier by that county already being somewhat integrated into Maricopa County.
@@grahamturner2640, I think it is just typical issues of local control.
@@grahamturner2640 LA actually has a similar agency mess like the Bay Area. All in all, the Bay Area has around 24 transit agencies give or take, not counting further out connections to even further counties like Santa Cruz or San Joaquin Couties etc) spread out across 9 counties and 101 independent towns and cities. Some of those cities operate their own municipal bus services entirely within the bounds of a larger county transit agency (Santa Rosa Citybus and Petaluma Transit within the bounds of Sonoma County Transit, Union City Transit within the bounds of AC Transit etc). LA is a similar situation, operating across 5 counties and countless cities. LA has the advantage of 1 clear central county, LA County, which operates the clearly largest transit agency LA Metro. But they also have a million city and county transit agencies, including the City of LA (not LA County) which operates LADOT bus services, Santa Monica that runs the Big Blue Bus, Long Beach that runs Long Beach transit, San Bernadino County with Foothill Transit etc etc.
So we’re all going to ignore the fact that mans just dropped an entire mini-documentary 😅
This was great bro!
Thank you Dude! You set up the blueprint
Caltrain has so much potential to be an ultra high ridership system if they’d tod the stations more
Absolutely, they have so much potential: hopefully the electrification will help
Peninsula is too Nimby. For all san Jose's and VTA's faults they are building new lines and stations as TOD. Well at least TOD by American standards.
Also Caltrains would get higher ridership if the buses that connect to the stations run more frequently.
@@bellairefondren7389 I dunno, the locals loathe busses. I actually also have an unreasonable hatred of busses. I got stuck on 1 hour - 10 mile bus rides too many times. I just can't contain myself. I am willing to walk two miles to the closest rail station if that avoids a bus trip. Heck, I'll crawl that far through broken glass to avoid a bus ride!
That's also why Uber and Lyft were "invented" in the Bay Area. People are willing to spend billions in investor money to avoid busses around here 😁😁😁
@@TohaBgood2 I mean people are willing to ride buses in San Francisco…
Everyone take public transportation it cheaper instead of paying a full tank of gas😎
True 😎
More expensive when you consider the hospital bills when a homeless guy attacks you while you’re walking from your apartment to the train
@@qwerty112311 Fearmongering at its finest 🤣. This might be the stupidest comment I've ever received, and that's saying something.
@@qwerty112311 Yeah, like what's the percentage of that happening. Do you work for Big Oil?
@@ldfreitas9437 lmao I took Caltrain every day for several year before the pandemic and the difference now is stark. But at least it isn’t BART, where you’ll need years of weekly therapy to overcome to horror of watching some homeless guy die of a heroin overdose right in front of you.
I used Caltrain to commute to Redwood City before my company went remote-first, and I liked the stress-free commutes. I also really like the direction the city is going in, and I think it could turn into a major hub if the Dumbarton Rail Corridor ever becomes reality. You really nailed what makes Caltrain so good, and the best is yet to come.
Dumbarton Rail Corridor / "silicon express" was a GENIUS idea, albeit with the drawback of potentially adding yet another kind of rolling stock to the Bay Area's transit system. The fact that it was on track to get bankrolled by Facebook in exchange for a station at their campus is truly mind-blowing in today's day and age. Sadly, I feel that remote work may have sealed the coffin on such a connection for the foreseeable future...
@@chasemartin4450 I hope that it eventually comes back. The tech CEOs are already whining about having everyone back in the office so we know that this remote work bout won't last forever.
Few people seem to remember this, but Silicon Valley has already tried remote work about 10-15 years ago. It went pretty bad last time. I remember that fallout well. Yahoo was the most enthusiastic and the hardest hit.
IIRC, the electrification, as well as benefiting the CalTrain commuter service, is also to allow CA HSR can reuse the corridor to get into downtown SF & the Saleforce Transit Center
that is correct
Hi! I'm someone who has also thoroughly researched Caltrain and its history and I'm glad somebody is making a video on it! There are a few things I want to point out though.
1:34 When the line from San Francisco to San Jose was constructed, it was not called the Peninsula Commute. It was just the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad. The Peninsula Commute name was given to it by Southern Pacific, which took over operations in 1870.
3:30 It's called the EMD F40PH, and it was made by Electro-Motive Diesel which is where the EMD comes from. Some of them were recently rebuilt by MotivePower Inc., a subsidiary of Wabtec which recently merged with GE. But the locomotives were originally built by EMD.
4:26 There's actually an obscure reason for this. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad ordered these cars because a conductor could walk straight through on the bottom level and check tickets of passengers on both the top and bottom levels at once. I hate riding on the second story but I am told that conductors love the Gallery cars.
Well, the other thing is that nothing is mentioned of the old Del Monte Express. It was run by Southern Pacific, so at various times of the day, in the early morning, 6 or 7am, trains left Pacific Grove and took a three hour excursion to the terminus at 4th and King in San Francisco. The train came back in the late afternoon, leaving San Francisco at 4:30 or 5:30, to the Monterey Peninsula. I took it when a frosh at Bellarmine Prep. We had a game against Watsonville High, and the student body took the train, leaving at 5:30 pm from College Park Station, and arriving at Pajaro Junction at about 7:00, in time to see the end of the JV game and the start of the varsity match. Busses took us from Pajaro Junction to Watsonville High. A special train took us back to College Park Station in San Jose.
Glad someone else realized his errors
Imagine Caltrain 20-25 years ago, when some areas were still single-tracked and didn't even have boarding platforms (let alone ADA access), and mid-day runs were 2 hours apart. 😱
The narrow spiral stairs in the older cars are a total pain, but the payoff is those introvert's paradise single seats.
Some time in the 1990s, I picked up a flyer from a booth in some street fair (Mountain View maybe?) that promised, nay, swore, that Caltrain would be *fully* electrified by 2003! 🤣
Caltrain was almost electrified in the early 20th century...
Heck, I have copies of the Monterey Herald and Salinas Californian from 1996 saying that in 1998 Cal Train would extend to Pajaro Junction, Castroville Junction, and Salinas and Monterey, with trains splitting at Castroville to go on to Salinas or Monterey, which would have required putting back the tracks between Seaside and Monterey's wharf area. It still would, but for light rail.
One of the most underrated channels I’ve seen in a while, keep it up! ❤
Thank you :)
Great video on CalTrain! Enjoyed the in-depth look at the stations and the TOD around it.
As a railfan, I found issue with the F40PH segment that I had to make say. The F40PH was built by the Electro-Motive *Division* (EMD) of General *Motors* (GM), not GE. I can understand the confusion between GM/GE because not everyone knows a ton about locomotives and rolling stock specifications that I do lol
Great video! I have high hopes for the Gateway at Millbrae to serve as a pioneer for more TOD in the bay area.
Also, on the Millbrae BART connection, starting in September the frequency will become 20 minutes all days of the week.
That’s fantastic!!
Yep 20 minutes at max. Bart say now no one will have to wait more the 20 minutes for a train every Monday-sunday. Which is nice, off course the will be times when there are dealys or bus bridges.
Growing up near downtown Burlingame was great but I was so sad that bart ended in Millbrae. It would’ve never happened, but I’d have killed for it to terminate in Burlingame or San Mateo.
It always added an extra 30+ minutes and extra money to take a bus/train to Bart into SF.
Considering how bitterly San Bruno fought BART, extending south of Millbrae is a near-impossibility.
Yeah, I wish BART were allowed to extend onto the 101 median south of Millbrae. I don't like highway median alignments, but in that area it could actually work pretty darn well. The vast majority of employers are clustered around the highway exits on the Peninsula (with exceptions of course). So this could actually work. It would also reduce traffic on the 101 drastically with BART's insane capacity vs highway lanes.
Eh, maybe one day...
I like Caltrain but having taken it for work the lack of full grade separation and old equipment meant a delay of an hour at least once a week. Electrification will help immensely but Peninsula towns have a long way to go to improve overall system reliability but San Mateo County just doesn't seem to have made the effort. Santa Clara County is doing a lot to accomplish this however.
They old diesels should be used to connect San Jose-Gilroy-Watsonville-Salinas with hourly shuttle service
We in the Monterey Bay Area have been waiting for over 25 years for just that!
@@ldfreitas9437 I'm pretty sure that this is the plan. It seems that it might be the Capitol Corridor that extends into Salinas first instead of Caltrain. But Caltrain might add its trains too if there's demand at some point in the future.
It’s been Confirmed that Caltrain will go to Salinas, sometime in 2026 right when ACE (Altamont Corridor Express) Extends to Modesto, CA
Redwood City is cooking something special within the next 5 years
I know! Looking forward to it!
I remember taking caltrain all the time when I lived in the peninsula (now in SF); before the pandemic it always so cramped and packed, it's crazy to go nowadays during rush hour going from SF to SJ and being able to get a seat. Pandemic really did numbers on this office commuter line
Well Done Man. Travelled CalTrain on visits to see our son and family. Mountain View was the drop off but travelled up and down to SF on each yearly visit. Now in 80’s so stopped as our son Paul unfortunately died in 2020. Family moved to Denmark. Enjoyed your video. Brought back many memories. Best of luck to CalTrain modernisation and electrification. A great railroad. Thanks again
I must defend stations this video short changed:
Broadway: that street has an amazing array of shops and restaurants. Too bad the train only stops on weekends.
San Bruno: south from the station San Mateo Street has 10 blocks of a charming little downtown.
South San Francisco: The tunnel now connects the the station directly to a quaint little downtown that is surprisingly diverse. The restaurants offer food that don't look out of place in Athens, Hong Kong, or Guadalajara. The civic buildings and surrounding historic neighborhoods are really charming. The hike up Sign Hill is surprisingly pleasant. I don't blame you for not knowing better, the new station so miserable (I argue the current iteration is even newer than Hillsdale) that it took me 20 years to get off the train and explore. It is so frustrating the buses and shuttles connect CalTrain SSF to both BART and ferry, but the information are kept almost top secret.
Just try walking from Costco to Lawrence Station, with a package. I've seen people won Olympic medals with less effort.
I am frustrated the so many Peninsula towns hide their quaint, walkable downtowns from CalTrain. Sunnyvale Station has no signage showing people Murphy Street. Neither does Millbrae have signage at the station pointing to downtown. Speaking of Millbrae, have you checked the obscene cost of that 2-mile BART ride?
sunnyvale's new development is really great, u gotta walk through murphy to get there so def a plus.
California Avenue was rebuilt in 1982 in a deal with the adjoining apartment/condo complex. It dates back roughly a century before that, originally named Mayfield after the local community, before being annexed by Palo Alto. Like most of the Peninsula stations, it was originally a "one-and-a-half platform" station. There was a full platform outside of the southbound track. Access to the northbound track was from a narrow island platform between the tracks, which required passengers to cross the other track either at a designated pedestrian crossing, or more commonly by just crossing the track anywhere. As a result, there was a hold-out rule that only one train could occupy the station at a time. If there was another train waiting either to stop or run through the station, it had to wait outside the station until the first train had cleared. California Avenue was one of the last stations to be converted to a full configuration of two outside platforms.
Awesome video, love getting some urbanist content about the region I live in! Hope your channel blows up 🎉
Thank you! ☺️
Interstate 280 and BART actually run on the original right-of-way of the peninsula commute, the current line thru bayshore was built some time later
3:31 The locomotives are called EMD F40PH’s built by ELECTRO-MOTIVE DIESEL, not GE.
Bro…thanks for that…this guy was about to loose me with this video
Great video! Love these videos on Bay Area Transit. I have a particular soft spot for Caltrain because it runs through many of the historic and walkable downtowns on the Peninsula. Kinda gave it a head start on TOD before that was a thing
Gotta love historical TODs
Bellarmine graduate? Crazy
I jokingly called Redwood City Deadwood City for the longest time but I do have lots of good memories walking around the downtown with friends and family and going to the movies or going on dates with my ex-gf there.
I do hope the San Francisco station will get a beautiful rebuild. It looks rather tired and meh as it is, and that site could look amazing with a makeover.
I really wish that Caltrain would increase service to Capitol. Right now, it's only served by the trains that continue on to Gilroy. All of the improvements they are adding will go to waste if they don't serve it with more than 6 trains for the entire day.
You're talking about the Capitol Corridor trains, and that's not Cal Train.
@@ldfreitas9437 They are not talking about Capitol Corridor. They are talking about CalTrain. The capitol station is south of Tamyen so it only gets a few trains per day
This video made me realize the frankly insane scale of California's population. The cities on this list alone would be among Minnesota's largest in population for comparison. It's no wonder that California has so heavily built up these different rail systems! What an awesome and in-depth video.
Yep. I constantly try to explain to people that California is a lot larger and denser than most realize. We're more similar to something like Spain than to their red state in terms of density. I constantly have to mention that both Fresno and Bakersfield are actually million population metros when the redhats start the whole "train to nowhere" spiel about CAHSR. Either would be the largest cities in most US states!
And that is while California isn't even all that dense compared to some other regions. The Tokyo metropolitan area has about the same amount of people living in just one metro area smaller than the bay area.
Germany has more than twice Californias population on a significantly smaller area.
You didn’t mention that CAHSR is the reason/funding for CalTrain electrification
The Caltrain College Park Station should be closed.
It is absurd that we are slowing down Caltrain service and subsidizing a handful of rich kids that go to the Bellarmine private high school. The San Jose Diridon station and the Santa Clara station are both within a 10-minute drive and Bellarmine College Preparatory could run a shuttle bus to and from the stations. Caltrain has attempted to close this station many times, but the well-to-do parents always prevent Caltrain from doing so.
A few notes to make
The F40PHs (Or F40PH-2CATs) were not built by GE. they were built by EMD, or Electro-motive division. They were built in 1985. There is a second generation of F40PHs called the F40PH-2Cs, which were built in 1998.
I dislike the design of the Gallery Cars, they are a giant waste of space and look like literal tin cans on rails. Their seat usage is god-awful, with a game train having more standing room than sitting. I wouldnt want to stand on a 1+ hour train ride. They're also rough when riding and have bad interior design
As per your comment at 8:11 , Union Station in Los Angeles is in fact larger, with 16 tracks total. (12 for Metrolink and Amtrak, 2 for LA Metro Rail A Line light rail, and 2 tracks underground for LA Metro Rail B and D Lines heavy rail subway.) Biggest train station in the western half of the country.
I went to Bellarmine too and commuted with Caltrain! Makes me nostalgic thinking of it. Go Bells and I love your channel
Go Bells :)
I hate the Bombardiers. Far too often the entire car smells like its bathroom - unlike the Nippons. I often have to walk through several cars before I find one that doesn't literally stink. And anyone who sits at the bottom level enough times WILL eventually hit their hit against the too-low hard steel luggage racks. I don't care how nice the staircase and aisles are if I come away from the car with a bump on my head or gagging from the entire train smelling literally like crap. As my best friend likes to say, one of the main problems with public transport is that those who design, maintain, and update it often don't actually use it.
As a bay arda native you should do a video of the Key system before bart existed and also do a video on Marin county new train system the Smart train .Good video though
I think they said the Stadler KISS trains will run down to Gilroy by using BATTERIES bottom text?
A very creepy moment starting 3:42.
Alphabet's X campus is immediately across the street from San Antonio, and is likely its biggest driver for passenger traffic
re. 2:07 Do an episode on the Interurban to San Mateo! We used to have a median down El Camino. 😭 There was even a battery-powered suburban line in Burlingame.
What is considered "affordable" rents on the peninsula? I lived in Millbrae for two years in the early aughts. I rode Caltrain many times, along with Muni, BART, and VTA. I agree: Caltrain was the best of the lot.
My grandfather built a house in Burlingame in 1908 for $1,800 (land-house-cow). It's now valued at $2.2 million.
It doesn't escape my notice that you only showed one half of the Sunnyvale station, not the massive defense contractor on the other side of the track that has explosives and nuclear material at it. There's a lot of commuters to that facility, and it makes sense to have a train next to it, but it's not a good place for housing, despite housing all the way around it.
Great job overall! There is also a ton of in-progress and planned TOD that you didn't touch on. Also, it's pretty weird that you don't mention the incredible amounts of TOD that is planned in a few megadevelopments on the route. There's a ton of stuff planned for Brisbane, SOMA, and the Google megacampus around Diridon that will be delivered over the next couple of decades. That will give both Caltrain and BART sustainable ridership growth into the future.
You're also underestimating the frequencies of both BART and Caltrain. Each BART line runs at 15 minute frequencies, but they are basically always interlined so you always get 2x or 4x frequency. Millbrae is served by two BART lines so by definition the frequency is 7.5 minutes. Caltrain does have a ton of express trains that don't stop at the minor stations. But the main stations get 10-15 minute frequencies during the commute hours.
So yes, at Millbrae BART is about twice as frequent as Caltrain. But BART runs at 7.5 minute frequencies and Caltrain at 10-20 minute frequencies. This was always the justification for not making that a more forced transfer. The frequencies during peak hours were just too dense for any more synchronization to matter. Of course, they were ignoring non-peak hours and it looks like both Caltrain and BART are moving away from that model. So now we'll get consistent schedules all day long on both systems and probably a more timed transfer between BART and Caltrain at Millbrae.
CalTrain's interline transfer is utterly miserable off-peak. I've lost count of the times that BART arrives at Millbrae 3 minutes late, and I can see from BART CalTrain pulling away, knowing that I have a fun waiting 57 more minutes for the next train. Ditto for transferring to/from VTA at Mountain View.
@@fatviscount6562 Yep, I've been a victim of both those transfers. I used to do that commute just barely off-peak. I basically always took the previous BART train and wasted an unnecessary 10-15 minutes at Millbrae to make absolutely certain that I make that transfer.
That being said, both BART and Caltrain (since September 2023, and sometime in 2024 respectively) are moving to the "regional rail" model where they both run the same schedule all day seven days a week. This will improve all transfers a ton, not just between the two beasts but also with all the busses!
Also, both BART and Caltrain are doing major upgrades with new and much more reliable rolling stock and better train control. So these types of transfers will in general be a lot more viable. There's light at the end of this tunnel!
Amazing video. Please do SF next?
:)
Dwight D. Eisenhower and his consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Big sad 😕
Yes. Instead, all that $ could have been used to upgrade the then public transportation systems, many privately owned, as happened in Europe post WW2.
sunnyvale 😢 but true. anyway great video!! i love caltrain, its really convenient and a greatly appreciated by a high schooler lmao
Just found your channel, thanks for the great research and local opinions! I didn't even know about the Stanford station
Definitely looking forward to the planned southern expansion into Salinas!
hopefully there will be road diets and samtrans can get better because I feel like a lot of people that live there already are gonna need a nudge to change their behavior
In loving memory of Atherton C-train station but hey a library that rail fans like is there.
Caltrain F40’s built by EMD!!!!!!!!
😱😱San Antonio Station SLANDER😱😱
The station is a reasonable 10 minute walk from dozens of restaurants and large stores in San Antonio Square / The Crossings. Pacific Catch, Il Fornaio, Starbucks, The Counter, Eighty-eight Sushi, Walmart, Boba Bliss, Trader Joe’s, Mendocino Farms, Kohl’s, Chili’s, Gen KBBQ, Target, etc. Also there are absolutely tons of large apartment developments there as you mentioned.
Yeah I slandered this station way too much looking back at it, especially since I’ve been more knowledgeable about way worse TOD projects in general
I've made this comment on several other videos about Caltrain, but:
I recently started dating someone on the Peninsula, and I live in the East Bay. I'm hoping the relationship flourishes so that when the new trains enter service in September, I have a reason to go ride them. And also because I really like her, but, y'know, trains.
As an addendum to that, she's in Santa Clara, so in the exceedingly unlikely future where we are both still together and still on opposite sides of the Bay in ten years, in theory I'll be able to take BART directly to her too. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
That’s a heartwarming story. I’m wishing you nothing but the best!
Maybe if you two make it far enough, you could take the train together somewhere! It would make for a great date if you can go somewhere cool!
Best of luck! Thanks for the support
While Electrification is a great concept, CalTrain's project management is unacceptably horrible. The San Bruno train crash was just tip of the iceberg. CalTrain let the contractors decide wen the train can go through, rather than schedule work around the trains. Passengers had to endure schedule changes on short notice, 90 minute frequencies, and delays of more than 30 minutes.
Why not making a video about San Diego's Light Rail System and the numerous TOD that were built around the lines ?
Perhaps id like to visit San Diego and make a video there
3:33 it’s the EMD F40PH made by GM/EMD not EMP F40PH made by GE. Just wanted to clarify that
God that made me cringe so much.
Gilroy will likely get more built out when CA HSR gets closer. So in 20years? lol
It may not be easily found but south San Francisco has a lot going for it. It has a vibrant downtown town, with great Asian and Mexican food. The two big apartment communities are building expansions which will double the capacity.
4th and king is the worst if you’re a bike/scooter traveler. You gotta carry those things up the stairs and down
Yeah looking back on this I wish I got more footage of south San Francisco. It’s a hidden gem and it’s doing everything right
damn that was a good video! love caltrain, love your work, keep it up man.
the south city station used to be super ghetto. you'd physically walk over live tracks to get to the parking lot
I moved to Burlingame because of 😅proximity to Caltrain and Bart, and use both often. While I love Caltrain, it has one notable downside: because it crosses many roads at grade, It is very dangerous for cars and pedestrians crossing the track.
There’s a project to make a lot of Caltrain crossing above or below grade, in compliance with California high speed rail goals
I like using the Caltrain on weekdays but man I dread having to wait at every stop when i go from mw to sf. I wish they had the weekday schedule on the weekends as well
As an east bay resident I don't appreciate no mention of ACE 😤
Great video anyway 😂
All good ! my apologies with that
I really like this series! Really man this is so detailed, lots of respect and lov, looking forward to the next few.
Thank you! ☺️☺️ these comments genuinely keep me going
electrification is going to be so awesome for this system. The Stadler trains are such a good move for Caltrain and they look really good. Caltrain is out here setting a pretty damn high standard for regional rail in the country
There is a positive for the stroad overpasses: fewer level crossings and better grade separation. Should make it easier to reduce headway with electrified service.
Thank you for the video! But why did you reverse the clip at 3:48? lol. Also, BART is dropping to 20 minutes all day instead of the 15 minutes most of the day.
You went to bellermine? My classmate did too
Have you done a video on the Key system? They were slow but had enormous windows. Went on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge and made meaningless ding sounds.
I have not but I’d love to make a video on hidden histories of lost transit systems for sure!! That would be amazing
Don’t insult the F40’s by saying they were built by GE. They are EMD F40’s
EMP F40PH made by GE made me cringe
Sweet
I would like to point out that the san antonio station has an amazing shopping center a 5 minute walk away, and not on a stroad, so that station is more useful than it looks tbh
My work's office will be opening next month near that station. It's only a local stop, so I'll probably just bike from Mountain View. Hopefully there's lunch options, etc near the San Antonio station
Very complete, appreciate your work sir.
Oh my gosh! I have to agree it is the Bay Area's finest transit system because I have returned to Caltrain in 2016 and again in 2018 after avoiding it due to mental health issues. While I am more mentally stable around the C-train, I noticed it's becoming more and more attractive every time I ride it. Until I realized I am a diehard railfan I started taking it again in 2016 and from 2018 onward because they have a long history of success no matter how much the Bay Area changes. The C-train is also working to make sure day tourists are happy by trying their best to expand to Monterey County. The SP left in 1971, Caltrain and Amtrak are trying to work their way to Salinas, CA. Which is troublesome if you take into account the income of many residents in Salinas. Santa Cruz and Monterey County are battling the state and USDOT on a special light rail from Santa Cruz Downtown to the Boardwalk to Capitola to Watsonville then Castroville to Sand City and Monterey. F40phs are indeed old. Metra has a hefty amount of them too, they can be tough to fix. The blossom hill ctrain station used to be a regular one I see before the old Walmart died. I used to ride from Lawrence. I love downtown Palo Alto but it’s boring if you,are broke. During the last few months of my last relationship, I would often go to the Redwood City Caltrain station with my then GF so I could stay at the Marriott there while she partied with friends or wait for her on the platform or the nearby bookstore the day after. I even got flaked on by her after she said she would go to a salsa festival with me in Redwood City. It’s also a parkable city. Only issue is RWC never got that darn ferry service. That was tough for me but the delicious food nearby made me calm. I like it better when the train bypasses Hayward Park. On weekends the Caltrain can be packed full of sports fans or people who are too drunk to drive after drinking a lot at a club. Usually happens after 8pm. Lastly, I like Caltrain because it can possibly outlast the sphinx
Love the stories! I have a bunch of stories on that train as well. Literally a huge part of my childhood
@@todgod That' great to hear, I just wish the government battles would end so I can take the C-train to Monterey County or the special light rail that probably might not happen.
If only BART and Caltrain shared a standard gauge, electrification, and systems in general. Who knows, even future HSR could share the tracks ...
Go Bells!
When BART was in its planning stages in the early 1960's, the SP, WP and AT&SF all lobbied in favor of a wider gauge figuring this would keep BART off their right-of-ways. Especially SP. They desperately wanted to exit operating passenger trains, so they provided horrible service in order to discourage the public from ever riding them again. E.g., replacing the dinning cars with a car full of self-service vending machines (no attendant needed). These tactics merely delayed things. As it was SP still had five daily passenger trains in Northern California on April 30, 1970 the day before Amtrak took over. The Del Monte (SF to Monterey), the Coast Daylight (SF to LA), the San Joaquin Daylight (LA to Oakland via the Valley), the Starlight (Oakland to Portland) and the City of San Francisco (Oakland to Chicago operated with Up & CNW). Amtrak opted to not operate the Del Monte and the San Joaquin Daylight; and originate and terminate the Coast Daylight in Oakland. And so that is how the Peninsula lost intercity rail service. Later the Coast Daylight and the Starlight were combined into one through LA to Seattle train. (And the City of San Francisco survives as the California Zephyr as far as Winnemucca where is basically follows its former competitor's route, the WP - D&RGW - CB&Q's California Zephyr.)
Caltrans Rail Plan has included restoring the Coast Daylight, which would run up the Peninsula, but only stopping in San Jose and Palo Alto on its way to SF. However, these plans may have practically died with electrification. I guess Amtrak would not want switch locomotives in San Jose as they do in Washington.
@@johnhblaubachea5156 It's funny how the story changes depending who tells it. Last it went (and what I've heard the most): BART purposely chose wide gauge and 3rd rail electrification, among other design traits, so freight could not be used on THEIR new tracks. At the end of the day, a boneheaded choice was made - I wish the ultimate decision makers had the cojones to set aside agency greed. But yup, sounds like a government thought out operation.
Another excuse I heard was a wider gauge would carry more passengers. After all BART cars have more aisle space and space between the seats than most standard gauge rail cars.
Regardless whether it was to protect each other's turf, future interoperability lost. BART became an experimental heavy rail system, and with government contracts always having to accept the lowest bid, problems result. Westinghouse's automatic train control system never worked. As a result BART employs highly compensated operators. Rohr Aircraft had never built a rail car; nor did they have a test track at their San Diego factory. Since the Bay Area was the only 5'6" gauge in the US at the time, Washington and Atlanta, which started after BART could not piggy back on BART order. Nor could BART have done the same following up on another transit system before it. Ont time, single orders cost more per car. Then when they started running the wrong doors opened at stations. Berkeley wanted it ALL underground. Costs rose. Station elevators were last minute additions. Some stations you can tell that they really do not fit in, or are in a strange place. It took many years to overcome these problems.
On the whole, given it's rough start, it has survived and was thriving until the homeless started making a hotel out of it. Sad.
It was stupid to have two different gauges.
Correction the name of manufacturer is wrong, but the year and class is right. The manufacturer is EMD (Eletro motive division) of General motors. 3:33
My favorite part about the Santa Clara station is the model train set up that they have in there
I should have plugged it!!
Have you also seen the one in Menlo Park?
@@fatviscount6562 no what???
Would love to know more about what happened to Atherton !
Caltrain really needs to extend from its current terminus and go all the way to the heart of SF. I keep hearing about an extension, but is it ever going to happen?
There are talks of it and only about $76 million in funding is secured. But I decided not to include it as it looks like a pipe dream. I'd love an extension to the Salesforce Transit Center though
Last I heard, San Francisco was estimating that building a 2-track tunnel into their downtown transit station would cost $5 BILLION PER MILE. At that price, there's no way it's happening within the next couple decades.
If only there was someone who is currently building underground transit tunnels with automated TBMs for a measly $50 million per mile and who may be open to scaling up their technology for bi-level EMUs...
San Bruno station has Artichoke Joe's Casino and San Mateo Avenue business corridor within walking distance, so I wouldn't say it sucks as much as you said
Common Menlo Park dub
Also, regarding problems while 22nd and 4th are good locations that the city has had a lot of (gentrifying) development go up around in the last couple decades, it will never help you actually get into MOST of SF. If you want to get to Mission, Market, or even Oakland/East Bay, everything requires a really slow transfer. You call out the bad timing going from BART to Caltrain, but even going Caltrain to BART, while you might be at Millbrae up to 15 min, BART then waits at SFO another 10ish minutes, so you don't even get to your next real stop for about half hour, while the train you were on is now in SF. It shouldn't be so hard for the rest of the Peninsula to enjoy Golden Gate Park without a car, for example, but it's simply not feasible right now.
This isn't exactly CalTrain's problem, though. We just also need BART down the Peninsula.
So... why is all the TOD so short? Seems bizarre that there are so few highrises.
Blame it on the city planning that has historically been car-centric
Those locomotives are EMD F40PH built by the Electromotive Division of General Motors not General Electric aka EMD's chief competition
The EMD F40PH's running on CalTrain need to be renovated and converted to Bio-Diesel. That way, they can still be used while being cleaner to the environment.
The EMD f40ph was produced by Electro-Motive Division, a subsidiary of General Motors
EMD (not EMP) F40PHs were built by General Motors in La Grange, IL, not General Electric.
Caltrain does not necessarily date back to the 1860s.....More like the southern pacific peninsula
Your pronunciation is wild. Stray-dles? Slahge?
Electrification has been painfully slow in coming. Commuters have deserved better for a long time. Time the F40 gas guzzlers we’re retired
GO BELLS! I take college park lol
Go bells!!!! 🔥🔥
It's been well over twenty years, and yet though it was promised as early as 1998, an extension of Cal Train to Salinas still hasn't happened. It would have stops at Pajaro Junction, near the Santa Cruz County border and Watsonville, and Castroville. As some of us in North Monterey County and Mid and South Santa Cruz County have been saying for years: "Where's our train?" From Pajaro and Castroville, there could be connecting light rail service to Santa Cruz and Monterey respectively, as those branch lines are in place.
I'm a bit boggled. Some years ago I had to use Caltrain to commute to work, and I found it miserable. The pre-electrification double decker cars are hard to get in and out of, and they have inexplicable metal shelves that scratch you as you push past other passengers in corridors that are honestly not wide enough for a single person. The one-train-per-hour rush hours only scheduling model is inadequate even for office workers, and thanks to the at-grade crossings it seemed that there were weekly train cancellations thanks to collisions with road traffic. And my goodness it was slow.
The stations have improved a lot, but when I first used to use it they just sort of shoved you out of the train onto the tracks.
As you say, it was _better_ in the days of steam. I may be seeing this with European eyes-I'd expect any stupid village to have two trains an hour well into the evening, and San Francisco should be seeing thirty-but to me, Caltrain gets maybe two out of ten. The test is, can you rely on it to go somewhere? And no, you can't. If you don't have a car it's not useful to you, and if you do have a car it's not needed by you. It simply isn't transit, it's not even a regional rail grade service.
Hopefully electrification, and then HSR, will bring us better. We'll see.
Caltrain bby 🤩
You're wrong about San Bruno, there's a busy commercial district on San Mateo Ave running straight from the station up to El Camino.
You mention at the San Bruno station there is no central commercial district.That is incorrect. Downtown San Bruno, is on San Mateo Ave (Called "The Avenue") is on the west side of the San Bruno Caltrain station. It is several blocks of shops, restaurants, etc.
20:00 San Mateo Ave right next to San Bruno station actually have a bunch of businesses, including my second favorite pho place Little Vietnamese Bistro.
fun fact "communications hill" actually has the Santa Clara County 911 Communications center on it.
Great to know woah
At least the San Antonio Station, serving Cal Trains in the San Francisco/San José area, is more useful (and more daily service) than anything serving San Antonio, Texas.
Caltrain should buy sc44 chargers for the Gilroy-Salinas extension
Caltrain is pretty good and I'm definitely excited about the electrification this year. In my view the system's biggest weakness is that it ends at 4th and King which just isn't very convenient to getting anywhere other than Giants and Warriors games. I really hope the plans to extend it to the Salesforce transit center come to fruition.