Last week, promising opportunities to relieve Caltrain crowding were discussed briefly, including potential improvements in the short term, and the much longer term.  In the short term, at last week’s Caltrain board meeting, head of rail operations Michelle Bouchard presented data that showed continued increase in ridership, with San Jose Diridon and Redwood City showing the fastest growth.
The report also analyzed the level of crowding where updated 6-car trains are used.  It turns out that there are some very crowded runs that are still using 5-car trains (see the southbound chart, the 5-car trains carry 650 passengers and the 6-car trains carry 762).  Changing where 6-car trains are used might help alleviate crowding.   In a brief follow-up conversation, Bouchard indicated that other changes to relieve crowding were being considered for the nearish term before electrification, such as adjusting stop patterns to current ridership, and changing baby bullet timing. Options will be brought for public review.
In the much longer term, disclosures by the High Speed Rail authority point to opportunities for greater rail corridor capacity over time, including potentially more room on Caltrain.  At a presentation from High Speed Rail to Mountain View City Council,  Council Member Kasperzak asked whether Caltrain was permanently stuck at 6 trains per direction per hour, because of the deal with High Speed Rail to share tracks, with a maximum of 10 trains per hour feasible on the corridor.  High Speed Rail’s Ben Tripousis said that HSR technical staff now believes that the corridor can fit up to 12-14 trains per direction per hour over time.  This assessment is along the lines of the opinions of others with international rail expertise, and opens the promise of higher frequency Caltrain service to carry more passengers.
To provide more frequent service including long-distance express and local trains, faster trains will need to be able to pass slower trains with more stops. In response to a question from Council Member Rosenberg, Tripousis noted that HSR engineers are now looking at using “passing stations”, allowing faster trains to pass when the local is at a station, in addition to segments of passing tracks. Â These options are likely to be considered and studied as part of the environmental review in the next 1-2 years. Â Grade separations will also be needed over time in order to enable more frequent rail service while maintaining crosstown connectivity.
January 9 2014 Caltrain Board meeting:
“The plan is to have every Bombardier set become a six-car train and there will be an additional Bombardier six-car train for a total of 6 six-car Bombardier train sets. Mr. Harvey said creating an extra train allows staff to break down a gallery train and add cars to other gallery sets”.
http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/__Agendas+and+Minutes/JPB/Board+of+Directors/Minutes/2014/1-9-14+JPB+Minutes.pdf (page 5)
May 8 2016 update:
– The 5 Bombardier train sets have had 6 cars for over a year (thanks to the CAC) but lost 24 seats in April to make room for more bikes.
– The other ten Bombardier cars have been parked for over 2 years (5 in San Jose and 5 in San Francisco).
– There is no sign of a sixth 6-car Bombardier train set.
– There is no sign of any 6-car gallery train sets.
– We need two additional bombardier cars to build a 7th Bombardier train set which will allow us to add a sixth car to ten of the existing Gallery train sets (by breaking up two 5-car gallery sets)
I don’t see any mention of hi-level platforms. These would have a substantial effect on reducing deboarding/boarding times.
I still maintain that the easiest way to relieve crowding on the busiest trains is to have the less used trains stop at popular stations. Trains 211, 221, 231, 264, 274, and 284 need to stop at Palo Alto. Trains 218, 228, 238, 263, 273, and 283 should be stopping at Mtn View and other stations. There’s also other stopping patterns that could be adjusted.
â€there are some very crowded runs that are still using 5-car trains†Caltrain’s answer of last year was “because of high bike demand, they have to use 5-car gallery set”. It seems their priority is bike capacity over standing passenger.
@Evans,
Please go back and take another look at Adina’s slide: http://www.greencaltrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/caltraincrowding.png and the problem (and the solution) will become obvious:
– The trains with 650 seats are the 5-car Gallery train sets
– The trains with 762 seats are the 6-car Bombardiers.
If we split two 5-car Gallery trains (total 10 cars) and we replace them with 2 Bombardiers (762 seats each), we will be able to use the 10 “spare” gallery cars to create 10 6-car Gallery train sets with 780 (650+130) seats each.
This will buy us a couple of years and will allow us to go back to a timetable without any “padding” because passengers will be able to board and disembark much faster (1 extra door = 20% improvement over a 5-car Gallery train set).
I hope this makes sense. If not, please ask.
I still don’t get why Caltrain chose to add one car to just a few trains in the existing schedule rather than to create one 5-car trainsets and add one more train per hour in each direction. By running one more train per hour in each direction using the schedule like this (http://tinyurl.com/z5etrzk), they could’ve run total of 30 train cars per hour in each direction rather than running only up to 28 train cars per hour in each direction. If they run all trains with 5-car trainsets, they would need only 21 trainsets to cover 6 trains/hr peak service. Again, they have enough cars to do so with cars purchased from Metrolink.
By running six 5-car trains per hour, they wouldn’t have to deal with negative impacts on run time from running longer and heavier trains (one locomotive pulling 6 cars rather than 5 cars).
The short-term solution to address overcrowding should be a peak schedule tweak to add one more train per hour in each direction, all using 5-car trainsets.
Roland,
I am complaining about Caltrain’s decision on priority: bicycle capacity vs seating capacity.
We know bike community have more voiced to the board meeting and asking more bike capacity. This should be valid for reverse commute, as there are still remaining seating capacity. Caltrain should consider limitation on bike in the traditional commute train, as ridership increase surpass the reverse commute last several years.
Redwood City, Sunnyvale, California Avenue, San Antonio,… Those station have relatively poor peak service but have significant ridership increase.
Current stop pattern is set in 2005 based on ridership. Caltrain need major modification of time table based on reality. Need more service for those stations have ridership.
Jake, this is right answer. 6-car train have also negative impact on efficiency during mid-day, night and weekend. Caltrain get additional excuse not to adding more service during these period.