With 160 years of service officially under its belt, Caltrain is celebrating the milestone by putting the finishing touches on necessary testing and construction for its multibillion-dollar electrification effort.
The rail system, which opened during the 19th century, remains the oldest continually operating railroad west of the Mississippi River. And now it’s finalizing another significant undertaking by becoming the first such system in the country to transition from a diesel railway to an electrified system in at least three decades.
The anniversary event on Saturday, May 11, not only paid homage to the agency’s past, but it also offered attendees the chance to tour the new electric trains.
“We’ve got about 30 miles of [Caltrain] that comes through my district, so it’s tremendously important to this district, and I see this as the third act of Caltrain,” Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, said during the event. “First we had steam, then we went to diesel and now we’ve got electrification.”
The electrification effort broke ground in 2017, and passengers can finally start expecting the new electrified service in September, which will include at least 20% more stops at each station.
The seven-year effort hasn’t seen ballooning budgetary needs as of late, and it’s also reported few injuries. But it’s most recently struggled to curb incidents of tampering with or stealing impedance bond cables, which ensure the higher voltage and lower voltage currents do not interfere with one another. The cables, which have cost in total $2.5 million, have continued posing risks throughout the project, both from a financial standpoint and from a safety perspective. There have been over 100 incidents of vandalism and thefts since the start of construction, the majority of which involve the cables.
The rail agency is also banking on the upcoming electrification and subsequent ridership improvements — especially shorter travel times and higher stop frequency — to close existing gaps between pre- and post-pandemic ridership. While overall ridership has been steadily increasing — this past March saw a 28% year-over-year increase — it still remains one of the Bay Area transit agencies with the lowest share of pre-pandemic ridership levels at about 35%. Other large transit services, such as BART and Muni, have recovered to about 44% and 78%, respectively.
The total budget for the project is approximately $2.5 billion.
(4) comments
If the thoroughly underwhelming Caltrain Open House last Saturday is a prediction of this train's performance, we are in for a big bill and a surprise. I keep my fingers crossed.
My takeaway… Basically, $2.5 billion wasted in an attempt to make a better mousetrap. As we’ve seen with electric vehicles, this conveyance won’t be a better mousetrap, just a more expensive mousetrap. And where’s the obligatory homage to climate change and carbon emissions? Perhaps folks are realizing this electric choo choo doesn’t make Earth any better off, only union workers. Now imagine what else this $2.5 billion could have been used for to make life better for all citizens, not just union labor. You get the government you vote for.
If my math is correct, that's $50M per mile [for 50 miles] to electrify the line.
If you count everything, but they had to buy the trains and cars as well.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.