Baby Bullets set to roll in June Baby Bullets set to roll in June (April 14, 2004)

By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer

Rail service on the Peninsula should dramatically improve in June, when 10 new Baby Bullet express trains whisk passengers between San Jose and San Francisco in less than an hour, and weekend service resumes.

"Baby Bullet express service makes Caltrain competitive with the automobile in terms of travel time," said Chuck Harvey, Caltrain's chief operating officer. "That's a first for Bay Area public transportation."

The Caltrain board adopted the new schedule at its meeting April 1. Details of the new schedule were worked out over five months as the board held seven public meetings and received thousands of comments.

With the addition of 10 Baby Bullets, Caltrain will increase the number of trains from 76 to 86 each weekday; this is the highest service level in the railroad's 140-year history, Caltrain officials said.

Weekend service will resume Saturday, June 5, after being shut down almost two years during construction of passing tracks, and upgrade of stations, rails and signals to accommodate the new Baby Bullet trains.

Weekend trains will stop at each station every hour between 6 a.m. and midnight Saturdays, and 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Sundays. This schedule was adopted 6-3 by the three-county Caltrain board.

The weekday timetable was more complicated because it meant eliminating some stops on regular runs to keep within the budget. "We're adding 10 trains June 7 within the same budget," said Caltrain board member Art Lloyd of Portola Valley. "We've had the same budget for four years."

Starting the first Monday in June, the morning schedule has three Baby Bullets going northbound and two southbound. In the evening, there will be three going south and two north.

The express trains will use new tracks to pass slower local trains at two locations: one is in San Francisco at Paul Avenue, near Bayview/Hunters Point; the other is at College Park between Santa Clara and San Jose.

Whizzing by at up to 79 miles per hour, the express trains will make only four stops between San Francisco and San Jose: Millbrae, Hillsdale, Palo Alto and Mountain View. Travel time between San Francisco and San Jose will be 57 minutes.

On weekdays, every other train will skip Atherton and three other low-ridership stations. "Atherton will go back to hourly service, which is what they had four years ago," said Mr. Lloyd. "Atherton is the third lowest boarding station in the system."

The vote on weekday schedules was unanimous.

Officials hope that the new service will reverse the decline in riders since 9-11 and the dot-com bust. Ridership plunged from 36,000 per day before 9-11 to 28,000 today. Caltrain officials said they will evaluate the new service after six months.

INFORMATION

For information on the new schedules, check the Caltrain Web site, www.caltain.com.

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