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Caltrain is a commuter rail line on the San Francisco Peninsula and the Santa Clara Valley in the United States. Its northern-most station is in southeastern San Francisco, California, at 4th and King Street. Its southern terminus lies in Gilroy, California. It is primarily used by commuters. It has 33 regular stops and two stops used only for events.
History
The original Peninsula railroad corridor between San Francisco and San Jose was constructed in 1863 by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, which was purchased by Southern Pacific in 1870.
Under Southern Pacific's ownership, the line was double tracked in 1904 and had experienced record ridership during World War II. After the war, the ridership slowly declined with the rise of automobile use. In 1977, SP filed a petition with the state Public Utilities Commission to discontinue the commuter operation due to the ongoing operating losses.
To preserve the commuter service, Caltrans in 1980 contracted SP and began to subsidize the operation. During the Caltrans' adminstration, Caltrans purchased new rolling stock, upgraded stations, introduced shuttle buses to nearby employers, and rebranded the operation as CalTrain.
In 1987, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB) was formed to manage the line. With state and local funding, the PCJPB purchased the railroad right of way between San Francisco and San Jose from SP in 1991. In the following year, PCJPB took over the full responsibility for CalTrain operations and selected Amtrak as the contract operator. Also, PCJPB extended the CalTrain service from San Jose to Gilroy, with a direct connection to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Light Rail at Tamien Station in San Jose.
 Caltrain train at Mountain View In July 1995, Caltrain became accessible to passengers in wheelchairs. Five months later, Caltrain increased the bicycle limit to 24 per train, making the service attractive to commuters in bicycle-friendly cities such as San Francisco and Palo Alto.
In 1998, San Francisco Muni extended N-Judah streetcar line from Market Street to the San Francisco Caltrain Station at 4th and King streets, providing a direct Caltrain-Muni Metro connection for the first time. A year later, VTA extended its Light Rail from north Santa Clara to the Caltrain station in Mountain View. In June 2003, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Caltrain systems were interconnected at the Millbrae station just south of the San Francisco International Airport.
In June 2004, Caltrain finished a two-year CTX (Caltrain Express) construction project that was aimed to implement the express service named Baby Bullet. The project included the installation of bypass tracks in Brisbane and Sunnyvale as well as a new CTC system. The resulting express service uses newly acquired equipments and only stops at five stations between San Francisco Station and San Jose Station. The travel time between San Francisco and San Jose for the express service is 57 minutes instead of the 1 hour 30 minutes of the local service.
Future service improvement and expansion
Downtown San Francisco Extension:
An additional one mile (1.6 km) underground extension has been proposed to extend Caltrain from the current North terminus in San Francisco at Fourth and King, to a rebuilt Transbay Terminal, where it would be much closer to the job center of San Francisco and connect directly with BART, San Francisco MUNI, crossbay AC Transit buses, and long-distance buses. This project is scheduled to start construction in 2006 and open in 2012.
Dumbarton Rail:
Caltrain has been chosen to provide commuter rail service on a to-be-rebuilt Dumbarton rail corridor across the San Francisco Bay between the Peninsula and Alameda County in the East Bay. This service is currently scheduled to start in 2010 at the earliest.
South of Gilroy Extension:
Caltrain also has plans for south of Gilroy extension. This extension would reach cities in Monterey County, just southwest of Santa Clara County, such as Salinas and Monterey. If everything goes well, this service could start in 2010. This project is managed by TAMC.
Electrification:
Since Downtown Extension requires tunneling and thus requiring electrification, Caltrain also plans to electrify the whole system from San Francisco to Gilroy. This project has the potential to decrease equipment maintenance costs, lessen impact of wild fuel price fluctuation, and give Caltrain a modern image that is comparable to the BART service. The earliest implementation date of electrification is 2008.
Station Stops
(with mile posts; as of June 2004; Ex indicates express train stops)
- Zone 1
- Zone 2
- Zone 3
- Zone 4
- Zone 5
- 52.4 - Capitol, San Jose
- 55.7 - Blossom Hill, San Jose
- Zone 6
Locomotives
Caltrain uses (or used) the following locomotives:
- EMD F40PH
- EMD F40PH-2C
- MPI MP36PH-3C
- EMD GP9
- EMD MP15DC
Connecting rail and bus transit services
Caltrain has direct connections to three regional rail services; Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) (providing service to Colma, Daly City, San Francisco and the East bay) at the Millbrae Station, Amtrak's Capitol Corridor and Coast Starlight trains, as well as Altamont Commuter Express at the San Jose Station.
Caltrain is served by a number of local bus/rail systems. These system include the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans), Valley Transportation Authority.
Caltrain also has connection to San Francisco International Airport via BART at the Millbrae Station and to San Jose International Airport via VTA shuttle bus at the Santa Clara Station.
Caltrain is also served by AC Transit from Hayward at the Hillsdale station, Dumbarton Express from Union City at Palo Alto, Highway 17 Express bus from Santa Cruz at San Jose, as well as San Benito County Express from Hollister and Monterey-Salinas Transit from Monterey County at Gilroy.
Caltrain sponsors many shuttle routes serving local employers on the Peninsula and the Silicon Valley. Shuttle connections are available to Stanford University at the Palo Alto and California Avenue stations and San Jose State University at the San Jose Station.
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