From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: Should CalTrain be Saved?
Keywords: BART CalTrain
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:30:08 GMT

In article <1415@dosbears>, mikel@dosbears.UUCP (Mike Lipsie) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep3.183143.20672@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Alan Hirsch) writes:
|> Because of this X, comparisons of frequency and headway are slippery
|> beasts and should be avoided if possible.

You just need to compare one BART line/route with CalTrain.  That's
pretty fair and comparable, I think.


|> BTW, BART has recently (in the last year or so) upgraded its system
|> through SF to handle headways of 2.5 minutes.

Great.


|> the controlling feature of "average speed" is the number of stops.
|> CalTrain "express trains" have a higher average speed [than BART]
|> because they "skip" stops.

Right.


|> >People want to sit down when they use transit.  CalTrain's double 
|> >deck cars have 148 seats per car--compared to 68 for BART.  This is 
|> >because BART's design was optimized for peak hour crush loads and 
|> >San Francisco and East Bay transit trip lengths that average half
|> >that of the Peninsula (12 miles vs. 23 miles). 
|> 
|> "Want" is too strong a word.  "Would rather" is more correct.

Debatable.  I want to sit down when I use transit, don't you?
I think you're splitting pretty fine hairs here.


|> [CalTrain] seats that are unuseable because people have attempted
|> to make them face the other way like they used to be able to do.

CalTrain disabled the seat-flip option on their seats some years ago.
I've heard differing reasons ranging from saftey/liability concerns
to seating efficiency.  At any rate, I don't know what trains you've
seen "unuseable" seats on, but I ride CalTrain a lot and haven't
noticed a problem.  Could you explain?



|> And what will CalTrain do if they actually become as popular
|> as BART?  BART runs ten car trains most of the time on the
|> busy lines and on all lines at rush times.  CalTrain runs
|> three and four cars most of the time and up to six cars on 
|> the busiest run.

A ten car BART train seats almost 700 people, while it only takes a
5 car CalTrain to seat over 700 people.  So CalTrain needs about half
as many cars as a BART train to seat as many people.  If CalTrain
starts getting overloaded, they can run longer trains or increase
frequency.


|> What is the longest train that the stations can load and unload?

It depends on the station.  I've heard ten car trains is the practical
maximum--but I'm not sure.  Certainly they can run 10-car trains
because I've seen and ridden them for special events.  Certain stations
don't have platforms quite that long, but I guess that doesn't stop
them from doing it.  Lengthening a few platforms is no big deal, so I'm
not too worried about the issue.  The other thing that is pretty common
railroading practice is "double stops".  That's where the train stops
twice at one station to allow the first half and then the second half
to board.  This, for obvious reasons, is something you don't want to
have to do too frequently.

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation