From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: BART vs. CalTrain speeds
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 16:30:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.204242.839@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
|> 	It just so happens that I rode BART from Lake Merritt to
|> Hayward just last night.
|> 
|> 	Here is the time figure: 16-17 minutes.
|> 
|> 	I found the distance from actually measuring it on a map:
|> 
|> 	13 miles between the two stations.

BART says it's 10.4 miles.


|> 	The ratio is 46-49 mph.

Using BART's mileage figure makes your so-called "ratio" 36.7-39 mph.


|> 	And what is CalTrain's average speed?
|> 
|> 	It travels 50 miles in 1 hour 40 minutes, giving an average
|> speed of 30 mph.
|> 
|> 	And this is for the same kind of territory.

Today's "slow" CalTrain for same kind of territory:

FROM         TO             MILES  STOPS  MI/STOP  MIN  MPH AVG
~~~~~~~~~    ~~             ~~~~~  ~~~~~  ~~~~~~~  ~~~  ~~~~~~~
San Jose     Menlo Park     18.0    7     2.6      29   37.2
Menlo Park   San Carlos      5.7    3     1.9      10   34.2

Note: SJ-MP segment skips College Park & Castro (common practice)

The CalTrain table assumes a regular non-express train.  In
practice, those commuting to SF often ride one of the many
express trains that skip many stations, giving much higher
average speeds.  The best/optimum example of this is when you
take train #62 from SF to Palo Alto's California Avenue stop
at 5:20pm.  The average speed for the 37 minute, 31.8 mile
trip is about 51.6 mph.  More typical expresses have average
speeds in the 38-40 mph range.  CalTrain cruising speed is 70mph.

BART's average speed is well under 40mph when you look at end to
end trip times.

When getting all wrapped up in average speed "debates" it is
important to remember that both systems can be sped up or slowed
down.  BART recently started running their speed-up schedule and
there were a lot of problems.  Mostly because of equipment
failures.  It is old, and it's reliability is poor, especially
when one considers the fault-tolerance or fault-resiliency of
the BART system as a whole.  I assume the speed up program is
running a bit better now because before I went on vacation there
were daily media reports of things like late trains and trains
skipping several stops trying to get back on schedule.  Has
BART finally reached it's 95% on-time target?  I'm not sure if
CalTrain has, but subjectively, it seems to be quite on-time
despite warnings of train delays due to seismic retro-fit work
being done on 280 in San Francisco.



|> 	BART is over 50% faster!

Nope.


|> 	Second, CalTrain is not very fast at accelerating or braking.
|> According to Amtrak engineers, CalTrain was the slowest-braking system
|> they ever had experience with.

This is true.  When CalTrans ordered the current fleet of 20 CalTrain
F40 diesel locomotives, they didn't want to pay for the "blended-brake"
option.  This allows for much quicker stops and hence higher average
speeds--especially on trains that stop frequently (i.e. most CalTrains).
Most all of Amtrak's other services use locos with the blended brake.
A retro-fit is possible, but the JPB must pay for it.  I don't know the
cost of a retro-fit, but I'd rather see the JPB get serious about
electrification and have them put money into that instead.  New
electric locomotives will undoubtably have both better acceleration
AND better braking for higher average speeds and shorter trip-times.

-- 

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