SAN CARLOS, Calif. — The first full month of electrified service on Caltrain’s San Francisco-San Jose route spurred significant ridership growth, the commuter rail operator says.
All-electric operations began Sept. 21. In October, Caltrain carried more than 753,000 passengers, a 54% increase from October 2023. That included average weekday ridership of about 27,000, up 38%, and huge gains on weekends — Saturday ridership was up 169% from the previous October and Sundays were up 142%, pushing those days above pre-COVID figures.
“When we broke ground on the Electrification Project back in 2017, we set out to deliver a state-of-the-art modern rail system for the people we serve,” Michelle Bouchard, Caltrain executive director, said in a press release. “It is immensely gratifying to see our riders embrace our new service on this scale.”
The electrified service schedule includes more trains during peak periods, expanded weekend service, and faster travel times [see “Caltrain finalizes electrification operating plan,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 12, 2023].
But now compare Oct 2024 to Oct 2019
MARC has also run diesels under catenary on Amtrak out of DC. How much does AMTK charge to draw power from the overhead?
What is missing in the article is a comparison of ridership from Sep 24 to Oct 24. That is, how dramatic was the immediate increase? Ridership may have been significantly increasing all year before electrification. I’m not saying it was, but it would be nice to know.
It’s both.
Check this out. It compares the schedule differences. Stopping service speed increase is even more marked than express..
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/caltrain-offers-first-look-at-all-electric-schedules/
MIKE — Thanks for your post. Electrics accelerate faster than diesels.
MIKE (and others) —– It stuns me that MBTA has run the Providence Line with diesels under wire for over two decades. This is a two-track railroad that must mix 110 to 125 mph Acelas with diesel-hauled MBTA locals. What’s even stranger is that the General Court (state legislature) is on record insisting that all the MBTA suburban lines be electrified —- but MBTA doesn’t run electrics where catenary has existed for many years.
If we are to spend all this money on passenger rail infrastructure, then we ought to get something for it. CalTRAIN has.
It might be possible that the recovery charge for using the catenary would be higher for MBTA should they choose to use it. Then I would imagine that they would want MBTA to help pay for its eventual replacement.
In think it’s all of those things. But electrification means the SF-SJ time is now 59 minutes end to end on the express trains. It was 76 minutes before electrification on the fastest express trains.
That’s a substantial speed increase. I was a regular rider when the Baby Bullet (they don’t use that term anymore) started service. It was also a substantial speed increase. This old newswire story compares the schedules. The increase is even more marked on all stops (100 series) trains. 115 minutes vs. 83. minutes. That’s 32 minutes faster end to end.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/caltrain-offers-first-look-at-all-electric-schedules/
Was it simply electrification, or was the increase in frequencies and service due to more trainsets being available?
I think the numbers would have gone up regardless being electric, diesel or hydrogen.
More service means, more riders (usually)