u/Planeandaquariumgeek

A lot of folks like to flaunt that Caltrain has a 95% OTP. This is true, but at least when you use Caltrain’s definition of on time. This post (https://www.reddit.com/r/caltrain/s/NCIsydBHfC) got me thinking about how Caltrain puts out these numbers when other numbers paint a different picture. The answer: Caltrain considers a train late when it’s 10 minutes or more behind schedule. BUT HERES THE THING: the standard benchmark is 5 minutes or more behind schedule. In other words: they basically falsify their data. I’ll let someone else do the math on what the actual number is, but I’d guess it isn’t 95%

When the South County Connector becomes the Monterey County Connector (a fancier way of saying when the SCC is extended to Salinas) the diesel running portion of Caltrain will be longer than the electric running portion (71 miles of diesel running, 51 miles of electric running). Man do we need an electric SCC.

Aaron is gonna wind up getting medically pulled, he’s lost 70lbs and is extremely weak at this point, he also has no food caches. At that point it’s a battle to the death between Nero & Ziga. Nero’s more likely to go down. The only things that could take out Ziga are either A: his shelter catches fire again but completely burns down this time or B: his moose either spoils or gets too freezer burnt to eat. What’s probably gonna finish off Nero is either him falling through the lake or having his caches finished off by the bears. It’s a 70/30 shot between Ziga & Nero. Nero could be an underdog winner hence why I give him a 30% chance, but it’s probably gonna be Ziga.

Planned/proposed grade separations:

2 in San Francisco: Mission Bay Dr, 16th St (as part of DTX which probably won’t happen for another 150 years)

1 in South San Francisco: Linden Ave (South San Francisco’s last crossing)

1 in Burlingame: Broadway (#2 on the CPUC priority list behind Churchill)

6 in Redwood City: Whipple, Brewster, Broadway, Maple, Main, Chestnut (aka all crossings in Redwood City)

4 in Menlo Park: Encinal, Glenwood, Oak Grove, Ravenswood (aka all crossings in Menlo Park)

4 in Palo Alto: Palo Alto Ave, Churchill (#1 on the CPUC priority list), Meadow, Charleston (aka all crossings in Palo Alto, these 4 will probably be the next ones to go)

1 in Mountain View: Rengstorff Ave

2 in Sunnyvale: Mary, Sunnyvale Ave

1 in San Jose: Auzerais Ave

Planned/proposed crossing closures:

San Bruno: Scott St (San Bruno’s last crossing)

San Mateo: Villa Terrace, Bellevue

Mountain View: Castro St (between this & Rengstorff grade separation it’ll be all of Mountain View’s crossings)

The crossings with no elimination plan:

Millbrae: Center St (probably the only crossing that’s completely impossible to eliminate, grade separation is virtually impossible due to the BART tunnel underneath, and it can’t be closed because it provides sole access to a neighborhood)

Burlingame: Oak Grove, North Lane, Howard Ave, Bayswater, Peninsula

San Mateo: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th

Atherton: Fair Oaks Ln, Watkins (politically impossible to eliminate since Atherton cut off all cooperation with caltrain in 2020)

San Jose: West Virginia

It’s already an internal thing from what I know: a little bit ago I was on 140 looking to transfer to 814, but it was running late. Turns out just like if 514 is running late 814 will hold if 140 is running late. Why doesn’t Caltrain just show on their timetable that transferring from 807-111, 811-115, 140-814, and 148-822 is perfectly possible? Could be made even better if it was set up to be a cross-platform transfer (possible since platform 9 is double length, you could park for example 148 and 522 there pretty easily)

From what I can gather Caltrain originally planned on still having 8 diesel powered trains per day (the 8 Gilroy trains) north of San Jose, but for whatever reason they changed their minds. Any particular reason?

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