A complication in Caltrain's coming transition to level boarding is found in the train's bathroom, an amenity that requires equal access for passengers with reduced mobility under ADA regulations. During the procurement and design phase of the EMUs, the original plan was to fit in-vehicle wheelchair lifts to enable passengers with reduced mobility to move between the lower level and mid-level, for level boarding compatibility with future high-speed rail platforms (48" above rail, 73" from track center) and to enable bathroom access regardless of boarding level.
This plan fell apart because of practical considerations of cost and vehicle packaging: the bulky 800-pound capacity lifts would have impeded passenger flows in the lower-level vestibules, without providing any value until some distant future where Caltrain would need to dock at high-level platforms in stations shared with high-speed rail. Even then, the lifts would have been required indefinitely, to provide equal access to the bathroom on the lower level. The idea was so unappetizing that it was scrapped, and Caltrain has since focused its nebulous level-boarding strategy around European-like 550 mm platforms.
The EMUs are nevertheless designed for future conversion to high platforms. A different solution is available that would facilitate a transition to 48" platforms: a new single-level, high-floor bathroom car that would take the eighth slot in the consist. The EMUs were always planned to be eight cars long, as their numbering attests by skipping from 1, 2, 3 to 5, 6. Missing car number 4 could have this configuration, as modified from a Stadler drawing:
The new high-floor bathroom car would triple bathroom capacity of the trainset from one to three bathrooms, provide 60 seats with up to six wheelchair spaces, and enable a gradual transition to 48" level boarding using car-borne wheelchair lifts (such as the FRA and ADA compliant PowerLift by Rincon) to board passengers with reduced mobility from legacy 8" platforms, without the need for precise positioning of train doors relative to mini-high platforms. Once the transition to level boarding is completed, these lifts could be removed.
With the bridge plates already engineered for the EMUs (shown in photo at right but not fitted to the fleet as delivered) passengers with reduced mobility could board step-free without any crew assistance, greatly improving the predictability of dwell times and thereby increasing train speeds and corridor capacity.
The transition to high platforms would then entail the following steps:
- Extend all platforms and yards to support eight-car trains
- Incorporate new single-level bathroom cars to all trains
- Commission high level doors and install bridge plates
- Build new 48" platforms!
High platforms have the advantage of compatibility with high-speed rail, enabling any train to dock at any platform as needed and making optimal use of future corridor and station capacity. They allow high-speed trains to make stops at important places like Redwood City or Palo Alto with zero additional infrastructure. They allow Caltrain to operate like BART, with brief and predictable station dwell times, something that remains out of reach today even as our swift and modern EMUs must wait for extended periods at low platforms, in the manner of a Ferrari driven on a rutted dirt road.
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