Caltrain's Plan for Level Boarding

Some good news: Caltrain is working on a level boarding plan, as documents requested under the Public Records Act attest. Their "Level Boarding Roadmap: Technical Task Force Platform Report" dated April 2024 is a reasonably well-written document that discusses how the system might be converted to level boarding using the European 550 mm platform standard. After reading it, three questions arise:

1. Why are 48" level boarding platforms never discussed? The roadmap takes for granted that Caltrain's solution is 550 mm (22") platforms. It mentions "Caltrain EMUs have doors (...) at the mid-level (currently these doors are plugged)" and never again mentions how these doors got there, what else might be done with them, or why it shouldn't. While every solution has pros and cons, how is such a fundamental decision of system architecture presented with no context as a done deal, without the slightest technical rationale or public discussion?
    
   
2. Why is the preferred solution allowed to violate HSR specifications?
   
   22" platforms are discussed with two lateral offset alternatives: 64" (preserving today's platform offsets) and 68". The safety argument presented in favor of a 64" offset does not contemplate that such platforms would encroach into the high-speed rail vehicle body dynamic envelope, and that wide-body HSR cars would extend over the platform. These issues are shown in the precisely scaled graphic at right, using dimensions from the HSR vehicle RFP. Neither of these conditions seems safe and neither is addressed in the hazard analysis, unless an unstated assumption is being made that the high-speed rail project should fix Caltrain platform design errors at the public's expense.
    
   
3. Why was this work not done ten years ago, before EMU procurement? There is no value added by testing platform mockups with a real EMU as done in the report, versus testing with a plywood vehicle mockup. Everything discussed in Caltrain's report was known ten years ago and the Stadler EMU fleet could have been delivered with a platform interface solution for level boarding at 22" had Caltrain specified one. Now, we're stuck with a retrofit situation, but better late than never.

The next steps discussed in Caltrain's report are good ones, and should be expedited. Specifically, developing a technical solution for an automatic step arrangement compatible with both 8" and 22" platforms is of the highest urgency. ("Funding a prototype for an estimated $3M lowers technical risk and also shortens the timeframe to begin fleet implementation should funding become available.") This small investment is among the most important and valuable projects that Caltrain should undertake immediately.

A bit over a month of electric service has made it abundantly clear that dwell times are long and on-time performance is systematically poor due to the rosy performance assumptions baked into Caltrain's timetable. The trains are fast, but much of their performance is wasted on long dwells. Level boarding can't come soon enough.

Another Path to Level Boarding

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.

Cars on the Tracks

Cars turning off from a grade crossing onto the tracks are a perennial problem for Caltrain, often resulting in multi-hour cascading delays or worse, dangerous collisions. The statistics are shocking: from 2020 through 2023, there were 183 recorded incidents of "vehicle track incursions," of which more than half occurred at just five crossings as shown in the Caltrain bar chart at right.

Caltrain has tried mightily to take measures against this human error. It's useful to view these attempts through a risk management lens: the risk is the product of the probability of a vehicle entering the tracks, multiplied by its consequence.

Reducing Probability

We can do a little bit of Street View tourism to see what solutions have been attempted so far to reduce the probability of a vehicle track incursion:

	Paint stripes give visual feedback, but such road markings are often not observed by the sort of driver who might not see that they are turning onto tracks.
	Reflectors and Botts Dots keep a low profile to fit under passing trains, while giving visual and steering wheel feedback. In the gauge, they get beat up by equipment dragging under freight trains. This example is at Castro Street in Mountain View.
	Rumble strips, similar to above solution, at Mission Bay Drive in San Francisco.
	Solar reflectors go one step further by lightning up at night. The small solar cell at the top charges a battery that powers red LED lights when it is dark. This example is at 16th Street in San Francisco.
	Speed bumps provide slightly more steering wheel feedback. This example is at Mission Bay Drive in San Francisco.

All of these measures are probably effective to some extent, but they won't stop a vision-impaired or inebriated or inexperienced driver, especially when they are mindlessly following GPS directions to turn onto a street that immediately parallels the tracks, a common feature of the grade crossings with the highest incidence of vehicle track incursions.

Reducing Consequence

Before we can discuss reducing the consequence of a vehicle track incursion, we need to acknowledge just what the consequence is: at a minimum, the vehicle becomes stranded on the tracks, requiring extrication by a tow truck. At worst, there is a dangerous collision with a train.

Most vehicles will end up high-centered if they blunder onto the tracks because the rail is 7" 5/16 tall and the center of concrete ties dips lower, resulting in easily 9" of height difference between the surface of the ties and the top of the rail. This height exceeds the ground clearance of most SUVs. Once high-centered, a vehicle with open differentials (i.e., not-Jeep) loses traction and becomes stranded. The driver is unable to correct their mistake, and when they try, they often just make it worse by driving further onto the tracks.

Currently, Caltrain applies no mitigation to this consequence. Their entire risk mitigation approach to vehicle track incursions relies on prevention, by reducing the probability while accepting the consequence that a stranding is inevitable. It is not!

Anti-trespass panels in New York, on Metro North.
Photo by Daniel Case.

Anti-trespass panels can mitigate the consequence of a vehicle track incursion through two mechanisms: 

1) very strong vibratory feedback that the vehicle has departed the road, likely to induce brake application on a reflexive basis and avoiding a deeper incursion.

2) reduced height difference between the rail and surrounding surfaces, enabling a vehicle with low ground clearance to maneuver without becoming high-centered. The driver can self-extricate the vehicle.

While these rubber panels are primarily intended to prevent pedestrian trespassing, they would likely also work for cars if laid down for about 30 feet beyond the edge of a crossing. They are a passive solution with low operating cost, certainly a much more effective mitigation than CCTV or intrusion sensors with alerts integrated into the signalling system. All these expensive and technology-heavy solutions may prevent a collision, but do nothing about the need for a tow truck or the resulting service disruption. This makes anti-trespass panels an ideal solution that best addresses the need of Caltrain riders to arrive on time.

The south side of Churchill Avenue in Palo Alto would make an excellent location for a pilot installation.

September 2024 Open Thread

Electric service starts this weekend.  The blog comment system stopped working on the August open thread, so let's try this instead?

August 2024 Open Thread

Open thread time! Feel free to jump into the comments below.

• Driving like a grandma: electric service started on August 11th. Initially and until September 21st, EMUs operate on the current diesel timetable, for which they are grossly overpowered. Therefore, trips are sedate, and the full benefits of electrification are yet to be realized. We can't wait!!!
   
  
• Wasted dwell time: per FRA safety regulations, doors may only unlock and be opened when the train is at a complete stop. The drop step mechanism that deploys from below each door must obviously be fully deployed for the door to be unlocked and opened. Unfortunately, the software that controls this operation also appears to require that the train be at a complete stop for the drop step mechanism to operate. The result is eight to ten seconds wasted by the cycle time of the step mechanism (see video) which becomes a series contributor to dwell time. For an all-stops local, that waste is worth a full three minutes of run time. A typical Caltrain user travels for about 20 miles, let's say seven stops each way-- that's 140 seconds per day wasted. Multiply by 250 work days, and a full-time commuter will waste about ten hours waiting for those silly steps.
  
  
  This can be fixed in software. As seen in the timeline graphic, allowing the step to deploy and retract while the train is in motion would remove this wasted dwell time. The step mechanism can be cleared to move only when the train is moving slower than 5 mph, and since the step itself does not extend over the platform (it reaches only 63.5 inches from vehicle center line when fully extended) there can be no hazard to passengers. We spent a lot of money to save 25 minutes of SF-SJ run time, so please, let's not piss away 3 minutes because of overly conservative door sequencing software.
  
  
• Spares ratio: full electric service from September 21st onward requires at least 14 trains, not including spares. As of August 10th, twelve have been documented via photographs and video as having arrived in California (see tracking spreadsheet). One of them suffered a collision and was returned to the factory for repairs last March, leaving 11 known to be in California today. Two more (most likely 313/314 and 315/316) are due in early September. Peak service periods, when all 14 EMU sets are needed in service, can be protected with diesels if allocated exclusively to express services where they can sort of keep up, until further EMUs are delivered to increase the spares ratio above zero.
   
  
• Costly fender bender: Early this year, EMU 311/312 suffered a sideswipe collision at the CEMOF yard and was sent back to Salt Lake City for repairs. Two cars were damaged (see photo) and Stadler had to fly in welders from Switzerland to assess structural integrity and the cost of repairs. Aluminum isn't like steel, you can't just take hammers and a blowtorch to fix collision damage. The manufacturer's recommendation is said to have been full replacement, a multi-million dollar proposition.
   
• Wheel flat spots continue: detracting from the high quality of the new electric trains, there seems to be a continuing fleet-wide issue where all non-powered axles are prone to developing flat spots. The affected axles are located on the bike cars, and under the end cabs; once you hear this pattern, you can't un-hear it. As utilization ramps up, and especially when the next rainy season hits, let's hope this issue doesn't devolve into an epidemic of sidelined trains.

Feel free to comment on this or anything below.

Diridon Delusions

San Jose is striving to redesign and expand its Cahill Street station, named for the (still living) former Santa Clara County board of supervisors chair Rod Diridon, to meet the needs of future rail service including BART and high-speed rail. The station's context was discussed here in 2017.

The process led by the Joint Policy Advisory Board, made up of representatives from the city and relevant transportation agencies, has now reached the key juncture of presenting a small number of alternatives to the public. Before we dig into this, let's pause to consider an alternate plan.

The HSR Environmentally Cleared Project

This design is already
environmentally cleared.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority, as part of its San Jose to Merced project, has already obtained full federal and state environmental clearance to build the simple Diridon station concept shown at right. This plan adds a couple of overpass mezzanines above the existing platforms, and rebuilds two of these platforms for compatibility with high-speed trains, using the newly established standard height of 48 inches above top-of-rail and lateral offset of 73 inches from the track center. The 48" x 73" platform standard was agreed in June 2023 between the Authority, the FRA, and other prospective high-speed rail operators such as Brightline West. Due to budget pressures, the HSR project took a rather minimalist approach to this station, electing to build it at grade within the footprint of the existing facility, but pledged to work harmoniously with other agencies on more ambitious concepts. Think of it as a minimum viable product that has already cleared CEQA and NEPA, before we turn to what is now brewing for San Jose.

The Diridon JPAB Alternatives

In any public alternative evaluation process, it is important to carry a sacrificial alternative. This serves the same role as an unlikable character in a movie, whose demise is heavily foreshadowed and brings relief to the viewer when it occurs. The sacrificial alternative can be eliminated in an overt display of due diligence, reassuring the public that the authorities are being thrifty and mindful of the interests of riders and taxpayers. In this case, the "stacked" alternative seems to serve this purpose, and warrants no further discussion because it will shortly be eliminated.

Note similarity of elevated and at-grade options.

This leaves a choice between two alternatives known as "at grade" and "elevated," actually a distinction without much difference. Both designs are driven by an overarching requirement to create an expansive concourse level below the tracks and platforms, purporting to imitate grand European train stations but far more likely (this is America!) replicating the airport experience for train passengers. Early architectural renderings show this as an open and airy space resembling an Apple Store, paying no heed to the fact that the sky will be completely obstructed by tracks and platforms built on a dense forest of beefy concrete columns. No matter how pretty the architects try to make it, this will be a heavy elevated structure built on alluvial soils near seismically active faults. The light-filled and soaring station canopy will be enjoyed by nobody for any length of time, since all waiting areas will be in the basement.

Things to Watch For

The effectiveness of a station modernization project should be measured by its operational efficiency. The primary focus should be on shaving seconds off travel times, to include:

• Removing slow zones in the station approaches. On the north side, this means removing the CEMOF double reverse curve, a self-inflicted obstacle added in 2005 that limits all trains to 40 mph over a mile before the station. Main tracks MT2 and MT3 should be restored to their former alignment on the west side of the maintenance facility, with a flatter curve allowing trains to pass the facility at higher speeds. On the south side, this means greatly increasing the speed limit between San Jose and Tamien, currently just 35 mph, and providing at least two electrified tracks.
   
  
• Re-configuring the layout of north and south station interlockings (a.k.a. "station throats") to enable swift and parallel train moves into and out of the station, on turnouts rated for much higher speeds than 15 mph of the current layout. Nobody in Europe or Asia would accept a train crawling slowly along a platform while dinging insistently; trains arrive and depart swiftly and quietly.
  
  
• Ensuring that all Caltrain traffic will shoot through on just two platform tracks and one island platform. Despite the "south terminal" school of thought still prevalent at Caltrain headquarters, San Jose Diridon should become just another intermediate stop on the way to further destinations in the greatly under-served but densely populated southern parts of the city, which the BART-fixated county agency seems to have completely forgotten about. A great way to sell this extension would be as a "South San Jose to BART Regional Connector Project." Cutting Caltrain's footprint to just two tracks and one island platform will free up ample space for other operators.
  
  
• Providing excellent vertical circulation, which means short vertical circulation. This is one benefit of putting the concourse under the tracks: people are shorter than trains. Architects should resist the urge to make the ceilings in the passenger concourse vault too high because this needlessly extends the reach of stairs, escalators and elevators. Likewise, structural engineers should resist the urge to put the tracks on top of enormous concrete box girders. The early concept renderings show 15-foot ceilings with 9-foot structure depth, while 12-foot ceilings and 3-foot structure depth (using through-girders) would bring the entire structure 9 feet down. This saves every single passenger ten seconds of vertical transport, worth an hour per year for each commuter! Don't go for drama, go for ruthless efficiency: form must follow function.
   
  
• Providing a straight-shot escalator / elevator ride from the north end of the Caltrain platform to the west end of the underground BART platform. This simple shortest-path connection avoids a long and circuitous walking detour through the main BART entrance, located outside and east of the station footprint. Please don't let agency turf lead to lengthy and confusing transfers.
  

The unifying theme here is to save passengers time, whether on the train or in the station. Every second of the San Jose travel experience matters. A counter-intuitive fact about high-speed rail is that the best way to save time is to relentlessly focus on speeding up the slowest bits, like station approaches and escalator rides. In terms of capital costs, those are by far the cheapest seconds to save. California has already committed to the enormous expense of building a 220 mph system, and San Jose is not the place to wastefully undo those hard-won time savings.

If operational efficiencies are not realized in San Jose, and the opportunity to bring the station into the 21st century is not captured, then we'll end up with a new multi-billion dollar train basement that does little to improve regional transportation.

Level Boarding is Legal in California

Arrow level boarding platforms
at San Bernardino, CA

Comments to old posts on this blog are stored in a moderation queue that your author doesn't visit often enough. Over a year ago, commenter jpk122s discovered quite a gem: an official resolution by the CPUC (California Public Utility Commission) that level boarding station platforms are not bound by General Order No. 26-D section 3.4. This means it's nerd time.

Some California Background

The CPUC regulates all railroads in California, including their clearance dimensions under General Order 26-D. This regulation, originally published in 1948, requires all mainline train platforms to be no higher than 8 inches above top of rail per section 3.3. If you want to build a station platform higher than 8 inches, it needs to be set back at least 7'6" from the track center line per section 3.4. This requirement is deeply inscribed into the built environment of train stations around California, including Caltrain's.

• The taller platforms used for boarding passengers with reduced mobility, known as "mini-highs" and cluttering the north end of most Caltrain station platforms with ramps and railings (see diagram below), must be set back at least 7'6" per section 3.4. This is quite far from the track, requiring the use of bridge plates to cross the wide (~3 foot) gap between the mini-high and the train.
  
• The 48" level boarding platforms used by SMART (in Sonoma and Marin counties) are closer than section 3.4 requires, but as mitigation, a set of gauntlet tracks allows freight trains to stay clear.
• The 23.5" (ish) level boarding platforms used by Sprinter (Oceanside to Escondido) are closer than section 3.4 requires, but as mitigation, they have folding edges that tilt up and out of the way of freight trains that pass during the night.

Current Caltrain platform standards

These examples are all Rube Goldberg solutions that are expensive, clunky and inconvenient – especially when considering that nothing physically precludes freight trains operating past high platforms, as is common practice on the east coast.

Then, along came the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, with a request for an exemption from section 3.4.

Level Boading for Arrow

Arrow is the brand name for a new passenger rail service linking San Bernardino to Redlands. This service uses Stadler FLIRT diesel multiple units, of a standard vehicle design sold in more than 2500 copies around the world. The platforms are built for level boarding at 23.5" to comply with the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Rather than contrive a new technical solution to comply with GO 26-D section 3.4, the parent agency did something unusual: they asked for an exemption.

The May 5th, 2022 resolution adopted by the CPUC, an agency known for its conservatism and dogged focus on safety, was surprising: "The RSD [Rail Safety Division] has determined that an exemption from General Order 26-D, Section 3.4 is not necessary since it is preempted by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)." Section 3.4 (a state regulation enacted in 1948) is preempted by the ADA (a federal law enacted in 1990). The resolution continues:

General Order 26-D, Section 3.4, sets forth a minimum clearance requirement for station platforms. However, this provision of General Order 26-D is preempted by the ADA, which requires a different platform height and distance from track center line to accommodate the introduction of the Multi Unit (MU) equipment– and thus, results in a smaller clearance area – than what is set forth in General Order 26-D, Section 3.4.

Interestingly, the freight railroads that usually complain about the slightest infringements to their operating environment did not comment on the resolution before it was adopted by the CPUC.

Implications for Caltrain Level Boarding

Perhaps Caltrain already knew this all along, but this CPUC order implicitly relieves one of the key regulatory constraints to platform heights and level boarding, discussed numerous times in the past 15 years of this blog. It turns out that no waiver of GO 26-D section 3.4 is ever needed.

It may take a year or two before Caltrain finds out the hard way why they need level boarding, but this is a positive development. For that, we have the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority to thank.

The Cost of EMU Maintenance

Caltrain recently published a strategic financial plan update, where we learn that maintaining each EMU in the new electric fleet in good working order is expected to cost $1.2 - 1.5 million per year, a significant increase from last year's estimate. This post seeks to answer the question: is that crazy?

This analysis revisits and updates an older post here.

Historical vehicle maintenance costs

Note these figures are in constant 2023 dollars

The National Transit Database is a fantastic resource provided by the federal government, charting facts and figures for every transit operator in the United States. For the period 2000 - 2022, we look up vehicle maintenance costs and vehicle revenue miles for Caltrain as well as for two regional rail operators in the New York City area (Metro-North and LIRR), who operate the largest "heavy rail" EMU fleets in the United States in a region with similarly high costs as the Bay Area. Note that New Jersey Transit is not included because teasing out their large bus fleet from the overall agency figures is complicated. Dividing vehicle maintenance expense (adjusted for inflation to 2023) by vehicle revenue miles, we get the approximate per-mile cost of vehicle maintenance. One can guess that Caltrain's increase after 2017 is related to operating the legacy fleet way past its retirement age. In constant 2023 dollars, eyeballing this chart, the cost of maintaining EMUs might be around five bucks per vehicle revenue mile -- let's charitably say four because Caltrain's fleet is brand new and won't break down as much as older fleet mixes used by the other operators.

Caltrain EMU vehicle revenue miles

The new service plan published by Caltrain makes it easy to calculate the number of annual EMU vehicle revenue miles. There are 66 trains per weekend day (33 in each direction, for 16 hours of half-hourly service, with every other train serving Tamien) and 104 trains per weekday (52 in each direction, with 18 hours of half-hourly service = 36 plus 8 hours of additional peak express service = 16). It's 46.7 miles from SF to SJ, and 48.4 miles from SF to Tamien. That adds up to 2*(16*48.4+17*46.7) =  3137 revenue train miles per weekend day, and 2*(18*48.4+18*46.7+16*46.7) = 4918 revenue train miles per weekday. Each train has seven vehicles, as defined by the FTA. Assuming each year has 6 holiday weekdays with weekend-like service, that all works up to 11.2 million vehicle revenue miles per year, which is... a lot. For context, the most service Caltrain ran pre-covid was 7.9 million vehicle revenue miles. The increase of 41% arises from running half-hourly service all day, every day, with long seven car trains.

Caltrain projected vehicle maintenance expenses

Note these figures are in year of expenditure

The 2024 strategic financial plan helpfully breaks out projected annual vehicle maintenance expense by fleet, with the EMUs charted separately from the diesels. The EMU costs are shown at right (MoE = Maintenance of Equipment). These figures are in year of expenditure, not inflation adjusted, so we need to make some assumptions before we can compare apples to apples. Taking 5% inflation and deflating these figures back to 2023, the previous forecast (in red) was $12M, while the new forecast (in blue) is closer to $21M with 19 EMUs climbing to $25M when all 23 currently on order are delivered. We can guess that in the out years, Caltrain is assuming that ridership has bounced back enough that the FTA will require them to operate six trains per peak hour per direction (104 + 32 = 136 trains per weekday) as originally planned, further increasing to 13.9 million vehicle revenue miles per year.

Putting it all together

We've made some assumptions that are not completely valid -- namely that vehicle maintenance cost scales directly with the number of revenue miles operated. To first order, this is true, but vehicle maintenance cost has time-based components (such as mandated inspections, or replacement of ultraviolet-crazed window glazing) and distance-based components (such as wheel and brake wear). Not everything scales proportionally to revenue miles. With this caveat in mind, let's see what happens.

If you multiply 11.2 million vehicle revenue miles by $4 of vehicle maintenance cost per vehicle revenue mile from the National Transit Database, you end up at $45M per year (again, with everything in 2023 dollars.)

Caltrain's latest figure is half that, so what looks like a large increase in their latest strategic financial plan may still be an underestimate. Their estimate of $21M divided by 11.2 million vehicle revenue miles gives just $1.90 of vehicle maintenance per vehicle revenue mile for the EMU fleet (in 2023 dollars), a value lower than Caltrain has ever achieved with its legacy fleet.

Seen another way, 11.2 million vehicle revenue miles operated with 19 trains works out to 590,000 vehicle revenue miles per year (or, since each train has 7 vehicles, 84,000 miles per year on the odometer) corresponding to $2.4M of vehicle maintenance cost per EMU set per year. Their estimate of $1.2 - 1.5M seems low in comparison. This could be due to high utilization, which would dilute the time-based component of maintenance cost.

Verdict: these EMU maintenance costs are not crazy -- they might even be too low.

Appendix: Gilroy branch

While we're at it, we can do a quick sanity check on the Gilroy branch, which will continue to operate with a reduced diesel fleet. There are four weekday round trips. Gilroy is 30 miles from SJ. The trains have five cars. This works out to 1200 vehicle revenue miles per weekday, or 306,000 vehicle revenue miles per year, or less than 3% of Caltrain's total. At four bucks a mile, that's $1.2M per year for the entire diesel fleet.

Caltrain's figures are closer to $7M per year (again, in 2023 dollars). That seems like a lot, but consider the extremely low utilization of the dedicated diesel fleet, less than 7000 miles per year per diesel locomotive, means that time-based vehicle maintenance costs will dominate, the opposite of the EMU fleet.

If the fiscal cliff is real and not some made-up crisis, then the under-utilized rail service on the Gilroy branch should be replaced by bus service and the entire diesel fleet that is dedicated to it, maintenance costs and all, should be unceremoniously dumped off Caltrain's balance sheet.

New Year, New Risks

It's 2024, the year that Caltrain is supposed to go electric. All the wires are up and six trains are already on the property (see delivery spreadsheet), with more on the way shortly. After years of delays, will they pull it off?

Seems like a good time to review five risks facing the project.

1. PCEP schedule slips - while monthly reports of the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project continue to assert that the project is on track for "Fall 2024," a nebulous date that could well be the last day of fall or December 20th, there are worrying slips in the project schedule. The November 2023 monthly report (from the January board meeting packet, PDF page 131) revealed a three-month slip in the critical path compared to the previous monthly report (from the December board meeting packet, PDF page 159). Completion of live runs on segments 1 and 2 between San Francisco and Menlo Park was pushed out from 12/17/2023 to 3/16/2024. Three-month slips this close to the finish line do not bode well for finishing on time.

Tree down on wires (KRON4)

2. Trees falling on tracks - as reliably as atmospheric river storms occur in the Bay Area, large trees will continue to fall across the tracks. Previously, a few hours of chainsawing was enough to clear the blockage and resume service. No longer: trees will now damage the overhead contact system (OCS), requiring repairs to high voltage equipment before service can resume. On January 5th, 2023, a large eucalyptus tree fell across the tracks and did just that. According to a news report, service was interrupted for most of the day to safely remove mangled poles and wires-- and this without any urgency to repair them before restoring diesel service.

Another one, February 2024

The craziest part of this story: it took until September 2023, a gestation period of nine months, to complete the OCS repairs due to long lead times to procure replacement parts. While there would have been more urgency had the OCS been needed to operate the service, this episode highlights a lack of preparedness for what will become a routine occurrence. It should not take more than a few hours to get temporary OCS repairs completed, and the winter months of 2024 will provide valuable opportunities for practice.

(UPDATE 17 February 2024: it happened again and we're at two weeks and counting for the repairs)

To mitigate this risk: hold negligent tree owners financially liable for damage and delays caused by their trees falling on Caltrain, and aggressively trim back vegetation. Establish a well-equipped rapid response team of "squirrels" (OCS maintainers) who can quickly deploy to an incident site to perform temporary repairs that allow service to resume quickly. Keep this crew sharp by regular practice of repair methods, and stock an ample and ready supply of spare parts.

3. Grade crossing collisions - crossing wrecks are another frequent occurrence that will continue into the electric era, even if the new trains have much more powerful brakes that can avoid some collisions. With old diesels, you could cut, bend and weld beefy steel parts, quickly returning equipment to service. With an EMU, a collision can do more damage: crumple zones will crumple, and the fiberglass front-end mask and cladding will be potentially costly and time consuming to replace.

To mitigate this risk: improve crossing safety equipment and lighting, and grade separate the busiest crossings. Keep enough spare parts (including entire front-end masks) locally, so repairs don't require long lead times or a trip back to the factory in Utah.

4. Wheel flat spots in wet weather - while the new EMUs have the latest in computer-controlled braking technology, their swift acceleration and braking will put greater demands on controlling friction at the interface between wheel and rail. Throw in some moisture and crushed eucalyptus leaves, and even the best computer won't always get it right. It doesn't take much sliding of a wheel to create a flat spot, making that loud whomp-whomp-whomp sound. BART found this out the hard way, having to pause delivery of their new fleet while software changes were made. Caltrain's plans for a 75-minute local require very aggressive acceleration and braking, increasing the risk of flat spots.

To mitigate this risk: do lots of wet weather testing to find the limits of the software, and set limits to prevent train crews from driving too aggressively. Get lots of practice truing EMU wheels on the lathe.

5. Copper theft - there has already been a problem with thefts of impedance bonds, devices that allow traction return current (at zero volts) to cross signal block boundaries. These bonds are easily accessible on the track, but European railways have also experienced copper theft of live components energized at 25 kV by thieves who know their way around high voltage.

To mitigate this risk: secure valuable inventory, use identifying markings to prevent stolen copper from being easily sold for scrap, and maintain a large supply of spares to rapidly restore service in case of theft. Another job for the "squirrel" rapid response team.

In closing, it is commonly accepted that electric trains are more reliable than diesels, as one would certainly hope given how often Caltrain's decrepit fleet breaks down. Mechanical problems cause an average of 47 minutes of train delay every day, coming in third position after delays due to construction and trespassers. While new electric trains should bring this number down, electrification itself exposes service quality to new risks that Caltrain must anticipate and mitigate. Failing to control these risks can quickly turn electric revenue service into a fiasco. 2024 is the time for robust contingency planning.