Fixing Santa Clara County

Today, Caltrain is hardly recognizable with regular and punctual half-hour service all day, every day, using swift and comfortable trains that are the envy of any North American regional rail system. This unequivocal success sets the agency on the best possible trajectory out of the pandemic doldrums. Unfortunately, that won't be enough.

Most of what is still wrong with Caltrain is concentrated in Santa Clara County, where the wrong priorities are hurting Caltrain's finances. Revenue comes from a good product: a passenger experience of fast, frequent, and regular service. Here's what should be fixed in Santa Clara County:

Frequency is freedom 

It is a well-established research finding that short and regular headways result in a faster-than-linear positive response in ridership and revenue. Unfortunately, Caltrain planners have decided that an end-to-end trip under the one-hour mark (known in the diesel era as the Baby Bullet) is worth sacrificing regular headways. Once an hour during the morning and evening peaks, a train will skip five stops to make this stunt possible: Santa Clara, Lawrence, San Antonio, California Avenue and Menlo Park, just across the county line. Fixing this error at a grand total of eight minutes of run time would unlock 15-minute clockface frequency throughout Silicon Valley, at zero added operational cost. The ridership induced by this tweak will dwarf the tiny number of long-distance riders who abandon Caltrain due to a longer trip, recalling that the average Caltrain ride is ~25 miles.

Re-imagine connecting shuttles 

With 15-minute peak service throughout Silicon Valley, connecting services can be reconfigured so they no longer need to reach "major" stops (known in the diesel era as Baby Bullet stops). Silicon Valley always was a continuous employment and housing blob, and "major" stops were an artifact of diesel service patterns where the tradeoff between frequency and trip duration was far more pronounced than it is with swift EMUs. To reach "major" stops, shuttles spend precious minutes stuck in gridlocked traffic sewers that run parallel to Caltrain, such as El Camino Real and Central Expressway. Ditching this gridlock not only speeds each connecting trip, but allows the same number of shuttle drivers and vehicles to be redeployed towards more frequent trips; both effects will generate Caltrain ridership. The vast fleets of luxury coaches that ply highway 101 can be viewed as an indictment of Caltrain's service pattern; major employers will respond if Caltrain upgrades to a compelling 15-minute product.

Ditch diesel

Operating and maintaining a separate diesel fleet to provide infrequent part-time service to the small towns south of San Jose generates less than one percent of weekday Caltrain ridership (see chart). This astonishing under-performance persists even after the addition of a fourth daily round-trip to Gilroy in late 2023.

While transit agencies aren't profit-seeking businesses and their purpose isn't always to maximize ridership, the Gilroy branch is one of those cases where the cost of providing the service is very far out of proportion with the public benefit. While Caltrain doesn't break out the cost of Gilroy service, the marginal cost of the fourth train is quoted as ~$3M, so we can extrapolate at least $12M plus the fixed operating and maintenance costs of separate tooling, training, parts, etc. associated with sustaining the diesel fleet. Caltrain would be better off spending this money on contracting with VTA for more frequent 568 rapid bus service. Between Gilroy and Blossom Hill, this south county bus is already much more frequent (~every half hour) and barely any slower (~8 minutes in peak traffic) than Caltrain.

Divesting of the remaining diesel fleet (9 locomotives and 41 cars) is a one-time source of income, but has some strings attached because the FTA funded its original purchase. Hanging on to diesels for "fleet resiliency" is becoming less critical as the electrified system demonstrates increasing reliability. The Trump administration is unlikely to care either way, and there are plenty of operators who might be interested, such as a potential new agency based in Monterey County.

Is this poking south county in the eye? No, because there's a much better plan. Read on.

Acquire UPRR's Coast Subdivision and electrify to Blossom Hill

As compensation for deleting service to Gilroy, Caltrain should extend electrification and frequent EMU service by six miles from Tamien to Blossom Hill. This portion of the corridor has high residential density to support significant new ridership if well-served, which it currently isn't. Caltrain likes to argue that a railroad has high fixed costs, and that cutting service can't save much money. The converse must also be true: adding more EMU service, using the existing fleet, can't cost all that much.

A stack train under the wires;
it's really no big deal.
(Samuel Walker photo)

 

Land owner Union Pacific is notoriously difficult to negotiate with, but there is no reason for Caltrain or VTA to fight alone. The state should get involved since this corridor forms part of the future high-speed rail system and is already slated for acquisition. Freight trackage rights would be preserved, and the tallest freight trains could operate under the wires as they already do elsewhere in the U.S. (see photo). Bridge clearances are already above 23 feet to clear Plate H at Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill Road, and above 22 feet at Curtner Ave. and Capitol Expressway, nothing that would require expensive bridge reconstruction.

If this sounds like a megaproject, it isn't. It does not require any new traction power facilities; no new paralleling station is needed at Blossom Hill if this short extension is initially built as basic 25 kV without feeders. It does not require environmental clearance, thanks to new laws (Alex Lee's AB2503). It does not require any new trains, as Caltrain's EMU fleet will soon swell to 23 trains, where today's service pattern only requires 14. It's about as basic as electrification projects come: string up 15 track-miles of wire.

To get VTA interested in helping to fund this capital project, you would call it the "South County BART Connector." Since San Jose Diridon station would then require two tracks and a single island platform to support all Caltrain service, there could be savings in postponing the gold-plated Diridon Integrated Station Concept, a megaproject that costs $3-$6 billion while providing no identifiable service benefit for Caltrain passengers.

Failure of Imagination

With pandemic-era federal subsidies expiring and a new transit-hostile federal administration, Caltrain needs to show more creativity and imagination in adjusting its offering. The success of the initial electrified service shows that the best prescription for financial health is to focus relentlessly on the product: fast, frequent and regular service. Anything that doesn't contribute to the product is a distraction.

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.

Capital Spending for Better Service

Wouldn't it be great if you could quantify the service benefit of capital improvements, to compare and prioritize them by how much better train service results?  We can, and using our handy Taktulator, we will. This service pattern evaluation tool was formulated around time-based service quality metrics. We use it to explore future improvements to the peninsula rail corridor.

Today's 2022 Timetable: 94 service points -- The current peak schedule with four diesel trains per hour features very generous padding and SF - SJ trip times ranging from 66 minutes (express) to 99 minutes (local). The less-than-100 score indicates that service quality has dropped since 2011 when there were five trains per peak hour. The Taktulator score is calibrated such that the 2011 Caltrain timetable scores exactly 100 points.

Caltrain's 2040 service vision foresees eight trains per peak hour per direction (not counting HSR). Let's start with a service frequency of 8 trains per hour-- except for the sake of exploring and quantifying the value of capital improvements, we'll start from a hypothetical case that will never happen: eight trains per hour of today's diesel service, making all local stops.

Hypothetical diesel all-stops local, 8 tph: Score = 109 service points (+16%) -- The doubling of hourly frequency improves the service score by 16%, despite each train being slower. The extra time riding an all-stops trains is more than offset by the much shorter wait time at the station. For example, maximum wait times in Belmont plummet from one hour to just 7.5 minutes. Unfortunately, this service pattern would take an unrealistic 32 trains to operate, because each train takes 94 minutes to go between SF and SJ. The hypothetical scenario still illustrates the magnitude of the effect of doubling frequency.

Add electrification: Score = 121 service points (+11%) -- Electrification is worth another +12 points relative to diesel, thanks to the shorter trip times that come from the higher acceleration capability of EMUs. Those savings accrue to a full ten minutes between SF and SJ for an all-stops local. Station dwell times are still booked at 45 seconds, a longer duration that reflects the lack of level boarding. Thanks to the faster trip times, the fleet requirement has dropped from 32 trains to 28 trains. Service speed saves money, not just on fleet size but also by increasing the hourly productivity of train crews (in terms of passenger-miles served).

Add Redwood City hub station: Score = 131 service points (+8%) -- If trains cannot pass each other, there is no room in such a frequent timetable for express service. A new four-track station at Redwood City, where express trains can overtake locals on opposite sides of the same station platform (so that passengers may transfer seamlessly between local and express) gives the best of both worlds: frequent service AND express service. For now, we'll assume this station has only two-track approaches, requiring trains to arrive and depart serially. In practice, this means every local must wait more than 5 minutes or the equivalent of two signal headways to let the express catch up before RWC and then pull ahead after RWC. The stopping patterns start to look like Caltrain's 2040 service vision.

Add Redwood City quadruple approach tracks: Score = 138 service points (+5%) -- If quadruple tracks are added approaching Redwood City from the north and south, then local and express trains can make parallel moves into and out of the hub station, removing the requirement for every local to wait there for five wasteful minutes. To unlock this benefit, the quadruple track overtake section needs to extend to one station on either side of RWC, so every local train can make productive use of those five minutes. In the Taktulator, we simulate this by having every local train stop at San Carlos and Atherton, which (despite its closure) stands in for a new Fair Oaks infill station at 5th Avenue. This suggests a hub station is about 1.7x more effective if it forms the center of a three-station quadruple track section. Having fully half your trains save five minutes is a huge service improvement!

Add level boarding: Score = 147 service points (+7%) -- Where electrification saved time in motion, level boarding saves time at rest by shaving 15 seconds of dwell time at each station, as step-free access smooths passenger boarding and alighting. Level boarding gives not only short dwell times but predictable dwell times (for example, wheelchairs don't take longer to board) so we can also tighten up the padding margin in the timetable, cut in this example from 12% to 7%. Interestingly, the end-to-end corridor times fall below a threshold that allows turning a train sooner, reducing fleet requirement from 28 to 24 trains. This isn't necessarily an effect of level boarding itself, and only illustrates that a series of small improvements can result in a discontinuous benefit when a certain threshold is reached.

Add SF Downtown Extension: Score = 250 service points (+70%) -- There are more jobs (over 100,000) located within a half mile of the Transbay Transit Center than there are jobs within a half mile of every other Caltrain station combined. This makes downtown SF a dominant node if added to the system, a fact that is reflected in our census-based weighting of available trips. No other improvement comes close.

Here is how these service improvements stack up against each other, plotted as the logarithm of the ratio of after/before scores, which gives you their relative impact. They can be constructed in a different order than imagined above, but the relative proportion of each improvement should remain approximately similar:

Bar graph of the relative service quality improvement of Caltrain capital projects

Here are some key takeaways:

1. Grade separation projects do not improve train service. Exceedingly rarely, they do prevent a train delay, something that is not captured in this analysis. On the basis of the time metrics of a typical trip, however, the service improvement of grade separations is ZERO. This should factor strongly into how many billions we are collectively willing to spend on them relative to the other capital improvements discussed here.
    
   
2. The benefits of electrification alone (without other improvements) are mediocre at best. On the basis of our time metrics, service quality is only improved by about 11% relative to an equivalent diesel scenario. Caltrain can't just finish the electrification project and call it good enough.
    
   
3. The Redwood City hub station now in the planning stages is surprisingly beneficial to service quality. While packaged and sold as a grade separation with a bonus of expanding the train station, it is hard to overstate the service quality benefit of the new hub station. Even as planned by Caltrain (with two-track approaches from the north and south) the new station produces nearly as much service improvement as the entire electrification project.
    
   
4. The Redwood City hub station as planned by Caltrain with two-track approaches is operationally ineffective. It can be juiced up to 1.7x more benefit to service quality by making it the center of a four-track overtake facility spanning just three stations: San Carlos, Redwood City and a new Fair Oaks infill station at 5th Ave. The southern portion of this four-track facility already exists today. Together with 4-track approaches, the Redwood City hub improves service quality by a greater proportion than the entire electrification project! That's why it is critical that planning for the Redwood City grade separations allow for four tracks throughout.
    
   
5. Level boarding provides over half the service quality improvement of electrification, and is likely to be a much cheaper capital investment. However, it makes sense to do it after the hub station.
    
   
6. The downtown extension in San Francisco will be a game changer for service quality. The transportation industrial complex knows this and will make us pay dearly for the DTX project. However, the additional billions for the PAX (Pennsylvania Avenue Extension, a city-desired grade separation) add absolutely nothing to service quality, and should never be allowed to be bundled with the DTX project. Every capital dollar should improve service quality.
    
   
7. The Redwood City hub station (with four tracks, not two!) is worth one fourth of the service benefit of the DTX. That means we should (a) not be shy about spending capital dollars to build it and (b) stop selling it as a grade separation, because that isn't the story here-- it should be about a new infill station, seamless transfers, and better service quality system-wide.
   

As always, the analysis provided here can be quibbled with and improved upon, and you are encouraged to "do your own research" by trying out your own service patterns in the Taktulator.

PCEP: Farce Majeure

This post serves as a place to track monthly status updates of the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Program, peeling back the rosy pronouncements put forth by the managers of this deeply troubled project. Let's start off with our handy foundation & pole progress tracker, updated monthly

Now also, in the manner of this XKCD cartoon that summarizes the ongoing delays for another project, the James Webb Space Telescope, we offer a retrospective of the promised milestone date for the substantial completion of electrification, which gives a pretty good eyeball of where PCEP will end up:

 Monthly updates will be added here as they occur.

 

The FTA Perspective: The May 2020 PCEP quarterly monitoring report from the FTA PMOC provides some refreshing independent views of the project. The PMOC contractor evidently prepared this report as if it were their last quarterly monitoring report (it wasn't) and included a special Appendix I, a final summary of issues, hurdles, and lessons learned. This is a must-read.

For a northbound cab view of the corridor construction as it stood on July 18th, 2020, see this video by YouTube user Flat Train.

Notes from the April 2021 PCEP progress report

 

We are seeing an odd divergence of foundation and pole installation rates: only one pole was installed for the entire month, despite hundreds of foundations being ready for poles. Foundation installation is at 77% and poles at 60%. For EMU car shells, 59% have shipped from Switzerland.

 

The big schedule and budget update / re-baseline is again delayed, at least to July. There was a three-week slip in Segment 4, and a three-month slip in completion of the CEMOF work (not anywhere near the critical path). FTA independent oversight (PMOC) reports continue to be delayed, with the December 2020 report nowhere to be seen and the March 2021 report still in draft.

 

Notes from the March 2021 PCEP progress report

 

Foundations are picking up a bit, but poles are oddly lagging since there are roughly 800 completed foundations awaiting poles. Foundation installation is at 74% and poles at 60%. For EMU car shells, 56% have shipped from Switzerland.

 

The critical path has once again flip-flopped to the EMU contract, as we await a major schedule update now set for the June board meeting. Notable slips in the Appendix C program schedule include segment 1 overhead contact system (2 months), segment 4 testing (almost 3 months!), and large slips in EMU deliveries (up to 5 months). These big slips are overshadowed by signal work in segments 1 and 3, which haven't started yet and are slated for a lightning-fast installation of ~10 months each. We know from painful experience that signal work in segments 2 and 4 is taking over 30 months, so there may be a future ~20 month slip hiding under there if the work in segments 1 and 3 turns out to be similarly complex and drawn out. Also notable is the zero duration of segment testing for segments 1, 2 and 3. Overall signs still point to no sooner than 2024 for the first passenger service with EMUs.

 

Notes from the February 2021 PCEP progress report

 

New schedule slips reported this month change nothing to the overall trends for the project, which have held steady for a long time. Based on trend extrapolation in the graphs above, foundations are likely to complete in fall 2022 (a year later than reported by Caltrain) and the project will see passenger service no sooner than early 2024 (more than a year later than reported by Caltrain). The critical path has returned to the electrification contract. Notable slips in the Appendix C schedule include signal work, delayed by 2 months in every segment, and a 3-month slip to the PG&E interconnection to the traction power substation in South San Francisco, which will now be built underground.

If looking at a glass half-full, foundation installation is now at 71%, pole erection at 58%, and EMU car shell manufacture at 53%.

Notes from the January 2021 PCEP progress report

 

This month saw the completion of a grand total of 21 foundations and seven poles. The contractor appears to be slow-rolling the work as mediation continues. Caltrain still projects that all foundations will be completed this September, which is not remotely credible.

 

Notes from the December 2020 PCEP progress report

 

Another month, another slip. We learn in the schedule section that Caltrain and Balfour Beatty are engaged in a mediation process, which is the last stage before lawsuits fly. The substantial completion milestone has slipped again, maintaining the trend line plotted above that predicts the substantial completion milestone will realistically occur no sooner than November 2023, with RSD following around new year 2024.

 

Despite crowing about having completed all foundations in segments 3 (true) and 4 (not quite there yet: still 5 to go in 4B and 96 at CEMOF), the foundation installation rate remains pathetic with a monthly production of just 25 foundations versus 200 promised. Next month is promised at 206. Fool me once, ....

 

Appendix C schedule shows large slips in SCADA testing (3 months) and PG&E permanent power at the South San Francisco substation (7 months!)  With permanent power available only by 4/15/22, testing of segments 1 and 2 will certainly be impacted, although you wouldn't know it because the segment testing tasks (sneakily renamed "segment completion" last October) currently have a duration of zero.

 

Notes from the November 2020 PCEP progress report

 

The project's revenue service date has now slipped beyond the FTA funding deadline. The critical path has shifted back to Stadler, at least in Caltrain's reporting. Here's the funny thing: when Stadler reports a schedule slip, the dates seem to get copied straight into Caltrain's program schedule; when Balfour Beatty reports a substantial completion date of June 2024, the dates are quickly swept under the carpet and replaced with made-up "forecast" dates in Caltrain's program schedule that will "likely change." Nothing on the BBII front has changed in Appendix C since last month, so maybe they are saving the big reveal for the new administration, which will presumably look upon the spilled milk with less vindictiveness than the current regime. In the meantime, a linear curve fit of the above charts strongly and steadily indicates a revenue service date in early 2024. Only three more years to go!

 

For fun, here's a brief video from December 9th of a couple of Caltrain car shells on the road in Switzerland, where they are made. They are too tall and wide to go by rail.

 

Notes from the October 2020 PCEP progress report

Exactly as predicted, all scheduling tricks having been exhausted, the electrification work is now firmly on the schedule critical path. The substantial completion milestone just slipped 3 months to 7/22/2022, right up against the FTA revenue service demonstration (RSD) deadline. Looking back, this milestone has now slipped by over a  year since late 2018. It would have blown past the RSD deadline had the schedulers not deleted the pre-revenue testing task, and it almost certainly will: the contractor's schedule shows substantial completion in June 2024, that's right, twenty twenty-four. If we extrapolate the past rate of slippage of Caltrain's substantial completion milestone (~0.54 month/month) and assume the slippage will continue at the same rate (because why wouldn't it?) the milestone will slip to, surprise, 2024.

 

Foundation production continues to be anemic, with a deceleration to 38/month versus 69 planned. Even at a promised rate of 200/month, the foundation completion has pushed out from March into May 2021 per Caltrain's dashboard metrics. Without this unsubstantiated acceleration to 200/month, a straight extrapolation of the recent production rate indicates foundation completion in October of 2022.

The Appendix C schedule remains extremely compressed against the RSD deadline, despite the wholesale deletion of the pre-revenue testing span. Segments 1 and 2 completion dates have slipped to May 2022, leaving almost no margin for system-level testing against the deadline. Clearly, the schedulers had to apply extreme contortions this month to prevent the appearance of missing the RSD deadline: what used to be "segment testing" with a non-zero duration (43 days in segment 1; 43 days in segment 2; 34 days in segment 3) has suddenly morphed into a "segment completion" milestone with zero duration. As integrators of complex systems well know, the greatest risk to a success-oriented green-light schedule occurs during testing, so reducing the segment testing spans to zero is quite the shenanigan!

 

Expect these segment testing spans to return after Caltrain finally runs out to tricks to pretend that they will meet the FTA RSD deadline. Given how compressed against the deadline the schedule already is, the reckoning should occur very soon. And what better time is there to ask for FTA forgiveness than during a force majeure pandemic?

Notes from the September 2020 PCEP progress report

The schedule slips continue, despite best efforts on the part of the schedulers to hide the difficulties being experienced by the project by holding major milestone dates. The start of phased revenue service is in a month for month slip, now 4/23/22, and the task has been compressed by a month. Had this compression not occurred, the program critical path would now run through segment 3 signals and (surprise!) the SCADA system, which just slipped by more than 3 months. Pre-revenue testing can't be delayed much more, so this is it. It will take some serious creativity to claim the full revenue service date of July 2022 can be held.

Foundation production is still in the basement at 48 for September versus 168 planned. The plan is now 69 next month (under-promise, over-deliver) then rising to a never-achieved 212/month for the remainder of construction. Look for the foundation completion date to slip again soon.

Other assorted schedule slips: real estate acquisition (for miscellaneous dribs and drabs up and down the corridor, slipped by ~8 months); traction power in segments 3 and 4 (slipped by ~3 months, the former now just days from the critical path). Oddly, the testing of segment 4 is now scheduled to complete before traction power is done, which seems like a broken dependency.

The top risk is still the dual speed check grade crossing warning system.

 

Notes from the August 2020 PCEP progress report

 

Another month, another slip. Electrification substantial completion is delayed by a month to 3/26/22, for a nine-month slip over the last 18 months. That's just a milestone, and the tasks leading up to it are even more dramatically delayed, with Segment 2 OCS slipping by a whopping seven months! All the electrification tasks are now jammed up against the extremely compressed segment testing, itself slipping and pushing out integrating testing and pre-revenue service by a month. To prevent electrification from exploding onto the primary critical path, heroic schedulers have cut down phased revenue service by a month. The real story here is the secondary critical path, which runs through delayed signaling installation, testing and cut-over activities... and yet these bars are colored a soothing shade of green. Look for these to blow up very soon, with a 3-month slip having just occurred in Segment 4, the one furthest along.

Foundation production continues to flounder at 49 for the month versus 161 promised. The laughable end-of-year completion milestone has slipped by 3 months, allowing the absurdly high future production rates to drop to the merely never-achieved value of 168/month. Six foundations appear to have been "unbuilt" since last month, with completed totals dropping in Segment 2 Work Areas 4 and 5. This may be a bookkeeping error, so the graph shows 1940 completed versus 1934 in the report. Overall, foundation installation is still trending towards completion in late 2021.

 

Notes from the July 2020 PCEP progress report

 

This month, as expected, a mere 40 foundations were installed versus a promise of 186. The promised numbers keep going up to maintain the pretense of finishing before year's end, with 299 foundations/month promised in October and November, over seven times the actual July rate. Detailed accounting is slightly complicated by the fresh inclusion this month of 86 foundations previously constructed outside PCEP scope for the South San Francisco and Hillsdale projects. Since the report doesn't state when these were completed, we spread them out over Jan-Jun 2020. Extrapolating at the current 3-month trailing average production rate, foundations will be completed in November 2021, almost a year behind the advertised schedule. The long-promised acceleration of foundation production is not reflected in monthly actual totals for 2020, which casts doubt on whether such an acceleration will ever materialize.

Budget burn rates for the various contracts are also consistent with a one-year delay, and that is before any pandemic impacts. The dashboards show an overall deceleration of spending, with the past 3 month average burn rate trailing the past 12 month average. Burn rate would now have to double to finish on time, which is plain to see just won't happen.

In the Appendix C schedule, there is a 7-month slip for traction power in Segment 1, and smaller slips in all the other segments. These slips remove all the slack that remained before electrification becomes the critical path. It's now a horse race (or snail race?) between Stadler and BBII.

Expect your first EMU ride in mid-2023.

Notes from the June 2020 PCEP progress report

The pandemic and the words "force majeure" are starting to make a more prominent appearance in the report, providing useful cover for Balfour Beatty's woeful schedule performance. A pandemic-related day-for-day slip at Stadler continues to provide cover, under the theory that the schedule critical path still runs through EMU production-- a condition that remains true on paper only because the secondary critical path has been slashed to the bone by unreasonably compressing key testing and integration tasks at the very end of the program.

The dashboards in section 2.1 don't lie: to finish on time, Balfour would have to triple their burn rate from $5.7 million/month to $17.2 million/month. Overall, project spending is about $700 million behind plan, indicative of severe schedule under-performance. At current burn rates, PCEP will finish no earlier than mid-2023, close to a year behind the dates currently being promised.

Foundation production for June was promised 71 / actual 105, a rare over-performance. Now do July, when an unprecedented 186 foundations were promised. As of this report, the foundations are 56% installed, and poles are 44% installed.

As of this writing in August, 2020, none of the quarterly FTA PMOC oversight reports for 2020 have been posted by Caltrain. These usually provide an unsparing look at the internal challenges of the program, but with election season approaching there is surely a rising incentive to keep them out of the public eye.

Notes from the May 2020 PCEP progress report

Foundation production, despite the insistent promises of past months, has crashed back to the dismal level of 44/month. Undeterred, project managers project ever higher and unachievable future rates (nearly 300 foundations are planned for November) in order to finish within the current calendar year.

For the EMUs, a new change order was approved to defer the installation of interior wheelchair lifts, the final nail in the coffin of the high/low boarding solution. Platform interface-wise, the EMUs will now be configured exactly the same way as the existing Bombardier cars. While recent photos from Salt Lake City show the upper doors installed, these will soon be removed and replaced by plug panels.

In a bit of good news, the regulatory compliance documentation for EMU crashworthiness has been approved by FRA, which is no small feat. One hopes sufficient spares of fiberglass front cladding have been ordered to withstand the usual grade crossing carnage.

The pandemic has delayed testing of the first trainset in Salt Lake City, such that its trip to Pueblo, Colorado for dynamic testing is delayed to November and slipping day for day.

The milestone schedule has slipped again, with electrification substantial completion delayed to 2/26/2022, a slip of 8 months since late 2018. Revenue service has slipped 2.5 months to late July 2022, all but eliminating the margin against FTA's deadline of August 2022. The pandemic will surely be invoked to delay the deadline.

Stadler is still claimed to be on the critical path, now with a convenient day-for-day pandemic slip that provides a welcome fig leaf to the Balfour Beatty electrification work.

The Appendix C schedule finally shows signal construction work. Notably, this work has pushed out the testing of segments 1, 2 and 3 by up to 8 months, with compressed testing tasks taking place at the end of 2021. The testing of the entire electrification system has been compressed from ~6 months to less than 3 months. Pre-revenue testing has been further curtailed to six weeks. There is no discussion or justification of this extremely sporty schedule compression, other than it maintains the illusion that the critical path runs through Stadler.

In the risk list, three new risks have appeared to justify what is surely the consequence of Buy America procurement for the EMUs: quality issues, failed factory tests, and poor integration and control of new U.S. suppliers. These seem to be clear and present issues, rather than risks.

Notes from the April 2020 PCEP progress report

Foundation installation recovered a bit, and an explicit (if likely unachievable) plan was published for how many foundations would have to be completed in each of the remaining months of 2020 in order to finish within the year.

Shipping the first train to Colorado (for high-speed testing) continues to be delayed. This is an important "schedule hold point" where contingency budgets are re-evaluated, and we are now 14 months into a 19-month gap that has opened in the sequence of schedule hold points.

Speaking of contingency, $32 million of it was used this month alone, of which $25 million was shoveled over to PG&E for interconnection work. Why was the contingency budget not replenished by the amount not paid to the party formerly on the hook to perform the work?

New risks: #321 if PG&E makes trouble about the single-phase loading of their substations, then the system cannot be energized. #322 if substations aren't completed on time to get powered up, then testing will be delayed. And then the kicker: #323 "FRA concerns require redesign".... don't leave us hanging, be specific!

Finally, it's the beginning of June and none of the FTA PMOC reports for 2020 have yet showed up. Who is slow-walking these important oversight documents, the FTA or Caltrain?

Notes from the March 2020 PCEP progress report

Foundation installation continues to fall hopelessly behind. The average total for the entire first quarter of 2020 was eight foundations per month (that's right, you can count them on two hands!) and if that rate is sustained, all foundations should be complete by the year 2036. Of course, the report promises a significant acceleration, but the stated goal of completing another 1544 foundations within nine months to support the end-of-year foundation completion milestone has gone from ridiculous to downright laughable. The board and public should be insulted by such a dishonest status report, insisting that everything is on schedule. It's okay to be late, but it's not okay to be so nakedly dishonest about it.

Notes from the February 2020 PCEP progress report

1) Foundation production for February is again ZERO, despite repeated affirmations throughout the report that there is a schedule to finish everything by the end of this year. The required average production rate to reach this goal is 157/month (excluding foundations that are part of SSF and 25th Ave projects); this is higher than the all-time record of 151 set in November 2019. The likelihood of missing the end-of-year target is darn near one hundred percent.

2) The Appendix C schedule shows continuing month-for-month slips in the OCS and traction power tasks, with the selective exception of the segment 1 OCS task-- which if delayed would push the BBII work onto the critical path of the project. To avoid this, the task duration was shortened, using a well-known scheduling trick.

3) delivery of trainsets 2 and 3 is delayed nine months and six months, respectively. That sure is a long time to retrofit flip-up seats. Is there something else we aren't being told?

Notes from the January 2020 PCEP progress report

1) foundation production is at ZERO for the month, with the rate required to complete by the end of the year having increased from 131/month to 143/month. The stated reason for zero foundations is because the contractor "did not have the rebar cages", of which enormous stacks can plainly be observed rusting away at Burlingame, Redwood Junction, and possibly other locations. Something big has come up and Caltrain isn't being transparent about it.

2) Schedule milestones are said not to have budged, despite the latest FTA PMOC report (December 2019) stating that the contractor's schedule shows a substantial completion date of January 2024. That's right, twenty-twenty-FOUR.

3) The flip-up seats that will be added to the bike cars are the subject of a change order that costs $1.96 million, to buy 4 flip-up seats x 2 bike cars x 19 trainsets = $12,900 per flip-up seat. No word on what material these are made of, but solid gold is not out of the question.

4) The signal modifications and grade crossing Constant Warning Time tasks that underlie the contractor's major schedule slips still do not appear on Caltrain's tracking schedule. It's harder to track the progress of a task when it isn't even on your schedule.

5) The appendix C schedule shows a wave breaking in EMU deliveries, with early deliveries delayed by ~3 months and later-produced trainsets being delivered before the earlier-produced trainsets. Must be those flip up seats and door plug retrofits.

Notes from the December 2019 PCEP progress report

1) foundation production has faltered again. The goal posts stayed put this month, but the production rate required to complete by the end of this year has increased from 124/month to 131/month. This month: just 44.

2) appendix C schedule shows a large slip in SCADA (six months!) leaving just 1 month of slack before pre-revenue testing begins. This is shaping up to be yet another secondary critical path. Meanwhile, the completion of traction power construction in segments 1, 2 and 3 is in a month-for-month slip even after the large schedule slips recorded in last month's update. The tsunami buildup continues.

On the good news front: production photos posted on calmod.com appear to show that the door to the EMU cab compartment will have a railfan window affording a view into the cab and out the front of the train. Train nerds rejoice!

Notes from the November 2019 PCEP progress report

1) foundation production has accelerated to a record monthly total of 151, but the goalpost for target monthly average has moved again from 8/31/2020 out to 12/31/2020 (four months). For the old target of 8/31/2020, the required monthly productivity would have been 179 foundations/month. With the newly relaxed milestone it is 124 foundations/month.

2) Appendix C schedule continues to show "tsunami buildup" where a wave of delayed tasks compresses against an artificially held RSD milestone. Most notably, electrification system testing (schedule line 41) has compressed from 222 days to 183 days (18% shorter) and phased revenue service (schedule line 83) has compressed from 90 days to 69 days (23% shorter).

3) The date when you will be able to board an EMU as a passenger for the first time (i.e. the beginning of phased revenue service) has slipped by a month to February 1st, 2022.

4) While the critical path is still stated to go through vehicle manufacturing, ten EMUs will have been delivered by the start of phased revenue service. Is ten enough to begin phased revenue service? If so, EMU manufacturing isn't your critical path.

As observed with last month's notes, Caltrain is making increasingly desperate schedule modifications to maintain the appearance that electrification is not on the primary critical path. With reality biting, it is doubtful they will be able to keep this up for more than a couple of months longer. Expect fireworks by March or April 2020 board meeting.

Speaking of fireworks, Happy New Year 2020 to transit nerds everywhere!

Notes from the October 2019 PCEP progress report

1) Figure 2-5 (foundation production) shows a monthly target for the production rate required to meet the schedule. This monthly target has been stuck at 174 since they started publishing this metric, which is an error in whatever spreadsheet they are using to make this chart. The correctly calculated numbers for the last 5 months (foundations-to-go divided by months left) are: 174, 178, 191, 198, 221. In this latest report they moved the goalpost from 6/30/2020 to 8/31/2020, which bought them an extra two months but used up the schedule slack. By that metric, we're back to 1766 to go divided by 10 months = 177. Hopefully this error will be corrected in future reports.

2) The contractor has never reached 177 foundations/month. To date the record is November 2019, reportedly at 151. (Interestingly, even this record would further bump up the rate to complete from 177 to 179.) This figure of 179 would have to be sustained without interruption until completion. Given that on average, the more difficult foundations (where conflicts are found with existing utilities such as Caltrain's very own PTC fiber optic cables) are being delayed and left to be addressed later than the low hanging fruit, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain rate 179.

3) In the Appendix C schedule, OCS completion has just slipped by one month for three out of the four segments. OCS completion in segment 1 (San Francisco) is now on a secondary critical path, followed immediately by segment testing and system testing. The only reason this didn't become the primary critical path this month is that they compressed system testing by one month, holding the end of system testing at 12/31/21. Compression of testing periods is a red flag.

4) In the Appendix C schedule, the logic is constructed such that it is necessary to have 14 EMUs on hand by the end of "phased revenue testing" which means service is operated with a mix of diesels and EMUs. This is what makes the critical path go through EMU production. In reality, what is most important is the *beginning* of phased revenue testing, which is when you will be able to board an EMU for the first time. Right now this milestone is at 1/3/2022 and has zero slack (i.e. it is on the critical path).

5) The latest PMOC report (September 2019) reveals that the contractor's working schedule (so far rejected by Caltrain for various reasons) predicts substantial completion of electrification on 7/4/2022, six months later than carried in the Appendix C schedule or 12/31/2021.

I expect Caltrain to make increasingly desperate modifications to the program schedule, including further compression of the system test period, to maintain for as long as possible the appearance that electrification is not on the primary critical path. Let's see how long they can obfuscate before finally fessing up.

Electrification Delayed

Caltrain's electrification project is showing ominous signs of falling badly behind schedule. There are at least five bearish indicators:

Slippery milestone

Slipping Milestones. One key milestone reported in the project's monthly progress reports is known as "Electrification Substantial Completion." From the December 2018 report to the July 2019 report (over a span of 7 months), the milestone has slipped from 6/23/2021 to 12/31/2021 (a bit over 6 months). When a major milestone slips almost day for day, you know the project has gone sideways. The latest PMOC report from the FTA shows that the contractor's date for this key milestone has slipped well into 2022, over a thousand days late relative to the milestone date promised when the contract was signed.

Severely under spend plan

Significant Under-Spending. The amount of money spent to date is about $640 million less than planned at the start of the project. If the value of the work accomplished is commensurate with the amount spent, then the project is 1.5 years behind schedule. However, there are strong indications of inefficiencies (such as "differing site conditions" disrupting foundation installation) and unplanned scope (such as the new grade crossing constant warning time solution) that make it exceedingly likely that the value earned so far is less than had been planned for the amount spent. From an earned value perspective, the CPI is likely under 1 (over budget) and the SPI below 0.6 (further behind schedule than the spend curve might imply).

The little engine that couldn't

Foundation Chaos. As is plainly obvious to anyone riding the train, foundation installation is not a spatially or temporally orderly process. Digging into the ground reveals old utilities, and often reveals the recently-installed CBOSS fiber optic cables, evidently placed by the contractor where it was easiest (right where foundations need to go) with the as-built configuration either incorrectly documented or not at all. This is another CBOSS issue that could end up in court. Conflict with these cables does not bode well for PTC testing or activation, or for the cost of foundation and pole redesign and relocation. Recent indicators show a slight uptick of foundation productivity, but it still lags well below the monthly average of 174 that must now be sustained every month to complete on time. The all-time record is 122, and indications are that August 2019 totals have slid back considerably below trend.

Missing tasks are delayed and
on the critical path

Missing Schedule Tasks. By all accounts, the long pole in the tent (the critical path of the Balfour Beatty schedule) is the design, installation and testing of the signal system modifications, including the new grade crossing warning system. However, such a task is nowhere to be found in the schedule published in Appendix C of the monthly report, which obscures any insight into the true status of the project. Having recently set $150 million on fire with CBOSS, Caltrain is understandably skittish about revealing further unforeseen costs and delays associated with signalling, but it seems inexcusable at this juncture that the public master schedule would show only "OCS," "Traction Power," and "Segment Testing" tasks for the electrification contract, when all the action is in the missing task "Signal System Modifications," which is very much on the critical path in Caltrain's internal schedule and the contractor's schedule.

Proliferation of Schedules. There is apparently no agreement between Caltrain and their contractor on what the real program schedule is. The public schedule in the monthly report is served with a cautionary statement that Balfour Beatty is reporting a significant delay, but the completion milestone is still optimistically set to 12/31/2021. When you end up with several schedules, there is effectively no longer a project schedule. It's anyone's guess when the project will be done, and chances are increasing rapidly that it won't be in 2022, despite Caltrain's increasingly desperate insistence that everything is fine.

Right now would be a good time to come clean about what's really going on. Total transparency is the only saving grace that can spare Caltrain from accusations of project management incompetence.

Foundation Progress Tracker

One way to measure the progress of a large and complex construction program like the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Program is to count how many foundations have been completed. This is a revealing metric, since foundation construction is currently the top risk on the program due to surprises when digging holes along the right of way. It's also a metric that is readily measurable and reported monthly.

In round numbers, the electrification project encompasses ~2500 poles and ~3100 concrete foundations. The number of foundations is greater than the number of poles because there are foundations for guy wires and sometimes multiple foundations for portal poles.

The progress chart below will be updated monthly.

At the December 2018 meeting of the Caltrain board of directors, the program manager stated (starting at 01:03:00 in video) that he needed to maintain a pace of 156 pole foundations per month (six per night) to meet the schedule milestone of "electrification substantial completion," which was then set for June 2021. You can see how things went since then.

Over-Promising on Electrification

Numerous recent Caltrain materials include the following quantitative claims (see slide at right) about the service benefits of the electrification project:

1. A baby bullet train making 5-6 stops will make the SF - SJ trip in 45 minutes, down from 60 minutes today.
    
2. A train making the SF - SJ trip in 60 minutes will be able to stop 13 times, up from 6 stops today.

Both of these claims are greatly inflated. They are easy to verify using a computer program known as a train performance calculator, which numerically integrates the differential equations of motion of a train based on the known characteristics of the track (vertical profile, curve, speed limits, station stops, etc.) and of the train (power, weight, tractive effort, drag, etc.) Physics and math can predict timetable performance quite accurately.

Myth #1: the 45-minute Baby Bullet express

Today's diesel performance
(pure run time, no padding)

Here is what a typical baby bullet run looks like today, with an MP-36 diesel locomotive, six Bombardier coaches, and a load of 600 passengers. There are five stops in this example, each lasting (very optimistically, as riders will attest) just 60 seconds. The pure run time from San Jose to San Francisco 4th and King is 52:22 under ideal conditions, without any margin or padding that is added to a real timetable; compare to the weekday northbound timetable at 64 to 67 minutes, or up to 25% longer (!) than the pure run time. Note that the weekday timetable has been extensively padded lately due to crowding; in 2012, the same run was timetabled at 59 minutes with 12% padding.

Tomorrow's EMU performance
(pure run time, no padding)

All other things being equal, let's substitute an EMU train for our slow diesel. The same run drops to 48:15, just four minutes quicker. This isn't surprising: baby bullet trains spend most of their time cruising near the speed limit, where the faster acceleration of EMUs doesn't provide a benefit. With all other things being equal (including crowding and long dwell times--why would electrification resolve these?) we can expect the timetable for our five-stop baby bullet to drop by the same four minutes, or 60 to 63 minutes. That is a full 15 to 18 minutes slower than claimed by Caltrain! Even if you remove the copious 5-8 minutes of extra padding present in today's timetable and compare to the 2012 timetable, we're still 10 minutes slower than claimed, at 55 minutes.

EMU performance at 110 mph
(pure run time, no padding)

How could you possibly get to 45 minutes? One approach is to raise the speed limit to 110 mph, which is planned in the long term but clearly outside of the scope of the electrification project. Changing only that variable, and slowing down as needed where curves limit the speed to below 110 mph, our EMU now makes the same San Jose to San Francisco run in 41:32, almost seven minutes faster. However, we're still 7 to 10 minutes slower than Caltrain's 45-minute claim, or 2 minutes slower when using 12% padding. Again, the reasons for having such enormous amounts of timetable padding will not suddenly disappear after electrification!

The best way to get there is with level boarding, which alleviates Caltrain's crippling dwell time problem. Level boarding has two benefits: the primary benefit is in the form of reduced dwell time during each stop, and the secondary benefit is in the smaller amount of timetable padding that is needed, thanks to the improved schedule adherence that is possible when the occasional wheelchair lift deployment no longer threatens to inject random three-minute delays. Padding could conceivably be cut to 7%, and dwell time to 30 seconds. No new simulation runs are required-- our five-stop 79 mph EMU makes it in (48:15 - 2:30)*1.07 = 49 minutes on the timetable; the 110 mph EMU makes it in (41:32 - 2:30)*1.07 = 42 minutes.

Caltrain's claim of a 45-minute baby bullet is readily attainable only after three major improvements are made. These are not included in the scope of the electrification project and are currently unfunded:

1. Conversion of the baby bullet fleet from diesel to EMU
2. Implementation of system-wide level boarding
3. Curve realignment, track upgrades and grade crossing safety upgrades for 110 mph

To promise a 45-minute baby bullet run in the short term is at best misleading and at worst a flat-out lie. Once the electrification project is complete, we can expect approximately zero improvement in baby bullet performance, with timetabled runs in the range of 64 to 67 minutes. If the initial slight increase in capacity of the electrification project relieves crowding (but will it, enough to offset the performance loss from dragging a seventh Bombardier car?) then we could return to the 2012 timetable performance of 59 minutes.

Myth #2: the one-hour, 13-stop limited

Let us assume for the moment that padding returns to the 2012 level of about 12%. Assuming 60-second dwells and a 79 mph speed limit, how many intermediate stops can a limited train make between San Jose and San Francisco before the timetable hits one hour?  Subtracting 12% pad from one hour, we need to make a pure run time of 53:34.

With today's diesel bullet performance, Caltrain's claim of six stops in one hour checks out reasonably closely at 54:57 or just over one hour including padding, i.e. close enough. Let's change the assumptions, one by one:

Simulation Case	Pure Run Time	Timetable
Case A, Diesel, dwell 60, 6 stops, 12% pad	0:54:57	1:01:33
Case B, EMU, dwell 60, 6 stops, 12% pad	0:50:10	0:56:11
Case C, EMU, dwell 60, 7 stops, 12% pad	0:52:04	0:58:19
Case D, EMU, dwell 60, 8 stops, 12% pad	0:53:58	1:00:27
Case E, EMU, dwell 30, 8 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:49:58	0:53:28
Case F, EMU, dwell 30, 9 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:51:22	0:54:58
Case G, EMU, dwell 30, 10 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:52:46	0:56:28
Case H, EMU, dwell 30, 11 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:54:10	0:57:57
Case I, EMU, dwell 30, 12 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:55:34	0:59:27
Case J, EMU, dwell 30, 13 stops, 7% pad (level boarding)	0:56:58	1:00:57
Case K, EMU, dwell 30, 13 stops, 7% pad (level boarding), 110 mph	0:53:08	0:56:51

Simulation Case K
(pure run time, no padding)

Case D shows that the maximum number of stops permissible under post-electrification conditions is at most 8, just two more stops than today, and not 13 as claimed by Caltrain. Only after level boarding does the number of stops increase to 13 as shown by Case J, but once again, level boarding is not included in the scope of the basic electrification project. Case K illustrates the diminishing returns from increasing the speed limit to 110 mph; the more stops a train makes, the less benefit there is from the higher allowable speed. Case K (see diagram at right) shows the train almost constantly accelerating and braking, which is not how one would choose to operate given the cost of electricity in the real world.

The takeaway message to Caltrain is this: don't over-promise and under-deliver on the modernization project. Your electrification project reduces time in motion and establishes a foundation for further improvements, but is not sufficient by itself. To deliver the service benefits promised in your public presentations, you absolutely need level boarding to reduce time at rest.

(do I sound like a broken record?)

The Capacity Problem

These days, Caltrain is breaking a ridership record nearly every month.  Rush hour trains are running with standing-room-only crush loads, measured by Caltrain's statistics as a percentage of seating capacity.  The most recent ridership counts (tallied during the low-ridership season in the first quarter of 2016) showed several trains running at 125% of seated capacity, even after the addition of a sixth car.  Capacity, or the lack of it, is becoming a problem and Caltrain will need to do more about it before 2020.

A montage of what a Caltrain EMU
by Stadler might look like,
based on a photo by Yevgeny Gromov

The recent award of electrification contracts, including an order for sixteen new six-car EMU trains from rail vehicle manufacturer Stadler, has brought this issue to the forefront.  Caltrain's Chief Operating Officer for Rail, Michelle Bouchard, had to concede in front of the Caltrain board of directors that the new EMUs would initially have a lower seat count than the diesel trains they will replace. The argument was that increased capacity could be achieved by increasing train frequency from 5 to 6 trains per peak hour per direction, and ultimately by lengthening the EMUs from 6 cars to 8 cars, something that can be done to an EMU without loss of performance or track capacity, unlike a diesel train.

Here are some thoughts about the capacity problem.

Capacity is measured in people, not seats.  Measuring passenger load factors as a percentage of seated capacity works well for airplanes, but doesn't quite do the trick for a transportation mode where passengers routinely stand.  The design of a train, including the number of seats, the interior layout, and accommodations for standees (handrails, poles, straps, etc.) has an enormous effect on the level of comfort experienced by passengers when the car operates at "125% seated capacity."  In rail vehicle A, filled with seats and with few places to stand, 125% feels uncomfortably crowded.  In rail vehicle B, with a lower seat count and large areas where passengers can comfortably stand, 125% of seated capacity feels just fine. A better metric of the true capacity of a rail vehicle is the number of seats plus some number of standees per unit of usable floor area (typically 4 standees per square meter); with such a metric, "100% capacity" feels like the same crowding regardless of train design.

Load factors over 100% seated capacity are desirable.  While this may be news to the person crushed between two sweaty people in the vestibule of a rush hour train, sizing the train fleet so that everyone can get a seat during the peak leads to a lot of empty seats running around the system or idling in yards during off-peak hours. This can be mitigated by changing the length of train consists (like BART), but unless trains are designed for this to begin with, it can't be done in daily practice.  Caltrain's new fleet of EMUs will not be easily reconfigurable unless two EMUs are coupled together; plans for this are not evident in the train configurations discussed in the EMU Request for Proposals (6 cars and 8 cars).  With fixed train consists, there is necessarily a sweet spot where a balance is achieved between two undesirable conditions: too many bums and not enough seats during the peak, and too many seats and not enough bums off-peak.  That sweet spot will mean peak load factors should very well be over 100% when measured as a fraction of seating capacity.

LIRR M-7 rail car with 5-abreast,
by Lexcie via Wikimedia Commons

Middle seats are seats, too.  The idea of 3+2 seating (five abreast) is usually batted away with a summary argument that passengers don't like middle seats, but it undeniably results in more seating capacity.  The question is, do passengers dislike middle seats more than they dislike standing? Commuter railroads on the East Coast seem to know the answer: the Long Island Rail Road M-7, the Metro North M-8, and the SEPTA Silverliner V, (to cite only the most modern examples) all feature 3+2 seating areas.  If providing seated capacity is so important, and if load factors are going to be measured as a percentage of seated capacity, then that middle seat is worth an easy 25% additional capacity.  The Caltrain EMU contract could be changed to require 3+2 seating; Stadler has already built a 3+2 bi-level EMU for a Russian client.

Fewer seats can actually increase passenger capacity.  If Caltrain stays with 2+2 seating and a lower seat count, the additional space for standees can provide greater passenger capacity if standees are properly accommodated.  The new EMUs should be configured with poles, handrails, grab handles or straps as necessary to allow standees to travel comfortably when no seats are available.  During the platform height transition period when Caltrain will be operating dual boarding heights (two sets of doors), the number of seats will temporarily drop after seats are removed from the high door boarding vestibules.  This may increase the load factor when measured as a percentage of seated capacity, but it will actually increase passenger capacity by opening up more room for standees.  Comfort may suffer, but only temporarily.

Caltrain should find a way to buy 8 car trains right away.  If some trains are already running at 125% seated capacity in 2016 during the winter low season, they are probably running at 150% seated capacity during the summer.  Seasonal load factor will go even higher if ridership continues to increase between now and 2020 when the new EMUs arrive.  By then, even with the entire Caltrain diesel fleet at six cars per train, the system will likely be bursting at the seams.  The step change in service quality thanks to the new EMU fleet will trigger another ridership increase.  Taking into consideration those three factors (high season peak, continued ridership escalation and better EMU service), it seems likely that six-car EMUs will be overcrowded from day one.  If Caltrain can scrape together another ~$150 million (another 7% of the total tab for modernization) to exercise an option on the Stadler contract, all EMUs can enter service in 2020 as 8-car trains.  Short platforms can be dealt with by prohibiting boarding and alighting from the front or rear cars at the few stations that cannot berth a 200-meter train.  An eight-car Stadler KISS with 2+2 seating will accommodate about 750 seated passengers and another 1000 standees.