Caltrain Modernization Program
The Caltrain Modernization Program, sometimes referred to as the Caltrain Electrification Project, was a $2.44 billion project which added a positive train control system and electrified the main line of the U.S. commuter railroad Caltrain, which serves cities in the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley. The electrification included installation of a 25 kilovolt alternating current catenary system over the double-tracked line from San Francisco to San Jose, and acquisition of new rolling stock, consisting of Stadler KISS double-decker electric multiple units. Caltrain has transitioned from its legacy push-pull trains hauled by diesel-electric locomotives, most of which have been in service since 1985.
CalMod electrified of tracks between 4th and King station and Tamien station and installed a PTC management system along the tracks. PTC is designed to fulfill federal safety mandates for passenger rail and is part of the Federal Railroad Administration waiver to use EMUs on tracks shared with freight traffic. Funding for the project came from various federal, state, and local sources, including from the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Proposals for electrifying the line began as early as 1992 when the California Department of Transportation conducted an early feasibility study. For two decades, the project lay dormant due to lack of funding until Caltrain agreed to share its tracks with the CHSRA, which was looking for a route for the legally mandated San Jose–San Francisco segment. The Authority agreed to partially fund the electrification project in exchange for rights to share the track. Construction contracts for electrification were awarded in July 2016 and groundbreaking was expected to occur in March 2017, but was delayed when the new United States Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao indefinitely deferred federal funding just before construction was about to begin. That same month, Caltrain removed the contractor responsible for implementing PTC for failure to perform on budget and schedule. In May 2017, the Federal Transit Administration announced its intention to sign the grant and reversed Secretary Chao's deferment.
Construction for CalMod began with a groundbreaking ceremony at Millbrae station on July 21, 2017, and completed in April 2024. Stadler KISS units began delivery in March 2022, and system testing started in June 2023. Caltrain began public revenue service using the Stadler EMUs on August 11, 2024, with two trainsets, adding more gradually until fully transitioning to all-electric trainsets on September 21. Some of the newer diesel locomotives and conventional passenger coaches will be retained for service south of Tamien. Switching to EMUs is intended to improve service times via faster acceleration and shorter headways, and reduce air and noise pollution. CalMod also enabled planning and implementation to proceed for The Portal, a planned tunnel to extend Caltrain and future California High-Speed Rail service approximately to downtown San Francisco's Salesforce Transit Center.
History
Background
Commuter railroad service on the San Francisco Peninsula was inaugurated in 1863 as the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad and purchased by Southern Pacific in 1870. SP announced that it would investigate the electrification of its line in September 1921, promising better and more frequent service. However, SP cited excessive post-war inflation, taxation, and competition from publicly funded highways as factors making electrification neither "practicable or desirable". In the early 1950s, SP began introducing diesel locomotives on the route. By 1977, Southern Pacific were facing rapidly declining ridership and petitioned the state Public Utilities Commission to allow them to discontinue the commuter rail operation. From 1980 until 1992, the California Department of Transportation and the three service counties, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara, subsidized Southern Pacific operations on the railway until the local Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board acquired the right-of-way in 1991.Early electrification proposals
In 1992, Caltrans released the first feasibility study detailing the possibility of electrifying the railroad between San Francisco and San Jose. The 1992 Feasibility Study proposed replacing the existing diesel-electric locomotives with either a fleet of EMD AEM-7 electric locomotives to move the existing gallery passenger cars or Metro North Budd M-2/M-4 EMUs. The primary benefits of an electrified railway would be improvements in air quality, noise, and acceleration, but would also save on other ancillary costs, such as lubricating oil, cooling water, maintenance, and refueling. Because of the relatively close spacing between stops, the improved acceleration using electric locomotives compared to the existing diesel-electric locomotives would cut transit time between San Francisco and San Jose by up to twelve minutes, and using EMUs would cut the time over the same distance by up to 23 minutes, assuming the use of ten-car trainsets. The 1992 Feasibility Study recommended the use of electric locomotives and 25 kV AC overhead lines as the most cost-effective alternative, since the gallery cars, which had been built in 1985, were then relatively new and could be reused.File:SEPTA AEM7.jpg|thumb|right|EMD AEM-7 electric locomotive, part of the equipment proposed in the 1992 Feasibility Study to electrify Caltrain. This AEM-7 is in revenue service with SEPTA.|alt=An image of an electric locomotive, an AEM-7 model, that was proposed in a 1992 study.
Due to funding shortages, the project was postponed for the next two decades. In 1997, Mayor Willie Brown canceled the appropriation for San Francisco's share of costs to extend rail service to downtown, saying Peninsula residents "ought to fund the whole project" since it would mainly benefit their commute. San Francisco instead applied the money to the Third Street Light Rail Project. Mike Nevin, PCJPB member from San Mateo County noted that while the downtown extension "would have enhanced particularly the electrification of the system", lack of it would not cause Caltrain to collapse. Instead, Caltrain studied a list of potential upgrades and went on to publish a draft Rapid Rail Study on October 1, 1998, which prioritized capital improvements to the physical infrastructure with the overarching goal of expanding rail service. At that time, Caltrain was reporting daily ridership of approximately 25,000 passengers, a 40-year high.
The 1998 Rapid Rail Study assumed that ridership would increase in direct proportion to improving travel times. The study concluded that in order to meet the five goals presented in the 20-Year Strategic Plan of 1997, Caltrain should first rehabilitate and enhance the line, then electrify it. By itself, electrification was not projected to significantly improve service, and the high estimated cost of electrification and its lower priority meant electrification would be deferred. Some of the money to accomplish the rehabilitation and enhancement of existing track came from funds that had been intended for the downtown extension. Steve Schmidt, a councilman from Menlo Park, argued that electrification instead should be the top priority to make the rail line more palatable to neighbors, citing improvements in noise and pollution. Other advocates for electrification of Caltrain noted the $1.2 billion BART extension to San Francisco International Airport may have revived the decades-old dream of BART around the Bay, which would render an electrified Caltrain redundant. The electrification of Caltrain was assigned a higher priority than a future expansion of the system, which included proposals to bring service to Union City across the Dumbarton Rail Bridge as well as increased service to Gilroy and Salinas. Under the latest proposal to revive rail service over the Dumbarton Rail Corridor, diesel multiple units would first be used to establish Dumbarton Rail service as a rail shuttle between a new rail station in Newark and Caltrain's Redwood City station, later extending service from Newark to Union City, and finally followed by a commuter rail operation running from Union City to San Francisco and San Jose using EMUs.
In 2003, The San Francisco County Transit Authority proposed Proposition K in San Francisco, a local transportation sales tax. Voters were given an expenditure plan estimating the total cost of Caltrain electrification as $183.5 Million with San Francisco's share costing $20.5M, met with Proposition K, which passed.
Caltrain/HSR blended system
Despite increasing ridership, Caltrain experienced a budget crisis in 2011 that nearly forced it to cut service to peak commute hours only, while funding sources for electrification remained unidentified. At the same time, the California High-Speed Rail Authority was having trouble identifying a route from San Jose to San Francisco in the face of local opposition. In response, U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo, State Senator Joe Simitian, and Assemblymember Rich Gordon announced a "blended" plan to partially fund electrification with high-speed rail money in return for allowing high-speed rail trains to share tracks in the future. Later, Caltrain announced that it had studied the plan and believed it to be feasible.Under a proposed agreement between Caltrain and the CHSRA, details of which were leaked in February 2012, up to $1 billion could be available from the high-speed rail project to help fund the CalMod project, including the positive train control system, electrification of the infrastructure, and elimination of some grade crossings. Under the agreement, the Peninsula Corridor would become eligible for high-speed rail money because the planned routing to San Francisco would use the same lines. This was one of two investments in "bookend" electrification projects, which were intended to upgrade existing passenger rail services near the planned CHSRA San Francisco and Los Angeles terminals to allow high-speed rail to share infrastructure. In March 2012, Caltrain and other local agencies signed a memorandum of understanding with the CHSRA that detailed the blended plan, which received approval from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission a week later.
Under the memorandum, $706 million from the high-speed rail bond would be matched by state, regional, and local transportation funds to pay for the estimated $1.5 billion needed for CalMod. However, since the bonds had not yet been issued, the money was not available, and a prior environmental impact report that had been issued for electrification in 2009 needed to be reissued before construction could start. In September 2012, the California Transportation Commission released $39.8 million to modernize CBOSS. A month later, the expected funding from high-speed rail bonds rose to $1.5 billion, which alongside electrification provided funding for the planned Downtown Extension, which would move the northern terminus of the Caltrain line from 4th and King to the Salesforce Transit Center. CHSRA approved the issue of bonds in December 2016. Critics of high-speed rail felt the slower trips and reduced service caused by "blending" the two systems over the Peninsula Corridor did not meet the original voter-approved vision of a quad-track line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and ridership would never meet projections.