BART CalTrain Merger

Very interesting to see a commuter rail agency proposing to merge with a subway system.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... with-bart/

Caltrain’s board of directors will consider a merger with Bay Area Rapid Transit as part of a restructuring of the commuter railroad’s governance, although a BART spokeswoman says its board has had no discussions of the concept. The San Jose Mercury News reports the long-discussed concept of integrating the two rail services comes as Caltrain moves toward a more rapid-transit-like model, with a goal of offering service on 15-minute intervals along an electrified route.

Not much in common except rail and passengers. Would a merge make the Dumbarton route more or less feasible ?
Might enable a second set of tubes have both BART and Caltrain tracks in use ?/
Putting BART under FRA would be a downer.

There's a lot of admin headcount and overhead that could be eliminated if they merged but kept the operating entities separate. But, this is California, so everyone will be kept and get a raise.

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west point wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:53 pm Not much in common except rail and passengers. Would a merge make the Dumbarton route more or less feasible ?
Might enable a second set of tubes have both BART and Caltrain tracks in use ?/
Putting BART under FRA would be a downer.

I believe that to claim authority over BART the FRA would have to show physical connectivity to the US rail network; presumably the difference in gauge should keep the FRA out of the picture.

lol they are proposing merging with BART and BART hears about it from the news? doesn't sound like they are off to a great start.

it would probably make a lot more sense for them to fold operations under CCJPA or SJJPA and better align services with existing Amtrak and ACE services. I don't understand financially how running caltrain every 15 minutes makes any sense, especially once BART is going all the way to Santa Clara.

My point is that combining BART and Cal Train is that they might plan to use common facilities to save mega bucks. The 2 projects that that may be combined is the Dumbarton bridge crossing and new tubes from downtown San Francisco to Oakland. Getting the signal systems to talk to each other would bring FRA into the mix.

what mega bucks?

caltrain has never had any plans to make any bay crossings. the only reason they would do this would be to finally align schedules at millbrae and potentially eliminate redundant services in the south bay once the bart extension is built.

This would be a given in any other country in the world, but exceptionalist us, with the worst practice among rich nations in transit - are sat in this thread picking it apart. Like the status quo is shifting mode...

Passengers should not need to know what business entity runs the trains. It should be a train - connect to another train. Timetables all lined up for transfers, ticketing seamless and without penalties... with entities as agnostic, back-end shit but from the customer experience, it's one thing. Same with buses, Muni and the other rail/light rail stuff going on in San Jose and the East Bay.

But we think about the corporations first and not the users. Nowhere else in the world does that - except in Japan where the private and JR play nicely enough, for the passenger ex.

Barely any of London's tube lines or Paris's metros are physically compatible with one another - nobody cares.

cle wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:59 pm This would be a given in any other country in the world, but exceptionalist us, with the worst practice among rich nations in transit - are sat in this thread picking it apart. Like the status quo is shifting mode...

But we think about the corporations first and not the users. Nowhere else in the world does that - except in Japan where the private and JR play nicely enough, for the passenger ex.

Barely any of London's tube lines or Paris's metros are physically compatible with one another - nobody cares.

On a national scale, few countries are as "continental" as the USA as far as size is concerned.

How many different passenger train operating companies exist in Europe? Are they expected to operate within a budget? Do they charge passengers fares? How much of their operations is financed by fares? Yes, even in the rest of the world, questions concerning the financial health of their train operating agencies have to be answered first.

Passengers in the USA also do not care whether the metros of Los Angeles and New York City are compatible with one another.

electricron wrote: Passengers in the USA also do not care whether the metros of Los Angeles and New York City are compatible with one another.

Unless plans have changed LAX metro subway, light rail and Surfliners will need compatible equipment in 2028. Metro erimates it will ha
expects 2 - 3 times as many riders for the Olympics. Metro have stated they wish to borrow additional compatible equipment temporarily to handle the crowds.

west point wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 12:33 pm Unless plans have changed LAX metro subway, light rail and Surfliners will need compatible equipment in 2028. Metro erimates it will ha
expects 2 - 3 times as many riders for the Olympics. Metro have stated they wish to borrow additional compatible equipment temporarily to handle the crowds.

Compatible with what? The subway, light rail, and FRA compliant Surfliner/Metrolink represent three distinct technologies and will never be compatible with one another. Do you mean that they will be looking for three sets of compatible equipment to borrow to serve these three systems? If so, Ssurfliner/Metrolink are definitely already compatible with any FRA compliant system. The subway is probably not, and light rail is maybe compatible with some other stock equipped systems.

Of course compatible equipment for each of the different agencies' different equipment.