Caltrain Electrification

Below is a YouTube video that was filmed on April 7th showing the current (pun intended) state of electrification. As you can see most of the poles are now up as well as some of the wiring. While poles are up at the San Jose station no poles or wiring at either the Caltrains maintenance base or at the San Francisco station. Still a lot of work to go.

west point wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:55 am RR thanks for the video. Been many years and cannot believe how the line has changed. Could hardly recognize the areas and ROW. Able to freeze the frames able to question what I have read. Again thanks. Now maybe in 6 months again ?

The guy who made the video apparently rides the Caltrain service often so I'm sure he'll put up another video before too long. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the two ex Amtrak AEM7's but no such luck. Still a lot of work to go before the first electric train runs.

Thanx, RRspatch. I watched the whole thing and I notice how patchy the construction is.

One can also see that in Construction – CalMod by mousing over the station markers. Some places have only foundations, some places also poles, and some places also wires.

An interesting aspect of the electrification is that in places with more than two tracks, the east-side ones are left unelectrified. This may be a side effect of construction or else only some of the tracks are to be electrified.

The video starts in Tamien, and only one of the tracks to there seems like it's electrified -- or used.

Virtual Reality – CalMod - shows a virtual-reality look inside the railcars, a view much like Google Street View.

Some of the cars are bathroom cars, and some of them are bicycle cars.

The cars are split-level like the lozenge cars that Bombardier has made for GO Transit, LA Metrolink, ACE, and Caltrain itself - bilevel except for intermediate levels at the ends.

Some of the cars are cab cars without passage through their cab ends.

In that video, some of the Caltrains were using lozenge cars from elsewhere, like ACE or Metrolink.

the white cars are from metro link

note that the video is a month old at this point, taken in the first week of april. whether the middle tracks are electrified depends on whether caltrain uses them.

Here are some photos with wire strung on all 4 tracks at Lawrence station. Taken on April 21.

Are any more four-track sections planned? That seems to be the biggest capacity issue, especially once this is electric and that bridge is crossed.

Have the AEM7s began testing yet?

ConstanceR46 wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 3:21 pm Have the AEM7s began testing yet?

I seriously doubt any of it is energized yet. Harking back to my NEC days and looking at the catenary it looks like most of the short sections that are up are simply tied off to the nearest pole. No insulators appear at the end of the catenary run and the pole it's tied into. Depending on how quickly they're hanging the stuff I'd say at least 6 to 8 months before you see any testing with the catenary alignment and voltage test units (AEM7's).

Looking at my YouTube recommended list I see the guy who made the video I linked to has recorded another head-end run. So I'm guessing a new one every month.

Indeed this is still rather far from being energized. Most of the wire is strung but very little of it is actually properly connected to the posts.

They'd be smart to energize it sooner than later. Copper thieves aren't dumb.

At the IRM, the wire stays energized year round so that the thieves get a very rude surprise when they encounter 600V in the middle of the night in winter...

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They are not dumb?

lol i don’t think you guys get this area…

I don't get why people stay in that area...

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