Had to turn up the volume to hear the emu noise. So nice and quiet. Had to turn down the volume when the doors closed. Whooof, that's a bit aggressive!
Yeah that door close noise is obnoxious -- I could see if someone was preventing the door from closing but some kinda beeping like Bart has would be great
In the UK that would be called "Health & Safety requirements"! For many years London Underground tube trains had no audible warning that the doors were about to close - and if you got caught between the closing doors of a tube train, you certainly knew it! These days, pretty much all tube train stock has audible warnings that the doors are about to close, as does mainline train stock - usually with a visual warning too, plus a lady's voice saying in a refined BBC english accent, "This train is about to depart." 🙂
I work in an office along the corridor and I didn't realize these electric trains were in service already. It's amazing how much quieter these are on the outside. The old trains were audible from inside our office but the new ones are absolutely silent. I didn't even realize the new trains were running until I saw the new white and red train cars whizzing by.
European living in the Bay. Can confirm. I was like "WTF is this abomination" when I first saw (and heard!) the Diesel Caltrains year agos. Never heard such a loud train in my entire life before. The honking when crossing a road is another thing ...
I mean we certainly have diesel locomotives too (tbf I'm German and electrification isn't going so great here lmao), are they much louder or something?@@ThePixelize
Fun fact: when these trains were put into service in Sweden, they were consistently referred to as Stadler Dosto (the original working name of the train type during engineering), because the word “kiss” means “urine” in Swedish.
“This should be the standard for all trains…thanks to CalTrans for achieving it.” As a retired AEC professional who participated in many significant infrastructure projects during my career, it’s important to acknowledge the accomplishment as well as the commitment required. The inertia of the Status Quo is like trying to push a rope. Usually a 180deg shift in thinking will produce sufficient tensional forces to pull the rope in a new direction. In this case it’s electrification, essential efficiencies, environmental sensitivities, and improved speed. Eventually…the various dendritic networked components will become interconnected. Hopefully, we won’t all go broke before the finish line. The cost must be reduced…if it is to succeed. Thank you for this excellent presentation.🤙🏼🎯
After many years of daily commuting with the Stadler Kiss in Switzerland, the train has never let me down once. The biggest technical problem I witnessed was a door that didn't close all the way and one of the air conditioning units that broke down. I think it's great that the train is designed from the ground up for reliability. Nothing is more annoying when traveling by train than cancellations or long delays. If the operator uses it well and maintains the rail network well, hopefully this will become an example that America can do public transportation.
The upgraded schedules were already incredible even before a single EMU was running yet. Hourly Caltrain on weekends and continuous service until midnight were inconceivable just a few years ago.
@@johnevans2044 That's what they are called in the Netherlands too. They do suck. They are often delayed and it's far from as comfortable as a train (even the SNG is more comfortable)
0:29 Denver's RTD commuter rail is technically the biggest recent expansion of electric commuter rail in the US with a length of 85 km vs only 79 km for CalTrain
@@Thom-TRA Denver resident here, and I can confirm this. The RTD A line opened first, then the B line, but issues with the crossings on the RTD A line pushed the opening of the RTD G line back 3 years from a 2016 opening to a 2019 opening. The N line opened in 2020 and so far, that's RTD's commuter rail system. But who knows, maybe there could be expansions, if not another line. :)
@@Thom-TRA True! I hope we can figure out faster and more cost-effective electrification since Ontario is about to electrify 260 km of railways with the first phase being 50 km. At CalTrain rates that would take 23 years of continuous construction and $8 Billion USD ($10.5 Billion CAD)
Sea lion facts: The sea lions there are California sea lions, ranging from southeastern Alaska to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Pier 39's sea lions have been hanging out there since 1989! They used to hang out at Seal Rock but have since moved to Pier 39, some say because they feel safer inside the Bay. When the docks were refurbished in 1989, this temporarily removed boats from the area and left a lot of room for the sea lions. When the boat owners returned, they complained about navigating because of the sea lions, and thus it was decided to move the boats elsewhere so the sea lions could stay. California sea lions are among the most gregarious marine mammals, forming dense aggregations of a thousand or more animals on land. They also may travel, socialize or rest at the surface in groups of ten or more near haul out areas. Sea lions produce loud roars help explain why they're named after lions. Males of some sea lion species even grow thick manes around their necks. Sea lions can remain underwater for an average of 8 to 20 minutes. Unlike dolphins, sea lions exhale before diving. Naturally, their nostrils are closed, but they have special muscles to open them in order to breathe. Sea lions can dive to depths between 450 and 900 feet (135 - 272 m). The reason they can dive so deeply and stay underwater so long is because they have a high tolerance for carbon dioxide. The oxygen in their body concentrates in their heart and central nervous system rather than in non-vital organs. Their relative, the elephant seal, can hold its breath for 62 minutes and dive to depths of 4,100 feet (1240 m). Seals belong to the family Phocidae, while sea lions belong to the family Otariidae. The differences between seals and sea lions are that sea lions are loud, brown, have ear flaps, and have big flippers to move on land while seals are rounder, seals have ear holes rather than ear flaps, and have small flippers! To propel themselves through water, seals use their powerful hind flippers, fanning them out and moving them in a side-to-side motion. For sea lions, it’s just the opposite by using their large front flippers for swimming and their back flippers for steering, reaching speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. All pinnipeds have a membrane at the back of each eye called a tapetum lucidum to aid in night vision. Cats also have a tapetum lucidum, which is why the eyes of cats and pinnipeds glow at night. On land, their eyes are protected by a nictitating membrane, which wipes away sand and debris.
The trolley car you rode in is similar to the “Green Hornet” street cars that operated in the 50s in Chicago. One SF Street car is painted in the Chicago green and white theme but the last Green Hornet has been retired to the Illinois Railway Museum where it still runs for occasional nostalgia rides.
Arf-arf (my best seal sound). Great video and funny ending.! :) Awesome clean and quiet electric -- the way we led the world with this 100 years ago in the USA.
3:42 For those who traveled from points south of Tamien to points north of Diridon, the diesel shuttle trains will provide timed transfers to electric Limited or Express trains at Diridon.
Well they are proud and should be. They basically made one of the biggest electrification projects (even though it was slow, alright, but still) in the entire US in 2 decades, being only surpassed by Denver
Thanks so much! Wow. I'm in New Jersey right now, but I lived a short walk from the Palo Alto station in the early '80's, a short walk from the San Jose station in 1990, and near the SF station and the Giant's ballpark in the rest of the '90's and 2000's. Activists, and the occational politician, were talking about electifying that line on and off for that entire time! Finally!
@@mattb1293 basically, once a train in the schedule becomes electric, it stays electric. And on the weekends, all trains between 8am and 8pm are electric. From what I understand.
'it took 7 years to complete electrification of Caltrain' - by comparison, I lived in San Jose for 28 years before the BART extension from Fremont was completed. Something to get used to with any major societal shift in California. I believe the Caltrain electrification was forced with the anticipation of the High Speed Rail, otherwise it would have taken even longer.
@@dragoxphere3341 Caltrain has had a less than stellar financial past, with revenue picking up before the pandemic if I have my history right. I believe it would have been difficult for them to justify going electric just for environmental sake, and their financial situation would have prohibited the conversion. Also, with the addition of Bombardier cars in 1997, 2002, and 2008, I would think the plans for diesel were longer into the future but I am unaware of the detailed history.
Yeah, 'seven' isn't quite correct. They were planning where to put the electrified line and surveying it back in the aughts. They started with updating all the stations and adding welded line - and some of the pylons for the electrification.
13:50 When going to the In-N-Out in Millbrae, you didn't show the iconic two palm trees KISSing each other, located near the exit of the drive-through on the left side.
If you're a big fan of sea lions, I have to give a shout-out to Sea Lion Caves just north of Florence, Oregon. It's a natural cave formation where Sea Lions congregate en masse. (Full disclosure, part of my family is in the ownership structure, so I'm not unbiased, but it is legitimately cool.) I wish there were some sort of transit access to it, but if you ever take a road trip down 101 along the Oregon Coast, I highly suggest checking it out.
At 07:43 in the train yard you can see a Very rare Budd SPV 2000 1970’s diesel multiple unit car ! It is the same body as the original metro liners for nyc to dc service and the Amfleet cars still used in the zNE corridor by Amtrak . It was a modern replacement for the original Budd RDC car .it was not successful as Budd went out of business and many unfinished bodies were scrapped when the factory was sold .
Yay, we're modern! :-) Nice to see you in my backyard -- if it had been a Saturday morning, I would've been the station host, barking orders at my poor captive audience of Amtrak passengers. The electrics are such a welcome addition -- and so quiet in running that I only know they're out there by the loud bells warning people that a train is coming. (Boy are those bells loud -- but not as bad as that door-closing siren!) The under-an-hour expresses are going to be amazing, and hopefully get folks back on the system. Caltrain took a big hit during COVID and really hasn't caught up since. Weekends are a ghost town, but when they start running 2x-hourly (locals, but still) I think that will appeal to more people. And the sea lions are the best free show in SF --endlessly entertaining. Good work as always, and thanks fr being as excited about the changes at Caltrain as many of use out here are!
Yep, Ron's usually on Fridays for #14, and I do the Saturday morning shift, covering one Capitol Corridor departure, two buses, and #11, the southbound Coast Starlight. We're members of the Station Host Association, such as it is. I've been volunteering at Diridon longer than any of the Amtrak agents have worked there.
I will never understand this American need for having trains make as much noise as humanly possible, everything from loud bells at stations to extremely loud horns even at protected(!) crossings. But good job for SF area to finally upgrade to the 21st (or hell latter half of 20th :D) century!
In honor of the emu, here are some emu facts: The name 'emu' is not actually an Aboriginal word. It is thought to have come from an Arabic word for large bird and later adopted by early Portuguese explorers and applied to cassowaries in New Guinea. The term was then transferred to the Emu by early European explorers to Australia. The emu is the second largest living bird and the largest bird found in Australia. Its height averages 5.7 feet (or around 1.75 m). Males weigh 110 to 121 pounds (50 to 55 kg), and females weigh about 11 pounds (around 5 kg) more than males. Emu migrations have been a result of human agriculture. The establishment of artificial but permanent watering points in the Australian inland, where cattle and sheep graze, has enabled emus to expand into places from which they were previously excluded by lack of water. Its powerful legs allow it to run up to about 30 miles (50 kilometers) per hour. Each emu foot has three forward-facing toes that allow it to grip the ground, thrusting the bird forward. A powerful kick is also handy for keeping predators at bay. Birds may lose up to 50 percent of their weight while searching for food. Emus pattern their movements to track with recent rainfall. They appear to depend mainly on the sight of rain-bearing clouds but sound cues from thunder and the smell of wet ground may also be involved. Emus eat the parts of plants that have the most concentrated nutrients, seeds, fruits, flowers and young shoots. They also eat insects and small vertebrates when they are easily available. They will not eat dry grasses or mature leaves. Emus ingest large pebbles up to 1.6 ounces (45 grams) to help their gizzards grind up food. They also often eat charcoal. Settlers tried to prevent them from interfering with farming or invading settlements in search of water during drought. An extreme example of this was the Emu War in Western Australia in 1932. Following World War I, large numbers of discharged veterans who served in the war were given land by the Australian government to take up farming within Western Australia, often in agriculturally marginal areas. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, these farmers were encouraged to increase their wheat crops, with the government promising, and failing to deliver, assistance in the form of subsidies. After their breeding season, 20,000 Emus headed to the coast from inland regions, and flocked to the Chandler and Walgoolan area during a dry spell as the cleared land and additional water supplies thanks to farmers made the land suitable, damaging rabbit fencing and devastating crops. An attempt to drive them off was mounted, with the army called in to dispatch them with machine guns; the emus largely avoided the hunters. The emu has a prominent place in Australian Aboriginal mythology, including a creation myth of the Yuwaalaraay and other groups in New South Wales who say that the sun was made by throwing an emu's egg into the sky. The bird features in numerous aetiological stories told across a number of Aboriginal groups. One story from Western Australia holds that a man once annoyed a small bird, who responded by throwing a boomerang, severing the arms of the man and transforming him into a flightless emu.
Having one restroom per train is definitely an interesting choice, especially when compared to the LIRR which has restrooms in the odd-numbered cars! And speaking of the LIRR, as part of Suffolk County's Connect Long Island plan, it includes electrification of the Port Jefferson Branch from Huntington to Port Jeff, the Montauk Branch from Babylon to Patchogue, and the Ronkonkoma Branch from Ronkonkoma to Yaphank, with Yaphank being relocated to a new station at East Yaphank to serve the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the home of the National Synchrotron Light Source II and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the latter of which has been the second-highest-energy heavy-ion collider in the world. As I mentioned in another vid of yours on Caltrain, Caltrain's electrification is even helping protect history! El Palo Alto, the reason Palo Alto got its name (it means "tall stick" in Spanish), is a historic 110 ft/34 m tall coast redwood on the banks of the San Francisquito Creek! El Palo Alto germinated around 940 AD, when the Ohlone people lived there! The area of what's now Palo Alto was first recorded by the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolá. When he made it to the area in November 1769, his expedition camped by the tall coast redwood! The tree is now along Caltrain's tracks! When the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad was built right next to the tree, the soot led to the tree to decline in health. But now, thanks to Caltrain electrification, this eliminates the impact of smoke. As shown here, electric rail's main environmental benefit doesn't come from eliminating diesel trains, but rather taking cars off the road by means of faster and more frequent service! I know some people have complained about the step because it adds seconds to a train's time at the station, but the step is there for safety reasons! As someone with hip dysplasia and mild cerebral palsy, I'm glad it's there! And I love bi-levels/double deckers so much, so it's great they're sticking with them as EMUs! A fun fact about double deckers, the LIRR was actually one of the first operators of double deckers in the country, as the PRR first built prototypes of them for the LIRR in 1932, the world's first all-aluminum double decker! They were EMUs! Though they weren't exactly true double deckers, they functioned similarly to a gallery car, as the idea was a single level with a centerline aisle, and two levels of seats, with the second staggered above the first. The 1932 prototype could sit 120, while the fleet that entered service in the 1940s could sit 132. They were discontinued in the 1970s, with all scrapped except one, the 1932 prototype, which is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Long Island in Riverhead! Which is also home to two preserved M1s, among the last! Bilevels wouldn't return to the LIRR until the 1990s with the C1s and C3s (C1s were sold in 1999 as they were just an experiment before the C3s and were mechanically incompatible with the C3s).
It's especially odd when you consider most non-commuter trains in Europe generally have 2 per coach/carriage/car, or every other. Even the single deck ones.
So glad to see this change. Having spent many trips on this line I always wondered how it was possible for such a San Francisco maintained a line without electric. In my own city Sydbey (San Francisco’s sister city), city planners considered themselves as dragging their feet with electrification taking place well after it should have in….. 1926.
What a gorgeous train! It's a shame that this likely won't be the standard across the country in either of our lifetimes, but I hope that other large metro areas are paying attention (I'm looking at you Chicago 👀)
As these systems evolve you'll likely see battery banks placed along the route and then masses of solar farms along the routes as well and the trains will evolve into ultra efficient power networks utilizing multiple sources of power and dumping braking power back into the system. This is going to be really cool to watch over time.
Great video! I live in the Bay Area southeast of San Francisco and I love San Francisco for its culture and transporation system. I watch your channel. I majored in Geography at UC Berkeley. This is a project that I have paid a lot of attention, in addition to BART's new train car project. These Caltrain EMU's are awesome. I look forward to the EMU's replacing the existing diesel commuter trains in other cities that include Metra in Chicago and the MBTA Commuter Rail in Boston. I mostly like how the EMU's have the identical cab cars on each end of the train versus the old diesel trains.
I'd like to say congratulations to Caltrain for finally achieving what took almost a decade to complete (mainline electrification), and to you Thom for taking the time to share your accessment of this newly launched service. Although, Florida residents like myself not only witnessed, but was treated by my brother-in-law to ride Brightline's newest rail link service between Orlando International airport and Ft. Lauderdale, seeing your video gives me hope that other states and municipalities will at least take note as to what's happening in passenger rail development west of the Mississippi.
Meanwhile, in Metraworld, Metra is taking their oldest gallery cars out of retirement and repurposing them as bike cars. I’m not kidding when I say some of these retired gallery cars are over 70 years old. Luckily they cancelled their laughably stupid plan of converting their oldest F40PH locos into battery. Hey Metra, at least buy Siemens Chargers if you’re gonna keep your diesels. Retire those superpolluters already. Send them to the Illinois Railway Museum where they belong. And to the Illinois politicians out there, start caring about trains more!!!
Sorry to say but Siemens chargers orders are backed up to several years at current production rate considering everyone wants them. In addition, the chargers are proving pretty unreliable in Midwest winter weather conditions given the Amtrak Midwest charger availability is pretty lousy. While Metra does deserve criticism for doing some rather silly things, them choosing to not get Siemens chargers is not one of them.
@@dupdrewww the F125 is even worse for reliability than the charger, and that’s saying something considering the Midwest charger is around a 50% availability rate according to some Amtrak personnel. Not to mention I’m pretty sure the F125’s production line has ceased and restarting that would probably take a decently long time.
@@valkyr7208 yes you are correct. Unfortunately the Siemens Chargers are Metra’s best bet, despite their reliability problems. And also, Metra only buying EMDs is only an unwritten rule. They just choose to mostly buy EMDs but there’s no rule against buying anything other than EMD, because the MP36s aren’t EMD. They’re made by Motive Power which is a completely separate company
I live in the Toronto area; I'm very hyped by Metrolinx's decision to electrify much of the GO network, but I really wish they would go all in to get EMUs (they'll be starting with electric locos for the existing stock). More great progress, but doing it too slowly.
Love the announcements and screens even give details on the connections at stations! As mentioned, electric trains have a lot of benefits! Compared to diesel trains, electric trains have reduced power loss at higher altitudes, can serve underground stations where diesel trains cannot operate, reduced pollution, can easily accommodates kinetic energy brake reclaim using supercapacitors, and diesel infrastructure like fueling stations can be put to other uses! And compared to just having electric locomotives, EMUs have higher acceleration, since there are more motors sharing the same load, and more motors allows for a higher total motor power output! Higher seating capacity, since there is no locomotive, all cars can contain seats. Braking, including eddy current, rheostatic and/or regenerative braking, on multiple axles at once, greatly reducing wear on brake parts (as the wear can be distributed among more brakes) and allowing for faster braking. And lower adhesion coefficients for driving (powered) axles, due to lower weight on these axles, weight is not concentrated on a locomotive! Here's some In-N-Out Burger facts: In-N-Out Burger's first location was opened in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park in 1948 by Esther and Harry Snyder. The restaurant was the first drive-thru hamburger stand in California, allowing drivers to place orders via a two-way speaker system. This was a new and unique idea, since in post-World War II California, carhops were used to take orders and serve food! In 1961, the first Animal Style burger is created in response to customer requests. In 1972, one of founder Harry Snyder's favorite movies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, features characters racing to find treasure buried under four palm trees planted to resemble the letter W. Because each In-N-Out store is Harry's treasure, a tradition of planting crossed palm trees in front of most In-N-Out locations begins. How did Animal Style get its name? It turns out that animal comes from rowdy customers or “animals.” Lynsi Snyder wrote that these customers “would honk their horns while orders were taken,” or they would “leave trash on the lots and play their music extra loud”. They were sometimes so rowdy they would get into fights with each other. At the time, employees at In-N-Out were called “helpers” who began to call these customers “animals.” She added that, one night in 1961, an “animal” spotted a manager making himself a burger. The joint was originally designed with floor-to-ceiling windows so customers could watch burgers being prepared, which was co-founder Harry Snyder’s idea, as he “believed customers would enjoy seeing their food made with care,” Snyder explained. The customer was intrigued as to what this burger was and asked him what was in it. “It’s mustard fried,” Roberts responded, according to the book. “I add pickles, grilled onions, and extra spread.” In response, the customer said: “Sounds amazing. Can you make me one too?” according to Snyder. Roberts obliged, and “the guy wolfed it down,” calling it the best burger he ever had, Snyder wrote. The customer liked it so much that he continued to order it but had no idea what to call. Eventually Roberts told him, “Just call it Animal Style"
It’s amazing the wires are back! The Southern Pacific used to have electric trains that ran over the Oakland Bay bridge along with the Key System the NWP and the Sacramento Northern. The SP,NWP,and the SN were gone by 1940 the SN runs freight to this day.
Outstanding Video! It would be nice if Metra and the South Shore Trains, should have Trains like this. Enjoy! One day, I might want to take these Trains, between San Jose and San Francisco. 😊
Excellent choice for 50mi journeys. I‘ve been commuting on Kiss trains like these since 2012. Only downside is limited luggage space. Greetings from Zurich, Switzerland.
8:08, in Switzerland, that area by the stairs has a booth that seats 5. I wish they brought that over too. It's the perfect seating to play card games in
You probably mean the IC2000 wagons. The KISS commuter trains are mostly the same. If you look at 7:30 you see that caltrain has even 6 seats. The biggest difference i see is the option for the higher doors, which “normally” would have two 4 seats groups and at least in one wagon an additional small toilet.
Nice! The very first generation of the KISS was for the S-Bahn in Zurich (where I live), and I’ve ridden them many, many times. I’m pleasantly surprised at how little they changed in the interiors compared to the Zurich originals. Different upholstery and different seat arrangement, but very little changed overall. The motors also sound exactly the same. Same cannot be said for the door beeps (and the seizure-inducing flashing when doors close).
I have been looking forward to these trains for so long! I have been lucky enough to ride many of them while taking trips along the peninsula, but I was surprised with the choice of 1 bathroom.
Finally the American railways enter the twenty first century! Beautiful trains; the interior is as you say very basic and the seats are very upright. But it is a big improvement! Nice introduction of the Stadler Kiss.
The train you featured in the intro I was able to photograph in Salt Lake City on their way to California. Been a great journey seeing them built. Can't wait to go ride one!
Glad to see you make it back out to SF! The new trains couldn't have come soon enough. As someone who lives near 4th and King, the new sound is so nice! Though, their horns are a little higher pitched, which isn't the best... but oh well. I'll take it! But, in the last few years, I've seen a new subway, new electric trains, a giant new transit-oriented park, and a new neighborhood taking shape in SF. The progress is slower than one hopes, but there actually is progress. :)
And that’s what I love about SF! Our most recently announced metro expansion in DC has been swept under the rug and our city is actively trying to kill our bus system and our streetcar. Blaming their low ridership when they built it that way…
There was a time when the Southern Pacific had passenger trains to Santa Cruz! They left the line between San Francisco and San Jose, somewhere south of Palo Alto, and served some of the inland communities (that, alas, were not yet developed like they are now) before going over the mountains to Santa Cruz. Sadly, they discontinued the train, and then most of the line was washed out in a big rainstorm.
I rode those old gallery cars many times when I was living in San Jose ten years ago. It is nice that they finally got the electrification done. As I recall, the gallery trains had two restrooms.
Also worth noting that EMUs are permanently coupled together, just like Austria's flagship international service, the Railjet. This makes the cables less likely to malfunction due to constantly yanking the cars off, shunting, etc. And it also makes it easier for passengers to get between each unit.
Fun fact most Electric Multiple Units in the US are not Permanently Coupled oftentimes they are composed of Several Married Pairs or sometimes individual cars (this is what is done on the Northeast Corridor and South Shore Railroad)
@@the_retag Yesn't. Sure, if you build your EMUs the maximum length you'll ever run your trains, you have limited flexibility. However, a lot of commuter operators instead opt for creating trains out of multiple EMUs coupled together. As an example, in the Netherlands we may end up with 12 car EMU trains formed of four three-car sets (or three four-car sets). The fleet of that train type has 3 and 4 car types, and thus it can run with train lengths of 3,4, 6,7,8,9,10,11,12 (and theoretically longer but not currently in service for these lengths) cars. Note that this can easily be changed anywhere on the route. Indeed, part of the train may be left behind halfway to return with another train (meaning the core of a line could run longer trains than the peripheral parts), or the train could even split in two with both parts going their different ways. The new generation of intercity trains in the Netherlands similarly has 5 and 8 carriage versions, offering lengths of 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16 cars :). This can again easily be changed within a few minutes, with the remaining part still available for different services (or maintenance) without the need to fetch a locomotive. There's also no need to run around engines or deal with having to manage that the control cabs are always on the back of the train. Operationally EMUs are just superior, and that's why they are the standard for basically all train services except for longest distance services.
@@nanderv i know that emu's are used as multiples too, but that again adds dead space and doesn't allow conductors and passengers to walk the whole train. And push pull trains dont have the can issue either. But i guess their ubiquity says that emu's are Often better
I worked for a company that was bidding on this construction contract but did not win. (Balfour Beatty won that contract and built this line.) My boss and I rode the old train from San Francisco to San Jose to examine the right-of-way. There were many sections, mostly in the north, where the "dynamic envelop" of a future electric train with a catenary system would bump into existing structures. There was a section where there was no room in a tunnel for an overhead catenary system. Above that tunnel was a local road bridge. Above that local road bridge was a freeway overpass.... From an engineering standpoint, there were many challenges. Stadler Trains Staedler Erasers
This is one of the advantage of having a multiple unit, more powered wheels. I think the norm in Switzerland for commuter trains is 1 m/s² acceleration.
@@MatthiasWiesmann yes that's about standard. Although some of the Stadler Flirts in the UK do 1.3ms/2. That's the same as a metro train, being used on a local service stopping at country villages. Apparently the drivers are very keen on putting the acceleration to the test, I'd imagine there's been more than a few yokels who've ended up on the floor or in someone's lap!
very cool train set,we were going to have it to Stadler , we had ordered for Bulgaria exactly such Blue European version of KISS. But unfortunately things fell apart, and now we will wait for similar trains from škoda.
Welcome back to the Bay Area. I live in SF and you beat me to riding the new electric trains! 😝 You forgot to mention reason for electrification of the trains is to terminate the line at Salesforce Transit Center via an underground tunnel. Can’t do that with diesel engine.
@@Thom-TRA Yes. Railway Gazette International has this (Which explains the British spelling.): The Transbay Joint Powers Authority has selected the AECOM-led Portal Connectors team to provide programme management and construction management services for the long-planned extension of Caltrain commuter rail services into central San Francisco. and In May the federal government committed to provide $3·4bn for the project, which would cover around two-thirds of the projected cost. Local funding will be provided through Regional Measure 3 and various sales tax initiatives. An initial $500m has been allocated in the federal government’s FY2025 budget to fund the ongoing preparatory works. Design is reported to be around 30% complete, and subject to confirmation of the funding TJPA anticipates that the Downtown Rail Extension could open for revenue service in 2032.
Me as a child watching youtube and knowing stuff: oh Caltrain is getting electrified Me hearing it took 7 years to get here right now: WAIT ITS BEEN 7 YEARS ALREADY???
See, this is what I want Metra in Chicagoland to have in the future, the new one-floor models that will be for the time powered by batteries is just an aesthetic and functional downgrade from the two-floor ones, especially when comparing it to the already wire-electrified ones in the Southside. These Caltrains are amazing, hope these KISSes spread to other transit agencies in the future.
I used to live just a couple blocks from the Caltrain tracks a decade plus ago. Would have loved to have electric trains then! Also, I love that the upper decks are full decks rather than the two half- decks on the old one. Much more capacity.
9:59 I'm surprised they're cutting the Gilroy trains to only run to San Jose. I thought they would keep them running express through to San Francisco. After all they just run inbound in the morning, sit there all day and run back in the afternoon, only providing supplemental capacity during the peak period when it's needed. So it would a very minimal amount of diesel service on the electrified line anyway and it probably wouldn't require any more trainsets.
They aren't cutting Gilroy, the San Jose to Gilroy route will be powered by diesels. Ultimately High Speed Rail will run from Gilroy to San Jose, however I haven't heard of the electrical implementation plans for that segment.
@@Thom-TRA Thanks for that information - it's interesting however I believe the future of diesel rail to have a large battery either on the engine (likely not possible give the space) or in a trailing car. Right now the most efficient diesel loco's use dynamic braking which essentially converts the potential energy of the train into heat and dissipates it into the atmosphere. Why not feed that energy into a battery and use it to climb the next hill? Its a high up-front cost, and diesel is relatively cheap so they would never do it unless forced.
At some point, they decided to keep the gates down whenever a train is nearby - even if it's going a different direction - so locals have gotten acclimatized to crossing while the gates are down. Many of the stations only have that as a level crossing.
I feel like these trains would do wonders for the NEC, specifically the Providence/Stoughton line. All the MBTA needs to do is put up just a few more miles of overhead wires and purchase these trains.
Great to see the sneak peak of the new trains. Thank you for the link to the new schedule. I was looking all over their website and couldn't find it - never guessed I had to look at the status page and not the project or schedule pages. Was hearing in my head Mile's in Transit's "Now it's time for a bathroom review." Disappointed there's only one per train. Would be good to have at least one more for redundancy in case of a breakdown. At least with the more frequent service the cost of having to off-and-on will be lower.
Those are very similar seats to the BR Class 700s in the UK. I hope they're more comfortable, as most Thameslink passengers have nicknamed them ironing boards. It's still nice to see North America getting modern, European style trains and electrification.
It's refreshing to see what we take for granted here in Europe is up front for the US. What I noticed about the size of the trains is that the height is maybe a couple of inches more than the European version, at least as I can judge from ceiling heights inside, but the spaciousness comes from the extra width especially on the upper level where the sides are not tucked in like on the European examples. Here in the Netherlands where I live the contractor for local train traffic, Arriva, uses the older Stadler GTW like those on BART, and the Flirt which is also a single decker. They are also kitted out fairly basic on the inside but the ride is good, noise levels are really down and they give reliable service. But a 7 car train could do with more than just one toilet, 2 or 3 at least. But still better than some commuter trains which had no toilets when they entered service here in the Netherlands 15 years ago. After many complaints toilets were retrofitted.
I don't know if you are still in the South Bay Area, but the Santa Clara Caltrain station is home to the South Bay Historical Railroad Society. They have preserved the depot, the tower, the tool house, and the speeder shed. They also have an HO scale and a N scale railroad layout. They are open Tuesdays 5:00pm to 8:00pm and Saturday from 10:00am to 4:00pm. TSG Multimedia has few good videos about the South Bay Historical Railroad Society (SBHRS).
@@Thom-TRA - There are a few good railroad attractions in the South Bay Area. Niles Canyon Railway (Fremont), Roaring Camp with the Redwood Forest Steam Train and the Santa Cruz Beach Train (Felton), and Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad (Los Gatos). The BJWRR Engine No.2 was built in 1905 for the Venice Miniature Railway, bought by a local man, and then moved to Vasona Lake Park. These are not the type of trains that you put on your channel, but they are worth a visit.
I love Stadler KISS trains as well, we have a bunch of them in Austria, operated by Westbahn. I travel on them between Vienna and Salzburg, and they are excellent, smooth and quiet. They have the same loud door beeping sound, but you sort of stop caring after a while. One thing I have to say is that the Westbahn ones have more comfy looking seats, and they have way more toilets. However, people sometimes travel on them for more than 3 hours, so they are specifically designed for long-haul operation. Love the colors of the Caltrain, and you did a nice review!
A huge improvement, even the visuals vs the stainless steel look of most other trains. The sheer size of American trains paired with this familiar European modern train design is cool!
That is one distinct advantage we have in the US is our huge loading gauge, we can make our trains big and roomy. A double decker train is not even something fathomable in the Uk with their tiny loading gauge, UK trains are smol
@@mrvwbug4423 We have a similar thing up here in Scandinavia, the loading gauge is larger than in continental Europe, which is why most Swedish rail cars cannot run south, I think even to some parts of Denmark. I guess it could have something to do with having a lot of space to work with I don't know. But unlike the US our tracks are nationalized we have been almost fully electric for something like 50+ years.
Great video sir! I live in San Carlos and the new trains you can barely hear them passing by my apartment complex! I'm gonna make a drone video soon about the new electric trains. Keep the great content coming!
Wow, that'll mean there will be rail service from the city to Monterey for the first time since 1971, when the old Del Monte was discontinued by Southern Pacific.
I was on that same 505 that day going to the game. The new trains are nice but I'm going to miss the old bruisers and the sounds and energy they gave off as you left them and entered the city.
As a Swede, and European at that, I’m very proud to see that the US is finally starting to catch up with the rest of the world, by electrifying the trains. I myself, even though I’m European, really love a lot of things about the US (Apart from the medical system)
This is exactly how I feel. I’m Dutch, also a European, and there are a lot of things I wish the US would catch up in, but there are also things I love.
The problem is that the US is built for driving everywhere. Most people have cars 🚗. It's a driving culture. The demand for train 🚆 travel 🧳 is not 🚫 there
@@gerardorivera4127 that’s not true. The US was bulldozed to create artificial demand for cars. Build the right infrastructure and people will take the train. New York, Washington, San Francisco and even Florida are proof of that.
@@sonicboy678 the US wasn’t built for cars. Cars came in and destroyed cities. And many of the trains that were built since have been very popular, like Brightline in Florida.
Thanks for the report. Also, thanks for showing the two ex-Amtrak AEM7s they were using for testing the line, and confirming that they are still there. I have some faint hope that they can be preserved, operational if possible (I know there are a few others preserved, but they are not going to be operational). I think a country as big and prosperous as ours could at least keep a couple of historic electric locomotives operational in preservation for occasional excursions in the Northeast corridor. That's another thing the Europeans (especially the Swiss) do so much better than us.
There was once two electrified freight/passenger railroads in California. The Sacramento Northern Railway (Chico, Sacramento, Oakland, with tracks across the Bay Bridge to the SF Trans Bay Terminal) and the Central California Traction Company (Sacramento, Stockton).
I'm a semi-daily Caltrain user and only have ridden one so far when I left for work 2 trains earlier. My thoughts are they are better obviously, smother, start and stop quicker and quieter. this is fantastic news and I am super excited for the roll out. That said, the length of the trains cause a bit of a problem as not all the platforms are big enough. My Engineer spent a fair amount of time trying to park. I was used to the bike cars being all the way north or all the way south. The biggest issue with that is the ramps to the platforms at Diridon (San Jose) can be walked to with your bike easily. The lead into the ramps are fairly tight and there is no room for a bike and a person. When I was exiting trying to make a 4-minute connection to my bus (train was behind schedule by 6 minutes) I kept being stopped by passengers eager to board the KISS. I share their enthusiasm, but there is no room for both of us to walk there. The bathroom situation is untenable. Sure, its older stock, but most Caltrains I have ridden in the past 10 years have had at least one bathroom out of service. I can't imagine in 5 years every bathroom will be functional every day. Further, the Giant's Baseball stadium is served by the train. I believe the giants pay to have some waiting for X minutes after last pitch. 80 people on a local train after drinking and eating at the stadium is not going to work with one bathroom. Sure, that is only 82 times a year, but it is going to be bad. On my regular commute there are many people using the toilet. There are other kinks that need to be worked out, and I am sure they will. I am going to miss the conductor announcements, each with their own personality, the antiseptic voice they use is better and more clear, but needlessly repetitive and boring. That said, I am excited for monday, I bet I'll get another KISS and I will enjoy it.
We have similar Kisses in Hungary, only they are 6 car long. But they have 4 toilets in them for 600 seats. They learned from the Flirts before, which had 1 toilet per unit, for 200 seats. These are commuter trains, for 60-90 minutes of travel time.
@@csgergo80 Even then, one for the entire train is rather paltry. Every LIRR/Metro-North EMU pair (all single-level, so we're clear) has one, which means trains typically have 3-6.
I used to ride Caltrain daily for a couple of years... between 4th and King (used to be called 4th and Townsend) and Belmont, and then, a year later, between Hillsdale and Santa Clara (circa 1996-1998). I used to take my bike a couple of times a week which was a pain because there was only one bike area per train and it was always crowded. It was an agreed upon convention that you'd have to sort your bike by destination so that other people could easily grab their bike at their stops, which also meant you had to put a little placard on your bike with the name of your stop. What a pain. I'm glad they've added more bike space. This looks like such a great improvement... much needed. And, yes, this should be standard EVERYWHERE in the USA.
It's still 4th and King to me :-) And until the rise of Uber/Lyft, I'd often jump in a cab and tell the driver "SP Depot please" and they'd know where to go.
Thanks for this great report, Thom. So glad they're finally here and operating. And, yes, this is standard everywhere else in the world and should be across the US! If our tax dollars went toward train service as much as they go toward freeway construction and maintenance, we'd be in better shape, no doubt.
GenX is grumpy bc weve been advocating for electrification since the 80s. Does anything good take less than 40 frickin years? Goal achieved, but bittersweet.
You're absolutely correct. Nothing worth achieving should take 4 decades to complete. Unfortunately, there remains a generational divide as Boomers and remnants of the Silent generation remain in charge.
Nice video of the new CalTrain Stadler KISS EMUs. I personally love these new EMUs, and they are such a breath of fresh air from the Gallery Cars. I absolutely love that the EMUs are more environmentally friendly, have faster acceleration, more modern interiors, and have a better ride quality, unlike the Gallery Cars, which feels more bumpy when I rode them on Metra in June 2021 and the Gallery Cars interiors makes me feel like I am in a prison. I get why the interiors of the Gallery Cars are the way they are but it doesn’t mean I like them all that much. I am happy that CalTrain’s EMUs are in service and I am glad that a lot of passengers and conductors like them and more commuter rails in North America can take notes.
Also redo their electrification on the electric district so they can get good performance. The gallery car EMUs are slugs because of their heavy weight and only running on 1000V DC instead of 25k AC, they probably accelerate slower than the diesel hauled trains.
I really like this channel! It’s a refreshing departure from the typical railfan video! I think it’s also awesome that someone as young as you are or as young as young you look is so interested and articulate in your presentation!
@@Thom-TRA Not the original commenter but I just discovered your channel and really appreciate your mix of professionalism, humor, and opinions! I think you have a great niche between more travelog type channel, more opinionated channels, more explanatory type channels. Best wishes to you!
Happy to have you in my neck of the woods! The trains look great and were covered with great fanfare by local media here, local politicians, and enthusiasts alike. But, like you mentioned, this is the standard worldwide, and it's frustrating we're so behind in our infrastructure compared to the rest of the world. You should've gone on the ferris wheel at Pier 39!
The rest of the world isnt europe and asia. Many parts of the world dont have any trains at all. The US may be behind europe or asia but its way ahead of haiti or nigeria
Love the ending 😀. So glad to see these trains up and running. I live in DC but travel to the Bay Area once a year and checking out the progress of the electrification was a must do during my trip. I plan to ride it the next time I’m there. Woohoo!
Had to turn up the volume to hear the emu noise. So nice and quiet.
Had to turn down the volume when the doors closed. Whooof, that's a bit aggressive!
This comment deserves a pin
Yeah that door close noise is obnoxious -- I could see if someone was preventing the door from closing but some kinda beeping like Bart has would be great
In the UK that would be called "Health & Safety requirements"!
For many years London Underground tube trains had no audible warning that the doors were about to close - and if you got caught between the closing doors of a tube train, you certainly knew it! These days, pretty much all tube train stock has audible warnings that the doors are about to close, as does mainline train stock - usually with a visual warning too, plus a lady's voice saying in a refined BBC english accent, "This train is about to depart." 🙂
Way too high of a pitch!
@@Thom-TRAThis Caltrain EMU is more better.
I work in an office along the corridor and I didn't realize these electric trains were in service already. It's amazing how much quieter these are on the outside. The old trains were audible from inside our office but the new ones are absolutely silent. I didn't even realize the new trains were running until I saw the new white and red train cars whizzing by.
That’s so cool haha
European living in the Bay. Can confirm. I was like "WTF is this abomination" when I first saw (and heard!) the Diesel Caltrains year agos. Never heard such a loud train in my entire life before. The honking when crossing a road is another thing ...
I mean we certainly have diesel locomotives too (tbf I'm German and electrification isn't going so great here lmao), are they much louder or something?@@ThePixelize
@@LuisMan123 yes, US diesel locos generally are much louder than the ones you hear in EU countries.
@@Thom-TRA there's a "right" way to make passenger trains. Europeans just had a big head start and figured it out first.
Fun fact: when these trains were put into service in Sweden, they were consistently referred to as Stadler Dosto (the original working name of the train type during engineering), because the word “kiss” means “urine” in Swedish.
This has always been my favorite fact about the KISS haha
For those who don't speak german: "Dosto" is short for "Doppelstock" which means "double-decker".
@@maxjohkna I'm learning so much here in the comments! Thank you!
Wait until the hear about the new German line Bayerisches Allwetter-Jubilar System 😆
Slut also means road in Swedish.
“This should be the standard for all trains…thanks to CalTrans for achieving it.”
As a retired AEC professional who participated in many significant infrastructure projects during my career, it’s important to acknowledge the accomplishment as well as the commitment required. The inertia of the Status Quo is like trying to push a rope. Usually a 180deg shift in thinking will produce sufficient tensional forces to pull the rope in a new direction. In this case it’s electrification, essential efficiencies, environmental sensitivities, and improved speed.
Eventually…the various dendritic networked components will become interconnected. Hopefully, we won’t all go broke before the finish line. The cost must be reduced…if it is to succeed.
Thank you for this excellent presentation.🤙🏼🎯
After many years of daily commuting with the Stadler Kiss in Switzerland, the train has never let me down once. The biggest technical problem I witnessed was a door that didn't close all the way and one of the air conditioning units that broke down. I think it's great that the train is designed from the ground up for reliability. Nothing is more annoying when traveling by train than cancellations or long delays. If the operator uses it well and maintains the rail network well, hopefully this will become an example that America can do public transportation.
And that’s minor stuff that will always happen!
Regio Express is awesome
The upgraded schedules were already incredible even before a single EMU was running yet. Hourly Caltrain on weekends and continuous service until midnight were inconceivable just a few years ago.
Caltrain really is putting in the work
After all the delays and weekend bus bridges, it is so amazing that the electrification is here!
Finally!
In the UK the weekend bus bridges are called "rail replacement bus services" - and everyone complains about them.
@@johnevans2044 That's what they are called in the Netherlands too. They do suck. They are often delayed and it's far from as comfortable as a train (even the SNG is more comfortable)
That's why I avoid rail travel on weekends. I can't think of any situation where railways close on weekdays.
0:29 Denver's RTD commuter rail is technically the biggest recent expansion of electric commuter rail in the US with a length of 85 km vs only 79 km for CalTrain
Didn’t really open all at once though
@@Thom-TRA Denver resident here, and I can confirm this. The RTD A line opened first, then the B line, but issues with the crossings on the RTD A line pushed the opening of the RTD G line back 3 years from a 2016 opening to a 2019 opening. The N line opened in 2020 and so far, that's RTD's commuter rail system. But who knows, maybe there could be expansions, if not another line. :)
@@Thom-TRA True! I hope we can figure out faster and more cost-effective electrification since Ontario is about to electrify 260 km of railways with the first phase being 50 km. At CalTrain rates that would take 23 years of continuous construction and $8 Billion USD ($10.5 Billion CAD)
@@harrisonofcolorado8886 I definitely hope so!
@@Thom-TRA Ah HA! But what about Shore Line East? That's an expansion of electric commuter rail! And yes, they did hang some new wires for that, iirc.
Nice that you got the seals of approval!
Sea lion facts: The sea lions there are California sea lions, ranging from southeastern Alaska to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Pier 39's sea lions have been hanging out there since 1989! They used to hang out at Seal Rock but have since moved to Pier 39, some say because they feel safer inside the Bay. When the docks were refurbished in 1989, this temporarily removed boats from the area and left a lot of room for the sea lions. When the boat owners returned, they complained about navigating because of the sea lions, and thus it was decided to move the boats elsewhere so the sea lions could stay. California sea lions are among the most gregarious marine mammals, forming dense aggregations of a thousand or more animals on land. They also may travel, socialize or rest at the surface in groups of ten or more near haul out areas. Sea lions produce loud roars help explain why they're named after lions. Males of some sea lion species even grow thick manes around their necks. Sea lions can remain underwater for an average of 8 to 20 minutes. Unlike dolphins, sea lions exhale before diving. Naturally, their nostrils are closed, but they have special muscles to open them in order to breathe. Sea lions can dive to depths between 450 and 900 feet (135 - 272 m). The reason they can dive so deeply and stay underwater so long is because they have a high tolerance for carbon dioxide. The oxygen in their body concentrates in their heart and central nervous system rather than in non-vital organs. Their relative, the elephant seal, can hold its breath for 62 minutes and dive to depths of 4,100 feet (1240 m).
Seals belong to the family Phocidae, while sea lions belong to the family Otariidae. The differences between seals and sea lions are that sea lions are loud, brown, have ear flaps, and have big flippers to move on land while seals are rounder, seals have ear holes rather than ear flaps, and have small flippers! To propel themselves through water, seals use their powerful hind flippers, fanning them out and moving them in a side-to-side motion. For sea lions, it’s just the opposite by using their large front flippers for swimming and their back flippers for steering, reaching speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. All pinnipeds have a membrane at the back of each eye called a tapetum lucidum to aid in night vision. Cats also have a tapetum lucidum, which is why the eyes of cats and pinnipeds glow at night. On land, their eyes are protected by a nictitating membrane, which wipes away sand and debris.
I didn’t know sea lion eyes glowed at night! Or that they swam so differently!
Amusingly, macOS 10.9 was initially introduced as Sea Lion.
Thank you for posting in HDR! Makes the new trains look even better!
Sure thing
@@Thom-TRA is this a new thing? I can tell this is an HDR, but I never really thought about it before.
@@rynovoski no, I’ve filmed this quality since I got my iPhone 15 last year!
The trolley car you rode in is similar to the “Green Hornet” street cars that operated in the 50s in Chicago. One SF Street car is painted in the Chicago green and white theme but the last Green Hornet has been retired to the Illinois Railway Museum where it still runs for occasional nostalgia rides.
I love that the trolleys in San Francisco carry the liveries of different cities
Arf-arf (my best seal sound). Great video and funny ending.! :) Awesome clean and quiet electric -- the way we led the world with this 100 years ago in the USA.
Thank you! That’s a pretty good seal sound
3:42 For those who traveled from points south of Tamien to points north of Diridon, the diesel shuttle trains will provide timed transfers to electric Limited or Express trains at Diridon.
Sadly it looks like the South County Connector is only running in the peak direction
The first 10 seconds reminded me of basically all of caltrain's youtube content for the past 2 years
And they get paid a lot more then I do lol
Well they are proud and should be. They basically made one of the biggest electrification projects (even though it was slow, alright, but still) in the entire US in 2 decades, being only surpassed by Denver
Thanks so much! Wow. I'm in New Jersey right now, but I lived a short walk from the Palo Alto station in the early '80's, a short walk from the San Jose station in 1990, and near the SF station and the Giant's ballpark in the rest of the '90's and 2000's. Activists, and the occational politician, were talking about electifying that line on and off for that entire time! Finally!
This is a great milestone in train electrification.
Electric trains in the Bay Area, electric trains here, electric trains everywhere🔌🚆♥
electric trains are already everywhere just not in the US. it is great to see how they are finally catching up.
@@HCN42 Many countries dont have electrified rail, or any rail at all
swiss here, american getting a taste of modern, electric trains is awesome
Id say one of the most interesting things about it is seeing a train in the USA without a janney coupler
You went on the new trains before me, and I live in the bay!
Oops haha! Go ride them 😉
Same! I read they're not publishing which trains will be electric yet though; has that changed?
@@mattb1293 basically, once a train in the schedule becomes electric, it stays electric. And on the weekends, all trains between 8am and 8pm are electric. From what I understand.
'it took 7 years to complete electrification of Caltrain' - by comparison, I lived in San Jose for 28 years before the BART extension from Fremont was completed. Something to get used to with any major societal shift in California. I believe the Caltrain electrification was forced with the anticipation of the High Speed Rail, otherwise it would have taken even longer.
You have 1970s San Mateo County to thank for no BART down through the peninsula.
Not really forced, but definitely "fast"-tracked. Money for CAHSR basically paid for 2/3 of the electrification project too
@@dragoxphere3341 Caltrain has had a less than stellar financial past, with revenue picking up before the pandemic if I have my history right. I believe it would have been difficult for them to justify going electric just for environmental sake, and their financial situation would have prohibited the conversion. Also, with the addition of Bombardier cars in 1997, 2002, and 2008, I would think the plans for diesel were longer into the future but I am unaware of the detailed history.
Yeah, 'seven' isn't quite correct. They were planning where to put the electrified line and surveying it back in the aughts. They started with updating all the stations and adding welded line - and some of the pylons for the electrification.
Honestly I prefer Caltrain to Bart anyway. Especially with the wider tracks on board, I prefer the standard gauge.
13:50 When going to the In-N-Out in Millbrae, you didn't show the iconic
two palm trees KISSing each other, located near the exit of the drive-through on the left side.
This is a banner year for sea lions. Good job to include them! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
They’re my favorite part of SF 😅
If you're a big fan of sea lions, I have to give a shout-out to Sea Lion Caves just north of Florence, Oregon. It's a natural cave formation where Sea Lions congregate en masse. (Full disclosure, part of my family is in the ownership structure, so I'm not unbiased, but it is legitimately cool.) I wish there were some sort of transit access to it, but if you ever take a road trip down 101 along the Oregon Coast, I highly suggest checking it out.
@@jonathankleinow2073 hey this is a shameless plug I can appreciate!
@@jonathankleinow2073 I would do this!
Excellent report. Its excellent to find out America is modernising in parts. May the great work continue.
11:18 take that, MARC!
My favourite EMU sound in North America so far is the LIRR M7 when it slows to a stop and also starting back up
thank you for taking the time to fly out here and ride the new Caltrain electrified trains ... your videos are always excellent
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it! My Bay Area viewers are the best
At 07:43 in the train yard you can see a Very rare Budd SPV 2000 1970’s diesel multiple unit car !
It is the same body as the original metro liners for nyc to dc service and the Amfleet cars still used in the zNE corridor by Amtrak .
It was a modern replacement for the original Budd RDC car .it was not successful as Budd went out of business and many unfinished bodies were scrapped when the factory was sold .
It’s parked there all the time, it’s Caltrain’s track geometry vehicle
Terrific video. Thank you! I live nearby Diridon and can't wait to ride the new trains. It's not often we get new infrastructure to play with!
Have fun!
Yay, we're modern! :-) Nice to see you in my backyard -- if it had been a Saturday morning, I would've been the station host, barking orders at my poor captive audience of Amtrak passengers. The electrics are such a welcome addition -- and so quiet in running that I only know they're out there by the loud bells warning people that a train is coming. (Boy are those bells loud -- but not as bad as that door-closing siren!) The under-an-hour expresses are going to be amazing, and hopefully get folks back on the system. Caltrain took a big hit during COVID and really hasn't caught up since. Weekends are a ghost town, but when they start running 2x-hourly (locals, but still) I think that will appeal to more people. And the sea lions are the best free show in SF --endlessly entertaining. Good work as always, and thanks fr being as excited about the changes at Caltrain as many of use out here are!
Are you a volunteer like Ron is? He guided us to our train when we were there last in May of 2023.
Yep, Ron's usually on Fridays for #14, and I do the Saturday morning shift, covering one Capitol Corridor departure, two buses, and #11, the southbound Coast Starlight. We're members of the Station Host Association, such as it is. I've been volunteering at Diridon longer than any of the Amtrak agents have worked there.
I will never understand this American need for having trains make as much noise as humanly possible, everything from loud bells at stations to extremely loud horns even at protected(!) crossings. But good job for SF area to finally upgrade to the 21st (or hell latter half of 20th :D) century!
@@maurykendall what a cool volunteer position!
@@dijikstra8 because train noises are cool
Nice coverage of a long coming project finally completed !
In honor of the emu, here are some emu facts: The name 'emu' is not actually an Aboriginal word. It is thought to have come from an Arabic word for large bird and later adopted by early Portuguese explorers and applied to cassowaries in New Guinea. The term was then transferred to the Emu by early European explorers to Australia. The emu is the second largest living bird and the largest bird found in Australia. Its height averages 5.7 feet (or around 1.75 m). Males weigh 110 to 121 pounds (50 to 55 kg), and females weigh about 11 pounds (around 5 kg) more than males. Emu migrations have been a result of human agriculture. The establishment of artificial but permanent watering points in the Australian inland, where cattle and sheep graze, has enabled emus to expand into places from which they were previously excluded by lack of water. Its powerful legs allow it to run up to about 30 miles (50 kilometers) per hour. Each emu foot has three forward-facing toes that allow it to grip the ground, thrusting the bird forward. A powerful kick is also handy for keeping predators at bay. Birds may lose up to 50 percent of their weight while searching for food. Emus pattern their movements to track with recent rainfall. They appear to depend mainly on the sight of rain-bearing clouds but sound cues from thunder and the smell of wet ground may also be involved. Emus eat the parts of plants that have the most concentrated nutrients, seeds, fruits, flowers and young shoots. They also eat insects and small vertebrates when they are easily available. They will not eat dry grasses or mature leaves. Emus ingest large pebbles up to 1.6 ounces (45 grams) to help their gizzards grind up food. They also often eat charcoal.
Settlers tried to prevent them from interfering with farming or invading settlements in search of water during drought. An extreme example of this was the Emu War in Western Australia in 1932. Following World War I, large numbers of discharged veterans who served in the war were given land by the Australian government to take up farming within Western Australia, often in agriculturally marginal areas. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, these farmers were encouraged to increase their wheat crops, with the government promising, and failing to deliver, assistance in the form of subsidies. After their breeding season, 20,000 Emus headed to the coast from inland regions, and flocked to the Chandler and Walgoolan area during a dry spell as the cleared land and additional water supplies thanks to farmers made the land suitable, damaging rabbit fencing and devastating crops. An attempt to drive them off was mounted, with the army called in to dispatch them with machine guns; the emus largely avoided the hunters. The emu has a prominent place in Australian Aboriginal mythology, including a creation myth of the Yuwaalaraay and other groups in New South Wales who say that the sun was made by throwing an emu's egg into the sky. The bird features in numerous aetiological stories told across a number of Aboriginal groups. One story from Western Australia holds that a man once annoyed a small bird, who responded by throwing a boomerang, severing the arms of the man and transforming him into a flightless emu.
Man getting turned into an emu by a boomerang is BRUTAL
birds are very important
Having one restroom per train is definitely an interesting choice, especially when compared to the LIRR which has restrooms in the odd-numbered cars! And speaking of the LIRR, as part of Suffolk County's Connect Long Island plan, it includes electrification of the Port Jefferson Branch from Huntington to Port Jeff, the Montauk Branch from Babylon to Patchogue, and the Ronkonkoma Branch from Ronkonkoma to Yaphank, with Yaphank being relocated to a new station at East Yaphank to serve the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the home of the National Synchrotron Light Source II and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the latter of which has been the second-highest-energy heavy-ion collider in the world. As I mentioned in another vid of yours on Caltrain, Caltrain's electrification is even helping protect history! El Palo Alto, the reason Palo Alto got its name (it means "tall stick" in Spanish), is a historic 110 ft/34 m tall coast redwood on the banks of the San Francisquito Creek! El Palo Alto germinated around 940 AD, when the Ohlone people lived there! The area of what's now Palo Alto was first recorded by the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolá. When he made it to the area in November 1769, his expedition camped by the tall coast redwood! The tree is now along Caltrain's tracks! When the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad was built right next to the tree, the soot led to the tree to decline in health. But now, thanks to Caltrain electrification, this eliminates the impact of smoke.
As shown here, electric rail's main environmental benefit doesn't come from eliminating diesel trains, but rather taking cars off the road by means of faster and more frequent service! I know some people have complained about the step because it adds seconds to a train's time at the station, but the step is there for safety reasons! As someone with hip dysplasia and mild cerebral palsy, I'm glad it's there! And I love bi-levels/double deckers so much, so it's great they're sticking with them as EMUs! A fun fact about double deckers, the LIRR was actually one of the first operators of double deckers in the country, as the PRR first built prototypes of them for the LIRR in 1932, the world's first all-aluminum double decker! They were EMUs! Though they weren't exactly true double deckers, they functioned similarly to a gallery car, as the idea was a single level with a centerline aisle, and two levels of seats, with the second staggered above the first. The 1932 prototype could sit 120, while the fleet that entered service in the 1940s could sit 132. They were discontinued in the 1970s, with all scrapped except one, the 1932 prototype, which is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Long Island in Riverhead! Which is also home to two preserved M1s, among the last! Bilevels wouldn't return to the LIRR until the 1990s with the C1s and C3s (C1s were sold in 1999 as they were just an experiment before the C3s and were mechanically incompatible with the C3s).
So many good things to celebrate!
It's especially odd when you consider most non-commuter trains in Europe generally have 2 per coach/carriage/car, or every other. Even the single deck ones.
So glad to see this change. Having spent many trips on this line I always wondered how it was possible for such a San Francisco maintained a line without electric.
In my own city Sydbey (San Francisco’s sister city), city planners considered themselves as dragging their feet with electrification taking place well after it should have in….. 1926.
Sydney Australia? Congrats on extending your metro line! It looks very nice
Thanks for the tour. I look forward to doing the electrified ride - long overdue...great video, thanks again.
What a gorgeous train! It's a shame that this likely won't be the standard across the country in either of our lifetimes, but I hope that other large metro areas are paying attention (I'm looking at you Chicago 👀)
I’m looking at Chicago with you
As these systems evolve you'll likely see battery banks placed along the route and then masses of solar farms along the routes as well and the trains will evolve into ultra efficient power networks utilizing multiple sources of power and dumping braking power back into the system. This is going to be really cool to watch over time.
I hope so!
@@Thom-TRA The beauty of a photograph train is you can modify the power system without having to modify the train.
Great video! I live in the Bay Area southeast of San Francisco and I love San Francisco for its culture and transporation system. I watch your channel. I majored in Geography at UC Berkeley. This is a project that I have paid a lot of attention, in addition to BART's new train car project. These Caltrain EMU's are awesome. I look forward to the EMU's replacing the existing diesel commuter trains in other cities that include Metra in Chicago and the MBTA Commuter Rail in Boston. I mostly like how the EMU's have the identical cab cars on each end of the train versus the old diesel trains.
Geography sounds like a super interesting major! I’m studying international relations and philosophy myself :)
I'd like to say congratulations to Caltrain for finally achieving what took almost a decade to complete (mainline electrification), and to you Thom for taking the time to share your accessment of this newly launched service. Although, Florida residents like myself not only witnessed, but was treated by my brother-in-law to ride Brightline's newest rail link service between Orlando International airport and Ft. Lauderdale, seeing your video gives me hope that other states and municipalities will at least take note as to what's happening in passenger rail development west of the Mississippi.
Thank you!
Meanwhile, in Metraworld, Metra is taking their oldest gallery cars out of retirement and repurposing them as bike cars. I’m not kidding when I say some of these retired gallery cars are over 70 years old. Luckily they cancelled their laughably stupid plan of converting their oldest F40PH locos into battery. Hey Metra, at least buy Siemens Chargers if you’re gonna keep your diesels. Retire those superpolluters already. Send them to the Illinois Railway Museum where they belong. And to the Illinois politicians out there, start caring about trains more!!!
Metra is being Metra 🤣
Sorry to say but Siemens chargers orders are backed up to several years at current production rate considering everyone wants them. In addition, the chargers are proving pretty unreliable in Midwest winter weather conditions given the Amtrak Midwest charger availability is pretty lousy.
While Metra does deserve criticism for doing some rather silly things, them choosing to not get Siemens chargers is not one of them.
Then they need to buy f125s because metra only buys EMD
@@dupdrewww the F125 is even worse for reliability than the charger, and that’s saying something considering the Midwest charger is around a 50% availability rate according to some Amtrak personnel. Not to mention I’m pretty sure the F125’s production line has ceased and restarting that would probably take a decently long time.
@@valkyr7208 yes you are correct. Unfortunately the Siemens Chargers are Metra’s best bet, despite their reliability problems. And also, Metra only buying EMDs is only an unwritten rule. They just choose to mostly buy EMDs but there’s no rule against buying anything other than EMD, because the MP36s aren’t EMD. They’re made by Motive Power which is a completely separate company
Good report making everything very clear.
Thank you!
I live in the Toronto area; I'm very hyped by Metrolinx's decision to electrify much of the GO network, but I really wish they would go all in to get EMUs (they'll be starting with electric locos for the existing stock). More great progress, but doing it too slowly.
Like I get why they’re going for locos, but like you said, I wish the emus would come sooner
Super neat seeing a train accelerate like that
Love the announcements and screens even give details on the connections at stations! As mentioned, electric trains have a lot of benefits! Compared to diesel trains, electric trains have reduced power loss at higher altitudes, can serve underground stations where diesel trains cannot operate, reduced pollution, can easily accommodates kinetic energy brake reclaim using supercapacitors, and diesel infrastructure like fueling stations can be put to other uses! And compared to just having electric locomotives, EMUs have higher acceleration, since there are more motors sharing the same load, and more motors allows for a higher total motor power output! Higher seating capacity, since there is no locomotive, all cars can contain seats. Braking, including eddy current, rheostatic and/or regenerative braking, on multiple axles at once, greatly reducing wear on brake parts (as the wear can be distributed among more brakes) and allowing for faster braking. And lower adhesion coefficients for driving (powered) axles, due to lower weight on these axles, weight is not concentrated on a locomotive!
Here's some In-N-Out Burger facts: In-N-Out Burger's first location was opened in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park in 1948 by Esther and Harry Snyder. The restaurant was the first drive-thru hamburger stand in California, allowing drivers to place orders via a two-way speaker system. This was a new and unique idea, since in post-World War II California, carhops were used to take orders and serve food! In 1961, the first Animal Style burger is created in response to customer requests. In 1972, one of founder Harry Snyder's favorite movies, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, features characters racing to find treasure buried under four palm trees planted to resemble the letter W. Because each In-N-Out store is Harry's treasure, a tradition of planting crossed palm trees in front of most In-N-Out locations begins. How did Animal Style get its name? It turns out that animal comes from rowdy customers or “animals.” Lynsi Snyder wrote that these customers “would honk their horns while orders were taken,” or they would “leave trash on the lots and play their music extra loud”. They were sometimes so rowdy they would get into fights with each other. At the time, employees at In-N-Out were called “helpers” who began to call these customers “animals.” She added that, one night in 1961, an “animal” spotted a manager making himself a burger. The joint was originally designed with floor-to-ceiling windows so customers could watch burgers being prepared, which was co-founder Harry Snyder’s idea, as he “believed customers would enjoy seeing their food made with care,” Snyder explained. The customer was intrigued as to what this burger was and asked him what was in it. “It’s mustard fried,” Roberts responded, according to the book. “I add pickles, grilled onions, and extra spread.” In response, the customer said: “Sounds amazing. Can you make me one too?” according to Snyder. Roberts obliged, and “the guy wolfed it down,” calling it the best burger he ever had, Snyder wrote. The customer liked it so much that he continued to order it but had no idea what to call. Eventually Roberts told him, “Just call it Animal Style"
Dang, who knew there was so much in n out lore! Someone should make a movie
engine brake reclaim is usually done by feedint power back into the catanary not supercaps.
It’s amazing the wires are back! The Southern Pacific used to have electric trains that ran over the Oakland Bay bridge along with the Key System the NWP and the Sacramento Northern. The SP,NWP,and the SN were gone by 1940 the SN runs freight to this day.
As much as I like BART I wish the key system had never been ripped out
I'm guessing the catenary lines were removed so they could haul taller and taller freight cars?
@@TalesOfWar these systems were actually more interurbans than regular railroads
Outstanding Video! It would be nice if Metra and the South Shore Trains, should have Trains like this. Enjoy! One day, I might want to take these Trains, between San Jose and San Francisco. 😊
These would be great on the south shore line!
Epic video! Pelicans, Sea Lions, PCC cars and the new Stadlers!
What more could you possibly want, am I right?
More ComRails need these (I'm looking at you MBTA)
Excellent choice for 50mi journeys. I‘ve been commuting on Kiss trains like these since 2012. Only downside is limited luggage space. Greetings from Zurich, Switzerland.
8:08, in Switzerland, that area by the stairs has a booth that seats 5. I wish they brought that over too. It's the perfect seating to play card games in
Does it have like a curved lounge bench?
You probably mean the IC2000 wagons. The KISS commuter trains are mostly the same. If you look at 7:30 you see that caltrain has even 6 seats. The biggest difference i see is the option for the higher doors, which “normally” would have two 4 seats groups and at least in one wagon an additional small toilet.
Nice! The very first generation of the KISS was for the S-Bahn in Zurich (where I live), and I’ve ridden them many, many times.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how little they changed in the interiors compared to the Zurich originals. Different upholstery and different seat arrangement, but very little changed overall.
The motors also sound exactly the same. Same cannot be said for the door beeps (and the seizure-inducing flashing when doors close).
I have been looking forward to these trains for so long! I have been lucky enough to ride many of them while taking trips along the peninsula, but I was surprised with the choice of 1 bathroom.
big enough to share, surely
I see at the end you got a seal of approval
Finally the American railways enter the twenty first century! Beautiful trains; the interior is as you say very basic and the seats are very upright. But it is a big improvement! Nice introduction of the Stadler Kiss.
For short rides I don’t think the seats are too much of an issue. They’re an improvement over the old ones!
It's sort of Embarrassing since Electric Multiple Units were actually invented in the US
america has had electrified trains since the 1930's...
@@vedaantvyas466 much before that actually
SF always puts a smile on my face!!!
Me too
The train you featured in the intro I was able to photograph in Salt Lake City on their way to California. Been a great journey seeing them built. Can't wait to go ride one!
The trains I featured in the intro are the trains that the whole video is about…
@@Thom-TRA my apologies for not clarifying. I was specifically mentioning 309/310
@@eyezak_m ahh makes sense 😂😂
Glad to see you make it back out to SF!
The new trains couldn't have come soon enough. As someone who lives near 4th and King, the new sound is so nice! Though, their horns are a little higher pitched, which isn't the best... but oh well. I'll take it!
But, in the last few years, I've seen a new subway, new electric trains, a giant new transit-oriented park, and a new neighborhood taking shape in SF. The progress is slower than one hopes, but there actually is progress. :)
And that’s what I love about SF! Our most recently announced metro expansion in DC has been swept under the rug and our city is actively trying to kill our bus system and our streetcar. Blaming their low ridership when they built it that way…
I’m such a nerd because I love the train station in San Jose. It’s nice to be able to go to Santa Cruz from there
Taking the bus to Santa Cruz is on my bucket list
There was a time when the Southern Pacific had passenger trains to Santa Cruz! They left the line between San Francisco and San Jose, somewhere south of Palo Alto, and served some of the inland communities (that, alas, were not yet developed like they are now) before going over the mountains to Santa Cruz. Sadly, they discontinued the train, and then most of the line was washed out in a big rainstorm.
I think maybe they are trying to study new service to watsonville and then maybe on to Santa Cruz?
I rode those old gallery cars many times when I was living in San Jose ten years ago. It is nice that they finally got the electrification done. As I recall, the gallery trains had two restrooms.
Also worth noting that EMUs are permanently coupled together, just like Austria's flagship international service, the Railjet. This makes the cables less likely to malfunction due to constantly yanking the cars off, shunting, etc. And it also makes it easier for passengers to get between each unit.
Fun fact most Electric Multiple Units in the US are not Permanently Coupled oftentimes they are composed of Several Married Pairs or sometimes individual cars (this is what is done on the Northeast Corridor and South Shore Railroad)
Makes them a lot less flexible for demand and maintenance tho
@@the_retag Yesn't. Sure, if you build your EMUs the maximum length you'll ever run your trains, you have limited flexibility. However, a lot of commuter operators instead opt for creating trains out of multiple EMUs coupled together.
As an example, in the Netherlands we may end up with 12 car EMU trains formed of four three-car sets (or three four-car sets). The fleet of that train type has 3 and 4 car types, and thus it can run with train lengths of 3,4, 6,7,8,9,10,11,12 (and theoretically longer but not currently in service for these lengths) cars.
Note that this can easily be changed anywhere on the route. Indeed, part of the train may be left behind halfway to return with another train (meaning the core of a line could run longer trains than the peripheral parts), or the train could even split in two with both parts going their different ways.
The new generation of intercity trains in the Netherlands similarly has 5 and 8 carriage versions, offering lengths of 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16 cars :). This can again easily be changed within a few minutes, with the remaining part still available for different services (or maintenance) without the need to fetch a locomotive. There's also no need to run around engines or deal with having to manage that the control cabs are always on the back of the train. Operationally EMUs are just superior, and that's why they are the standard for basically all train services except for longest distance services.
@@nanderv i know that emu's are used as multiples too, but that again adds dead space and doesn't allow conductors and passengers to walk the whole train. And push pull trains dont have the can issue either. But i guess their ubiquity says that emu's are Often better
in germany they often use twindexx emus, which are more like push pull trains, in a sense that only the lead and end cars are powered
The faster, quieter, smoother ride makes the trip much more relaxing, creating the illusion that the trip feels shorter. Very Nice!
It's crazy that electrification isn't standard in the US. It's great that Caltrain got it done!
Fossil fuels are cheaper here.
I worked for a company that was bidding on this construction contract but did not win. (Balfour Beatty won that contract and built this line.) My boss and I rode the old train from San Francisco to San Jose to examine the right-of-way. There were many sections, mostly in the north, where the "dynamic envelop" of a future electric train with a catenary system would bump into existing structures. There was a section where there was no room in a tunnel for an overhead catenary system. Above that tunnel was a local road bridge. Above that local road bridge was a freeway overpass.... From an engineering standpoint, there were many challenges.
Stadler Trains
Staedler Erasers
Crazy thing about that limited train that takes 75 minutes to get to SF, is that the train accelerates fast enough to do all the stops in 75 minutes.
That is crazy
This is one of the advantage of having a multiple unit, more powered wheels. I think the norm in Switzerland for commuter trains is 1 m/s² acceleration.
@@MatthiasWiesmann yes that's about standard. Although some of the Stadler Flirts in the UK do 1.3ms/2. That's the same as a metro train, being used on a local service stopping at country villages. Apparently the drivers are very keen on putting the acceleration to the test, I'd imagine there's been more than a few yokels who've ended up on the floor or in someone's lap!
very cool train set,we were going to have it to Stadler , we had ordered for Bulgaria exactly such Blue European version of KISS. But unfortunately things fell apart, and now we will wait for similar trains from škoda.
Welcome back to the Bay Area. I live in SF and you beat me to riding the new electric trains! 😝
You forgot to mention reason for electrification of the trains is to terminate the line at Salesforce Transit Center via an underground tunnel. Can’t do that with diesel engine.
There was just some news regarding the extension I saw
@@Thom-TRA Yes. Railway Gazette International has this (Which explains the British spelling.):
The Transbay Joint Powers Authority has selected the AECOM-led Portal Connectors team to provide programme management and construction management services for the long-planned extension of Caltrain commuter rail services into central San Francisco.
and
In May the federal government committed to provide $3·4bn for the project, which would cover around two-thirds of the projected cost. Local funding will be provided through Regional Measure 3 and various sales tax initiatives. An initial $500m has been allocated in the federal government’s FY2025 budget to fund the ongoing preparatory works. Design is reported to be around 30% complete, and subject to confirmation of the funding TJPA anticipates that the Downtown Rail Extension could open for revenue service in 2032.
Love you video. I'm glad you've got to experience to best of Caltrain. Your montage in San Francisco made me homesick. I moved away in 2019.
Hope you still get lots of opportunities to go back!
Me as a child watching youtube and knowing stuff: oh Caltrain is getting electrified
Me hearing it took 7 years to get here right now: WAIT ITS BEEN 7 YEARS ALREADY???
Same
a great video, Thom. I enjoyed your comments and photography. A 100%
Thank you!
This train must feel like home thom
Best wel inderdaad!
cool trains Tom. i see they kept the bell on these new KISS units.
See, this is what I want Metra in Chicagoland to have in the future, the new one-floor models that will be for the time powered by batteries is just an aesthetic and functional downgrade from the two-floor ones, especially when comparing it to the already wire-electrified ones in the Southside. These Caltrains are amazing, hope these KISSes spread to other transit agencies in the future.
Aren't those FLIRTs meant for a lower-ridership line/branch?
I used to live just a couple blocks from the Caltrain tracks a decade plus ago. Would have loved to have electric trains then!
Also, I love that the upper decks are full decks rather than the two half- decks on the old one. Much more capacity.
9:59 I'm surprised they're cutting the Gilroy trains to only run to San Jose. I thought they would keep them running express through to San Francisco. After all they just run inbound in the morning, sit there all day and run back in the afternoon, only providing supplemental capacity during the peak period when it's needed. So it would a very minimal amount of diesel service on the electrified line anyway and it probably wouldn't require any more trainsets.
They aren't cutting Gilroy, the San Jose to Gilroy route will be powered by diesels. Ultimately High Speed Rail will run from Gilroy to San Jose, however I haven't heard of the electrical implementation plans for that segment.
@@dhenschel4 They mean cutting direct service from Gilroy to points north of San Jose
I think it’s weird that the future battery trains to Gilroy are going to have a full car dedicated to just the battery
@@Thom-TRA Thanks for that information - it's interesting however I believe the future of diesel rail to have a large battery either on the engine (likely not possible give the space) or in a trailing car. Right now the most efficient diesel loco's use dynamic braking which essentially converts the potential energy of the train into heat and dissipates it into the atmosphere. Why not feed that energy into a battery and use it to climb the next hill? Its a high up-front cost, and diesel is relatively cheap so they would never do it unless forced.
@@dhenschel4 they don't own that line so CAHSR will be building a new pair of Tracks Parallel
At some point, they decided to keep the gates down whenever a train is nearby - even if it's going a different direction - so locals have gotten acclimatized to crossing while the gates are down.
Many of the stations only have that as a level crossing.
Honestly such an outdated way to cross tracks.
I feel like these trains would do wonders for the NEC, specifically the Providence/Stoughton line. All the MBTA needs to do is put up just a few more miles of overhead wires and purchase these trains.
Nothing grinds my gears more than diesel trains under a perfectly good electric wire
@@Thom-TRA That should be an absolute last resort.
@@sonicboy678 agreed
Great to see the sneak peak of the new trains. Thank you for the link to the new schedule. I was looking all over their website and couldn't find it - never guessed I had to look at the status page and not the project or schedule pages.
Was hearing in my head Mile's in Transit's "Now it's time for a bathroom review." Disappointed there's only one per train. Would be good to have at least one more for redundancy in case of a breakdown. At least with the more frequent service the cost of having to off-and-on will be lower.
Yeah it’s a weird URL
Those are very similar seats to the BR Class 700s in the UK. I hope they're more comfortable, as most Thameslink passengers have nicknamed them ironing boards.
It's still nice to see North America getting modern, European style trains and electrification.
I didn’t find them too uncomfortable thankfully
Those look at lot better than the TL ironing boards haha. Probably very similar to what is on the UK FLIRTS (Class 755 and 231)
It's refreshing to see what we take for granted here in Europe is up front for the US.
What I noticed about the size of the trains is that the height is maybe a couple of inches more than the European version, at least as I can judge from ceiling heights inside, but the spaciousness comes from the extra width especially on the upper level where the sides are not tucked in like on the European examples.
Here in the Netherlands where I live the contractor for local train traffic, Arriva, uses the older Stadler GTW like those on BART, and the Flirt which is also a single decker.
They are also kitted out fairly basic on the inside but the ride is good, noise levels are really down and they give reliable service.
But a 7 car train could do with more than just one toilet, 2 or 3 at least. But still better than some commuter trains which had no toilets when they entered service here in the Netherlands 15 years ago. After many complaints toilets were retrofitted.
I don't know if you are still in the South Bay Area, but the Santa Clara Caltrain station is home to the South Bay Historical Railroad Society. They have preserved the depot, the tower, the tool house, and the speeder shed. They also have an HO scale and a N scale railroad layout. They are open Tuesdays 5:00pm to 8:00pm and Saturday from 10:00am to 4:00pm. TSG Multimedia has few good videos about the South Bay Historical Railroad Society (SBHRS).
I wish I could have seen that!
@@Thom-TRA - There are a few good railroad attractions in the South Bay Area. Niles Canyon Railway (Fremont), Roaring Camp with the Redwood Forest Steam Train and the Santa Cruz Beach Train (Felton), and Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad (Los Gatos). The BJWRR Engine No.2 was built in 1905 for the Venice Miniature Railway, bought by a local man, and then moved to Vasona Lake Park. These are not the type of trains that you put on your channel, but they are worth a visit.
@@william2william Don't forget the Trolley Museum at Rio Vista off Highway 12 and the Skunk at Willits and Fort Bragg.
I love Stadler KISS trains as well, we have a bunch of them in Austria, operated by Westbahn. I travel on them between Vienna and Salzburg, and they are excellent, smooth and quiet. They have the same loud door beeping sound, but you sort of stop caring after a while. One thing I have to say is that the Westbahn ones have more comfy looking seats, and they have way more toilets. However, people sometimes travel on them for more than 3 hours, so they are specifically designed for long-haul operation. Love the colors of the Caltrain, and you did a nice review!
And how ÖBB is getting them too!
A huge improvement, even the visuals vs the stainless steel look of most other trains. The sheer size of American trains paired with this familiar European modern train design is cool!
It’s funny because the FLIRTs in the US look the same as the ones in Europe
That is one distinct advantage we have in the US is our huge loading gauge, we can make our trains big and roomy. A double decker train is not even something fathomable in the Uk with their tiny loading gauge, UK trains are smol
@@mrvwbug4423 We have a similar thing up here in Scandinavia, the loading gauge is larger than in continental Europe, which is why most Swedish rail cars cannot run south, I think even to some parts of Denmark. I guess it could have something to do with having a lot of space to work with I don't know. But unlike the US our tracks are nationalized we have been almost fully electric for something like 50+ years.
Great video, and glad to see you got to ride the PCCs on the F line.
Chicago needs this so bad
They really do
😂😂
Great video sir! I live in San Carlos and the new trains you can barely hear them passing by my apartment complex! I'm gonna make a drone video soon about the new electric trains. Keep the great content coming!
Can’t wait to see it!
3:29 actually Caltrains expanding from Diridon to Gilroy to Salinas to Monterey and the mp36ph an bombardier bi level cars will be used for that route
Wow, that'll mean there will be rail service from the city to Monterey for the first time since 1971, when the old Del Monte was discontinued by Southern Pacific.
That’s not happening yet
They only own the line up to tamien. South of tamien they will potentially run a battery electric train
@@paulengel7789 It will be Bus only from Salinas to Monterey
@@Thom-TRA 2026
I was on that same 505 that day going to the game. The new trains are nice but I'm going to miss the old bruisers and the sounds and energy they gave off as you left them and entered the city.
Maybe I ran into you!
As a Swede, and European at that, I’m very proud to see that the US is finally starting to catch up with the rest of the world, by electrifying the trains.
I myself, even though I’m European, really love a lot of things about the US (Apart from the medical system)
This is exactly how I feel. I’m Dutch, also a European, and there are a lot of things I wish the US would catch up in, but there are also things I love.
The problem is that the US is built for driving everywhere. Most people have cars 🚗. It's a driving culture. The demand for train 🚆 travel 🧳 is not 🚫 there
@@gerardorivera4127 that’s not true. The US was bulldozed to create artificial demand for cars. Build the right infrastructure and people will take the train. New York, Washington, San Francisco and even Florida are proof of that.
@@Thom-TRA It's hilarious that _Florida,_ of all places, is mentioned, but that doesn't make it any less true.
@@sonicboy678 the US wasn’t built for cars. Cars came in and destroyed cities. And many of the trains that were built since have been very popular, like Brightline in Florida.
Thanks for the report. Also, thanks for showing the two ex-Amtrak AEM7s they were using for testing the line, and confirming that they are still there. I have some faint hope that they can be preserved, operational if possible (I know there are a few others preserved, but they are not going to be operational). I think a country as big and prosperous as ours could at least keep a couple of historic electric locomotives operational in preservation for occasional excursions in the Northeast corridor. That's another thing the Europeans (especially the Swiss) do so much better than us.
I heard the electric equipment inside is fried but I’m not sure
@@Thom-TRA Could possibly be fixed, at least they don't have PCBs in them.
There was once two electrified freight/passenger railroads in California. The Sacramento Northern Railway (Chico, Sacramento, Oakland, with tracks across the Bay Bridge to the SF Trans Bay Terminal) and the Central California Traction Company (Sacramento, Stockton).
You forgot the Pacific Electric, Northwestern Pacific, Petaluma & Santa Rosa and the Tidewater Southern....
No there were like 8 of them
I'm a semi-daily Caltrain user and only have ridden one so far when I left for work 2 trains earlier. My thoughts are they are better obviously, smother, start and stop quicker and quieter. this is fantastic news and I am super excited for the roll out.
That said, the length of the trains cause a bit of a problem as not all the platforms are big enough. My Engineer spent a fair amount of time trying to park.
I was used to the bike cars being all the way north or all the way south. The biggest issue with that is the ramps to the platforms at Diridon (San Jose) can be walked to with your bike easily. The lead into the ramps are fairly tight and there is no room for a bike and a person. When I was exiting trying to make a 4-minute connection to my bus (train was behind schedule by 6 minutes) I kept being stopped by passengers eager to board the KISS. I share their enthusiasm, but there is no room for both of us to walk there.
The bathroom situation is untenable. Sure, its older stock, but most Caltrains I have ridden in the past 10 years have had at least one bathroom out of service. I can't imagine in 5 years every bathroom will be functional every day. Further, the Giant's Baseball stadium is served by the train. I believe the giants pay to have some waiting for X minutes after last pitch. 80 people on a local train after drinking and eating at the stadium is not going to work with one bathroom. Sure, that is only 82 times a year, but it is going to be bad. On my regular commute there are many people using the toilet.
There are other kinks that need to be worked out, and I am sure they will. I am going to miss the conductor announcements, each with their own personality, the antiseptic voice they use is better and more clear, but needlessly repetitive and boring.
That said, I am excited for monday, I bet I'll get another KISS and I will enjoy it.
We have similar Kisses in Hungary, only they are 6 car long. But they have 4 toilets in them for 600 seats. They learned from the Flirts before, which had 1 toilet per unit, for 200 seats. These are commuter trains, for 60-90 minutes of travel time.
@@csgergo80 Even then, one for the entire train is rather paltry. Every LIRR/Metro-North EMU pair (all single-level, so we're clear) has one, which means trains typically have 3-6.
I used to ride Caltrain daily for a couple of years... between 4th and King (used to be called 4th and Townsend) and Belmont, and then, a year later, between Hillsdale and Santa Clara (circa 1996-1998). I used to take my bike a couple of times a week which was a pain because there was only one bike area per train and it was always crowded. It was an agreed upon convention that you'd have to sort your bike by destination so that other people could easily grab their bike at their stops, which also meant you had to put a little placard on your bike with the name of your stop. What a pain. I'm glad they've added more bike space.
This looks like such a great improvement... much needed. And, yes, this should be standard EVERYWHERE in the USA.
It really should be easier to pair bikes with trains. It’s like they’re made for each other but nobody realizes.
It's still 4th and King to me :-) And until the rise of Uber/Lyft, I'd often jump in a cab and tell the driver "SP Depot please" and they'd know where to go.
Still need a tag for your bike. Good news is my has been kicking for about 10 years.
Thanks for this great report, Thom. So glad they're finally here and operating. And, yes, this is standard everywhere else in the world and should be across the US! If our tax dollars went toward train service as much as they go toward freeway construction and maintenance, we'd be in better shape, no doubt.
Well said!
GenX is grumpy bc weve been advocating for electrification since the 80s. Does anything good take less than 40 frickin years? Goal achieved, but bittersweet.
You're absolutely correct. Nothing worth achieving should take 4 decades to complete. Unfortunately, there remains a generational divide as Boomers and remnants of the Silent generation remain in charge.
Nice video of the new CalTrain Stadler KISS EMUs. I personally love these new EMUs, and they are such a breath of fresh air from the Gallery Cars. I absolutely love that the EMUs are more environmentally friendly, have faster acceleration, more modern interiors, and have a better ride quality, unlike the Gallery Cars, which feels more bumpy when I rode them on Metra in June 2021 and the Gallery Cars interiors makes me feel like I am in a prison. I get why the interiors of the Gallery Cars are the way they are but it doesn’t mean I like them all that much. I am happy that CalTrain’s EMUs are in service and I am glad that a lot of passengers and conductors like them and more commuter rails in North America can take notes.
Glad you like them so much!
Chicagoland's Metra needs this, like, yesterday...
Totally
Chicago to Milwaukee as well as the Chicago area heavy rail routes all deserve electric service.
Also redo their electrification on the electric district so they can get good performance. The gallery car EMUs are slugs because of their heavy weight and only running on 1000V DC instead of 25k AC, they probably accelerate slower than the diesel hauled trains.
I really like this channel! It’s a refreshing departure from the typical railfan video! I think it’s also awesome that someone as young as you are or as young as young you look is so interested and articulate in your presentation!
Thanks! Care to expand on what is refreshing and different? I’d love to know!
@@Thom-TRA Not the original commenter but I just discovered your channel and really appreciate your mix of professionalism, humor, and opinions! I think you have a great niche between more travelog type channel, more opinionated channels, more explanatory type channels. Best wishes to you!
They should electrify the Penn Line next.
Oh wait
And the MBTA Providence Line
Marc™ moment
You mean the San Bernardino line and the Antelope Valley
Happy to have you in my neck of the woods! The trains look great and were covered with great fanfare by local media here, local politicians, and enthusiasts alike. But, like you mentioned, this is the standard worldwide, and it's frustrating we're so behind in our infrastructure compared to the rest of the world. You should've gone on the ferris wheel at Pier 39!
The rest of the world isnt europe and asia. Many parts of the world dont have any trains at all. The US may be behind europe or asia but its way ahead of haiti or nigeria
I hope this is a sign of things to come
Love the ending 😀. So glad to see these trains up and running. I live in DC but travel to the Bay Area once a year and checking out the progress of the electrification was a must do during my trip. I plan to ride it the next time I’m there. Woohoo!
If only we had sea lions here in DC :)