Coming to Monterey County
| Coming to Monterey County Caltrain and the Coast Daylight | |
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Southern Pacific's famous Daylight circa 1937
CaltrainCaltrain is a commuter rail service, operated by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, based in San Carlos. Caltrain primarily serves the corridor between San Jose and San Francisco with high-frequency service. The northern terminal is just a block from AT&T Park, making Caltrain a popular way to get to Giants baseball games. A few commute-hour trains extend as far south as Gilroy. In April 2001, TAMC voted to authorize funding to extend the morning and evening trains to Salinas. This service is primarily intended to serve commuters shuttling between homes in our area to jobs in the bay area, with the intent of taking some of the traffic off of Highway 101. Thus the trains will only operate northbound in the morning, and southbound in the evening, most likely with two departures in each direction. Alas, Monterey County residents won't be able to enjoy the all-day-long service available to our northerly neighbors on Caltrain's route. But then, we don't have the same population density they do, so we'll be grateful for what we can get. However, this midday void may be partially filled by the revival of the Coast Daylight (see below). Over the last few years, TAMC staff has been working diligently to bring this service to town. Plans are now being finalized for an extensive rehabilitation of the Salinas Amtrak station. Plans call for an "Intermodal Transit Center" to be developed on the site to provide seamless transfers between the trains, Monterey-Salinas Transit busses, and other bus services. In addition, a large parking lot or a parking structure will provide up to 700 spaces to serve the "park & ride" crowd. TAMC has taken care to ensure that existing historic structures on the property, including the station building, a 19th century freight depot, a historic locomotive display, and other structures are preserved and properly utilized. The passenger platform will receive a much needed modernization. A layover facility will be constructed for overnight parking and servicing of two Caltrain trainsets. The Caltrain extension will also serve Pajaro and Castroville, where new station facilities will be constructed. Exact locations and configurations of these stations have yet to be determined, but they're getting close. Naturally, it will take some time to get all of this together, what with studies, agreements between various agencies and Union Pacific, and all that. So Caltrain service is currently scheduled to begin in 2011. Expect delays due to inevitable funding shortfalls that seem to be routine these days. Complete details can be found on the official TAMC Rail Program site. You can download the environmental impact report there, and study its details at your leisure. | |||
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The Coast DaylightSouthern Pacific’s original Daylight, which connected Los Angeles with San Francisco, was one of most heavily traveled trains in the nation. Renamed the Coast Daylight in 1952, it last ran in 1971 when Amtrak combined the line with other west coast routes to create the Coast Starlight. The Starlight is now routed through Oakland requiring a shuttle bus to take passengers into San Francisco. Today the Coast Starlight is operating at capacity between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. An additional Amtrak train is needed to keep up with demand. Considered a high priority, Amtrak and Caltrans were looking to start the revived LA to SF Coast Daylight way back in 2001. However, state budget cuts that year put start-up funding on hold indefinitely. Lately there have been some encouraging reports suggesting that the Daylight could be picking up passengers in Monterey County as early as 2009. We're not holding our breath, but we're cautiously optimistic. Once in place, the revitalized Coast Daylight, like the Coast Starlight, will stop in Salinas. Unlike the Starlight it will also stop in Gilroy, Pajaro and King City. A stop in Soledad is also being considered. Shuttle services will be available in Millbrae to take passengers to and from the San Francisco airport. If they do it right, timely connections should be available for passengers to transfer to and from Capitol Corridor trains, opening up rail travel opportunities from Monterey County to east bay cities and Sacramento. This could help fill the void caused by the perpetual delays of the Del Monte revival. The Coast Daylight would likely run about two hours earlier than the Coast Starlight. A proposed timetable is available here, along with a sample Starlight timetable for comparison. As currently envisioned, one train would depart San Francisco and another would depart Los Angeles each morning, and each would arrive at their final destinations around 7:00pm. However, this is subject to change. Due to track conditions, initial travel time for the length of the run will be about 12 hours. (In the 1950s SP was able to run it in 10 hours, which shows you how much things have deteriorated since then.) However, planned track and equipment upgrades should eventually reduce that time to about 8 hours. Whether that will happen in our lifetime is an unknown. A lot depends on the political will to fund rail.
A Surfliner trainset, seen here in San Diego Most likely the revived Daylight will utilize bi-level Surfliner cars, which are used in the heavily traveled Surfliner Corridor between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. Planning for the Daylight is being done by a group called the Coast Rail Coordinating Council. |
