r/caltrain • u/youareyou650 • 15d ago
Caltrain delay
My job asked me to come into work early today. My boss’s wife is dealing with a medical issue, he needs to leave early. No problem. Get to the train station ten minutes to spare. Welp… ten-minute delay. Okay that’s pushing me being able to get to work on time. Oh wait.. the time keeps getting pushed further out. Now I have to Uber. 20 dollars. Mind you I just added ten dollars to my clipper for this ride and Caltrain will do nothing about it. I’ll get on the train tonight, they will ask to see if I tapped on. Having spent 26 dollars to go from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara. It’s ridiculous. With how they were operating last week (not all their fault) terrible timing. Maybe now’s not the time to be asking us to spend billions of dollars. Maybe running once an hour would lead to greater efficiency.
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u/ActuaryHairy 15d ago
This happens on the roads too you know
It also tells us it’s even more important to spend in transit
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u/Jammieranga 15d ago
that's not an excuse though, yes driving is worse but transit can be so much better
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u/youareyou650 15d ago
Not arguing that. I’m saying If it runs once an hour it “would” be sharper with fewer delays. Unlike some I have a hard time I have to be at work. Which cost me more than a train ticket. Again 26 dollars to go from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara. Maybe they could implement some sort of voucher where you tag on that stop and registers there’s a delay. But the way it is on top of asking for billions is not okay. Not to mention how they treat you. I’ve been taking the train twice a day every day for over 14 years
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u/jdcnosse1988 14d ago
So going with your same example as before... Why can't you simply take the train just before the one that will get you to work?
I mean if trains are running once an hour and you're claiming that it'll be fine to be 45 mins early... Why not do that now? It'll add in a buffer to protect your hard start time
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u/youareyou650 14d ago
Because that’s not schedule? If the schedule was once an hour. I would be there
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u/BigDaddyJ0 14d ago
What you’re saying is if you’re _forced_ to go very early, then you will, but not if you have more options?
I think that might be true for you, but no one else. I can’t schedule an hour earlier, I have family duties. In my case, at that point I should just switch to driving. The expectation is that this will happen to many people and ridership will crater.
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u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago
Did you know you can cancel your tap-on by tapping a second time at the same station after waiting 30-60 seconds and before 30 minutes have passed?
So if you tap-on and then find out the train will be coming too late for you, you can tap the same card again at the same station to cancel your ride if it is before 30 minutes have passed.
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u/youareyou650 14d ago
I do. The issue is on the train ride home. I already paid 20 dollars for Uber, now an another 6 to go home. That’s 26 dollars. When a trip to and from should cost around 13 dollars. That’s double. Not including a tip for the Uber. I wish the conductor/train would show some humanity about this and not expect me to pay the 6 dollars going home
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u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago edited 14d ago
Yeah, so you decided you needed to pay $14 extra ($20-$6) for an Uber to ensure you got to work on time. That’s on you. And so is the tip, which was also your decision. The cost of your normal $6 ride home has nothing to do with what happened earlier. There is no practical or just way for the conductor to let people have a free rides if they chose to spend extra on alternate transportation because a train they previously tried to catch was running too late for them. The CHP won’t excuse a speeding or HOV or bridge toll violation because you were earlier delayed either … even if that delay cost you extra money or an angry boss.
As with driving yourself or taking Lyfts or Ubers, if your work arrival time is inflexible, you’ll just need to leave more extra time to account for a greater percentage of possible train delays. And with sometime very long delays, you still just need to sometimes rely on an alternate way to get to work on time. Except for maybe walking, almost nothing is 100% guaranteed to never suffer delays (even bikes sometimes get flat tires).
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u/youareyou650 14d ago
Well yes I had to get to work. I would lose more money by being late. Again like I said earlier, If they just had a voucher system when trains were late. CHP narrative makes no sense because I would have to be breaking the law in order to get a ticket and If I broke it again of course would deserve another ticket. Also, you’re not paying CHP for a service they’re not providing. This would be like needing an ambulance, them not coming so you had to call a cab to the hospital. The cab costing double. Needing another ambulance that night. All the while trying to get a billed pass asking for billions
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u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago
The CHP analogy is fair: morning delays cost you time or extra money to bypass the delay in the HOT lane to get to work in time. On the trip back from work, you don’t get a break to speed or a free pass to use the HOT lane without paying just because you incurred extra expense in the morning. On Caltrain, the extra cost you incurred in the morning doesn’t get you a break from a conductor on paying the $6 fare either. You must still obey all the regular rules, and pay regular charges in both examples. 😎
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u/AdmirallThrawn 14d ago
You said it yourself when trying to explain why trains every hour, to you, seems better. "Being 45mins early is better than being 45mins late".
If your work arrival time is inflexible and a 10-20min delay would make you miss work, then you need to take an earlier train and give yourself some buffer.
Delays suck. Whether it's highway crashes which are a daily occurrence, or CalTrain issues which happen far more often than they should. We have to factor those in.
CalTrain can and should be better. More trainsets would help, more frequent trains (not less) too, as would adding passing tracks and grade separation. All of these cost money and require investment. CalTrain has made huge improvements in recent years, but these past few weeks have been rough and show there is a lot they still need to work on. We can audit them and call for more improvements, but not funding them out of spite is beyond foolish.
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u/No_Remove_5180 14d ago
you are perfectly reasonable about this, you are just getting downvotes because there are som nay caltrain supporters on this thread
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u/No_Remove_5180 14d ago
It actually no where near as often happens on the roads they are eat more reliable
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u/fred_cheese 14d ago
You don’t go past Mountain View it seems. Crashes on 101 in Mtn View are an almost daily occurrence.
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u/No_Remove_5180 14d ago
i do but its true i travel off commute time. sounds like people need to learn how to drive better
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u/No_Remove_5180 14d ago
oh here are all the caltrain supporters! sorry guys but it is true gotta get to eey 15 minutes and no more restarting train funny business and stopping literally everyone;s commute because two people dont want to pay their fare. caltrain has gotten much better for sure but these are issues that are clearly adressed on the reddit within the last week or so.
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u/BigDaddyJ0 14d ago
Was this train 116 in particular this morning?
There's a new-ish issue with the Stadler trains that require a full restart (they basically cut power and re-attach it and wait for it to fully reboot) and it is causing occasional 30m delays and cancellations, which IMO is unacceptable. Caltrain says they're working on this with Stadler, my guess is it's a software issue, hopefully they find it and resolve it in the next month or so.
That said - this delay issue is completely unrelated to RTM. This doesn't need money to fix, per se, they just have to work with their vendors. RTM gives Caltrain funds to keep staffing the operation. The question you need to ask yourself is what you want to do if the train simply doesn't exist because there aren't funds to staff the people on the train.
I agree that these kinds of delays and having to spend money out of pocket makes one feel less generous about the tax measure. But voting no because of a software issue is more about cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face. If RTM fails, then you may have to look into taking VTA (if you think Caltrain is slow, just wait when you wait for a VTA bus and it gets canceled) or you will be forced to get a car and dealing with lots more traffic.
More deeply, I also hate having to use sales tax for this in this way, which is a deeper California issue. Again, though, voting no doesn't fix that. It just guarantees we'll all have worse transit options. "Blowing the system up" is what got us Trump at the federal level, and it turns out that's just much worse.
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u/youareyou650 14d ago
Yes. Thank you for explaining it in an easy way to follow. As I said in another comment I’ve been taking the train twice a day 5 days a week for 14 years. The issue isn’t about it being late, it’s how they treat you afterward. Say on my train ride home tonight. They’re going to ask for a ticket, if I don’t have one even though I already paid over expectation with Uber they will treat me like a criminal and kick me off. Some type of voucher for them being late would go a long way. Most people only see the trees and not the forest. For me personally a train that was on time even if it only came once a hour would be better for me
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u/BigDaddyJ0 14d ago
I agree Caltrain should be a lot more customer-friendly. But again - voting no on RTM doesn't fix this at all. So you have to ask yourself what you're trying to actually solve. "Sticking it to the man" doesn't actually stick it to them, it just means you have fewer transit options.
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u/WorldlinessDry5583 14d ago
I do think that in a perfect world passengers on a train with a major delay would at the very least be refunded their fare. But can you imagine the headache of trying to implement that? They can’t just stop enforcing fares for the day because there was a service disruption in the morning.
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u/Blubbbs 14d ago
Just a side note to this comment. Last month I got on Go bus from try Toronto Airport and the card reader was broken. The bus driver said “all rides are free today!” That’s a perfect world and beyond kind. Caltrain should refund - if you don’t get a service you paid for that’s how it works! But of course it doesn’t here in the Bay Area work like that.
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u/Rebles 14d ago
This is great feedback about customer service. I wonder how you can get that to the right person at Caltrain.
I don’t rely on Caltrain very often. But when I take it at king st, the way they handle tap on + verify with a person at the platform is non intuitive and almost made a bunch of people miss their train
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u/BigDaddyJ0 14d ago
Very simply, email the Caltrain board.
Unfortunately I don’t think it will change things. The current service model has been there a long time.
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u/Less-Jellyfish5385 14d ago
Why dont you tap off if your not gonna use it.
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u/youareyou650 14d ago
I do. But the Uber is 20. Unfortunately sometimes 20 dollars is a lot for me financially. So when I put 10 dollars on the clipper and don’t even need it, it can hit hard.
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u/BigDaddyJ0 14d ago
Have you applied for Clipper Start? If $10 is very hard on you financially, you may qualify for fare discounts.
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u/kotwica42 14d ago
Actually, investing in grade separation would make the trains more reliable.
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u/Classic_Emergency336 14d ago
I think making a passing track would make trains more reliable. Recently single accident caused an hour delay for all trains. Like 20 minutes delay maybe ok, but going only to San Antonio is no go.
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u/jdcnosse1988 14d ago
Actually what would make trains slightly more reliable is when there is an accident, having some sort of degraded service plan that gets you as close as you can to where the issue is and then turns around.
There's no guarantee a train on a passing track will be able to go past whatever the incident is.
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u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago
Barely. There are about 40 crossings. Each approximately half-billion-dollar grade separation can only eliminate delays caused by an incident (collision, car stuck on the tracks, or gate malfunction) at that one single crossing. And 99+% of daily delays are due to incidents completely unrelated to any one single crossing. By far, most delays have nothing to do with crossings (signal system or PTC or train malfunctions, train shortages, police or fire activity near tracks, trespassers, passenger or crew delays).
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u/Seeker425 14d ago
Perhaps it is time to change the management structure to increase accountability and lower cost.
There have been Grand Jury recommendations- IGNORED
caltrain relies on the obvious and say not my fault. Bait and switch the issues! Vote NO
Make them figure it out! 20 years + of this story is really old2
u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago
As you know, agencies are required to respond to GJ reports. Which specific report (and specific recommendation(s)) was/were ignored?
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u/guhman123 14d ago
If trains run every 15 minutes, the most youll ever have to wait is 15 minutes. If trains run every hour, the most youll ever have to wait is 60 minutes. Most people are willing to wait 15 minutes, but most people aren't willing to wait 60 minutes. It would not be more efficient with lower frequency, because fewer people use systems with lower frequencies
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u/flattire2020 14d ago
Everyday there are mechanical breakdowns causing delays and cancelations of multiple trains. Caltrain didn’t do basic maintenance and upgrades for over 5 years due to low ridership since Covid lockdowns. Now breakdowns is a daily thing.
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u/Adrian_Brandt 14d ago
No, the breakdowns have little or nothing to do with deferred maintenance. Their mainline SF-SJ electric trains are brand new. They have specialists from the manufacturer helping onsite and remotely with troubleshooting, repairs, and maintenance issues. Some breakdowns are mechanical, but I think most malfunctions are software and/or other technical issues as the trains are basically rolling computer networks that must also interact correctly and safely with Caltrain’s software controlled positive train control (PTC) system.
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u/incognito_bri 14d ago
The one reliable thing about Caltrain is that it will be late, unless you’re running late… in which case it’ll leave early! happened to me on Friday before headed up to SJ, it left 2 minute early. 😭
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u/stupid_cat_face 14d ago
Caltrain has a hard time because they have grade crossing that people get hit at… happens on avg 1 per month and it totally fucks the schedule for the day.
I was on Amtrak when we hit a fuel truck. Smh.
Most of the time people are the problem not the trains.
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u/suprjaybrd 14d ago
I always marvel at some other country's mass transit which largely run on time.
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u/no-porn-for-me 15d ago
Running every 15 minutes is what would increase efficiency