Peninsula Commute

See Caltrain for the commuter rail service currently operating on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Peninsula Commute
West of Santa Clara, a Southern Pacific EMD SD9 leads a two-car train before the Caltrain takeover
Overview
Owner	San Jose & San Francisco Railroad (1863–1870) Southern Pacific (1870–1980)
Area served	San Francisco Peninsula Santa Clara Valley
Locale	San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara
Transit type	Commuter rail
Number of lines	1
Number of stations	32
Operation
Began operation	1863
Operator(s)	San Jose & San Francisco Railroad (1863–1870) Southern Pacific (1870–1980)
Character	commuter railroad with level crossings partial service on freight lines
Technical
System length	50 mi (80 km)
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Top speed	79 mph (127 km/h)
System map 0.0 0.0 Third and Townsend Depot San Francisco Ocean View Branch discontinued 1928 Bayshore Cutoff opened 1907 closed c. 1870s San Francisco (SF&SJ) Tunnel 1 1.9 — 22nd Street Valencia Street — 3.4 Tunnel 2 Tunnel 3 Bernal — 4.6 4.1 — Paul Avenue Tunnel 4 San Miguel — 6.9 5.2 — Bayshore Colma — 9.2 Tunnel 5 abandoned 1956 Baden — 12.2 8.6 — Butler Road closed 1983 Tanforan 9.3 — South San Francisco 11.6 14.3 San Bruno 12.0 — Lomita Park closed 1963 13.7 17.0 Millbrae 15.2 — Buri Buri now Broadway Easton closed 1925 16.3 19.2 Oak Grove now Burlingame ( BER 1913–1918 ) 17.9 21.1 San Mateo 18.9 — Hayward Park 20.3 24.0 Beresford now Hillsdale 21.9 25.1 Belmont 23.2 27.0 San Carlos 25.4 28.6 Redwood City to Fremont/Oakland via Dumbarton Cutoff 27.8 30.9 Fair Oaks later Atherton closed 2020 28.9 32.1 Menlo Park 30.1 34.0 Palo Alto 31.8 34.9 Mayfield now California Avenue Mayfield Cutoff 1908–1964 34.8 38.0 Castro Los Altos 36 — 36.1 39.1 Mountain View 38.8 41.9 Murphys now Sunnyvale Monta Vista 41 — 44.3 47.4 Santa Clara 45.7 49.6 College Park Congress Jct 45 — Coast Line reroute after 1935 San Jose Market discontinued 1935 46.9 50.0 San Jose Diridon Vasona Jct 48 — Campbell 51 — Los Gatos 51 — to Gilroy Suntan Special to Santa Cruz to Monterey via Del Monte discontinued 1971 Legend 00.0 00.0 Distance from SF via Bayshore Cutoff Distance from SF via Ocean View (1907–1980) (1863–1907) completed routes abandoned or removed routes stations

The Peninsula Commute, also known as the Southern Pacific Peninsula or just Peninsula, was the common name for commuter rail service between San Jose, California and San Francisco, California on the San Francisco Peninsula. This service ran as a private, for-profit enterprise beginning in 1863. Due to operating losses, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) petitioned to discontinue the service in 1977. Subsidies were provided through the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in 1980 to continue service, and it was renamed Caltrain.

History

Since 1863 the San Francisco Peninsula, the series of towns (and later, cities) between San Francisco and San Jose, has been served by a railroad. The Southern Pacific first provided freight and passenger service, followed briefly by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and finally a Joint Powers Board which runs today's passenger trains.

San Francisco–San Jose Railroad

Main article: San Francisco and San Jose Railroad

Although a line had been proposed in the past, construction on the railroad between San Francisco and San Jose was started in 1860 "by a group of local capitalists of more than ordinary energy and resources" under the auspices of the San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road (SF&SJ), and completed in 1863. The Central Pacific Railroad transferred its rights for the construction of the right-of-way between San Jose and Sacramento to the Western Pacific Railroad (WPRR, which was founded by the same members that had founded the SF&SJ) in late 1862.

In December 1865, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company (SP) was incorporated to build a rail line between San Francisco and San Diego. The "Big 4" of Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker showed a controlling interest in the SF&SJ and SP by the end of 1868, and the SF&SJ, SP, the Santa Clara and Pajaro Valley Railroad, and the California Southern were folded into a consolidated Southern Pacific Railroad on October 12, 1870.

Under Southern Pacific

Under Southern Pacific the line was double tracked in 1904 and multiple cutoffs were built over a period ending in 1910. The first of these, the Bayshore Cutoff, opened in 1907 and rerouted the line through a series of five tunnels built along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. This saved approximately three miles compared to the prior route, which veered to the west around San Bruno Mountain and obviated the need for helper engines to bring trains over the mountain. The second, the Mayfield Cutoff, opened in 1908 to provide service to western Santa Clara Valley cities such as Los Altos and Los Gatos. The third, the Dumbarton Cutoff, opened in 1910 and included the first bridge across San Francisco Bay, between Newark and Menlo Park, saving many miles to Oakland and Sacramento compared to the prior route through San Jose and Santa Clara.

SP's Peninsula Commute experienced record ridership during World War II. During the war, 26 trains ran between San Jose and San Francisco, with headways as low as 5 minutes (traveling north) in the mornings and 3 minutes (traveling south) in the evenings. After the war, a May 1946 railroad strike displaced approximately 10,000 train passengers onto highways, causing "historic" traffic jams along the Bayshore Highway, with commute times for some automobile drivers to balloon from 30 minutes to 75 minutes going from Burlingame to San Francisco, a distance of approximately 19 miles (31 km). However, in the period after the war, Peninsula roads were improved; the four-lane undivided Bayshore Highway (completed in 1925) was rebuilt into a six-lane divided freeway between 1949–1962, and Interstate 280 was completed in the 1970s. Train ridership declined with the rise of automobile use.

Several times during the 1960s and 1970s, SP talked about discontinuing the commute service due to increasing deficits and flat ridership. Ridership was 11,500 daily passengers on 22 trains in 1970, compared to 12,000 daily passengers in 1967 and 10,000 daily passengers in 1946. In 1971 when Amtrak took over long distance passenger operations, Southern Pacific's extended commute train to Monterey, California, the "Del Monte", was discontinued, but other commute trains continued. All SP passenger locomotives were transferred to Peninsula commute service except for those which were sold to Amtrak.

In the late 1970s the Southern Pacific leased several GE P30CHs from Amtrak to operate the Peninsula Commute. San Francisco 4th and King Street Station, October, 1978

Operating deficits were mounting, from US$670,000 (equivalent to $6,582,000 in 2023) in 1964 to over US$1,000,000 (equivalent to $8,760,000 in 2023) by 1968, US$5,300,000 (equivalent to $30,010,000 in 2023) by 1975, and US$9,000,000 (equivalent to $48,190,000 in 2023) just one year later in 1976 according to an independent review, which prompted SP to petition the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for a fare increase of 111 percent, as fares had increased minimally and ridership, approximately 12,000 passengers per day in 1967 was not increasing, despite the fuel crisis. The slow decision process prompted SP's then-president, Benjamin Biaggini, to offer to purchase 1,000 eight-passenger vans and donate them for vanpools in order to discontinue the Peninsula Commute trains entirely. In 1977 SP filed a petition with the CPUC to discontinue the commuter operation due to the ongoing losses. At that time, SP was running 44 trains a day.

State administration and Caltrain

Main article: Caltrain

To preserve the commuter service, Caltrans took over financial responsibility on July 1, 1980 (1980-07-01), and contracted with SP to operate the service. During the Caltrans administration, Caltrans purchased new locomotives and cars that replaced the SP equipment in 1985, upgraded stations, introduced shuttle buses to nearby employers, and renamed the operation Caltrain. The Peninsula Corridor right-of-way was purchased for US$202,000,000 (equivalent to $451,900,000 in 2023) from SP in 1991 by the newly-formed Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB), who subsequently assumed responsibility for the operation of Caltrain in 1992.

Rolling stock

SP took over the Peninsula Corridor route from the SF&SJ in 1870 and assumed control of the existing set of locomotives and passenger cars, which were mainly 4-4-0 steam engines and 36-passenger wooden railcars. As SP began introducing diesel locomotives on its longer-distance routes, steam engines were moved into Peninsula Commute service, culminating with the large "General Service" 4-8-4 locomotives which served the Peninsula Corridor through the 1950s, when diesel-electric Fairbanks-Morse Trainmasters began running in commuter service in the Bay Area. The Fairbanks-Morse (and later EMD diesel engines) served the Peninsula Commute past 1980, when the state-run CalTrain began assuming responsibilities, through 1985, when the state purchased new EMD F40PH locomotives. One of the factors driving the purchase of new locomotives was the dramatic increase in lease costs after five years.

Locomotives

Main article: List of Peninsula Commute locomotives

Steam

Steam locomotives of the Peninsula Commute

Builder	Model/Class	Locomotive Numbers	Years of Service	Notes	Photograph
Various	4-4-0, 2-6-0, 4-4-2		1870-1900s
Various	4-6-0		c.1900s-1950s
American Locomotive Company	4-6-2	2400–2404	c.1923/24–1954	Built 1904; displaced from main-line passenger service by 4-8-2 locomotives.
Baldwin		2405–2427		Built 1906–1907; displaced from main-line passenger service by 4-8-2 locomotives.
Schenectady	4-8-2	4300–4327	c.1945–1954	Built 1923–1924; displaced from main-line passenger service by 4-8-4.
Baldwin	GS-1 4-8-4	4400–4409	c.1950–1957	Built 1930; displaced from main-line passenger service by diesel-electric locomotives.
Lima	GS-2 and GS-3 4-8-4	4410-4429		Built 1937
	GS-4 4-8-4	4430-4469		Built 1941–43

As newer locomotives were introduced for main-line (long-distance, inter-city passenger) service, older locomotives were redesignated to Commute service.

Diesel

Diesel locomotives of the Peninsula Commute

Builder	Model	Locomotive Numbers	Years of Service	Notes	Photograph
EMD	EMD GP9	3186–3196	1954–1985	Rebuilt largely in 1965-66 for passenger service; renumbered to 3186-3196 in 1975. Reverted to SP control in 1985 after lease expired.	1982 "Rainbow" scheme
Fairbanks Morse	FM H-24-66	3020–3030	1954–1975	All retired and scrapped once major rebuilds were required.
EMD	EMD SD9	4450 Huff and 4451 Puff	1965–85	4451 still survives in 2017, in derelict condition, at Schellville, California.
EMD	EMD SDP45	3200–3209	1971–1985	Moved from long-distance (inter-city) service after Amtrak takeover in 1971. Replaced F-M H-24-66 as they were retired. Pulled from duty in 1978–79. Reverted to SP control in 1985.
EMD	EMD GP40P-2	3197-3199	1974–1985	Supplemented SDP45s. Reverted to SP control in 1985. Rebuilt as GP40-2 to remove steam generators for passenger car heating once leases reverted to SP.
GE Transportation Systems	GE P30CH	Amtrak 7xx (15 total)	1978–79	Leased to SP for 1978–79 after SP SDP45s were pulled from passenger service under an ICC order to return offline freight cars.

The diesel era of the Peninsula Commute began in 1954 with the introduction of Fairbanks-Morse (F-M) "Trainmaster" H-24-66 locomotives. The Trainmasters, which used the unique opposed-piston two-stroke prime mover developed by F-M for use in American diesel-electric submarines in World War II, were the most powerful diesel-electric locomotives available.

Passenger cars

Passenger cars of the Peninsula Commute

Builder	Model	Numbers	Quantity	Seats	Years of Service	Notes	Photograph
Pullman?	Harriman		approx. 90	72	c.1900–1968	Ordered in 10 groups (60-C-1 to 60-C-10), passenger compartment nominally 60 feet (18 m) long, introduced to replace earlier wooden cars still in service. Out of service by 1968.
Pullman & Standard Steel	Suburban	2085–2159	75 total	96	1924/1927–1985	Passenger compartment was 72 feet (22 m) long, distinguishing these from earlier "Harriman" cars. Ordered in three groups: 72-IC-1 (1924; qty 60; #2085–2144) 72-IC-2 (1924; qty 10; #2145–2154) 72-IC-3 (1927; qty 5; #2155–2159)	Interior
		2089, 2092, 2115, 2120, 2128, 2130, 2135, 2142, 2145, 2152	10			Classified as "unserviceable" in 1980 and used as parts cars.
?	Streamline	2202	1	122	1965–?	ex-Daylight #2400, built in 1937. Rebuilt in 1965 with five-across seating.
Pullman	Gallery	3700-3730	31	145	1955/57–1985	Used incandescent lights and on-board diesel generator for air conditioning.
		3731–3745	15	164	1968–1985	Distinguished by fluorescent lights, tinted windows, and stainless steel vestibule doors compared with prior series.

SP introduced the steel "Suburban" coaches in 1924, and continued to run them through the introduction of new state-owned equipment in 1985.

See also

• Bay Area Rapid Transit
• List of Peninsula Commute locomotives

External links

• SP timetable from 1978 at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
• McGovern, Janet (2012). Caltrain and the Peninsula Commute Service. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-7622-0. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
• "The Bay Shore and Dumbarton Cut-Offs of the Southern Pacific". The Railroad Gazette. XLII (11): 328–331. 15 March 1907.
• Section of Energy and Environment, Office of Proceedings, Interstate Commerce Commission (14 July 1978). Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Finance Docket 28611: Southern Pacific Transportation Company To Discontinue the Operation of Passenger Trains Between San Francisco and San Jose and Intermediate Points (Report). Interstate Commerce Commission. Retrieved 15 July 2016.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)