Caltrain electrification service began in late September and it's already clear that the decades-long effort to modernize the system is paying off. "The first three months of electric service saw a 41 percent increase in ridership over the same three months in 2023, with Sunday ridership doubling," wrote the agency in a statement issued Monday.
More from a Caltrain release:
Since the launch of electric service in September 2024, the agency has been reporting its best ridership numbers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Caltrain had more than 588,000 passengers last month, a substantial increase from 416,000 in December of last year. Average Weekday Ridership stood at just over 24,000, a 39 percent increase from last December, following October’s increase of 38 percent and November’s 24 percent increase. Weekend ridership is also standing strong since service was doubled at launch, with Saturdays seeing a 62 percent increase and Sundays an 85 percent increase from last December, bringing it to nearly pre-pandemic levels.
There's every expectation that these trends will continue as more people build Caltrain into their travel habits, thanks to the increased weekend and off-peak service. The increased ridership, meanwhile, is consistent with what people in the rail industry call the "spark effect." When trains are cleaner, quieter, more frequent and faster as made possible by electrification, more people shift from driving to riding the train.
Also announced this month: Caltrain is using even less electricity than anticipated, a benefit of using modern, lightweight train sets. From an earlier Caltrain release:
Caltrain announced at its monthly Board of Directors meeting that regenerative braking on the new trains is generating and sending back to the electric grid approximately 23 percent of the energy consumed by the system. The new electric trains are outperforming Caltrain’s original projections, which is welcome news for a public agency that holds sustainability as a core value.
Originally estimated to cost approximately $19.5 million annually, Caltrain’s electricity use since the launch of electric service averages 207 MWh on weekdays and 175 MWh on weekends, revising cost estimates to $16.5 million.
The results speak for themselves and, one can only hope, will begin to wither away the arguments that somehow investments in modern rail infrastructure won't have the same effects in California that it's had throughout the world. Given these results, it's rather inexplicable that retrograde politicians continue to gaslight about rail modernization and have dedicated themselves to stifling progress in other parts of the state.
The onus is now on the management of Amtrak services in the state and Metrolink and the San Diego Coaster services in Southern California to explain why the success of Caltrain electrification can't be duplicated on other busy corridors. And it's long past time for Governor Newsom to double-down on California High-Speed Rail and get to work gathering state funding to bridge the Tehachapis and connect the system to Los Angeles. Yes, it would be expensive, but the money to build it and complete the electrification called for in the state rail plan exists: it's just being wasted on endless highway widening that generates more and more traffic and pollution.
