Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a commuter rail line in California, serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara County. The southern terminus is in San Jose at the Tamien station, with weekday rush-hour service extending to Gilroy. The northern terminus of the line is in San Francisco at 4th and King Street. Caltrain has express, limited, and local services. There are 28 regular stops, one limited-service weekday-only stop (College Park), one weekend-only stop (Broadway), and one stop that is only served on football game days (Stanford). While average weekday ridership in 2019 exceeded 63,000, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been significant: in March 2026, Caltrain had an average weekday ridership of 41,968 passengers.
Caltrain is governed by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB) which consists of transit agencies from the three counties served by Caltrain: Santa Clara, San Francisco, and San Mateo. Each member agency has three representatives on a nine-member Board of Directors. The member agencies are the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans).
After historically relying on diesel locomotives, Caltrain electrified of its route between San Francisco and Tamien, and has transitioned to electric service, with diesel trains remaining in service between San Jose and Gilroy.
History Southern Pacific service
The original commuter railroad was built in 1863 under the authority of the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad; it was purchased by Southern Pacific (SP) in 1870.
SP double-tracked the line in 1904 and rerouted it via the Bayshore Cutoff. After 1945, ridership declined with the rise in automobile use; in 1977 SP petitioned the state Public Utilities Commission to discontinue the commuter operation because of ongoing losses. California legislators wrote Assembly Bill 1853 in 1977 to allow local transit districts along the line to make bulk purchases of tickets for resale at a loss, subsidizing commuters reliant on the Peninsula Commute until 1980; more importantly, the bill also authorized Caltrans to begin negotiating with SP to operate the passenger rail service and acquire the right-of-way between San Bruno and Daly City.
To preserve the commuter service, in 1980 Caltrans contracted with SP and began to subsidize the Peninsula Commute. Caltrans purchased new locomotives and rolling stock, replacing SP equipment in 1985. Caltrans also upgraded stations, added shuttle buses to nearby employers, and dubbed the operation CalTrain.
Joint Powers Board
The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board was formed in 1987 to manage the line. Subsequently, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties commissioned Earth Metrics, Inc., to prepare an Environmental Impact Report on right-of-way acquisition and expansion of operations. With state and local funding, the PCJPB bought the railroad right of way between San Francisco and San Jose from SP in 1991. As SamTrans advanced most of the local funds used to purchased the right-of-way, it was also agreed that SamTrans would serve as the managing agency until San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties could repay their portions. The following year, PCJPB took responsibility for CalTrain operations and selected Amtrak as the contract operator. PCJPB extended the CalTrain service from San Jose to Gilroy, connecting to VTA light rail at Tamien station in San Jose.
In July 1995, CalTrain became accessible to passengers with wheelchairs, excepting 22nd Street station, which has no step-free access. Five months later, CalTrain increased the bicycle limit to 24 per train, making the service attractive to commuters in bicycle-friendly cities such as San Francisco and Palo Alto.
In July 1997, the current logo was adopted, and the official name became Caltrain, dropping the capitalized "T".
In 1998, the San Francisco Municipal Railway extended the N Judah line from Market Street to the San Francisco Caltrain station at 4th and King streets, providing a direct connection between Caltrain and the Muni Metro system. A year later, VTA extended its light rail service from north Santa Clara to the Mountain View station. Starting in 1999, Caltrain reconstructed several stations and upgraded tracks and level crossings under the "Ponderosa Project".
In June 2003, a passenger connection for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Caltrain systems opened at Millbrae station just south of the San Francisco International Airport.
In 2008, Caltrain reached a then all-time high of 98 trains each weekday.
Caltrain announced on August 19, 2011, a staff recommendation to sign a five-year, $62.5 million contract with TransitAmerica Services, after taking proposals from three other firms, including Amtrak California, which had provided operating employees since 1992. The new operating contract was approved by the full Joint Powers Board at its scheduled September 1 meeting. TransitAmerica Services took over not only the conductor and engineer jobs on the trains, but also dispatching and maintenance of equipment, track, and right-of-way from Amtrak. On May 26, 2012, TransitAmerica took over full operations.
Baby Bullet service
In June 2004, Caltrain finished its two-year CTX (Caltrain Express) project for a new express service called the Baby Bullet. The project entailed new bypass tracks in Brisbane and Sunnyvale as well as a new centralized traffic control system. The Baby Bullet trains reduced travel time by stopping at only four or five stations between San Francisco and San Jose Diridon station; the express trains could overtake local trains at the two locations (near Bayshore and Lawrence stations) where passing loops were added. Travel time for about 46.75 miles between San Francisco and San Jose is 57 minutes (four stops), 59 minutes (five stops) or 61 minutes (six stops), compared to 1 hour 30 minutes for local trains. The Baby Bullets have the same top speed of as other trains, but fewer stops save time. The CTX project included the purchase of new Bombardier BiLevel Coaches along with MPI MP36PH-3C locomotives. The Baby Bullets proved popular, but many riders had longer commutes on non-bullet trains, some of which would wait for Baby Bullet trains to pass.
Budget crises In May 2005 Caltrain started a series of fare increases and schedule changes in response to a projected budget shortfall. The frequency of the popular Baby Bullet express trains was increased; two express trains were added in May and another ten were added in August. New Baby Bullet stops, Pattern B stops, were introduced. Another increase of $0.25 in basic fare came in January 2006.
On April 2, 2010, Caltrain announced the need to cut its services by around 50%, as it was required to cut $30 million from its $97 million budget because all three authorities that fund the line were facing financial problems themselves and $10 million a year in previous state funding had been cut. Revenues for both local and state agencies had been steadily declining, as well as ticket revenues at Caltrain itself, and had left all "beyond broke."
On January 1, 2011, Caltrain cut four midday trains but upgraded four weekend trains to Baby Bullet service as a pilot program. This reduced its schedule from 90 to 86 trains each weekday. At the same time, it raised fares $0.25 and continued to contemplate cutting weekday service to 48 trains during commute hours only. By April 2011, Caltrain's board had approved a budget with fare increases to take effect on July 1, 2011, and no service cuts. The budget gap would be closed with another $0.25 fare increase, a $1 parking fee increase to $4, and additional money from other transit agencies and the MTC.
On February 17, 2017, California State Senator Jerry Hill introduced SB 797, which would permit the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board to submit a regional measure for sales tax increase of th of one cent to the voters in the three counties served by Caltrain. The regional measure would require a two-thirds majority (aggregated among the three counties) to pass, and would provide Caltrain with a dedicated revenue source estimated at $100 million per year. For comparison, in fiscal year 2016 (ending June 30, 2016), the operating expenses for Caltrain were $118 million, and farebox revenues were $87 million, leaving approximately $31 million in expenses to be funded by the PCJPB through its member agencies and county government contributions. SB 797 passed the California State Senate in May, and the State Assembly in September, and Governor Brown signed the bill into law in October.
Advocates for the increased tax cited its potential benefits to alleviate congestion along U.S. Route 101, which Carl Guardino quipped "has become so congested that we've changed its name to the '101 Parking Lot'." Detractors pointed to Caltrain's bureaucracy and stated fares should be increased to improve services instead. A poll of 1,200 voters in early May indicated support was strong enough to pass the sales tax increase, if the tax would result in expanding ridership capacity. The poll was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), headed by Guardino, which predicted that daily ridership could rise to 250,000 with the improvements in service funded by the dedicated sales tax increase. Potential capital projects which could use the dedicated funding include additional electric multiple units (making electric trains 8-EMU consists, rather than 6-EMU), extended boarding platforms, and the proposed Downtown Rail Extension (now known as The Portal) to the Salesforce Transit Center. A dedicated tax was proposed in 2011, contemporaneously with the prior budget crisis, but polls at the time indicated insufficient support. After SVLG's May 2017 poll indicated strong support, they petitioned Hill to act.
By early 2020, the joint powers board was planning to propose a one-eighth-cent sales tax for voter approval later in the year, to provide an estimated $ of dedicated funding for the system, which currently relies on rider fares for 70% of its revenue. This funding would have enabled Caltrain to run 168 trains per weekday, with rush-hour headways of 10 minutes, with the completion of electrification in 2022. BART-like service levels were projected to increase ridership significantly.
In March 2020, Caltrain's ridership dropped by 95% due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in losses of $ per month. The joint powers board recast the sales tax proposal as a way to keep the system afloat. Due to the COVID-19 measures and subsequent loss of approximately 75% of its ridership, Caltrain discontinued Baby Bullet service starting March 17, 2020. Two weeks later, due to continued loss of ridership, Caltrain further cut service from 92 to 42 trains per weekday, starting March 30. Average weekday ridership plummeted from approximately 65,000 (pre-pandemic) to 1,300. By June 15, service was increased to 70 trains per weekday, and limited (skip-stop) service was reinstated; later that month, ridership had recovered to 3,200 per weekday. In July, after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors initially declined to consider the ballot proposal, citing concerns about the system's governance structure, Caltrain officials warned that the agency would run out of operating funds and be forced to suspend service by the end of the year. In August, San Mateo County officials agreed to make Caltrain more independent from SamTrans in exchange for placing the sales tax on the ballot. In November 2020, Measure RR passed which created dedicated funding of a one-eighth cent sales tax. The schedule was adjusted again starting December 14, with slightly fewer weekday trains (68) but more frequent off-peak and weekend service to support essential workers.