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San Mateo County Transit District and Caltrain boards recently approved $2.4 million, three-year agreements, creating a dedicated force of as many as six San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies to provide law enforcement services.



The SamTrans Protective Services Unit is responsible for all transit district law enforcement; the transit police team would comprise the sheriff’s deputies as well as Amtrak police officers.



Amtrak officers already provide security on Caltrain; the sheriff’s deputies would supplement their services. Duties would include augmenting crime scene investigation, providing criminal forensics services and supplementing railroad law enforcement.



For SamTrans, deputies would coordinate police service requests, collision investigations and police reports.



Deputies also plan to ride trains and buses — sometimes undercover — and patrol Caltrain’s 77-mile right of way enforcing trespassing and other rail-related violations.



Pending county board of supervisors’ approval of the contract, deputies would begin working for the transit agencies in early February. They’d be dispatched from San Mateo County Communications Dispatch Center in Redwood City, Calif.