advertisement

---

It’s taken two years and cost $110 million to upgrade track, stations and signals. Now, Caltrain’s CTX project — the California agency’s largest-ever capital undertaking — is almost complete.

On June 5, Caltrain will resume weekend service, which has been shut down the past two years. Then on June 7, the agency will begin offering faster, more frequent weekday commuter service.

The agency will operate 86 weekday trains, including 10 Baby Bullet express trains, which will make stops at Caltrain’s San Francisco, Millbrae, Hillsdale, Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose Diridon stations. Traveling at 79 mph and making fewer stops compared with local trains, Baby Bullets will cut travel time between San Francisco and San Jose from 96 minutes to 57 minutes, and San Francisco to Palo Alto from 62 minutes to 37 minutes.

Featuring low floors and extra doors to increase boarding speed, the 17 bi-level Baby Bullet cars and six locomotives cost $53 million.

Although Baby Bullets will only stop at a few of Caltrain’s 34 stations, the agency revamped its entire commuter-rail schedule to provide more efficient and timely local and limited-stop service. The agency will offer mid-day service every half hour at most stations, two southbound morning and two northbound evening trains stopping at San Francisco’s 22nd Street Station to accommodate the "reverse commute" market, and hourly service on Saturdays and Sundays.

Caltrain upgraded track and signals to increase the maximum operating speed on some areas of the system to 79 mph, and built passing tracks in Brisbane and Sunnyvale to enable Baby Bullets to pass local trains.