The biggest problem here, causing the most friction, is the issue of bike capacity on the Bombardier cars, which, as you know, is only half that of the gallery cars. It would be one thing if the Bombardier cars consistently showed up only on certain trains, and everybody knew which trains would have limited capacity, but things are exacerbated by the fact that Bombardier car consists and gallery car consists seem to be swapped at random from one day to the next. You never know how much space for bikes there will be on any given train on any given day. (Bike capacity on a train can swing from 64 spaces one day to 16 the next.) This has disastrous effects, and it’s incomprehensible that Caltrain can’t seem to wrap their collective heads around it.

BACKGROUND

When Caltrain first received the Bombardier cars (in preparation for Baby Bullet service), the fleet consisted of 17 cars — 7 cab-cars (cars with a cab at one end from which the engineer can operate the train in “push” mode) and 10 “trailer” cars (just regular coaches). Keeping with their past practice with the gallery cars, Caltrain decided to designate the new Bombardier cab-cars as bike cars.

Possibly due to new FRA or PUC regulations, the design of the onboard bike racks had to be different from those on the gallery cars. Also, Caltrain wanted to keep seating in the area where the racks were, so cyclists could be seated downstairs to keep an eye on their bikes. As a consequence, only 16 bikes (4 racks of 4) were allowed on Bombardier bike cars.

So for a while we had 7 Bombardier bike cars. Out of the fleet of 17 cars, three 5-car trains were made, leaving two cars as “spares” to be rotated in and out of consists as needed. This meant that Caltrain’s Bombardier-equipped trains were almost always made up of 3 trailer cars and 2 cab (bike) cars. Having 2 bike cars per train resulted in having room for 32 bikes, equal to the bike capacity of a gallery car consist with a single bike car. It seemed to work pretty well.

Pretty well, that is, until the Baby Bullet trains, which predominantly used Bombardier cars, began getting so popular that soon many of the trains reached “standing room only” conditions, where every seat was filled. This was, I believe, in 2005, before Caltrain rolled out their 96 train schedule which added more Baby Bullet trains. So at the time, their only solution was to rip out bike racks and put seats back in. And that’s exactly what they did to 2 of the Bombardier cab-cars.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that did to bike capacity on Bombardier-equipped trains. We still had 7 cab-cars, but now only 5 of them were also bike cars. (For those who are wondering, it’s cab-cars 117 and 118 which no longer have bike racks.) This meant we now had three 5-car trains. One of them always had 2 bike cars, and usually the other two only had one bike car (occasionally one of those trains would also have a second bike car, depending on which “spare” cars were swapped in/out of the consist).

So, one day your train shows up with space for 32 bikes, and the next it shows up with space for 16 bikes. That’s a problem. But many bicyclists found that if they simply avoided taking the Baby Bullet trains, it’s a problem they didn’t have to deal with.

Enter the 96- (and later, 98-) train schedule. Adding this many new trains required completely revamping the “consist turns”, basically turning the equipment at each end of the line as quickly as possible during rush hour in order to physically operate more trains. Doing that meant that, oftentimes, Bombardier equipment would end up on local/limited trains rather than the Baby Bullets. So much for avoiding Bullets to dodge the bike capacity problem. At this point the inconsistency of bike capacity on any given train became very aggravating, for passengers and crews alike. Ridership continued to grow by leaps and bounds during this period, and “bumping” became more frequent, as did “negative cyclist/conductor interactions”. But since there were more trains running during the “peak” than before, standing room only conditions largely subsided, with the exception of a couple isolated trains.

CRACKED BOLSTERS

Then… catastrophe. In May of 2008, cracks were discovered on the truck bolsters (the part of the car that connects the wheels/suspension to the frame) of 14 gallery cars, and those cars were immediately pulled from service. Consists were completely reshuffled in an attempt to ease the pain of reduced seating capacity. One entire gallery-car set was broken up, its cars dispersed to other gallery car sets to make up for cars they had lost. Everything else in the yard with wheels, whether it had something wrong with it or not (excluding the bolster cracks, obviously) was pressed into service. To replace the set of gallery cars which had been broken up and dispersed, the Bombardier consists were also broken up. Instead of three 5-car sets they built four 4-car sets, leaving only one spare car, a car which had been robbed for parts for several months to keep the rest of the fleet rolling. One of those Bombardier consists had 2 bike cars. Do the math and you can figure out that the other 3 each had only 1 bike car.

So now we had 3 consists running around which only had room for 16 bikes. Guess how that affected cyclist/conductor relations?

THE INEVITABLE HAPPENS

Well, one day (as happens from time to time), something happened to one of the Bombardier cab-cars. Specifically, it’s wheels had developed flat spots that exceeded maximum allowable limits. It was removed from its consist one night and replaced with the lone spare cab-car, which had been quickly patched up and made ready for service. What nobody noticed until the next morning when the train went into service was that THE TRAIN NOW HAD NO BIKE CAR. The spare was car #117, one of those cab-cars which had its bike racks ripped out just a couple years prior. As you can well imagine, it was a stellar day for Caltrain customer service.

Ripping the bike racks out of two of the Bombardier cab-cars has proven to be a shortsighted move (made unnecessary by the later schedule increase) which has caused equipment utilization headaches and eventually, as I thought it might, led to a train going into service with no bike car.

BIKE CARS: A NEW HOPE?

Caltrain is in the middle of a delivery of 8 brand new Bombardier cars — 2 cab-cars and 6 trailers. So far, 4 of the trailers have been delivered, so it is as yet unknown whether or not the 2 cab-cars will be equipped with bike racks. If they are, then hoorah! But more needs to be done. At the bare minimum, The 2 new cab-cars should be made into bike cars, and the two older Bombardier cars which had their bike racks removed should have them reinstalled! There is simply no excuse now, as seated capacity on the trains is growing with the addition of the 8 new cars.

A FRESH LOOK AT BIKES ON BOARD

But like I said, that should be the bare minimum. What Caltrain really needs to do is take a long look at how bikes are accommodated on board the trains, and do some things to improve the service for all concerned.

Caltrain has lately been pointing out that increasing numbers of bicyclists are accountable for much of the decline in on-time performance over the last year. From my point of view in the cab, I tend to agree. But the bicyclists are not the problem; the way Caltrain accommodates them is. We are trying to cram 32 bikes into the gallery cars. A dozen off at Mountain View, 20 more on. 9 off at Palo Alto, 15 more on. Do you know how long that takes? A single door, multiple steps to contend with? Stop after stop after stop. A second bike car is a godsend on busy trains.

Boarding goes much smoother on the Bombardier cars, in part due to their more limited capacity, but even if they could hold 32 bikes boarding would still be quicker due to the second door and fewer steps. Still, I don’t think the answer is to increase bike capacity on the Bombardier cars which already have it. We’d still end up waiting for bikes to get aboard while all the other cars in the train have long finished boarding and detraining passengers.

SPREAD THE LOAD

I contend that the load of bicycles should be spread throughout the whole train, rather than trying to cram all of the bikes into one car. Yes, the cab-cars should still be the cars with the most bike capacity (but less than 32 bikes, for safety and station dwell time reasons), and the rest of the cars should all have space for a modest amount of bikes. Maybe 8 bikes each. This way, dwell time decreases, and each train’s bike capacity actually INCREASES, (by how much depends on train length), despite the fact that I propose decreasing the cab-car capacity from 32 to, perhaps, 24 bikes.

Increase Bombardier cab-car bike capacity from 16 to 24, and add bike capacity (8) to all of the Bombardier trailers as well.

Do that, and then no matter what kind of train shows up at the station, bike capacity is a function of how LONG the train is rather than what manufacturer happened to build the cars. Bike capacity would be within a small range of a certain percentage of total passenger capacity no matter how long the train is. Train getting crowded? Add a car! Seated capacity AND bike capacity both increase! It’s a no-brainer.

ISSUES

Of course this isn’t some sort of miracle cure; there is a major stumbling block. Right now, bikes are limited to a single car (or at most, 2 cars) for a very practical reason: the conductors need to be able to monitor how many bikes are on the train in order to make sure that capacity isn’t exceeded, for safety and regulatory reasons. If bikes were allowed on all cars, as I propose, it would be almost impossible to do that. Some cooperation and self-policing by the cyclists would definitely be needed.

Despite that problem, I think it could be a workable solution. The status quo certainly will not do, and bikes-on-board is an important, valuable program that must be allowed to continue. Here’s hoping that something is done soon.