This story aired in the February 10, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
If you’ve ridden Caltrain recently, you might have noticed a big difference. Gone are the days of the loud, lurching, smelly diesel locomotives. Caltrain has gone electric. We take a tour of one of the new trains to see what life was like before electrification and what the ride feels like now.
Sounds outside a Caltrain station
REPORTER: It’s a quiet weekend morning in San Francisco at the Caltrain Station on 4th street. A couple of Caltrain workers are giving me a behind-the-scenes tour.
We step off the passenger platform, walk across a few tracks, and head toward one of the few diesel trains left in the back of the yard. There are two dead giveaways that this is a diesel engine: the fumes, and then there’s the noise.
DEANNA BOWDEN: These you have to elevate your voice the closer you get. This is actually a kinda quiet one.
REPORTER: That’s Deanna Bowden. She’s a locomotive engineer for Caltrain and one of my tour guides.
If you’ve ever taken Amtrak, the diesel locomotive looks similar to what you might see pulling passenger cars. The door to the cab is a good eight feet from the track. We hoist ourselves up the small metal ladder and into the cab compartment.
DEANNA: So on the far right hand side, that's our independent brake, and then we have the throttle here and the reverser, it goes in here.
REPORTER: The entire cab feels like a throwback to an automobile from the 1970s, from a lack of temperature control to manual windshield wipers.
Sound of windshield wipers
DEANNA: These, you actually do hear [[the windshield wipers]] but these also have a handle here so that you can move them manually, which is super nice. But that's what you would hear going down the right of way.
REPORTER: But the noisiest part of the cab is just behind me. Squeeze through a small door and it’s like stepping into the space under your car’s hood.
Sound of a doorway and a train’s diesel engine
REPORTER: Inside that door is the deafening noise from the train’s diesel engine. Its tank holds a couple thousands of gallons of fuel. And just like a gas-powered car, that fuel produces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Not only can you smell the emissions, you even see particles from the exhaust on the train’s cars and windows. (For this reason, there’s a huge train wash at the Caltrain’s maintenance yard.)
Deanna’s been working with Caltrain for over 32 years—just shortly after the transit system came into operation. And she’s got a lot of experience not only running these diesel engines, but riding them too.
DEANNA: I was a single parent. My car broke down. I had to go to Palo Alto every day for work. So I started taking the train and I walked just a couple of blocks to work. It was to the Cal Ave station. It was super convenient. I really enjoyed it. When I started talking to one of the conductors, they were telling me what they do, how much they make, all that kind of stuff. And I said, okay, okay. I can do this. So I applied. I was 19 years old.
REPORTER: She started off as an assistant conductor, then a conductor. And eventually an engineer, the person who drives the train. Deanna was offered jobs in management, but she always declined because she enjoyed running the trains so much. Then she was tuned into a new opportunity.
DEANNA: My brother-in-law actually said, they were telling me that there's gonna be this special job for training. And he says, you like learning new stuff. You need to do that. And I'm like actually, I kind of do like learning new stuff. So that's kind of how it all started. It's his fault. (Laughs)
REPORTER: So now Deanna’s assignment is helping engineers navigate the system’s brand-new electric trains. And that’s where we’re headed next.
Sounds of footsteps inside a train cab
Unlike the diesel cab, there isn’t a ladder to navigate. The entrance sits at track level, just like a Muni or BART car. Inside, it’s roomy with a big window up front. It feels like a brand new electric vehicle.”
DEANNA: It's almost like Star Trek, you know, like the captain seat and the console being half rounded and you sit in the center of it.
REPORTER: The four computer screens on the curved display provide a lot of information to the driver.
DEANNA: We can see what the doors are doing, whether open, closed. We can change the lighting. We can see the pantograph.
REPORTER: The pantograph is that metal cage that rises out of the top of the electric train and connects it to wires running from power lines. It’s similar to what you see on Muni buses in San Francisco. Caltrain built 51 miles of that wiring from San Francisco to San Jose. So now, unlike the old diesel-powered trains, the new electrics connect to those wires and run off renewable energy delivered through PG&E’s grid.
Caltrain still runs diesel trains between San Jose and Gilroy because
Union Pacific owns that section of track and it doesn’t have overhead wires. Caltrain is currently working on a train that could run on batteries for the sections of track that don’t have overhead wires.
Caltrain’s electrification is a small part of a larger, statewide ambition: the California High Speed Rail system, which aims to connect San Francisco to LA by train. Caltrain used a portion of the state’s high speed rail money to fund the transition to electric. It’s kind of a regional test, since high speed rail will eventually run through this same corridor to get to San Francisco. And it’s what modern rail in California might look like.
For engineers like Deanna who have been working in transit for years, these new electrified trains are a jump into the future of rail travel.
To see that future for myself, I hop aboard a Caltrain from San Francisco down to San Jose.
Sound of a Caltrain announcement inside the train
This train isn’t super crowded. But there are a few passengers near me. Someone at the table across from me pulls out their laptop, and starts typing away.
Other than the scenery passing by out the window or the gentle clack of the wheels, you might forget that you’re even on a train.
Besides being quiet, the trains have a few other amenities that the old diesels didn’t have, like Wi-Fi and power outlets. Some of this is part of Caltrain’s attempt to attract riders back to the trains. Ridership went down a lot during the pandemic. That was true for public transit in general. But since these new trains launched in August, the transit agency has seen ridership increase to its highest level since before COVID-19. Caltrain attributes more ridership to these new trains (with the help, of course, of a big marketing campaign).
But how much of this increase in ridership is because of fancy new bathrooms and power outlets? And how much of it is because these trains are electric?
RILEY RINKS: Well, the fact that this interview is even happening on the train, that's huge. Before you wouldn't be able to hear your own thoughts.
REPORTER: That’s Riley Rinks from San Francisco. She was at Levi’s Stadium for a 49ers game. She rode the old diesel trains for years.
RILEY: You can look out the windows. Um, The train is clean. They have bathrooms that are clean. It's an overall better experience for everybody.
REPORTER: Then there’s Alex Realyvasquez from Palo Alto. He started taking Caltrain to save money on transportation.
ALEX REALYVASQUEZ: Yeah, it's been a much smoother, quieter ride on the newer trains, for sure.
REPORTER: While it’s not groundbreaking technology—electrified, high speed rail is being used all over the world—Caltrain is the first transit system in the Bay that’s converted from diesel to electric. And maybe, really slowly but surely, the rest of California will follow.
As for that old diesel fleet? Much of it will be shipped off to Lima, Peru to begin a new life on a new commuter rail line.