Riding the (Baby) Bullet
Caltrain started running their Baby Bullet service today. These are special express trains between San Jose and San Francisco that have very limited stops. Only an hour between the two cities, instead of over an hour and a half! It doesn’t go any faster than the normal trains, it just doesn’t stop at as much.
Anyway one of the stops is one north of the stop closest to my home and another is one south of the stop closest to my work. I decided to try it out this evening. The ride between work and the Millbrae station is pretty hilly, and even though it is only a little more than three miles it took me over 15 minutes to get there. I got there a few minutes before the train came, though.
When I got on the train I found out that the bike car was technically full… these thinner baby trains only fit 16 bikes per bike car instead of 32 on the normal Caltrain trains. I was not about to get off, so I just held on to my bike until we got to the next station, where some people got off and I was able to put my bike in the rack. I then sat down and read my magazine until the next stop, when I had to move my bike to let someone else get their bike out. I never sat down after that, because my stop was next.
I got off at the Downtown Mountain View stop, which is about 5 miles from the apartment. I actually made the ride home in about 16 minutes, which impressed me because I was forced to stop at lights quite a few times. Anyway, the door to garage time from work to home was 64 minutes. When I take the normal trains it is between 75 and 85 minutes, depending on if the train is limited or makes all stops. So I really didn’t save all that much time, but I did get a decent workout.