I had my first Caltrain experience today. We went up to see the Giants play the Red Sox. Unfortunately the Red Sox lost, but I guess I could just be happy that my current hometown team won.

Caltrain is actually quite a nice way to get to the game. They run special trains to get people to the game and they get very full. Anne took the train to and from work for a year, so this wasn’t anything new for her, but I was kind of excited.
It’s cheaper than parking and you don’t have to drive.

It’s certainly not as fast as driving though. Using my fancy new GPS, I observed that we only averaged 28 mph including time spent waiting at stops.

I proabably would have taken the train much sooner, but they stopped the weekend trains two years ago to do some major upgrades on the tracks. That was actually the weekend we came up for househunting and I remember watching the local news about it. The TV journalist informed people who were waiting for a train that wouldn’t come for 2 days and got their reactions. Pretty funny.

One of the upgrades they made to the tracks was to add the ability for trains going the same direction to pass each other. We got to see this in action on the way back as our express train passed another train making all the local stops.

I could see why Anne was so grumpy on the days when she missed the express train – all those frequent stops were annoying.

I found it funny that I often knew what station we were at solely because I had been there before doing the series of geocaches placed near each station.

The new baby bullet trains are very nice. Some of the seats even have small tables. The ride is smooth, especially considering that we reached speeds over 80 mph. Wow. Seeing these trains from the road, they don’t seem to be going that fast.

The new trains also have power outlets. What would be even better would be WiFi. Strangely, Pac Bell park does have it. I’ve never seen someone bring a laptop to a baseball game.

We wanted to make sure that we caught the express train on the way back, so we darted out the second the last strike was called and literally ran the four balcks to the train. The express is supposed to leave 15 minutes after the last out or when full. Once we arrived on the train, completely winded, we waited 25 minutes for the train to fill up.

The ride back was a bit bumpier on one of the older trains, but still relaxing. If you live far away from work, a train isn’t a bad way to commute. But living a mile away from work like me is definitely better. 🙂

Maybe Anne said it best as we left the train platform: “Now do you understand why I bought a car?”