Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
The real reason Caltrain can't be converted to BART is because BART isn't compatible with the HSR trains down to LA. There's only room for one rail corridor down the peninsula, and it needs to accommodate local transit and trains to other parts of the state.
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BART and Caltrain are different gauges. Back in the day, BART chose a wide gauge--wider than intercity rail (AMTRAK etc)--so BART trains couldn't run on CalTrain tracks and vice versa.
The present plan as I understand it is to run both CalTrain and HSR on the existing (but electrified) double tracking of the Peninsula rail corridor but early in the planning CA HSR planned to install its own tracks so there seems to be enough room in the right of way to have BART tracks parallel to the double tracking for CalTrain/HSR. It would be expensive, though, and not the best use of available funds. I'd rather see the southern Bay crossing (red--standard gauge--rail line crossing the Bay just north of San Jose in the map I posted above) built. Facebook promised to contribute some funds for this but not near enough to build it; mainly for design work I think. And someday there's a second BART tunnel too build.