{"id":408084,"date":"2026-07-22T15:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/408084\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:51:21","slug":"old-caltrain-locomotives-find-new-life-on-amtrak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/408084\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Caltrain Locomotives Find New Life on Amtrak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of Caltrain\u2019s old diesel equipment started operating this past May on the east side of the Bay, helping Amtrak supplement service on \u201cCapitol Corridor\u201d trains between San Jose and Sacramento. \u201cIt is going to give Caltrain a little bit of funding, and it\u2019s going to give us additional reliability and flexibility,\u201d said Robert Padgette, Managing Director for the Capitol Corridor.<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar with the region, Caltrain operates trains on the San Francisco Peninsula between San Jose and San Francisco. Amtrak\u2019s Capitol Corridor service runs from San Jose to Sacramento. The two railroads share alignments on the short segment between San Jose and Santa Clara.<\/p>\n

The lease for the Caltrain equipment, signed with the California Department of Transportation, includes three Caltrain F-40PH-2C locomotives (one of which is seen in the lead image), three Bombardier cab cars, and 13 Bombardier coach cars. The agreement provides for the lease of these vehicles at $12,300 per locomotive per month, $10,000 per cab car, and $8,600 per coach car. That will generate $2.14 million annually for Caltrain<\/a>, which also no longer has to store the equipment.<\/p>\n

From Caltrain\u2019s point of view, this is a way to offset its costs a bit now that it\u2019s fully electric between Tamien and San Francisco and no longer needs most of its diesel fleet for daily operations.<\/p>\n

\"\"Electric Caltrain trains next to Amtrak diesels in San Jose. Photo: Streetsblog\/Rudick<\/p>\n

It gives the Capitol Corridor the ability to overhaul its own aging fleet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are leasing the three locomotives to give us the flexibility to pull F-59s out of service as they undergo a much-needed midlife overhaul program,\u201d explained Padgette. \u201cCaltrans is managing the mid-life overhaul contract.\u201d This involves replacing virtually all the moving parts on the F-59s, resulting in a locomotive that\u2019s as good as new, confirmed Leo Sanchez, the Capitol Corridor\u2019s Deputy Managing Director.<\/p>\n

\"\"An F-59 locomotive. These locomotives are newer than the F40s, but are still old enough to be in need of overhauls that would otherwise force reduced services. Photo: Wikipedia Commons<\/a> by Pi.1415926535<\/p>\n

They also have the option of running the leased Caltrain passenger cars if they need them for a big event or other circumstances where they just don\u2019t have the rolling stock to meet demand. But perhaps most importantly, it means the Capitol Corridor will be able to improve reliability across the board, because they\u2019ll have a decent supply of backup equipment when things break down. \u201cWe\u2019re growing like crazy, with ridership up more than 20 percent year over year,\u201d said Padgette. \u201cWe need capacity.\u201d He added that because of the World Cup\u2014the Capitol Corridor directly services Levi\u2019s Stadium\u2014they had their first day with more than 6,000 passengers since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

From Streetsblog\u2019s view, this deal really underscores the advantage of sticking to standard-gauge, off-the-shelf equipment. Some day, when the Capitol Corridor goes to zero emissions either with fully electric or some kind of hybrid locomotive fleet, its newest diesels may go to aid yet another service. \u201cIf we ever do go to zero emissions, I hope we can share our Tier 4 locomotives and help reduce emissions all over the country,\u201d said Padgette.<\/p>\n

The old Caltrain equipment will also be available, when needed, for the San Joaquin service (re-branded \u201cGold Runner\u201d) to Bakersfield. One caveat: as with the Gold Runner<\/a>, the Bombardier equipment doesn\u2019t include a cafe, so when the Capitol Corridor uses them there won\u2019t be food or beverage services. Padgette said they will probably only use them between Oakland and Sacramento and that they are looking at ways to solve that.<\/p>\n

Either way, \u201cThis is a good-news story,\u201d said Padgette. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win for transit and intercity rail in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of Caltrain\u2019s old diesel equipment started operating this past May on the east side of the Bay,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[109921,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-408084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-promoted","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}