Back on February 5, Caltrain agreed to expand the capacity of all their bike cars. Older, Gallery cars would go from 32 spots to 40. Newer, Bombardier cars would go from 16 to 24 spots.
Turnaround was quick, with the first expanded car spotted in the wild just 13 days later:
NB275 one old gallery – with two additional racks! Capacity for 40 bikes!
While Caltrain hoped to complete the expansion by the end of last month, we’re not quite there yet. Many tweets had been exchanged about expanded Gallery-style cars, but the newer, smoother Bombardier cars were holding steady at 16 spots a piece.
I checked with Caltrain’s Special Assistant to the CEO, Mark Simon. Here are the current capacities:
| no bike spots | classic | expanded | percent done | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gallery | 0 | 7 | 20 | 74% |
| Bombardier | 2 | |||
| Total | 2 | 11 | 21 | 62% |
Simon told me the first expanded Bombardier cab car would hit the rails next week.
But: just before 6 PM today, a very excited tweet came across the bikecar feed:
79 1 new (24!!!!) T17:59
If that tweet is accurate, the shop got it out ahead of schedule. Sweet.
I think Simon is told to produce low expectations they can beat.
Anyway, here’s the goods.
http://holierthanyou.blogspot.com/2009/05/caltrain-bombadier-with-expanded-bike.html
Mark Simon told me he got the data from the operations department.
Mark Simon == Ari Fleischer