TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

According to an article in the Stockton record, ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) is planning to start midday service starting in April. This will be in addition to their current 3 morning Stockton-San Jose and 3 afternoon/evening San Jose-Stockton trips.

ACE plans to start its midday train route April 24. It will leave Stockton at 9:30 and arrive in San Jose at 11:40 a.m. The train will leave San Jose at 11:55 a.m. and return to Stockton by 2 p.m., said Gregg Baxter, ACE director of operations.

[ACE riders getting more options for commute]

I wonder how they will handle this from an equipment and scheduling perspective. I’m pretty sure that they don’t necessarily have any spare trainsets sitting around - so I assume the first train to arrive in San Jose (scheduled arrival 6:30am) will return empty to Stockton and start the late morning run. Same for the afternoon - after arriving in Stockton around 2pm, the trainset will return empty to San Jose to depart there at 5:35pm. But this is just my assumption - maybe they do have a spare trainset.

But if they indeed do it this way - I wonder why they don’t open up the empty moves for the public - after all, they need a crew anyway, so why not let people ride on the train? Because when I first heard about this new midday service, I had thought “oh great, this will finally open up a good way to ride ACE for me - as a round trip starting in San Jose, without having to stay overnight in Stockton”. But they way the scheduling looks now, I’ll have to look into connecting services - maybe I can take the 11:55am train in San Jose and then an Amtrak San Joaquin from Stockton to Oakland and San Jose. Would be quite a detour, but at least it would be an all-train same day trip …

Update (3/17/2006):
I emailed the guys at ACE, asking about what equipment they plan on using, and here’s the response:

The mid day train will consist of 1 engine 1 cab
car and 2 passenger cars. This will be expanded upon as need arises. The
equipment is not currently in use during our regular schedule.