Testing Caltrain's new ride Testing Caltrain's new ride (June 11, 2004)

Baby bullet is fast, but should have more trains First Person

By Julie O'Shea

Monday, 4:58 p.m. -- Standing on the platform at the downtown Mountain View Caltrain station, I watched as the much-hyped baby bullet pulled into the stop.

Finally, I'd get a chance to test out the mythical beast first-hand. From a distance, it looked like something from out of this world. I half expected "Chariots of Fire" to blare from the station's speakers. A man standing beside me on the platform was so moved he even took a picture.

Although I have worked on the Peninsula for a little more than three years, Monday was the first time I was using the public-transit commute option. I know -- how shameful.

The bullet, according to my crumpled train schedule, would take 45 minutes to get from Mountain View to San Francisco. However, my entire commute from work to my lower-Pacific Heights apartment -- which includes a 10-minute walk and 30-minute bus ride -- would ultimately take an hour and 25 minutes.

Thus, this would be a hard sell. To put it bluntly, I'd always seen Caltrain as an unrealistic luxury -- tempting but expensive. While the train seemed to be a logical solution to my road-rage angst, the service would cost me $8.50 a day (not including the roundtrip $2.50 Muni fare), and the commute, prior to the bullet service, would take two hours, door-to-door. This would cost me $11 a day or $157 a month if I bought a $112 monthly Caltrain pass and a $45 monthly Muni pass.

However, for the chance to experience the bullet, I was willing to give my overworked Honda Civic, which gulps $200-plus in gas a month, a break-- at least for the day.

Stepping aboard, I was surprised to find the train compartment fairly empty, a stark contrast from BART where you have to aggressively shove your way to a seat.

Plopping down on one of the bullet's new-smelling purple seats directly across from the restroom, I propped my head against the window for the ride home.

It was pleasingly quiet, and I almost felt as if I was in church and that if I spoke out loud, someone surely would come along and tell me to hush up. (A stop in Palo Alto later ruined this serenity when herds of evening commuters noisily boarded, yakking on their cell phones and groaning about their long Mondays.)

The doors closed, and I held my breath, waiting to be transported from zero to 90 mph within seconds. I looked out the window, straining to catch a glimpse of the clogged Bay Area freeways so I could laugh at the disgruntled drivers. The train route, however, never gave me the satisfaction.

The ride was smooth and astonishingly pleasant, the rush of leaves along the tracks my only indicator of how fast we were traveling.

Talking on his cell phone, a man sitting behind me excitedly told his wife that "amazingly" he would be home in 10 minutes.

Seconds later, the bullet pulled into its final station, right on schedule. It had taken just 45 minutes -- by all accounts, an extraordinary feat, even though I still had a 30-minute bus ride home.

Will the bullet turn me into a Caltrain commuter? Not yet. With only two morning departures from San Francisco, the bullet hardly fits my schedule. And, with a need to have my car at work one or two days a week, the monthly passes are not economical, costing me more in the end. But I'll keep watching.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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