15 years of clean comfortable trips leave most passengers satisfied as commuter line marks anniversary. — San Francisco Chronicle, 13 December 2006.
Fifteen years ago, Amtrak and Caltrans began a new passenger train service connecting the Bay Area and Sacramento with three round-trip trains a day. The Capitol Corridor trains quickly drew standing-room crowds on some trains and prompted some predictions of a rail renaissance…
Today, the rail service runs 16 round-trip trains between Oakland and Sacramento, including seven of those that go as far as San Jose and one that goes to and from Auburn. A total of 1.3 million passengers rode the Capitols in the past 12 months compared with 273,000 in the first year of operations…
Passenger rail advocates are also pleased with the Capitol Corridor.
“It’s been more successful than anyone expected,” said Richard Silver, head of the Railroad Passengers Association of California. “I don’t think anyone anticipated that they would ever add so many trains.”
