What's Caltrain's gas mileage

Caltrain runs along the San Francisco peninsula. According to a Caltrain engineer Soren talked to once, "old" trains weigh 40 tons/car plus 240 tons for the locomotive and "new" trains weigh 30 tons/car plus 180 tons for the locomotive. At a minimum, from ~45mph -> 0 of energy has to into heat (via the brakes) for every stop the train makes.

http://caltrain.com/budget.html has some fiscal year budgets that can help figure out fuel consumption since we know how far the trains travel.

Another rough (maybe too rough?) bound on the problem is to look at the weight ratios. A full train has roughly an extra car's worth of weight in people (the engine is worth 6 cars so that's 1/12th of the total weight). A one ton passenger car (2,000 lbs) with five adults in it (maybe 1,000 lbs) has perhaps 1/3rd the total weight in human cargo. SUVs are easily two tons, bringing it to 1/6th. Driving alone in a car would be 200/2000 or 1/10th. Driving alone in an SUV would be 200/4000 or 1/20th. The train stop more and thus sends more energy into the brakes, but the hundred+ cars encounter a lot more air and rolling resistance, requiring more fuel to be burned.

It seems that a full bullet train (making only a five stops between San Francisco and San Jose) is probably at least as efficient as a fully-loaded (at least four people) car pool.

• Why We Need Transit and What's Needed says, without quoting a source: "Rail transit is about four times more energy efficient than the automobile."

• EuroStar takes the issues head-on

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