SP Pages
SP San Jose
SP Peninsula
SP San Francisco

mmmmmmmmmSouthern Pacific's Final Peninsula Commute Fleet Roster - 1980




After many years of trying, Southern Pacific finally unloaded the financial responsibility for its San Francisco Peninsula Commute
service onto the State of California in 1980, although it continued operating the trains - renamed Caltrain - under contract until
1992, when the state in turn dumped the service into the lap of the local counties.

Below is a partial copy of the five page lease/option agreement between SP and the state, as submitted to the Public
Utilities Commission. We have summarized some unshown data.

The terms of the agreement make it clear why the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) entirely replaced the
ex-SP equipment five years later: at year four, the yearly rent went up dramatically for the bi-level "gallery" cars (3700-3745),
and the same at year five for the locomotives.

Curiously, rental on the old heavyweight "subs" was to jump from $0/year/car to either $1090, or $1100. What justified the
$10 differential? A couple of subs briefly returned to the Peninsula revenue service in 1994, long after their official last runs.
Caltrain was woefully short of equipment to cover special trains to the World Cup Soccer tournament. As a last-minute stopgap
measure, Niles Canyon Railway provided two (is that correct, Dexter?) subs, which featured excellent fresh air circulation
through variously missing window panes.