All aboard the Capitol Corridor for a new schedule focused on more consistent departures and better predictability!
The new schedule, which went into effect on Monday, March 29, 2021, will continue temporary changes brought on by the COVID pandemic, such as the reduced frequency of eight weekday round trips and five on weekends. More importantly, the schedule adjusts departure times and shifts trains to better match current customer demand, improve transit connections and offer more predictable departure times. While service frequencies will remain the same, some departure times and arrival times will be changing.
One of the most notable changes to the schedule is regarding daily direct service between Auburn and San Jose, which now features an earlier morning departure from Auburn, and a later evening arrival into Auburn.
“Our riders will be able to travel the entire length of the Capitol Corridor train route without a transfer, which is a huge added benefit,” said Priscilla Kalugdan, Marketing and Communications Officer at Capitol Corridor. “With an earlier morning departure from Placer County stations, passengers will have plenty of time for work or day trips to the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley and back.”
Direct, round-trip service between Auburn and San Jose will be available 7 days a week. That means that as COVID restrictions diminish, those leisure trips between Placer County and the San Francisco Bay Area for sightseeing, baseball games, shopping, or family get togethers are all easy to plan. From a commuter perspective, this change dovetails with post pandemic work patterns where jobs and homes are more dispersed throughout the Northern California megaregion. We see more of those trips starting or ending in Placer County, and these changes are tailored to meet that increased service demand.
The new schedule also helps travelers with luggage and/or bikes by increasing the amount of time between the train arrival and departure at busier stations during weekends. Sometimes referred to as a “pulse schedule,” this will adjust departure times so that they are more consistent and predictable including a better distribution of trips throughout the day with smaller gaps between morning and midday trains. Even better, one of the morning trains has been moved to midday to handle increased demand, which means riders will find the seats they want at the times that work best for them
Another benefit of the new schedule is to provide better connections with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to connect with even more destinations across Northern California. Riders will now have more time between trains at the Richmond station, which is shared with BART, in turn allowing riders more time to walk across the platform to make connections between the two services. The schedule also includes the return of a sixth round-trip train between San Jose and Oakland, adding another travel option between the two cities.
This schedule is another step toward resuming the Capitol Corridor service’s pre-COVID operations of 15 round trips on weekdays and 11 round trips on weekends, which is set to resume safely in 2022. The new schedule can be viewed at http://www.capitolcorridor.org/schedules