Re: SP 4449 assignments
Author: Jim
Date: 05-12-2009 - 20:37
Thanks. If you are asking if the Los Gatos Branch lasted longer, 132 and 129 ran to Vasona until January 1964 when the section through Los Altos, that is now the Foothill Expressway was abondoned. The spur from Vasona to downtown Los Gatos (where the Los Gatos Post Office is now) was abandoned in 1959. The trains just continued on from Vasona back to San Jose for those last years. So, the Los Gatos/Vasona commute trains lasted about 7 years into the diesel era. Of course, much of the branch survives today as the Permanente Branch.
Someone did once show me that the Los Gatos train was numbered 130 in the early 1950s. Schedules that I've seen before and after, for all but a short time, had it as 132. It always left at 5:17 as far as I know. That was part of the every 3 minute departure that ran non-stop to various penninsula stations. The 5:17 train ran non-stop to Menlo Park. It was the first departure until the early to mid-50s when they added the 5:14 non-stop to California Ave. that lasted into the Caltrain era (now they have the Baby Bullet expresses on a differet schedule pattern).
I can rattle off the rest of the every 3 minute depatures and first stops if anyone is interested. At the peak, there 8 of them: 5:14-5:35. There were 5 of them: 5:14-5:26 for along time from 1964 until Caltrain started tweaking the schedules in the 1980s or early 90s.