Re: Trainmasters on the Los Gatos Branch?
Author: Jim
Date: 02-05-2010 - 14:44
Yeah, someone showed me that too a few years ago. I swore that the Los Gatos was never anything by #132 but he proved me wrong by showing me a timetable in which the Los Gatos train was #130.
For a short time in the early 1950s, the Los Gatos train was #130. It actually did make its first stop at California Ave. (not Menlo Park as the Los Gatos train's first stop usually was) and went directly over the branch. Then of course, 130 became the 5:14 non-stop to California Ave, continuing to San Jose. 132 was again the Los Gatos train leaving at 5:17 non-stop to Menlo Park.
After the Los Altos portion of the branch was abandoned in January 1964, the 5:17 Menlo Park first-stop (and the northbound #129) was simply rerouted to San Jose on the mainline. That only lasted for part of the year. Later in 1964, the SP discontinued three rush-hour trains. They reduced the every-three-minute departures from 7 to 5 trains and eliminated the Menlo Park and Millbrae first-stop trains. 132 at 5:17 then made it's first-stop at Redwood City which it did until the late 1980s when Caltrain totally changed the old SP schedule. (The former northbound Los Gatos train, now coming from San Jose, was renumbered from 129 to 131 during the schedule reduction in late-1964 but it's schedule remained basically unchanged until Caltrain, except for adding Paul Avenue as a stop sometime in the mid-1960s).