Gary Hunter Wrote:
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> I haven't taken the Starlight north from San Jose
> in many many years, but I have taken the Capitol
> Corridor several times. I believe the standard
> route for passenger traffic is to get off the
> Mulford onto the old Dumbarton, making a "right"
> east to service the Fremont depot, then making a
> "left" at Niles Junction and using the "Oakland
> Sub" (UP's name) to Oakland via Hayward. I think
> the ACE trains go straight (to and from
> Altamont)onto the old WP from Niles Jct. Just
> looked at Google maps and there seems to be a
> single diamond in the Niles Jct. array, but not
> for the "left" onto the Oaland Sub. from Dumbarton
> (San Jose). Guess I'll go listen to the scanner.

In fact, I haven;t listened to the scanner for about 10 years but back when I was listening to it DS 58 had a choice of running #14 and #11 up either the coast or Mulford--the engineers preferred Mulford because it was faster (that's what Tommy the ROcket DeLaROsa said) but the DS made his decisions based on the traffic at the time. Now that the coast traffic is pretty much nothing and he only has to worry about ACE, Starlates and Capitols, maybe the Mulford isn't an issue any more.
C.