Passenger Trains > Unusal CALTRAIN sight

This past Friday, while doing my LTL trucking route in Sunnyvale / Mt. View, CA, I crossed over the CALTRAIN mailine at LAWRENCE STATION.  Down below, I saw something I've never seen before, and wished I could have photographed it, or filmed it.

--an southbound train was departing on the northbound platform track, while next to it, a northbound express train was being held.  Note that there is NO platform for the express train at this top.  So, an southbound train had been run "wrong way" on the northbound main into the station, diverged onto the platform track, while a northbound express waited to use the main to head north towards Sunnyvale.

Very, very unusual to see such a movement on CALTRAIN.

During off-peak hours, it's pretty common for Caltrain to have one main track closed at certain locations for MOW, forcing both northbound and southbound trains to share the same track.  For the Lawrence station specifically, because there are no crossovers between Main 1 and Main 2 at both CP Hendy and CP Bowers, if any part of Main 2 between CP Mary (Sunnyvale) and CP De La Cruz (Santa Clara) is temporarily out-of-service, then southbound trains have to use the usual northbound track at Lawrence and Sunnyvale.  I've seen this happen a few times.

John

Where is the dispatcher for Caltrain located and who employs them? Thank you in advance.

San Jose across from the maintenance facility.  

I believe all Catrain engineers, conductors, and dispactors are employed by TransitAmerica Services, Inc. (TASI) a subsidiary of Herzog Transit Services, Inc.

TASI replaced Amtrak as the contract operator for Caltrain in 2012 (if memory serves)

This sort of thing is not unusual lately due to track closures for the catenary work.  Non rush hour trains are routinely run on the opposite track, using the "wrong" platforms, to allow the contractors easy access to the other track.  That you happened to catch a meet might be unusual, but the wrong way running is not and will continue until the catenary project finishes up.

bobs Wrote:
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> This sort of thing is not unusual lately due to
> track closures for the catenary work.  Non rush
> hour trains are routinely run on the opposite
> track, using the "wrong" platforms, to allow the
> contractors easy access to the other track.  That
> you happened to catch a meet might be unusual, but
> the wrong way running is not and will continue
> until the catenary project finishes up.

Single track ops happen all the time for routine maintenance and for vehicle/trespasser strikes too.
It's not that unusual.