Proto-Future and the Beginner's Guide to Model Railroading
Oct 23, 2026 · 30 min · 9 segments
Audio from the YouTube video series describing my journey to visit, ride, and bicycle every DMU system in the US. Video found at: https://www.youtube.com/@\G\IV…
Not only do you have BART, the Broad Gauge Great Society Metro, which I personally, from my own experience, think is very meh.
You also have Caltrain, which is a proper S-Bahn running from downtown San Francisco all the way to downtown San Jose, with then some select trains continuing onward to Gilroy.
But you also have the very large Muni light rail system running all throughout San Francisco itself, San Jose has a light rail system of its own, the much more bland and highly suburbanized VTA light rail.
There's the Altamont Corridor Express, which goes from San Jose all the way into Stockton and may actually be part of a future expansion of service, the Valley Link, I believe.
You have Amtrak's Capital Corridor, which runs from mostly Oakland to Sacramento and actually kind of provides some local connectivity of its own in the Berkeley area.
VinBart itself also has a weird little extension, which spoilers, we'll be talking about next time.
But what about the poor little North Bay, disconnected from all of this railroad-y glory? Well, for a long time, since at least 2008, they had been planning to build some sort of a local rail system.
Thankfully, they chose a vehicle that was literally anything other than that.
But what makes this corridor unique is that it actually used to be a fully-fledged railroad, the Northwestern Pacific.
Jointly owned by the Southern Pacific and I believe maybe the Western Pacific, it was a fairly simple couple hundred mile long regional line going from a ferry slip at the North Bay area all the way through some of the most incredible and remote scenery in the entire state all the way up to Eureka and Arcata on the Humboldt Bay.
And it has a very special place in the hearts of many railfans, especially in the area.
not only because of the absolutely incredible scenery, but because of a homey community feel and a lot of adorable small towns that the railroad served.
So thus we get Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART, which opened in August 2017 as the sixth DMU in the United States.
It's operated by an independent agency of the same name, and it runs for 77 kilometers to 14 stations, although soon to be 16, as you can see here.
It gets 1,330,000 riders a year, or approximately 3,700 a day.
It has 50 daily riders per kilometer, or about 260 per station, so these are actually very high stats overall.
What's notable is that the original plan actually mandated that it run all the way to Cloverdale for a length of 110 kilometers, but it was allowed to open in segments in order to get local rail service first without needing to wait for a full build-out.
One thing that's notable about SMART is that it is very highly intermodal.
About half of all departures are timed to a Golden Gate ferry departure from Larkspur Terminal into downtown San Francisco itself, the Embarcadero building, and it is also tightly integrated with a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian trail that parallels almost the entire length of the line.
An important part of the history of SMART is the phased construction and its regular expansion.
The original portion of the line was actually the centermost portion, running from San Rafael to Santa Rosa.
Only once this portion was built did they actually start extending southward from San Rafael to the Larkspur terminal for the ferry, and they are presently in the process of expanding northward.
Windsor Station is already open, Healdsburg Station is under construction, and eventually the system will reach Cloverdale Station.
Not only do you have BART, the Broad Gauge Great Society Metro, which I personally, from my own experience, think is very meh.
You also have Caltrain, which is a proper S-Bahn running from downtown San Francisco all the way to downtown San Jose, with then some select trains continuing onward to Gilroy.
But you also have the very large Muni light rail system running all throughout San Francisco itself, San Jose has a light rail system of its own, the much more bland and highly suburbanized VTA light rail.
There's the Altamont Corridor Express, which goes from San Jose all the way into Stockton and may actually be part of a future expansion of service, the Valley Link, I believe.
You have Amtrak's Capital Corridor, which runs from mostly Oakland to Sacramento and actually kind of provides some local connectivity of its own in the Berkeley area.
VinBart itself also has a weird little extension, which spoilers, we'll be talking about next time.
But what about the poor little North Bay, disconnected from all of this railroad-y glory? Well, for a long time, since at least 2008, they had been planning to build some sort of a local rail system.
Thankfully, they chose a vehicle that was literally anything other than that.
But what makes this corridor unique is that it actually used to be a fully-fledged railroad, the Northwestern Pacific.
Jointly owned by the Southern Pacific and I believe maybe the Western Pacific, it was a fairly simple couple hundred mile long regional line going from a ferry slip at the North Bay area all the way through some of the most incredible and remote scenery in the entire state all the way up to Eureka and Arcata on the Humboldt Bay.
And it has a very special place in the hearts of many railfans, especially in the area.
not only because of the absolutely incredible scenery, but because of a homey community feel and a lot of adorable small towns that the railroad served.
So thus we get Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART, which opened in August 2017 as the sixth DMU in the United States.
It's operated by an independent agency of the same name, and it runs for 77 kilometers to 14 stations, although soon to be 16, as you can see here.
It gets 1,330,000 riders a year, or approximately 3,700 a day.
It has 50 daily riders per kilometer, or about 260 per station, so these are actually very high stats overall.
What's notable is that the original plan actually mandated that it run all the way to Cloverdale for a length of 110 kilometers, but it was allowed to open in segments in order to get local rail service first without needing to wait for a full build-out.
One thing that's notable about SMART is that it is very highly intermodal.
About half of all departures are timed to a Golden Gate ferry departure from Larkspur Terminal into downtown San Francisco itself, the Embarcadero building, and it is also tightly integrated with a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian trail that parallels almost the entire length of the line.
An important part of the history of SMART is the phased construction and its regular expansion.
The original portion of the line was actually the centermost portion, running from San Rafael to Santa Rosa.
Only once this portion was built did they actually start extending southward from San Rafael to the Larkspur terminal for the ferry, and they are presently in the process of expanding northward.
Windsor Station is already open, Healdsburg Station is under construction, and eventually the system will reach Cloverdale Station.
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