I'm commuting to San Francisco these days 2-3 days a week for my "volunteering" activity. The tickets system works in the way that you cannot just buy several tickets for next trips, each one-time ticket you buy is only valid the same day. Once when I didn't now about that yet I was very happy to see an option in the machine "save money, buy several tickets". Luckily I only had money enough for 5 or 6 tickets tickets, that's why I lost only about 40 dollars....
Also caltrains sometimes get late. This week it happened to me twice. Once it was late for about 40 minutes and then they decided to combine two trains into one and make it one and not to insult anybody from any train they made it stop at every station.... Also at one of the stations, San Bruno it stopped for about 20 minutes due to some problems in the tonnel. Finally my trip took that time about 3.5 hours instead of normal 1.5-2 hours.
And yesterday happened something I couldn't even imagine. As I said already you can only buy single tickets for a day. And what I don't like in this system is that you can never forsee people traffic, especially at the Sunnyvale Caltrain station which only has 2 machines selling tickets. Sometimes there is nobody, sometimes you have a row of about 10 people like here:
But of course there is a solution for frequent travellers. It's clipper card. A plastic card which you "load" with money and then you don't have to stay this row. You only have to tag-in and tag-out with your card at the starting and final stations. Which means that you have to bring your card close to the special machine, those are much more frequent at the station. But you have to do this, you have to keep it in mind.
So, yesterday I was going back in the evening, completely tired and full of my thoughts. So I really don't believe if I tagged-in at San Francisco Caltrain Station. I think I did but I'm not completely sure. But San Francisco is a terminal station and it has it's advantages. One of them is that they check tickets at boarding. They open the gate to the lines and two employee are staying at the gate and checking the tickets of every single entering person. So they did with my card and never said anything was wrong. So I boarded and relaxed with the "To kill a mockingbird" which I've just started after finishing "Russen sind anders" (recommend it to everybody by the way who has something to do with Russians and wants to know more about our mentality. The book is written by a Swiss guy from somewhere near St Gallen who was making and still makes I believe business in Russia. He describes life of simple people as well as business environment starting from Soviet Union times to the after Perestroyka-times. For me it was very interesting to read since I recognised from one hand real life, mine and of my parents and read it from the view of a European). It was only 2 stations to mine. Next was Mountain View and then Sunnyvale. And before Mountain View came ticket control. The lady (I recognised her, she was the one of two who checked our tickets at SF, though not exactly the one who checked my ticket) checked my ticked and showed me a big red NO on the screen. I was confused. She explained that I didn't tag-in my ticket and normally would have to pay a 250 dollar fee. I was confused even more and told me that I believe I tagged in. She asked where I boarded and I said that in SF. She asked if my card was checked and I said that of course. She asked by whom, I answered that by her and her colleague, probably it helped me to make her a bit softer. And also, of course that I don't look like person who wants to cheat for the sake of 7 dollars I hope:) So, finally she proposed me to get off at Mountain view and tag in there and to make an "zone upgrade". Of course I have no idea how to do it and told her about it. She meant that I would have to go to the other machine to do it but when she understood that I won't be able to figure out fast enough how to do it and will lose the train than she told me at least just tag in in Mountain View. While we were approaching the station I tried to call my husband to come and pick me up from there since I didn't feel like going back to that train at all and Mountain View is just like 15 minutes from our home. But the lady was following me to the machine to tag in and even kept a train not to departure without me. But the story didn't end at that point! I tagged in, went back to the train, she checked my card with her machine and there was again NO! She said I don't have enough money on my account which I argued with the confidence since I just loaded it a couple of days ago and already used it after that so I had the opportunity to check that my 50 dollars had arrived to the account! Then she brought the machine to the card again and that time it was YES. I happily departed and in 5 minutes was at Sunnyvale where I tagged of but unfortunately didn't check the indication at the machine since I was already too much confused with the whole situation. And now I think that probably I did tag in in SF as well and what kind of transactions took place to my account now I have no idea.....
Also caltrains sometimes get late. This week it happened to me twice. Once it was late for about 40 minutes and then they decided to combine two trains into one and make it one and not to insult anybody from any train they made it stop at every station.... Also at one of the stations, San Bruno it stopped for about 20 minutes due to some problems in the tonnel. Finally my trip took that time about 3.5 hours instead of normal 1.5-2 hours.
And yesterday happened something I couldn't even imagine. As I said already you can only buy single tickets for a day. And what I don't like in this system is that you can never forsee people traffic, especially at the Sunnyvale Caltrain station which only has 2 machines selling tickets. Sometimes there is nobody, sometimes you have a row of about 10 people like here:
But of course there is a solution for frequent travellers. It's clipper card. A plastic card which you "load" with money and then you don't have to stay this row. You only have to tag-in and tag-out with your card at the starting and final stations. Which means that you have to bring your card close to the special machine, those are much more frequent at the station. But you have to do this, you have to keep it in mind.
So, yesterday I was going back in the evening, completely tired and full of my thoughts. So I really don't believe if I tagged-in at San Francisco Caltrain Station. I think I did but I'm not completely sure. But San Francisco is a terminal station and it has it's advantages. One of them is that they check tickets at boarding. They open the gate to the lines and two employee are staying at the gate and checking the tickets of every single entering person. So they did with my card and never said anything was wrong. So I boarded and relaxed with the "To kill a mockingbird" which I've just started after finishing "Russen sind anders" (recommend it to everybody by the way who has something to do with Russians and wants to know more about our mentality. The book is written by a Swiss guy from somewhere near St Gallen who was making and still makes I believe business in Russia. He describes life of simple people as well as business environment starting from Soviet Union times to the after Perestroyka-times. For me it was very interesting to read since I recognised from one hand real life, mine and of my parents and read it from the view of a European). It was only 2 stations to mine. Next was Mountain View and then Sunnyvale. And before Mountain View came ticket control. The lady (I recognised her, she was the one of two who checked our tickets at SF, though not exactly the one who checked my ticket) checked my ticked and showed me a big red NO on the screen. I was confused. She explained that I didn't tag-in my ticket and normally would have to pay a 250 dollar fee. I was confused even more and told me that I believe I tagged in. She asked where I boarded and I said that in SF. She asked if my card was checked and I said that of course. She asked by whom, I answered that by her and her colleague, probably it helped me to make her a bit softer. And also, of course that I don't look like person who wants to cheat for the sake of 7 dollars I hope:) So, finally she proposed me to get off at Mountain view and tag in there and to make an "zone upgrade". Of course I have no idea how to do it and told her about it. She meant that I would have to go to the other machine to do it but when she understood that I won't be able to figure out fast enough how to do it and will lose the train than she told me at least just tag in in Mountain View. While we were approaching the station I tried to call my husband to come and pick me up from there since I didn't feel like going back to that train at all and Mountain View is just like 15 minutes from our home. But the lady was following me to the machine to tag in and even kept a train not to departure without me. But the story didn't end at that point! I tagged in, went back to the train, she checked my card with her machine and there was again NO! She said I don't have enough money on my account which I argued with the confidence since I just loaded it a couple of days ago and already used it after that so I had the opportunity to check that my 50 dollars had arrived to the account! Then she brought the machine to the card again and that time it was YES. I happily departed and in 5 minutes was at Sunnyvale where I tagged of but unfortunately didn't check the indication at the machine since I was already too much confused with the whole situation. And now I think that probably I did tag in in SF as well and what kind of transactions took place to my account now I have no idea.....
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