
California’s Real “Train to Nowhere” - cagey
https://www.city-journal.org/san-jose-train-to-nowhere
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cagey
The linked city-journal.org article says "... VTA will become a leader of a
different sort when it closes the Almaden branch of its system at the end of
this year". The preceding article passage links to a vta.org page which has
been removed, making determination of which line(s) have actually closed
difficult.

At first I thought this referred to the Light Rail line that runs down the
center of Hwy 85, but this is called the Santa Theresa (current and historical
maps show it in blue) line and according to vta.org it remains in operation.

What has closed is a 2.2 mile, 2-station branch line[1] from the
"Ohlone/Chynoweth" station (on the blue line) to the Almaden station, with one
intermediate station, Oakridge, also closing. This branch line is not shown on
any current VTA map that I can find (I have a previous map which shows this
short branch line). It has apparently been a candidate for closure multiple
times over the past decade, and was finally closed 2 days ago.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohlone/Chynoweth%E2%80%93Almad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohlone/Chynoweth%E2%80%93Almaden_\(VTA\))

edit: clarify magnitude of closed line

