TLDR: Do not trust this train station to get you to work or school. If you do, you'll be hours…read morelate, if you're able to show up at all.
I remember when this used to be a lightrail station. Lightrail trains would show up every thirty minutes, from before 6am until after 10pm.
These days, this is just a bus stop, where you can sometimes catch a train to the Sunrise lightrail station, if you're lucky. But, again, if you're expecting to get to work or school, I wouldn't count on it.
We've gotten to the point where it's actually rare to see a train come through, and bus bridges are hit or miss.
When we do have bus bridges, they virtually never leave at the same time that the train would have left. Instead, they operate on a schedule that is seemingly made up on the spot.
You should never expect to know ahead of time when you might reach your destination, as that's asking SacRT for WAY too much.
I tried to catch a train out of Folsom from this station on New Years Eve. I waited along with two other people for over half an hour before we heard a woman yelling, "Excuse me! There's no train coming!"
She wasn't even a SacRT employee. She was someone who lived in Folsom, who had tried to take the train home from downtown. All of the passengers had been kicked off at Hazel, being told that the tracks into Folsom were flooded.
When she got back to Folsom, and saw us waiting at the station, she felt bad for us, and decided to tell us.
I find it really interesting that, in all of that time, no one from SacRT managed to let us know that a train wouldn't be coming.
It's not just that they didn't set up a bus bridge-- they didn't even tell us that there weren't any buses or trains coming.
Not only were we not notified that we were waiting for nothing, but the station announcements kept going while we were waiting. The ones that say things like, "Make sure to take a seat or grab on before the train starts moving."
Why was this announcement system not used to let the people waiting at the station know that no buses or trains were coming? Instead, the way it was used made it seem like a train would be coming soon.
I've taken buses and trains in so many cities, and I've never been to another city that doesn't have real time train updates at the station.
Imagine if you went to the airport to pick up a friend, and their plane had been canceled three hours ago. But, rather than finding a sign that told you this in real time, all you could find was a sign that listed the times of the original plane schedules.
That would suck really bad, right? That's how SacRT is, but with trains instead of planes.
No one needs a sign that repeatedly flashes the times that the trains might have shown up, theoretically, if they ever showed up on time, when they literally never do.
Not only that, but we have atmospheric rivers every single year. Is SacRT's plan really to cancel every train to Folsom every time it rains?