Bob Cabral was tending to one of his almond orchards between Escalon and Manteca in 1994 when he shared his vision for San Joaquin County’s future.

It was a future that some of the constituents of the Board of Supervisor member representing Manteca, Ripon, and Escalon thought was a non-starter in car-crazed California where commuting an hour or more to work was considered normal.

As the mid-March sun warmed the orchard, Cabral leaned against the side of his pickup truck bed and gestured westward between a row of almond trees toward the Coastal Range.

He then referenced the commute over the Altamont, considered one of the worst in the nation and destined to get even worse as the years unfolded.

There’s a better way,” Cabral was quoted in a Manteca Bulletin – sister paper of The Times – article the next day.

That better way was ACE.

More precisely it was running a commuter train from the Bay Area’s de facto affordable housing solution known as the Northern San Joaquin Valley to San Jose at the heart of the job-rich Silicon Valley.

He was speaking in 1994 when Manteca had 43,000 residents, just under half of today’s 90,000 population.

San Jose at 790,000 residents, had 200,000 less people than it does today.

While issues such as commuting expense, traffic congestion, air quality, and more justified working toward launching a commuter train service, Cabral that day zeroed in on what it would mean for riders.

Projections estimated the time to travel by rail during peak commute hours back and forth to San Jose from a portion of Howard Shideler’s turkey ranch off of West Yosemite Avenue that had been purchased for the Lathrop-Manteca Station, was roughly the same as by car.

The big difference would be they would arrive at work — and back at home — not frazzled. The time commuting could be done relaxing, working or sleeping instead of gripping a steering wheel while playing the gas and brake pedals non-stop in a 90-minute plus one way commute.

That meant a more productive workforce and improved quality of life for commuting households.

Cabral clearly wasn’t the only one pushing for the Altamont Commuter Express that since has been rechristened the Altamont Corridor Express. But he was arguably the man that worked the hardest to keep the vision on track politically.

Cabral’s tenacity is one of the reasons why the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission on Jan. 24 was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first ACE train to depart for San Jose from the Stockton station named in honor of the 1955 Ripon High graduate.

When Cabral passed away in 2000 at age 60, ACE was running at its capacity at the time.

In a few years, ACE was creating economic opportunities not envisioned back in 1994 when Cabral detailed the commuter rail plan.

There were, of course, literally hundreds if not thousands, of Bay Area workers that had their monthly train tickets at least partially subsidized by employers eager to have workers arrive more refreshed as well as to lure others from the valley to augment a tight Silicon Valley labor market where job growth was surpassing housing growth, especially in the lower and middle market segments.

What wasn’t expected were non-tech firms like McDonald’s seeing ACE as an employment lifeline.

The fast food chain paid for monthly passes to fill hard-to-fill jobs in San Jose with a number of workers from Stockton.

One single mom shared how she was able to get a $10 an hour job — $3.75 more per hour than the minimum wage comparable employers were paying in Stockton — and secure enough hours to improve her lot.

Because her employer paid for her train pass, her commute expense back and forth to her job in San Jose was zero.

She shared how she used her train time to study for classes she was taking at Delta College.

It was growing clearer with each passing year that ACE was as much a conduit for improved economic conditions for families even if it was just saving for the operating as well as the wear and tear expense on cars as it was to ease congestion.

ACE, of course, has hit rough spots just like other commuter rail systems. The dot com meltdown impacted ridership as did the pandemic.

Even so, in its early years ACE quickly established itself as one of the best — if not the best — commuter rail services at the time for having the largest percentage of its operating costs recovered via the fare box.

“Our story is one that is filled with overcoming challenges,” noted SJRRC Executive Director Stacey Mortensen in a press release. “Whether dealing with early naysayers or the difficulty of starting something new, the SJRRC team and every iteration of our board of directors has strived to bring excellent passenger rail service to our passengers and communities for 25 years, and I can confidently say that we are accomplishing that mission.”

With SJRRC becoming the managing agency of the San Joaquin Joint Power Authority (SJJPA) which oversees the Amtrak San Joaquins, SJRRC and SJJPA have embarked on the ambitious $1.6B Valley Rail Program which will transform access and frequency of passenger rail transportation between the Central Valley, Sacramento, and Bay Area.

“As the current Chair, it is an honor to continue the tradition handed down from chair-to-chair – to lead an agency that is always pushing to improve the quality of life of our passengers and expand the service that we steward on behalf of our communities,” noted Ripon Mayor Leo Zuber, Chair of SJRRC.

As ACE enters its second 25 years of service, the following initiatives are on the horizon:

*The extension of ACE service to downtown Manteca in 2026 as well as to Sacramento, Modesto, and Ceres. It will shortly thereafter include a Ripon stop.

*That will include double tracking from Lathrop to Ceres with the first section from downtown Manteca to Lathrop timed for the start of downtown Manteca ACE service.

*The pursuit of the Altamont Corridor Vision pegged at $9.7 billion. The plan intends to increase the number of weekday round trips and achieve the goal of running ten weekday round trips, a transformation that would revolutionize commuter transportation in the region.

*ACE, in collaboration with the Tri-Valley-San Joaquin Valley Regional Rail Authority and Silicone Valley, will eventually seek funding for a shared tunnel under the Altamont to accelerate service and enhance reliability.

*By the early to mid-2030s, ACE trains will connect with high speed rail in Merced and go to San Jose as well as Sacramento where there are plans for connecting rail service to Chico.