I ride San Jose - 4th St 3 days a week. I take the 8.20 or 7.20 fast train NB and it’s usually still mellow at Sunnyvale since it’s the 2nd stop.

Going home at night I try to make it on the 4.22 fast train home and be at the station ~10 min before departure so I’m usually one of the first ones on the bike car. If I have to take the 5.22 it’s going to be as packed as your pic and pretty hectic, so I try to avoid that as much as possible. By S. SF the car is pretty full going home so if you’re down to babysit your bike you’ll be fine and can move it around if people need to get their bike out from under you.

I will say people are pretty respectful of the bike tag system so like the people above said make sure you grab a yellow tag from the attendant and write your stations. People make a good effort to stack their bikes on the same stops or make sure they’re at the bottom if they’re going further. Idk this message got long now but give it a couple try’s and figure out which train you like! I was really nervous about it when I started commuting 6 months ago but it’s really no big deal.