Thank you all very much for the insight! Glad to know that the train does come reasonably often -- I have been burned by SF public transit too many times to quite trust the website, so I appreciate folks' firsthand knowledge. The extended dwell time does sound extremely aggravating, though

For this particular trip, I think LTP is still the best option for us. We will just leave some extra time to find a spot and get to the gates. We are carry-on only and have PreCheck, so hopefully even if there is some sort of unexpected delay, we will still have plenty of time.