Okay, so this trip started off as some business and a chance to relax and vacation on the way there. There being Pasco Washington, site of this years out-of-control Radcon! (named for the nuclear reactor in nearby Richland, WA.)
Travel time was short for this trip so a return on Amtrak wasn't possible, and as you'll see we cut corners where we could.
My traveling companion and I have done the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles a few times already. We've seen the coast, we've been jostled around on the coast line tracks that are finally getting some much-needed maintenance from UP. And we've spent the day on the train getting from Los Angeles to the bay area.
So we decided to skip that part of the trip this time. Also since we were flying back into Burbank Airport, the Burbank Airport Train Station (BUR) made a lot of sense as a starting point.
We arrived about 20 minutes before the scheduled Bakersfield Bus connection to San Joaquin train 703 at Burbank Station around 3pm. That way we both got a good half day or more of work done that would otherwise be taken up if we had been on the Coast Starlight that morning.
We watched a Metrolink 5 car train with an F59PHI come through right behind us before the bus was officially late. It ended up being only 5 minutes or so late, but in the chilly wind that is so uncommon to Southern California the bus was a sign for sore eyes!
Off we go on the first leg of our trip on a bus! My first time on an Ambus, so we sat in the front. Only five other people rode this bus to Bakersfield, two from LAX, us, and one other we picked up at the train station in Newhell.
The bus driver deftly avoided afternoon rush hour traffic better than I could and soon we were in the open country north of Los Angeles. It wasn't long before snow started to creep up along the sides of The Five (Interstate 5 for those not familiar with our penchant for giving freeways personality.)
This is the first time I'd seen or gone through snow in the Tejon Pass region and it lingered through to the grapevine before disappearing as we descended into Bakersfield as the day changed to twilight.
We pulled into BFD about an hour before departure. This gave me a chance to snap a photo of the train as the sun was setting and we had some vending machine snacks. The train was powered by an F59PHI and had five coaches. The last cab car was closed off.
When the boarding call came, we headed on over where people with no sense of temperature had been waiting around in 30 degree weather for them to open up the cars. The conductor was a cheerful plump fellow. He seemed to enjoy telling us and others his rules about not using laptops on the train unless we were using it for space invaders.
We got underway on time and enjoyed watching the wifi signals pop in and out on our computers before switching over to local apps. The train was pretty light tonight and people were stretched out at tables. We headed to the lounge/cafe car. This is a strange car imho. The conductors hung out downstairs, and upstairs has the cafe and tables and booths that seemed to be the inspiration for the CCC. Decorative lights and fake plants add a strange ambiance to the car. The seats didn't look terribly comfortable and the lighting on these trains is waay too bright imho, but yet there was something that made you want to hang out in this car like a lounge, it's obvious intended purpose, but no one did. It was empty except for snack purchases the entire trip!
The lady at the cafe counter was nice and efficient. I asked the conduction "Hot dog, pizza, or pizza?" He said to go for the burger which was pretty good for a nuked burger. And I mean NUKED. They nuke the heck out of these things because they did the same thing on the Empire Builder. The nuke it so much the bun gets wrinkled and the whole things has a bit of a rubbery texture. Taste was fine and it did the job, but seems like if they are running some trains with convention ovens it might be possible to reheat them that way for a better overall presentation.
Later on headed back for another drink and cookie. The cookie wasn't very good.
We got held up outside of Fresno for another train and was ready to start complaining about BNSF until a southbound Amtrak rolled by. Time was made up into Stockton where we stopped at a new depot that is apparently very short because only the first car was detrained. Why not just use the ACE station?
Lights of Sacramento were nice to see as we pulled in on the east side of the city and jogged west into SAC more or less on time.
We went into the station as directed, briefly tried and failed to get on wifi before hearing a very MUFFLED and impossible to understand message over the PA about the Coast Starlight, something about, "garble inbound Coast Starlight... garble... baggage... garble ... passengers... garble". So of course everyone heads out to the track.
We knew better, but being in a nearly empty station with a train to catch made us antsy so we went out with the other idiots to wait in the 33 degree temperature and it had started to rain.
The trains arrival time came and went. After about 10 minutes headlights approached. Ahah! Finally!
We had moved up the platform to where I anticipated sleepers would stop and about the time the train reached the coach passengers it let out a very loud and un-Amtrak sounding horn! Was a very long and very fast moving freight! Hadn't been right next to a freight on a platform moving by that fast before and it definitely added to the wind chill factor! lol
More headlights a few minutes later, turns out it was just our 703 headed to the yard! By now we were all cursing the lousy PA in the station.
Eventually 14 did turn up.
Consist was two P42's back to back, baggage, 3 sleepers including the t-dorm, ppc, diner, lounge and three coaches.
The sleeper attendant was gruffly telling coach passengers where to go, assumed we were coach passengers because we're not older or otherwise look like we have income and promptly told us to go to the back of the train before we could convince him we were indeed sleeper passengers! Grrr!
Found our room, stowed bags and were much to wired to just hit the hay. We knew stuff would be closed, but decided to tour the non-revenue cars anyway. PPC was empty, diner was empty and people from coach had already staked out places to sleep on the floor of the SSL. I get that not everybody can sleep at 45 degrees, but seriously. That's why we got a room. Amtrak needs to enforce this because there is something really offputting about people sleeping in public areas when the train is only 3/4 full. I'd seen it before on a packed Coast Starlight years ago and I'm not going to never ride a train again because of it, but a lot of people would. Amtrak needs to address this imho.
Headed downstairs in the lounge where some (I assume railfans) were hanging out. Not much going on, so we headed back to the room. Before we got their our car attendant stopped us and asked in a somewhat "why are you out and about right now?" sort of way, "Did you find your room okay?" lol
I figured he had a hard day and it was late, so made up something and said goodnight.
That ends day one! Didn't take too many pictures, but I did get some interesting video. Will post that and day 2 next!
Overall - Amtrak 703 is really a great idea for those wishing to save time. The bus ride went by quickly and wasn't bad at all. Crew was good and friendly. Wished we could see something outside the brightly lit train this time of year, but all we saw was stations and crossings. Food was acceptable, even good for what it was. Coast Starlight delay was not too bad, but they really need to fix the PA in SAC!
Rob
Travel time was short for this trip so a return on Amtrak wasn't possible, and as you'll see we cut corners where we could.
My traveling companion and I have done the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles a few times already. We've seen the coast, we've been jostled around on the coast line tracks that are finally getting some much-needed maintenance from UP. And we've spent the day on the train getting from Los Angeles to the bay area.
So we decided to skip that part of the trip this time. Also since we were flying back into Burbank Airport, the Burbank Airport Train Station (BUR) made a lot of sense as a starting point.
We arrived about 20 minutes before the scheduled Bakersfield Bus connection to San Joaquin train 703 at Burbank Station around 3pm. That way we both got a good half day or more of work done that would otherwise be taken up if we had been on the Coast Starlight that morning.
We watched a Metrolink 5 car train with an F59PHI come through right behind us before the bus was officially late. It ended up being only 5 minutes or so late, but in the chilly wind that is so uncommon to Southern California the bus was a sign for sore eyes!
Off we go on the first leg of our trip on a bus! My first time on an Ambus, so we sat in the front. Only five other people rode this bus to Bakersfield, two from LAX, us, and one other we picked up at the train station in Newhell.
The bus driver deftly avoided afternoon rush hour traffic better than I could and soon we were in the open country north of Los Angeles. It wasn't long before snow started to creep up along the sides of The Five (Interstate 5 for those not familiar with our penchant for giving freeways personality.)
This is the first time I'd seen or gone through snow in the Tejon Pass region and it lingered through to the grapevine before disappearing as we descended into Bakersfield as the day changed to twilight.
We pulled into BFD about an hour before departure. This gave me a chance to snap a photo of the train as the sun was setting and we had some vending machine snacks. The train was powered by an F59PHI and had five coaches. The last cab car was closed off.
When the boarding call came, we headed on over where people with no sense of temperature had been waiting around in 30 degree weather for them to open up the cars. The conductor was a cheerful plump fellow. He seemed to enjoy telling us and others his rules about not using laptops on the train unless we were using it for space invaders.
We got underway on time and enjoyed watching the wifi signals pop in and out on our computers before switching over to local apps. The train was pretty light tonight and people were stretched out at tables. We headed to the lounge/cafe car. This is a strange car imho. The conductors hung out downstairs, and upstairs has the cafe and tables and booths that seemed to be the inspiration for the CCC. Decorative lights and fake plants add a strange ambiance to the car. The seats didn't look terribly comfortable and the lighting on these trains is waay too bright imho, but yet there was something that made you want to hang out in this car like a lounge, it's obvious intended purpose, but no one did. It was empty except for snack purchases the entire trip!
The lady at the cafe counter was nice and efficient. I asked the conduction "Hot dog, pizza, or pizza?" He said to go for the burger which was pretty good for a nuked burger. And I mean NUKED. They nuke the heck out of these things because they did the same thing on the Empire Builder. The nuke it so much the bun gets wrinkled and the whole things has a bit of a rubbery texture. Taste was fine and it did the job, but seems like if they are running some trains with convention ovens it might be possible to reheat them that way for a better overall presentation.
Later on headed back for another drink and cookie. The cookie wasn't very good.
We got held up outside of Fresno for another train and was ready to start complaining about BNSF until a southbound Amtrak rolled by. Time was made up into Stockton where we stopped at a new depot that is apparently very short because only the first car was detrained. Why not just use the ACE station?
Lights of Sacramento were nice to see as we pulled in on the east side of the city and jogged west into SAC more or less on time.
We went into the station as directed, briefly tried and failed to get on wifi before hearing a very MUFFLED and impossible to understand message over the PA about the Coast Starlight, something about, "garble inbound Coast Starlight... garble... baggage... garble ... passengers... garble". So of course everyone heads out to the track.
We knew better, but being in a nearly empty station with a train to catch made us antsy so we went out with the other idiots to wait in the 33 degree temperature and it had started to rain.
The trains arrival time came and went. After about 10 minutes headlights approached. Ahah! Finally!
We had moved up the platform to where I anticipated sleepers would stop and about the time the train reached the coach passengers it let out a very loud and un-Amtrak sounding horn! Was a very long and very fast moving freight! Hadn't been right next to a freight on a platform moving by that fast before and it definitely added to the wind chill factor! lol
More headlights a few minutes later, turns out it was just our 703 headed to the yard! By now we were all cursing the lousy PA in the station.
Eventually 14 did turn up.
Consist was two P42's back to back, baggage, 3 sleepers including the t-dorm, ppc, diner, lounge and three coaches.
The sleeper attendant was gruffly telling coach passengers where to go, assumed we were coach passengers because we're not older or otherwise look like we have income and promptly told us to go to the back of the train before we could convince him we were indeed sleeper passengers! Grrr!
Found our room, stowed bags and were much to wired to just hit the hay. We knew stuff would be closed, but decided to tour the non-revenue cars anyway. PPC was empty, diner was empty and people from coach had already staked out places to sleep on the floor of the SSL. I get that not everybody can sleep at 45 degrees, but seriously. That's why we got a room. Amtrak needs to enforce this because there is something really offputting about people sleeping in public areas when the train is only 3/4 full. I'd seen it before on a packed Coast Starlight years ago and I'm not going to never ride a train again because of it, but a lot of people would. Amtrak needs to address this imho.
Headed downstairs in the lounge where some (I assume railfans) were hanging out. Not much going on, so we headed back to the room. Before we got their our car attendant stopped us and asked in a somewhat "why are you out and about right now?" sort of way, "Did you find your room okay?" lol
I figured he had a hard day and it was late, so made up something and said goodnight.
That ends day one! Didn't take too many pictures, but I did get some interesting video. Will post that and day 2 next!
Overall - Amtrak 703 is really a great idea for those wishing to save time. The bus ride went by quickly and wasn't bad at all. Crew was good and friendly. Wished we could see something outside the brightly lit train this time of year, but all we saw was stations and crossings. Food was acceptable, even good for what it was. Coast Starlight delay was not too bad, but they really need to fix the PA in SAC!
Rob
