Rail – Amtrak’s Coast Starlight to detour via the Tehachapis!

Warning!

This will probably only be of interest to the died-in-the-wool train fan(atic). But then maybe I’ll be surprised by all of the “civilians” that will jump on the chance at this opportunity for a rare train ride . Comment back to me if you think you might go for the ride I’m about to tell you about. Or to tell me that you think someone would be slightly off (or downright deranged) to even contemplate this joyride.

Here goes.

I’ve just been informed that Amtrak will reroute the Coast Starlight (Los Angeles-Seattle, train # 14; Seattle-Los Angeles, train # 11) via the Tehachapi Pass route in late October.

For those of you who haven’t clicked the “back” button yet, a little history is in order. Of course, if you’re still reading then most likely you already know the history and will correct me if I get anything wrong!

Up until 30 April 1971, the Southern Pacific operated a daily passenger train via the San Joaquin Valley called the San Joaquin Daylight. It was a day train that operated between Oakland (San Francisco) and Los Angeles making stops in Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield and other cities. From Bakersfield to L.A. it went east over the rugged Tehachapi Pass up to the Mojave Desert where it turned south (running roughly along California Hwy. 14) to enter the San Fermando Valley stopping in Glendale and terminating at Union Station in downtown L.A.

On Amtrak Day (1 May 1971) when Amtrak took over nearly all of the long-distance passenger trains from the railroads, the San Joaquin Daylight became history, along with the spectacular ride over the Tehachapis.

Once in 1974 due to a freight train derailment on its regular route the Coast Starlight went over the Tehachapis. And again once on June 22nd this year it traversed this route due to maintenance on the Coast line. Here are photos a railfan took on the June detour.

Now Amtrak has quietly announced that due to work on tunnels around San Luis Obispo the train will again detour three times in October, specifically on the 24th, 26th and 29th (same dates for both north and southbound trains).

If that notice is too short for you Amtrak says that five more detours like this are in the works for November but the dates are not yet public. When I hear about the November dates I’ll post them in the blog.

Northbound the train will leave L.A. at its normal time of 10:15 a.m. but is likely to arrive early in Sacramento around 9:30 p.m. due to the shorter distance via the San Joaquin Valley. Southbound the trains will leave Sacramento at 6:35 a.m. (regular departure time) but are scheduled to arrive much earlier than usual in L.A. at 6:15 p.m.

Neither the southbound train nor the northbound train will make any passenger stops between L.A. and Sacramento since it will not operate along its normal route.

Railfans take note: an extra added bonus is that the train will not be running on the BNSF (Santa Fe) tracks between Bakersfield and Stockton but rather on the UPRR (Southern Pacific) which hasn’t seen passenger service since 1971.

I didn’t plan it this way but it looks like I will be on the northbound train on 29 October. For many months I’d planned a trip from Santa Barbara to Portland for the purpose of experiencing the relaunched sleeping car service on the Coast Starlight. Long ago I had booked the train leaving Santa Barbara on the 29th. I had a meticulously planned trip including a one-way car rental to Santa Barbara, Priceline bargain hotel in Portland and flights on United back to Chico. Guess I’ll have to rework the beginning of the trip so that it starts in L.A. instead of Santa Barbara but since I’ve never been over the Tehachapis on the train it’ll be worth it.

I love the trip north of Santa Barbara along the coast to San Luis Obispo and then up the Salinas Valley but I’ve done it many times. Since I’d probably spend the money for a separate ride over the Tehachapis on one of the November detours I’ll just consider the unplanned detour on the 29th through the Tehachapis a serendipitous cost-saving measure. How’s that for a great rationalization?