Hi all, looking for some advice. I'm off to Las Vegas for a work thing (I know, the hardship). The event is on the night of the 28th of Feb and I fly back from San Francisco on the evening of the 2nd of March. That gives me two and a bit days of free time.
Originally I had planned to fly to San Francisco in the morning of the 29th and spend the couple of days exploring the city. But the idea has occurred that I could 'do' an Amtrak experience. Ideas at the moment are flying to Portland and getting the train down to San Francisco (leaving Portland on the 29th in the afternoon and arriving Oakland on the 1st in the morning). Or, alternatively flying to San Diego and getting the train to Los Angeles (then either fly, bus or train to San Francisco).
Has anyone done either route (or preferably both routes) and can provide comment on the scenery and experience?
The rail route from San Diego to LA is well worth doing, and fairly frequent by USA standards, so you should be able to find a convenient departure. The line follows the Pacific coast closely, at times next to the beach, and is highly scenic. San Diego has a local light rail system, which wasn't built when I was there, but sounds interesting from what I've read. The main places en route are La Jolla (upmarket), Oceanside (a US Marine base) and Del Mar (home of a famous racetrack). Nixon's "Western White House" was at San Clemente, near the line.
The route from LA to San Francisco is also interesting and takes most of the day. The scenery is largely rolling hills, covered in dry brown grass at the time I saw them. Santa Barbara is the most interesting place en route, but I don't know what the timetable is at present, so I don't know if you can break a journey without spending 24 hours there. LA Union Terminal was the last of the great US stations, completed just before the war, and is an interesting building in Spanish mission style, well worth seeing. You may recognise it from numerous old movies.
I took the
Coast Starlight from Salem, Oregon to Oakland (Jack London Square) in 1996, and was awed by the forests. On an earlier trip, from Seattle in the 1980s, I saw the aftermath of the eruption of Mount St Helens, when much of the landscape was still covered by volcanic ash, before the plant life had re-established. But some of this journey was of course at night.
I passed through Las Vegas on the
Desert Wind from LA to Salt Lake City once, and remember the sight of Las Vegas seen in the distance as the train descended the mountains, as a point of light in the darkness which gradually exploded into a rainbow of neon lights. There were gambling machines on the station platform, as I recall. I don't think this train runs any more, but I don't have a current Amtrak timetable, so I can't say for sure.
My 2 holidays on 30-day Amtrak passes were in 1981 and 1996, so I can't say what service on board is like now, but I understand it has been cut back. The dining cars used to be memorable, especially the breakfasts (French toast was a US railroad speciality). The double-deck Superliners are still very impressive, especially the observation cars (though these are not quite as good for a forward view as the old Rio Grande dome on the
Rio Grande Zephyr from Denver to Salt Lake City, which still hadn't joined Amtrak when I went on it). I went with a friend, on my second trip in 1996, and on several trains we shared a 2-berth sleeper. As I had won the 2 free return flights from Manchester to Newark NJ which made our trip possible, I exercised the prerogative of having the upper berth, which is quieter. When I went there in the 1980s, the San Diego route was operated by single-level day coaches, each of which carried a brakeman, one of whose jobs was to put the steps out at stations.
Try to find a book called
USA By Rail, by John Pitt, published by Bradt Publications. I have the 1992 edition, but there may be more recent ones.
