Getting to and Participating in the 8th Annual Amtrak Unlimited Gather

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Joined
Jun 13, 2008
Messages
3,249
Location
Central Jersey
Another October another trip to attend the Amtrak Unlimited Annual Gathering. For the 5th year in a row I found myself in transit toward what would certainly be an enjoy weekend. My flight to San Francisco was scheduled to leave at 10AM, so at 7AM I found myself driving to my favorite off airport parking lot. I was on the shuttle by 8AM and walking through the TSA checkpoint around 8:15. I was taking my first trip on Virgin America today, so I was looking forward to trying a new airline. I was in boarding group A so I quickly found my seat and settled in for the roughly 6 hour flight from Newark. Overall the flight was okay I sat next to a couple of Google Employees and it was interesting to hear their perspective on the corporate culture of Google from the inside. I dozed off for a little while and before I knew it we were starting on final approach into San Francisco.

I turned my phone on and saw that I had beaten Saxman (Chris) coming from LA. Luckily, his flight was coming in a couple gates away from where I had arrived. We had to hustle to make the connection to CalTrain otherwise our elaborately planned day would start to fall apart. We walked out of the terminal and boarded the AirTrain for a ride to the BART station. We then had to chase our tails a little bit to get to Millbrae we took BART one stop in the opposite direction to San Bruno then caught a red line train to Millbrae. We only had a couple minutes to spare, as we made it to the platform you could see our CalTrain’s headlight in the distance. I was in communication with Blackwolf who told us he was in the first car. After another text message it turned out we had sat directly behind him.

The CalTrain ride to San Jose passed quickly as Blackwolf provided a brief history of the route and the equipment we were riding on. While also explaining that that current route will eventually become part of the California High Speed Rail line between the Bay Area and Southern California. After about an hour we pulled into San Jose and headed into the station. I topped off my Clipper card for the rest of the weekend, and met up with CHamilton. That would be the last AU member joining us for our ride aboard Altamont Commuter Express.

I didn’t really have any expectations for the ride of ACE, so I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. I had looked at a map of the route a couple of days ago and wondered where exactly where this train went since there didn’t seem to be to many major towns around the route. The train however was basically at capacity in our car for the first hour of the trip. The trip end to end is 86 miles and it really went through some great wide-open spaces. I enjoyed the scenery as we bounced through what felt like endless rolling hills. At the Pleasanton stop the train emptied out for the most part. By the time we departed Lathrop we basically had the car to ourselves. Overall, I would recommend trying to make a trip down these tracks. I would say it has to be one of the more scenic rides on a commuter train in the United States.

When we arrived in Stockton we had to wait a few minutes for the Amtrak Thuruway bus to take us to the other station in Stockton. This allowed us a couple of minutes to take some photos of the equipment. I was getting ready to experience another first for me personally. It was my first bus thuruway connection. After a few minutes a newer unmarked white bust pulled up. The driver was friendly and assisted with loading some of the larger luggage including a bicycle under the bus. He also was equipped with an Amtrak ticket scanner so he was able to scan in all of our tickets and we were on our way through Stockton. The ride its self was only a few minutes, but I agreed with the advice from other AU members. It would have been quite an interesting walk in the fading daylight between those two stations. After a few minutes we pulled up to the other Stockton train station where we had roughly an hour to wait for our train back to the Bay area.

The layover passed quickly as the four of us talked about various railroad projects and chronic delays around the country. No one ventured further than the station waiting room. There were a coupe of vending machines that had some small snacks and cold drinks. With about 3 minutes until the train was scheduled to arrive we moved out to the platform. It was at this point we realized we were in for a nice surprise. Our train was running with the recently converted New Jersey Transit Comet cars. I couldn’t help but laugh I had left New Jersey almost 12 hours ago, and here were cars with the familiar stripes in their livery. Only Blackwolf had ridden on these cars previous.

The four of us climbed on board, and while I can’t speak for them I thought they did an excellent job converting these cars. They had your standard Amfleet 1 seats as well as a few sets of four seats with tables in between. We took our seats at one of the tables. It had been a few hours since our last access to real food service in the San Jose stations so we all made our way to the café car for a quick meal. The attendant was efficient, but had about as much personality as a wet carrot. We returned to our seats with our meals and had some more good conversation. I believe Blackwolf than left us at Martinez to make a connection back home to Sacramento. Then Charlie left us at Emeryville to make his way back to his hotel. Chris and I were slightly delayed as there were already two trains doing station work in Jack London Square including the Coast Starlight. They held our train until after the Starlight pulled out. After a few minutes we pulled into Oakland Jack London Square which would be the end of a very long day. Chris and I walked the couple of blocks to our hotel where we checked in, and I basically went straight to sleep. I had been traveling for roughly 18 hours from the point I left my house to my head hitting the pillow here in Oakland.

It was a all worth it though as I had a great time riding around California with new and familiar faces. I had 3 rides on 3 new transit agencies. My first ever ride on BART, my first Caltrain ride, and my first trip on ACE. Chris and I had planned to join the group around 7AM on a points run before the gathering got underway on Friday, but we ended up electing to sleep in.

We got up at around 8:30AM with plans to catch the 9:15 ferry into San Francisco. The ferry terminal was a short walk from the hotel, and there was a rather short line to board. There wasn’t to many people on board when we departed, but when we made a stop a few minutes later there was a line wrapping out into the parking lot including a large school group. They were quickly boarded and the ferry really filled up. It was a nice trip and we were soon pulling into our slip at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. We had some time to kill before the Pre-Gathering began, so I suggested we go to Boudins for some sourdough bread. This was really the only culinary thing on my wish list on this trip. I remember having some excellent sourdough bread here several years ago. It didn’t disappoint as I had a bacon egg and cheese on their sourdough.

We then walked from there to the first meeting point of the gathering. It was easy to spot some familiar faces and we were soon chatting with various AU members. We were given some ribbing about missing out on the points run in the morning. After standing chatting for a little while longer it was time to start the train riding.

The first ride was on MUNI’s J line. After a few subterranean stops we popped above ground for the duration of the ride. When we reached the end of the line there was a moment of confusion as we tried to determine how to catch the K line back into town. They were doing a lot of construction in the area, so we actually had to board behind the maintenance shops. Once we boarded the train actually ran right through the shops giving us a little bit of an impromptu shop tour if you will. The K line train continued to fill up until as we headed back to Embarcadero Station.

I walked with a group of AUers to the Embarcadero Center where I had lunch at a fusion restaurant called Curry and Crepes. At first it seems like an odd combination, but I guess the French have left some cultural influence in Southeast Asia. After lunch we made our way back to the BART station where would begin quite an afternoon covering almost every corner of the BART system. I used the time to start catching up on this report. I found the BART system to be quite nice it was clean and it felt very safe onboard. Chris used the time onboard to hatch up another points run.

The group stopped at Pleasantville for dinner where we all kind of split up in a shopping mall. Chris had figured out that if we took an earlier train we could take a Capitol Corridor train from the Oakland Coliseum station a couple miles down to Jack London Square. We booked the tickets standing on the platform waiting for the BART train it was going to be a pretty tight connection. While we were on the BART train we looked up how to do the transfer between the two stations, and we figured if we hustled we could make it. It ended up being an 7 minute connection between the two stations.

For the second time in two days I found myself rushing onto a platform with the trains headlight visible in the distance. The connection itself if pretty easy as there is an elevated walkway from the BART station that will drop you right down on to the Amtrak platform. We climbed aboard for our ever so brief journey through Oakland, which was actually a whole lot of firsts for me. It was my first time riding in California Cars, my first ride on the Capitol Corridor, and my first time using my smartphone as an e-ticket. We spent most of the ride walking through the cars looking for a conductor to make sure we got our tickets scanned. The conductor seemed a little surprised that we were so keen on getting our tickets scanned and actually thanked us. We took a seat for the last couple minutes of our trip, and were soon detraining at Oakland Jack London Square. We walked back to the hotel and made an effort to get in communication with SanDiegan who had some recommendations on good bars to visit in the Oakland area. After awhile he and North Shore were waiting for us in the hotel lobby. We had few brews and some good conversation. Sandiegan proved to be an excellent guide and took us to some interesting bars including a log cabin where the floor and the bar had quite an odd tilt to them. At some point we parted ways and Chris and I headed back to the hotel. Ending the first official day of the gathering which was in my opinion a success.
 
*chuckles* The California cars are pretty cool, huh? At least for the people that don't have to ride in them on a regular basis. :p
 
So great meeting you! I am still really jealous of that ACE run and really happy you pointed out the way we could do it! I like the Comet cars but they are more awkward then some of the other trains running.
 
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