jccollins said:
I agree that the schedules should have been "split up" a little more. The only benefit of the buses is that they take just about 6 hours to make the trip (from Santa Barbara to San Jose) and they are likely to arrive early, wheras the Starlight takes 8 1/2 hours to make the trip and it is likely to arrive late. A better option for the bus scheduling might have been an overnight bus that would have met train 785 at Santa Barbara and arrived in San Jose by morning in time to connect with the morning Capitol trains. This is a hard decision.
If I was to schedule a second train (Coast Daylight) between Los Angeles and San Jose/San Francisco, I would actually run it welve hours after the Starlight runs to offer the passengers the most flexibility. Granted, this would mean that it would actually be an overnight train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, but it would have its benefits. It would be nice to be able to hop onto the train and go to sleep (in a sleeping car) and wake up in Los Angeles the next day refreshed and ready to go. What would be even nicer would be if it was an auto train (at San Francisco and Los Angeles only, of course) but still made all the passenger only stops en route, so that people could take their cars with them between these two big cities, something that a lot of people already do without the train...
jccollins,
I agree totally with you, a schedule running 12 hours after (or before!) the current train schedule would be the best alternative, to give passengers a true "flip" schedule. The name Coast Daylight is deceiving, because in essence the existing Coast Starlight does run almost totally in daylight between the Los Angeles and S.F. Bay Areas. The "starlight" portion of the trip on Trains
11 &
14 is between the Bay Area and Oregon, which is served overnight in both directions. An overnight schedule for the portion of the route between Los Angeles and the Bay Area would be perfect.
In fact, not many folks here might remember, but there once was overnight service in this market in Amtrak's days. There was a train called the Spirit of California, which I believe was started up under the 403b plan by the state. It ran between Sacramento and Los Angeles, following the coastal route just like the Coast Starlight did, and still does. It was Train
15 southbound, and Train
18 northbound. I don't remember who the players were, but politics got that train started, and politics also killed it when a new Governor took office in Sacramento. The train was doing well when it was cancelled.
Back to the Thruway bus issue, so it's agreed that an overnight schedule would be best, although that might leave out the intermediate points who get the bus through at 2 or 3 AM. And, while we don't mind sleeping on trains, there are people who won't take a bus overnight because the bumpy ride is just not conducive to getting a night's sleep.
Regarding a western Auto Train...I agree this would make perfect sense, even if such a service were piggybacked on the back of a regular overnight passenger train making intermediate stops. But remember what the current Auto Train has -- massive facilities in Lorton and Sanford for the loading and unloading of vehicles, as well as extra long tracks to accomodate a very long passenger section of the train. Would there be room for such a facility in the Los Angeles or San Francisco areas? Probably not. Definitely not at Los Angeles Union Station or what is currently the CalTrain terminal in San Francisco, where a new intercity train most likely would go. This might work if you put these facilities outside of town, say in the San Fernando Valley alongside US 101 or I-5, and perhaps near I-880 or I-680 in the East Bay between Oakland and San Jose.
Truth is, though, what has been considered for an Auto Train West would take in the entire Coast Starlight route, running between Seattle and Los Angeles. This would unfortunately totally bypass anything in the Bay Area.
