Question about San Fran-CZ

[Gabbytony]

If I was going to fly from Las Vegas to Catch the CZ, where is the best place to fly into so as to not have to do a lot of ground transferring?

 

[Bob Dylan]

If I was going to fly from Las Vegas to Catch the CZ, where is the best place to fly into so as to not have to do a lot of ground transferring?

Flying in to SFO (San Francisco International) will allow you to ride BART to get across the Bay, you could also fly into Oakland, I'm not sure of the schedules/ways to get to Emeryville from there but shouldnt be hard,(taxi/train/BART) it's not that far from Oakland Airport to Emeryville (North Oakland Basically!)You could catch the Train in Emeryville or Richmond or even go to Sacramento to catch it! Have to be an Early flight if such exists from Vegas to catch a 9AM CZ!!? You might want to spend the night in the Bay Area!

 

[The Journalist]

There's a lot of variables there. How many people would be traveling, and do you plan on checking luggage on the train?

If you plan to check luggage on the train, and you have more than two people: Fly into Oakland, and take a taxi to the Emeryville train station. Make sure they know to go to Emeryville otherwise you'll probably end up at Jack London Square.

If you don't plan on checking luggage: Fly into either Oakland or SFO and take the BART to either Embarcadaro to get the Ambus across the Bay Bridge, or to Richmond (quite a long trip-just over an hour-from SFO, transfer at MacArthur.) and get the CZ there. The Oakland BART stop requires a shuttle bus from the terminal, but no transfer on the trains themselves; you want the Richmond/Fremont line towards Richmond.

If you do want to check luggage, and you're by yourself, you can do the taxi from Oakland airport-but that'll be pricy for one person. I'd fly into SFO and take BART to Embarcadero and get the bus across the bridge-this is two transfers, but there's no easy way to get to the Emeryville station on BART.

Yet another option is to fly into Oakland, get a Capitol Corridor train (it stops at the same place BART does) to Martinez, Davis, or Sacramento, and transfer to the CZ at one of those places.

In all of these cases, note that the CZ leaves Emeryville at 9:10 AM and Richmond and 9:22 AM-you'll need an early flight to pull any of these off same-day-and I don't know if there'd be any flights into SFO or Oakland from Vegas that early. Consider spending a night in San Francisco-or South San Francisco, where SFO is and there's much better room rates.

 

[calwatch]

Capitol Corridor also stops at Emeryville. There is also a free shuttle from the San Jose Airport to the Santa Clara Amtrak station where you can pick up CC there. You can through ticket on the CC and board any train since the CC is unreserved boarding.

 

[Trogdor]

Capitol Corridor also stops at Emeryville. There is also a free shuttle from the San Jose Airport to the Santa Clara Amtrak station where you can pick up CC there. You can through ticket on the CC and board any train since the CC is unreserved boarding.

Is there such a shuttle? The San Jose Airport website says there is no shuttle between the airport and Amtrak.

There is service between the airport and the Santa Clara Caltrain station, but that is nowhere near the Amtrak station. At some point in the relatively near future, there will likely be Amtrak service to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, but not this summer (assuming the OP wants to travel this summer).

 

[calwatch]

Capitol Corridor also stops at Emeryville. There is also a free shuttle from the San Jose Airport to the Santa Clara Amtrak station where you can pick up CC there. You can through ticket on the CC and board any train since the CC is unreserved boarding.

Is there such a shuttle? The San Jose Airport website says there is no shuttle between the airport and Amtrak.

There is service between the airport and the Santa Clara Caltrain station, but that is nowhere near the Amtrak station. At some point in the relatively near future, there will likely be Amtrak service to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, but not this summer (assuming the OP wants to travel this summer).

For some reason I got the Santa Clara Caltrain station and the Great America station, where Amtrak does stop, confused. Looks like service will start to Santa Clara (the one with the airport shuttle) this fall, but not yet. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Ben_G]

Fly to Reno..... free shuttle from airport to Casino hotels downtown....then walk to Amtrak station a couple blocks away.

 

[PRR 60]

If I was going to fly from Las Vegas to Catch the CZ, where is the best place to fly into so as to not have to do a lot of ground transferring?

Are you planning to fly in the morning the train leaves? If so, that could be a problem.

The CZ departs Emeryville at 9:10am, so any morning flight arrival from LAS is going to be a pretty tight connection to catch the CZ. There are no flight's from LAS into OAK that get in before the CZ's departure. There is a flight from LAS that gets to SFO at 7:14am, but getting from SFO to Emeryville for a 9:10am departure by any means would require everything to work just right. It might require a cab, and a cab from SFO to Emeryville is going to cost a bundle. I'm not sure I would chance flying in that morning.

Coming in the night before opens lots of options. You could fly into SFO, stay anywhere downtown, near BART, or even at the airport. Then in the morning make your way on foot (if downtown) or by BART (if at the airport) to one of the Amtrak bus stops in San Francisco for the Thruway transfer to Emeryville. You could also fly into OAK, and take a cab to a hotel at Emeryville for the night. Then in the morning just walk to the train. Flying to OAK and staying at Emeryville seems like the least hassle.

 

[Bruce-C]

If I was going to fly from Las Vegas to Catch the CZ, where is the best place to fly into so as to not have to do a lot of ground transferring?

As PPR60 stated in his post, I would be looking more at the time of arrival on my flight from Vegas as a guide to where I'm going to meet the Zephyr.

Catching the Zephyr in Sacramento would probably give you the biggest time cushion and still ride the train through the Sierras!

 

[sechs]

I'd suggest arriving the day before catching the train. There's not much that you can do if there's some kind of problem with your flight and you miss the train.

 

[calwatch]

I think getting to Richmond by 9:00 off a 7:14 am flight is reasonable, given the fact that the BART goes straight to the airport and that BART and the CZ connect within feet of each other.

 

[LA Resident]

I think getting to Richmond by 9:00 off a 7:14 am flight is reasonable, given the fact that the BART goes straight to the airport and that BART and the CZ connect within feet of each other.

The safest way would be to go the night before, as several have posted.

If your 7:14 a.m. flight arrived on time and you had no checked baggage, it would take you at least 10 minutes to get to the SFO Bart station--walking and then waiting for the airport rail shuttle.

You could catch a BART train from SFO as late as 7:54 a.m. and arrive at Richmond at 9 a.m., with a timed BART transfer at the Oakland 19th Street station. Of course, that's cutting it pretty close. BART leaves SFO weekdays every 15 minutes.

If you were flying in on a Saturday,, you would have to leave SFO by 7:47 a.m. to make Richmond in time. On Sunday/holidays, you would be out of luck as the system begins service about an hour later than M-Sat. The earliest BART arrival at Richmond leaving from SFO would be around 9:20 a.m., and you would probably be looking at the tail end of the CZ by the time you hustled up the escalator from the BART platform to the Amtrak level.