Thruway Bus and Coast Starlight for Bay Area

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rms492

Service Attendant
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
214
Question: I will be boarding Thruway Bus at San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf to connect to the southbound Coast Starlight at Oakland.

Let’s say the Coast Starlight is running six hours late.

Do I still have to board the Thruway Bus at the regularly scheduled time?

In other words, I would rather wait in my hotel (or continue touring San Francisco) those six hours than to have the Thruway Bus dump me off at the Oakland Station and then wait the six hours until the Coast Starlight arrives.

Or, can I take any later Thruway Bus to Oakland? (even though my ticket has a specific time for the Thruway Bus).
 
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I'm not sure what the buses do, but I'm betting the dedicated CS bus will go at its scheduled time. However, if you want to stay in your hotel room, there are many buses going over the bridge to connect to the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin trains, so you can probably just catch one of those. Just watch the times very closely for the buses and the status of the Coast Starlight. By the time it leaves Sacramento, I'd think about starting to get the next bus to Oakland. Or even take BART to Richmond.
 
CalTrain to San Jose is my trick. I was out in California in April (was only taking the train to Paso Robles, knew there were thruway buses as back-ups) so I decided to risk it, having good luck and good timing. I first wondered over to the ferry building to get my ticket printed from a very confused agent at about 8:30am that morning (she was convinced I'd miss the train) and started walking towards the Caltrain station. Realized I was cutting things a little closer than I'd like (and that a final MUNI Metro Ride would be free because of the balance of my Translink Card since you can go into debt on Caltrain, I'll just never use that card again) so I hopped on the N Muni Metro to the station.

At 8:59 - I am sitting comfortably on a Baby Bullet Express CalTrain, we get to San Jose on time at 9:58am and I see that Coast Starlight is sitting in the station waiting for me. I calmly walk down to the underpass and over to the train to board in time for our on time departure of 10:07am.

The previous CalTrain to cut it less close leaves at 8:19 (arriving at 9:28) which still gives you a bit more time than the 7:45 thruway departure (from the ferry building) if the CalTrain station is convenient to your hotel.
 
I'm not sure about the Thruway buses to the train, what they do for a late train. I do know about the other way, if a train arrives late that the Thruway bus will leave late the same amount of time that the train is late!
 
For a late train the busses leave at the normal time. You spend the rest of the time at the station in EMY.
 
For a late train the busses leave at the normal time. You spend the rest of the time at the station in EMY.
Connection to the southbound Coast Starlight is at OKJ.
Only the buses servicing the Coast Starlight go to/from Oakland from/to the City. So, there is no later bus to catch. It is possible to catch one of the buses connecting with Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins trains at Emeryville, but you won't have a seat from EMY to OKJ.

Depending on what your trip is, Amtrak may want to reaccommodate you on one of the corridor trains.
 
Not to bump too old of a topic but does anyone have a list of where the EMY-SFC thruway buses can drop you off? There doesn't seem to be any info on amtrak.com on it.
 
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