Fullerton To San Diego, CA & Return On Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner Service

   After getting directions from my Aunt, I drove over to nearby Fullerton, CA where I would be picking up Amtrak Train #566 that would take me to San Diego for today. I parked the rental car at the station and noticed right away that there are now 4 passenger cars parked at the station that are privately owned. There are also 2 Cabeese (Plural for Caboose!) parked there as well. One is a former Southern Pacific Caboose with the other being former Santa Fe. It was just minutes after I had arrived there that Train #566, a Pacific Surfliner train arrived with F59PHI #450 on the lead. I boarded and took a seat in Coach #6411. The consist for Train #566 is located at the bottom of this page.
   I sat across from two women on their way to San Diego to spend the day. Two of the three of us had iPods and started an interesting discussion on those incredible little MP3 Players! I later sat with a railfan who was shooting lots of video of the route. We arrived in Irvine a little ahead of schedule and thus were permitted to step off the train and smoke. The ride was otherwise very uneventful the rest of the way to San Diego as I took slides of the ocean and scenic views. When I had met up with the aforementioned videographer, he told me it was “Fleet Week” in San Diego and that a few active ships from the U.S. Navy would be docked in San Diego and open to the public! I also found out that the USS Midway is docked permanently in San Diego and you can take a full tour of it. My only real itinerary for the day was to visit a few music stores in the area with the rest of the day being open so I figured I had to check out at least the USS Midway!
   After getting off the train in San Diego which arrived on time, I took slides of it while it was parked and blue-flagged (a blue flag is placed in front of a train that is being serviced, this is an FRA mandate and must be done if a train will be sitting on mainline track and having service done). As I said before, I really didn’t have any set plans as to what I was gonna do in San Diego outside of visiting some music stores so I decided to go take the tour of the USS Midway and what a tour it is!!! I stood on the flight deck of the ship and took lots of photos of the planes on display including the famous F-14 Tomcat that was made famous by the 1986 movie “Top Gun”. I, along with everyone else on the flight deck at that time also got to see aircraft carriers, including the USS Ronald Reagan as well as the USS Nimitz which was pulling into port. Both of these ships are based in San Diego. After spending a fair amount of time at the Midway, I decided to head over to the aforementioned music stores as the line to get on one of the active ships (There was a Guided Missile Destroyer and a Supply Ship docked there) was hours long and I really didn’t feel like waiting!
   I found out that the bus I took the last time I was here was rerouted and changed. I now had to ride the San Diego Trolley to the Old Town station to catch the bus that went up past Mission Beach to Garnet Ave where all the music stores I remembered were there. Thanks to some poorly placed signs at the Old Town station, I ended up waiting at the wrong stop for my bus, though I had a very interesting conversation with another passenger who was from Tijuana, we discussed mostly football! I eventually walked underneath the tracks to the other side where my bus would eventually pick me up. I would find out that the Dairy Queen I went to the last time I was here had closed. Also, much to my disappointment, several of the music stores I visited last time had also gone out of business as well, bummer! I guess this must be a sign of the times. I must be a part of a declining majority who still likes to buy music on CD! I don't download music (I may use iTunes if it's an emergency, but overall, I'm not a fan of the compressed audio sound quality, aka, I'm somewhat of an audiophile!) so visiting music stores for me is a lot of fun! I ate dinner at a Carl’s Jr. Restaurant, I wasn’t impressed, this is a chain we don’t have back home and the food though hot and fresh, wasn’t as good as say McDonald’s or Burger King! (I know many of you reading this from the West Coast will probably disagree with me on that but oh well!) I took the bus back to Old Town. The bus driver and I had a very interesting conversation about of all things, global warming! I then caught another trolley to Downtown San Diego and chatted with a few local residents who were on their way downtown for a concert. Upon my arrival downtown, my train home, #785 was waiting for me. I took photos of the train that would bring me back to Fullerton and quickly boarded Coach #6401. The consist for Train #785 is also listed at the bottom of this page.
   I sat behind a huge group of 2 families for the first part of the trip. The sun went down and thus there wasn’t much to see. Eventually, I headed to the Café Car and picked up a Diet Pepsi and hung out there all the way to Anaheim with some people who were there who were all a little “buzzed” but in a good, clean, non-belligerent way (unlike Mr. Personality who was kicked off the Empire Builder a few days back in Minnesota!). They got off in Irvine and the last passenger I talked to in the café car got off in Anaheim. I went back to my coach seat, the families had since gotten off the train somewhere and there were 2 guys there who got off in Santa Ana with my stop in Fullerton coming up. The train arrived in Fullerton close to on time and so would end my train riding for this trip.
   At the station in Fullerton I ended up hanging out there for another 2 ½ hours with a bunch of local railfans. There was a virtual hit parade of trains going through there on the BNSF so it was a lot of fun being there. I then proceeded to drive back to my Aunt and Uncle’s house and ended up driving the wrong way down Commonwealth Blvd. but eventually found my way "home"! And so ends another day. Be sure to check out some photos from the Pacific Surfliner Route taken today, just navigate to the link below...