Bakersfield To Emeryville, CA On Amtrak California's San Joaquin Service

Friday, September 30th, 2011:

  As I stated before, I would have to ride an Amtrak California Thruway Bus from Los Angeles to Bakersfield, CA to catch the San Joaquin Service train that I would take to Emeryville. I decided to check my 2 suitcases in Los Angeles since I wouldn't need them until Emeryville anyway and they were rather heavy (not over 50lbs heavy, but heavy enough!). I checked the bags and walked over to a nearby Subway restaurant inside the station and had an Oven Fried Chicken Sub for breakfast!!! OK, now you're probably thinking, why would one eat a chicken sub at 8:35am??? Well, my watch says 8:35 but my "brain clock" says its 11:35am, so this was "Lunch" to a degree! I'll explain here what I mean by "brain clock" a bit more: Although it took a few days to get across the country and thus change time zones, I found that my brain didn't adjust to the time switch, such that regardless of what time it says on my watch, in my brain, I'm still in the Eastern Time Zone! That said, I found myself going to bed much earlier at night because of this since midnight on the west coast was 3:00am back home! There's really no way to avoid running into this issue unless you spend an extended amount of time in a different time zone and thus adjust to it, which isn't possible if you're only visiting for a few days.
  After checking my bags, I took photos of those beautiful hardwood ticket counters that are not in use at the station. The only time they ever get used is when a movie is being shot at the station. Amtrak and Metrolink's ticket counters are in a much smaller area in the station near the tunnel to the platforms and are rather "spartan" compared to those original ticket counters! At around 10:15am, I walked outside to find out which bus was taking me to Bakersfield. I found out that 3 actual buses were making the trip. I boarded the bus that would make only 1 stop at Glendale then make the rest of the run up to Bakersfield. Since my baggage was checked all the way to Emeryville, it wasn't an issue riding a different bus than the one my baggage was stored in. The bus I was on was lettered for Amtrak California as well as another bus. The third one was lettered for an affiliate of Coach USA and all the drivers were wearing Amtrak uniforms. The bus I was on left a few minutes early from Los Angeles and was nearly full!
  I didn't have a passenger sitting next to me until Glendale however. Once we departed Glendale, the bus was nearly full and the ride was uneventful until about 70 miles outside of Bakersfield when we hit a major traffic jam on Interstate 5 that lasted about 15-20 minutes before it cleared out. I never found out specifically what happened to cause the traffic jam though it may have been an auto accident or some kind of construction. The rest of the ride was in fact, uneventful though by the time the bus arrived, we were scheduled to depart Bakersfield right away! Thankfully, the train normally will wait for the busses to arrive. Strangely, a bus from Indio, CA was scheduled to arrive into Bakersfield, but was running later than the bus I was on so I took the time to get photos of the entire train before we finally departed Bakersfield at 1:45pm running 25 minutes late. The consist for today's San Joaquin train #715 is shown below:



2009	F59PHI		Power
8203	Coach/Baggage	Bodega Bay	Coach/Baggage (My Car)
6462	Coach	Moss Beach	Coach
8803	Coach/Café	San Gabriel Valley	Coach/Café
8004	Coach	San Gabriel River	Coach
8307	Coach/Cab Control Car	Mount Baldy	Coach/Cab Control Car

  Amtrak California's San Joaquin Service is a joint operation with Amtrak and the California Department of Transportation. The cars used on this service along with the Capital Corridor trains (also run jointly by Amtrak and California) were built by Amerail in Hornell, NY which isn't too far from Buffalo! I was seated in Coach/Baggage Car #8203. One thing I noticed right away about these cars is that many of the coach seats have full size tables on either side which makes it great if you want to set up your computer or other electronic gear while traveling! I noticed a lot of pecan tree farms along the way once we got out of Bakersfield. Upon departure from Bakersfield, there were only 3 people in my coach, myself included but that would change as the train moved along its route. Our next stop was at Wasco, CA where we departed at 2:11pm, 25 minutes late. Most of the stops on this route are very short and the doors open and close on all cars simultaneously. Several stops do offer checked baggage which is a nice convenience as well. A few passengers boarded at Corcoran which was our next stop where we departed at 2:44pm, 21 minutes late. I spent a fair amount of this ride working on this travelogue and just relaxing. I had lunch on the train which consisted of chicken nuggets and French fries, 2 things I've never eaten on Amtrak before. All were microwaved onboard and were actually quite tasty considering it was all microwaved! I also had a Diet Pepsi to drink and the total cost was NADA!!!! Yep, I was a lucky customer whose receipt printed up with a red star on it which meant my meal was free!!! Now who ever said there was no such thing as a free lunch??? It was obvious that I was very tired today as I got maybe 4 hours of sleep on my last night on the Sunset Limited but I plugged along and kept on going because I didn't want to miss this!!! We arrived at our next station stop of Hanford, CA and had a very brief smoking break there before departing at 3:04pm 24 minutes late. Our next stop was Fresno, CA. There may have been a smoking break there but I never left the coach to find out. We departed there at 3:39pm running 19 minutes late. I had a brief chat with one of the coach attendants who was on this train as he was on the Sunset Limited and was going home to San Francisco where he lived. We made our next stop at Medara, CA and left at 4:03pm running still 19 minutes late. We may be late but thus far not losing much time either. BNSF owns the tracks we're using and once again, they do what they can to keep Amtrak running!
  As the train continued further north, I noticed more and more corn fields along the route, something we have plenty of back home in Western New York! I'm gonna take a guess here that it was mostly field corn (the kind made for animal feed and the ethanol in the fuel in your gas tank), rather than the sweet variety we all love to eat! We made our next stop at Merced, CA and departed at 4:40pm running 18 minutes late. We then rode past the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, CA which had some great military aircraft within view of the train! I need to check out that museum someday! Our next stop was Turlock-Denare where we departed at 5:02pm running 19 minutes late. We made our next station stop of Modesto, CA and departed at 5:16pm running still 19 minutes late. Our next stop after that was at Stockton, CA where we departed at 5:47pm running 14 minutes late and making up more time! Antioch-Pittsburg was our next stop and we departed there at 6:18pm 16 minutes late! Two of the passengers sitting across from me for a majority of the trip got off at the next stop of Martinez, CA where we departed at 6:42pm now 14 minutes late. A Capital Corridor train was departing Martinez and left just before we did, thus we would end up following it for a good distance. We were also now on the route of the Coast Starlight and California Zephyr on Union Pacific tracks. The next stop was Richmond, CA which is a direct connection to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) if you prefer to depart here verses Emeryville though I opted to depart at Emeryville myself (which was my original destination prior to changing my travel plans anyway). We departed Richmond at 7:14pm now 21 minutes late due to following that other train and getting lots of yellow signals between Martinez and Richmond. Emeryville was the next stop, so I gathered my stuff and waited by the door, at 7:24pm, only 9 minutes late, I arrived at Emeryville and so ends my Amtrak travels on this trip.
  I picked up my two checked bags outside the station where the baggage handler was loading other bags onto a connecting Amtrak Thruway bus there. I walked across the street and waited for the free Emery-Go-Round bus to take me to the BART station at MacArthur in Oakland so as to get to the San Francisco International Airport. I paid the $8.45 fare with a credit card and boarded the train once it arrived. I was briefly talking to another passenger who was going to SFO airport to get a flight back to Detroit when the train arrived. It was about a 25 minute ride from there to SFO Airport and you're let off in the International Terminal there. I walked inside the airport and was told where to go to pick up my hotel shuttle. My hotel for tonight, the Hampton Inn in South San Francisco, CA had a free airport shuttle so after waiting about 20 minutes, the shuttle showed up. After departing the Airport, I received an e-mail from a buddy in the area wanting to know if I was on a San Joaquin train that hit a big rig??? This was the first I had heard of this and no lie, I started shaking when I read the e-mail. Thank God, I wasn't on that train! I e-mailed my friend back on my BlackBerry that I was in fact not on that train which hit a semi in Contra Costa County east of San Francisco. I did find out later though that the train set used on my trip on Train #715 was the same train set that was used on Train #718 that hit the big rig, downright scary!!! The report I heard was that there were only minor injuries and the train made its way back to Bakersfield some 5 hours late. I would be spending one night at this Hampton Inn which was an excellent clean hotel. It was too late to go out anywhere because I was beyond deliriously tired so I grabbed some snacks from the hotel convenience store downstairs and took a shower and called it a day! Below is a link to some photos taken on the route of the San Joaquin! My Amtrak travels may be finished on this trip but the railfanning and train riding are by no means over! Check out the links below...