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The Coast Starlight to Oakland and the San Joaquin Home 9/24/2005 to 9/25/2005

As I approached Day 3,900 of my sobriety, I thought a trip to celebrate might be in order. After that wonderful stay at the Jack London Inn in Oakland last month, it made me think about staying there in the future. Why not book a Coast Starlight trip to Oakland on Saturday and take San Joaquin 712 home? I went to the Santa Ana station to pay for it then made an on-line reservation at the Jack London Inn, picked up my tickets and just had to live the days before the trip. Day 3,900 came on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 and two days later, I was packed and ready to go on.

This train arrived at Santa Ana a few minutes early in push mode and had cab car 6906, coaches 6412 and 6407, coach/café 6302, Pacific Business Class 6805 and F59PHI 454 as the consist. We made our Anaheim and Fullerton stops before a fast rest of the journey to LAUPT, arriving a few minutes early. I talked to a few of my Amtrak friends before waiting for the Coast Starlight.

The Coast Starlight reversed into Los Angeles Union Station at 9:30 AM with its consist of P42DCs 158 and 159, baggage 1241, transition 39022, sleepers 32111 "Washington", 32075 "Connecticut" and 32084 "Kansas", 33039 sightseer lounge (substituting for the Pacific Parlour Car), diner 38046, lounge 33019 and coaches 34034, 34512 and 34039. We departed on time and made our way out into the very cloudy San Fernando Valley as I rode in coach 34512, along with Kevin Densdale from Cheltenham, Gloucesterhire in England. My car attendant was the wonderful Erika.

The train stopped at Van Nuys then proceeded through the Santa Susana mountains to Simi Valley while I finished my newest book, "Whole Lotta Led; Our Flight With Led Zeppelin" by Ralph Hulett and Jerry Prochnicky. It is a wonderful look at the career of Led Zeppelin and how the authors' lives were affected by the band. Since we arrived at Simi Valley early, we had an extended fresh air break before continuing to Oxnard, where we also arrived early, then soon reached the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean as I listened to "Ocean" by Led Zeppelin from their "How the West was Won" triple CD. That music took me almost to Santa Barbara, our first official fresh air stop of the trip. We left the low clouds in Santa Barbara and before El Capitan, I spotted dolphins frolicing in the surf. My next musical selection was Trevor Rabin's two CDs called "Trevor Rabin" and "Face to Face", which took me west to Point Conception and onto Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Next it was "Bigger Bang", the newest by the Rolling Stones which took me north. At Guadalupe, I received a 5:00 PM dinner reservation and we arrived at San Luis Obispo early and I enjoyed a lengthy fresh air stop during our crew change. We departed on time and I was at the rear door of coach 34039 to photograph the climb over Cuesta Grade.

Leaving San Luis Obispo station.

West San Luis Obispo control point.

The starting of the climb out of San Luis Obispo.

Passing California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo.

Looking back at the university.

Out into the Central California countryside.

The Stenner trestle.

As we started up the Goldtree Horseshoe Curve, you could see where we will be in a few minutes.

My train at the top of the curve.

The east end of Chorro siding.

The Goldtree Horseshoe curve.

The Stenner Trestle from above. Between 1893 and 1894, workers blasted 1,100,000 cubic yards of rock to create six tunnels, the longest 3,610 feet and crews worked 12 hour days, six days a week for $30 to $35 a month. The final challenge for the Southern Pacific was crossing the broad expanse of Stenner Creek. The Thompson Bridge Company of San Francisco was contracted to build a 950 foot trestle bridge, 80 feet above the creek bed; the bridge was designed and manufactured in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On March 24, 1894, four cars laden with steel arrived in Templeton, fifty more loads were on the way. Each part was numbered and ready to be assembled. The foundations for this massive steel structure were huge square granite piers which were mined from San Luis Mountain, also know as Madonna Mountain. On April 15, 1894, work on the bridge began. Officials from Southern Pacific said that on May 5th, a Southern Pacific train would arrive in San Luis Obispo at 6:05 P.M and a huge celebration was planned for the train's arrival. On May 3, the Stenner Creek bridge had been completed, but 10,000 feet of track had yet to be laid. Gangs of men went to work laying a hundred feet of track every five minutes and crowds of people watched in amazement. By evening, the job was finished and the next day the Southern Pacific arrived in San Luis Obispo, on time. The celebration lasted three days.

The west end of Chorro siding.

West end of Tunnel 11.

East end of Serrano siding.

Serrano siding.

West end of Serrano siding.

Former Tunnel 10.

Highway 101 has a steep climb to reach Cuesta Summit.

West end of Tunnel 9.

West end of Tunnel 8.

Between Tunnel 7 and 8.

West end of Tunnel 7.

West end of the Summit Tunnel 6.

I returned to my seat at Santa Margarita and talked with Kevin all the way to Paso Robles. At 5:00 PM, I went to the dining car, sitting with Dave who was returning to Seattle to move his family to San Diego. Across from us was a Hispanic couple with a delightful 16-month-old daughter. We passed the southbound Coast Starlight at San Ardo running hours late as I waited for my dinner to arrive and enjoyed a New York Strip and chocolate sundae off Menu 2, then paid for my meal just after we exited Tunnel 5.

I returned to my seat for Sweet's "Live at the Marquee Club" and when "Restless" started, we had arrived at Salinas for our next fresh air stop, departing there on time, and in daylight no, less and proceeded towards Moss Landing, reaching there just as the sun was setting. Beautiful was the only word to describe the low light magic that was taking place along the water's edge. We passed through the Pajora Gap in twilight and after I told Kevin that we were crossing the San Andreas Fault, he hoped that we would not have an earthquake during his visit to San Francisco. From Gilroy, it was Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" as we sped up the shared Caltrain line to San José, where we arrived early for yet another fresh air break. Something told me our luck had run out as I heard the conductor talking about reversing out of the San José station at departure time.

With a Union Pacific freight train blocking our forward exit, we reversed half a mile to a switch to run through the station on Track 5. Before we did that, the conductor explained what was occuring but would not give us an estimated time of arrival in Oakland and my coach mates knew we were in trouble. We pulled down to near the College Park station, where we sat and waited for a Union Pacific freight on the right and a Capitol Corridor train on the left. Caltrain kept passing during this delay as track work ahead was delaying us. The lady across from us summed it up nicely when she said into her cell phone, "Typical train stuff!" We just sat then lost head end power and at this point, I said "Remember! Every trip is an adventure!", which generated a lot of laughter.

Thirty minutes later, we escaped San José and the HEP returned at 10:00 PM, long after we should have left Oakland. We stopped or more track work before Newark and talk about rock and roll, as we were bounced around our coach, but stayed on the Mulford Line and our conversations filled the time it took for us to reach Oakland, where we arrived at 11:18 PM, or one hour and forty-six minutes late.

I walked the two blocks through the very active night life of Jack London Square to the Jack London Inn, checked in and did my e-mail in the lobby before going to my room for the night.

9/25/2005 I awoke, watched the Weather Channel and ESPN for sports scores then went back to the lobby to checked my e-mail and checked out, walking back to the Amtrak station and watched Capitol Corridor Train 520 depart for Sacramento in the very crisp Bay Area morning air. Union Pacific 3192 West rolled through Oakland station as my train was arriving from the Amtrak yard.

My train to Bakersfield was in push mode with cab car 6961 "Point Arguello", café 8812 "Sonoma Valley", coach 8027 "Smith River" and coach/baggage 8201 "San Francisco Bay" with F59PHI 2015. We departed on time with a single conductor to handle this run and it appeared that the Oakland crew base was very short-handed. We proceeded down Embarcadero Street running in front of the Jack London Inn before passing the Union Pacific and Amtrak shops on this beautiful clear morning then stopped in Emeryville and Richmond before reaching the shores of San Pablo Bay. Near Crockett, we turned east to run along the Carquinez Straits to Martinez.

Martinez was a brief fresh air stop that allowed for these pictures of our train and cab car 6961 with its unique advertisement. We made our way east to Antioch before crossing the California Delta where we met San Joaquin 711 at Holt then our train was boarded by a large group at Stockton. My book for this southbound trip was "Amtrak's Long Distance Service; Can It Be Made Viable?" by Gordon Gill, whom I met on my last southbound Coast Starlight trip. We stopped at Modesto, Turlock, Merced and Madera then Fresno was a nice fresh air break, as was Hanford. My cruise friends going to San Pedro for their boat had another couple sitting two cars back going with them. At Hanford, the husband detrained and went into the station. Our conductor called "All aboard!", checked for any runners then highballed the train. A few minutes later, he received a phone call from Hanford stating a male passenger had been left behind. Why did he go into the station? To use the bathroom. His friends had a good laugh and I told of the Puerto Penasco excursion in Mexico when my friend Brad got lost. We all had a good laugh. Corcoran and Wasco were fast stops before we made our final sprint to Bakersfield, arriving there ten minutes early.

We boarded the bus then the driver loaded the luggage, followed by Amtrak Bakersfield employees loading the checked baggage. We departed at 1:55 PM and arrived at Los Angeles Union Station at 3:53 PM, plenty of time in which to catch the 4:10 PM departure of Pacific Surfliner 582.

This train, taking me home, had F59PHI 460, Pacific Business Class 6800, coach/café 6351, coach 6403, Superliner coach 31046 and cab car 6904. We departed LAUPT on time and I just relaxed to Santa Ana, arriving there on time, which ended a fantastic circle trip to Oakland.

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