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Amtrak’s Coast Starlight to detour over Tehachapi Loop
Wouldn’t the last scheduled train over the loop have been Santa Fe train no. 1 the San Francisco Chief of April 30th out of Chicago. That would have put it on the loop on the morning of May 2, 1971.
A map to go with this post would be very nice to have.
Im thinking that the detour will take the former SP,now UP, route and not Amtraks valley route that runs on BNSF and stops at Bakersfield with bus over to LA.Even tho this valley Amtrak is very popular,it runs on the outskirts of most valley cities.All the big cities in the valley were started by the SP and thus the tracks run thru the middle of cities.Modesto has a transportation hub with local bus at the old SP depo.I wish a study would be made to move the Valley Amtrak over to the old SP route and go all the way to LA by rail.Such a change might even make 2 trains a day posibal.
I didn’t get the exact timing of this. Will it be just the one day, starting June 30 or through June 30?
A map, even a rough one, would have added to this piece tremendously.
To Frank, good luck getting Union Pacific to cooperate. The UP has objected to the high-speed line on its route, so rerouting Amtrak on the old SP won’t happen either. I doubt the Coast Starlight will take the UP north of Bakersfield. Grade crossing signals are not timed for passenger trains and the track is not up to passenger train standards like the BNSF line.
One good question I have to ask is what route the Coast Starlight will take north of Stockton?Bypass the Bay Area through Lodi? Go through Port Chicago? Take the ACE route toward the Bay Area and turn north towards Oakland past Livermore?
If I were running the show, I would have just simply turned the southbound train around at San Jose and used a bus bridge between San Jose and San Luis Obispo, and put sleeper car passengers in the business class car of the Surfliner south of San Luis Obispo and given them a meal voucher for food purchases in the lounge car.
I rode the Coast Starlight over the loop back in February when it was diverted due to tie/ballast replacement between L.A. and Santa Barbara. As I recall we stayed on UP tracks through the San Joaquin Valley to Lodi (making a 3 point turn for some reason) then west to Oakland.
While UP is at it, UP needs to address the seven grade crossing north of Salinas. UP contends since there is no traffic between Salinas and Watsonville Jct. UP’s attitude is that Amtrak can jolly well flag those crossings. This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE since that affects the puntuality of trains nos.11 and 14.