I'm probably one of the few fans of the current Pacific Surfliner service between San Luis Obispo and San Diego; admittedly it's hard not to love a service which runs in my backyard, but still it's a pretty well run outfit.
Back in early 2000, California Amtrak saw passenger services as taking a massive upswing with the introduction of the Pacific Surfliner passenger car sets as well as the Capitol Trains running between San Jose and Sacramento; as well as, the San Joaquin Service to Bakersfield. But, something happened to one of the trains that California Amtrak proposed and it's never been discussed since.
That train was supposed to be a proposed California Amtrak Capitol train running from San Francisco and San Luis Obispo as a daily train. California Amtrak was supposed to invest in another round of passenger train car purchases that would have added as many as 7 additional 5 car sets to the Capitol trains roster. With one set operating each way between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo.
As I understand it, the new train called the new Coast Daylight would depart from San Luis Obispo heading north at 8:00 a.m. with stops at Paso Robles, King City, Salinas, Watsonville Junction, Gilroy, San Jose, then head north of the CalTrain line to San Francisco with maybe two or three additional stops one possibly being at Stanford, Burlingame, and San Francisco International, before tying up at San Francisco. Then a set would layover in San Francisco before departing from San Francisco heading south arriving in San Luis Obispo at possibly 8:00 or 8:30 p.m.
My question to anyone with knowledge of what I'm writing; what happened to these trains? Was it too much, too soon?
Hell, if these new train cars had been built, another train that could've become a reality was a second train over Donner Pass to Reno, NV.
Also, with the proposed HSR between Victorville and Las Vegas; my question is why not use an existing Pacific Surfliner trainset between Los Angeles and Las Vegas; sure with COVID-19 that doesn't sound real good. But, it could provide traffic between Southern California and Vegas on a daily basis as a way of wetting everyone's appetite for the new service?
I know with everything; first you need a route, second you need funding, third you need ridership. This new route has been mothballed since the cancellation of the Desert Wind and they provided daily service between Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernadino, Barstow, Los Vegas, Mesquite, and Salt Lake City. Why not revive this service as an extension of Pacific Surfliner's service?
Going back to the Coast Daylight service, the only thing stopping service from starting is that the service yard at San Luis Obispo would need to be overhauled to accommodate two trains, but that's already been proposed. why not fund the upgrades and then maybe a new Coast Daylight service could be funded but instead of using the CalTrain line to San Francisco, fund the train to Oakland?
All I'm asking is that the power-that-be look into the proposal?
SANDAG in fight with coastal cities over fencing.
https://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/story/2020-10-18/residents-fight-plan-to-fence-coastal-railroad-tracks
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