Coast Starlights TEHACHAPI DETOUR 6-22-08 planned ?!?!?

[daniel3197]

Heads up everyone BOTH Amtrak Coast Starlight trains 11 and 14 on Sunday June 22 are planned to Detour via Bakersfield and Tehachapi.   This will involve OFFICIALLY the Train 11 Seattle departure of 6-21-08 saturday and Train 14 on 6-22-08 from Los Angeles.

This detour will depart the normal route at Sacramento and run NON-STOP to Los Angeles.   The only stop should be a SHORT crew change in Bakersfield at the BNSF Bakersfield Freight Yard.   That Bakersfield stop will NOT be for any passenger or station work.

A very SOLID inside source phoned me several days ago to inform me about this detour.
In addition 2 SOLID - INSIDE  NO-Nonsense sources from the 10-23-05 Tehachapi detour of train 11 have CONFIRMED this over on that well-known  website Trainorders.   These 2 MAGICAL trainorders dot com sources are users "silagi" and "stevedavis".   I have not so far seen any reversal of these plans so I am a believer.   If you recall the postponed 4-27 detour was cancelled with almost 1 MONTH notice.  We are now just some 10 DAYS before this event this time around,

This is apprently what is CURRENTLY planned in the OFFICIAL Amtrak Computer for SUNDAY 6-22-08 again involving  BOTH trains 11 and 14.

Train 11 is currently MISSING from the reservation options on 6-22-08 SUNDAY from Martinez and/OR Emeryville TO LAX (Los Angeles).
Still MISSING from the res options as I double-checked it at 6:36AM also from EMY to LAX on the 22nd.
I just want to be sure the Socal Railfan crowd knows about this very likely and RARE RARE detour possiblity.

BTW the 1974 Tehachapi detour date should be recorded as August 26, 1974 .   In 1974 a Bakersfield are railfan saw train 11 arrive in REVERSE order with the baggage car on the rear way back then.  That is why both he and I suspect that 1974 train was reversed out of Oakland and likely ran the normal Oakland Amtrak San Joaquin Corridor routing.
 
The NARP Hotline news has a brief item about this historic detour plan here for 6-22-08.   Again I just want to alert everyone to be in poistion if this plan unfolds next week as is planned now by Amtrak (6:36 AM on early 6-12-08 Thursday).  

I would just LOVE to hear additional info and or confirmation from other sources about this very SURPRISING and AMAZING detour plan by Amtrak.    Pretty please !!!

Here is that short NARP news item about this Amtrak Tehachapi Detour:
==  Daniel

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http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/hotline/more/hotline_556/

Amtrak plans to detour the Coast Starlight on Sunday, June 22 in both directions between Los Angeles and Sacramento via Tehachapi Pass and the San Joaquin route (with no intermediate station stops) due to the need for Union Pacific to repair a bridge near Santa Barbara.  Train 14 is expected to arrive Sacramento at 9 PM and hold for its normal departure, while train 11 should arrive Los Angeles early as well.  Passengers to or from Van Nuys, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Salinas, San Jose, Oakland, Emeryville, Martinez, and Davis may avail themselves of the various state corridor trains and buses.  The last Amtrak train to traverse Tehachapi Pass was when the southbound Coast Starlight detoured on October 23, 2005; before that, 1974.
Due to the same bridge work, most Pacific Surfliner service will not operate north of Santa Barbara on June 22.  Connecting motorcoaches will serve stops between Goleta and San Luis Obispo, except Lompoc-Surf and Guadalupe (an additional stop will be added at Santa Maria).