Coast Starlight
The Coast Starlight is a 1389-mile (2235 km) passenger train route operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States. It runs from Seattle, Washington's King Street Station to Los Angeles, California's Union Station.
The train's name was inspired by the trains of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) that operated in California, many along the same route as the current Coast Starlight. SP's passenger trains in this region carried the name Daylight in some form (e.g. Morning Daylight and Noon Daylight).
Major stops on the route are Portland, Oregon; Eugene, Oregon; Sacramento, California; Emeryville, California (for San Francisco); Oakland, California; San Jose, California; Santa Barbara, California; and Oxnard, California.
In recent years, the train has gained the nickname Coast Starlate due to its abysmal on-time record. From October 2005 through August 2006 the train delivered its passengers on-time only 2% of the time, with trains consistently running 5 to 11 hours behind schedule. This performance is likely a factor in the 26% drop in ridership between 1999 and 2005. Union Pacific, who handles traffic on the route, and local rail groups dispute the causes of the of poor performance. Rail groups blame Union Pacific for giving priority to freight traffic, while UP cites ongoing track repairs among other issues.[1]
Contents
Equipment
The train uses Amtrak's double-decker Superliner I & II equipment, including a Sightseer Lounge car that has floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the passing scenery, and is the only train on the Amtrak system to feature a first-class Pacific Parlour lounge car (formerly Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Hi-Level "Sky Lounge" cars built in 1956) for sleeping-car passengers, offering complimentary beverages, a library and games, afternoon wine tasting, and a movie theater in the lower level. For children, play equipment and other distractions are provided in the Kiddie Car. Baggage is placed in a "Heritage" Baggage Car.
Locomotives used on the Coast Starlight are primarily Amtrak's main locomotives, the GE P42DC AMD-103 Genesis series. Secondary locomotives are GE P32-8 (Dash 8) Locomotives. In the past, EMD F40PH, SDP40F, FP7, and leased Southern Pacific SDP45 locomotives have been used since 1971.
In rare cases, EMD F59PHI locomotives from the Amtrak Surfliner and Cascades routes and Amtrak California F59PHI, or in rarer cases Caltrain EMD F40PH and MPI MP36PH-3C locomotives are used on the Coast Starlight, either as substitutes or are being transported to or from repair jobs.
A typical Coast Starlight consist includes:
- Heritage Baggage Car
- Superliner Transition Sleeper Car
- Superliner Sleeper Car
- Superliner Sleeper Car
- Pacific Parlour Car (Heritage Hi-Level Lounge Car)
- Superliner Diner Car
- Superliner Sightseer Lounge Car
- Superliner Coach Class Car
- Superliner Coach Class Car
- Superliner Coach Class Car
In the event that a Pacific Parlour Car is not available (in for repairs, etc.) it will typically be replaced by another Sightseer Lounge Car.
History
Before the formation of Amtrak, there was no passenger train running along the entire West Coast. The Southern Pacific Railroad operated the Coast Daylight between Los Angeles and San Francisco and the Cascade between Oakland and Portland. The Southern Pacific also ran an overnight all-coach train named the Starlight between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Service from Portland north to Seattle was provided by the Union Pacific, Northern Pacific Railroad or Great Northern Railroad. After the 1970 merger of the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific into the Burlington Northern Railroad, service was provided by the Burlington Northern. Service south from Los Angeles to San Diego was by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.
With the start of Amtrak operations on May 1, 1971, a single route was formed between San Diego and Seattle. The unnamed train (assigned numbers 11 southbound and 12 northbound) ran three times a week. Supplementing it on the other four days (northbound Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and southbound Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) was another unnamed train between Los Angeles and Oakland (assigned 98 northbound and 99 southbound). Additional service was also provided between San Diego and Los Angeles and between Portland and Seattle (those became the San Diegan and Mount Rainier/Puget Sound on November 14). In the November 14, 1971 timetable, the LA-Oakland train received the Coast Daylight name that the SP had used for its LA-San Francisco train, and was extended to San Diego and assigned numbers 12 and 13. The San Diego-Seattle train received the new name Coast Starlight and became trains 11 and 14. A few years later, the Coast Daylight was merged into the Coast Starlight, which was expanded to run every day. The Coast Starlight has since been truncated to Los Angeles, though frequent Pacific Surfliner service continues south.
Until April 25, 1982 the Coast Starlight used Southern Pacific Railroad's "West Valley Line" between Tehama and Davis, California with a stop in Orland, bypassing Sacramento to the west. At that time it was rerouted to the line between Tehama and Roseville, east of Sacramento.
Station stops
The Coast Starlight runs as trains 11 southbound and 14 northbound, making the following station stops (southward), with water refresh stops and shift change stops noted accordingly:
Washington
Oregon
- Portland (refresh stop) (inspection and shift change stop for train 14)
- Salem
- Albany
- Eugene
- Chemult (No station here, just an old fashioned wood platform)
- Klamath Falls (refresh stop)
California
- Dunsmuir
- Redding
- Chico
- Sacramento
- Davis
- Martinez
- Emeryville (serves San Francisco) (refresh stop)
- Oakland (service to San Francisco via BART) (refresh stop)
- San Jose (refresh stop)
- Salinas
- Paso Robles
- San Luis Obispo
- Santa Barbara
- Oxnard
- Simi Valley
- Van Nuys
- Los Angeles
Trivia
Until April 25, 2005 the Starlight had a stop in Glendale, California. This was replaced with the current stop in Van Nuys which, unlike Glendale, has Amtrak staff for checking baggage.
External links
References
- McKinney, Kevin. "At the dawn of Amtrak", Trains Magazine, June 1991.
- Schafer, Mike. "Amtrak's atlas", Trains Magazine, June 1991.
- Zimmermann, Karl. "All Aboard! The Coast Starlight", Trains Magazine, 2 July 2001.
- Amtrak's First Trains and Routes. Retrieved on November 19, 2005.
- Amtrak timetable. November 14, 1971. Retrieved on November 19, 2005.
- ↑ *Geiger, Kimberly. "Coast Starlight Losing Its Luster", San Francisco Chronicle, 2006-08-08. Retrieved on 2006-08-10.
