Coast Starlight discussion 2023 Q4 - 2024

[zephyr17]

The convention with the Coast Starlight is odd number is southbound - 11. Northbound has always been 14. At one time, the train was known internally as 12 & 13 south of Oakland.

Yeah, when trains ran with timetable authority in timetable and train order operation, the railroads generally kept the train numbers the same in the authoritative employee timetables as in Amtrak’s public timetables after Amtrak renumbered trains into its own system in late 1971.

All trains on the SP ran either westward towards San Francisco or eastward away from San Francisco. Since the Starlight ran past San Francisco, it could not retain the same SP train number for its whole run. So the southbound Starlight was SP 11 "westward" from Portland to Oakland and SP 12 "eastward" from Oakland to LA. The northbound Starlight was SP 13 "westward" to Oakland and SP 14 "eastward" to Portland. I think it was BN 1011 and 1014 between Portland and Seattle, but am far from sure of that. After the train went daily Amtrak didn't really use 12 and 13 for anything, to Amtrak it was just 11 and 14. It was an SP operational thing and T&E crews were SP for most of the period until timetable and train order operation was discarded.

The short lived Spirit of California was similar, with Amtrak train numbers 15 and 18. It was SP 15 Sacramento-Oakland, SP 16 Oakland-LA, SP 17 LA-Oakland and SP 18 Oakland-Sacramento.

I seem to recall that someone here said Amtrak recycled numbers 12 and 13 for some NEC train at some point.

Fun fact, the early version "Coast Daylight/Starlight" that only ran north of Oakland triweekly was initially 98-11 and 99-12 before Amtrak renumbered it out of SP assigned train numbers, since it was pretty much running the Coast Daylight (98/99) and Cascade (11/12) schedules.

Railroads moved away from timetable and train order dispatching in the mid 1980s and employee timetables now have no trains in those timetables.

 

[trimetbusfan]

I was looking at the Coast Starlight on November 16th and 17th and it is listed as "sold out" in both directions between LA and Martinez, as far as I can tell. Could this be a track maintenance thing? I don't see something listed in the official service alerts section.

Yep. Looks like 14 is only running EMY-SEA that weekend

 

[Bonser]

I just received an email from Amtrak about a schedule change notifying me that my departure from Pittsburgh going to Chicago in November is now on #0040, the Capitol Limited. Only Amtrak would confuse the situation by misnaming their own newly named train.

 

[railiner]

I seem to recall that someone here said Amtrak recycled numbers 12 and 13 for some NEC train at some point.

The “Fast Mail”

 

[justinslot]

Yep. Looks like 14 is only running EMY-SEA that weekend

Thanks for confirming I wasn't missing something. I was originally going to spend the night in Emeryville (I will be arriving via the Zephyr) and catch the train to Salinas in the AM and then the Amtrak shuttle to Monterey, but now I am just going to head to Monterey after I arrive in Emeryville. Car rental, there's an airport shuttle from SFO to Monterey, Lyft is very expensive (like mid $300s was the ride estimate) but available...I'll figure out something.

 

[Asher]

Thanks to all here, after joining the forum I’ve learned a LOT about schedules, consists and other subjects to help me with a planned LD trip on the Coastal Starlight from LA/SEA. Unfortunately after trying to plan this trip 4-5 (Feb/Mar 24) months out on a empty train, not being able to guarantee which side of the train to be on is a deal killer for the spouse and frankly for me as well. Betting over a grand on a 50-50 shot at winning is apparently not for us! Once again, thanks to all on this great forum for all the insight on train travel!

There’s a lot of places you can spend a day at a beach town and then continue on with your trip on that route. What you may see on the ocean side is too brief to miss out on the trip.