SoCal to NorCal; most direct route?

[TiBike]

Here's a picture of my racing bike on top of the wheelchair lift on a California thruway:

This is, I was told, the only Thruway in California service with a proper transit bike rack:

 

[Siegmund]

Re the Lark: it was reincarnated as The Spirit of California in 1981, taking 14 hours from Sacramento to LA on the coast route.

Apparently it did not do all that well. It was state-supported, and withdrawn in 1983, even as additional San Joaquins and San Diegans were added.

It seems like now might be a fine time to try again, since we're already running San Diegans and Capitol Corridor trains over most of the coast line, and a lot of the freight traffic has moved off of it. It'd be much easier to get an overnight train on the coast line than get a train over Tehachapi Pass any time of day.

And it could be done with only one trainset rather than two - by the simple expedient of extending the California Zephyr to Los Angeles rather than turning it in Oakland.

 

[dogbert617]

The Lark was a Southern Pacific All-Pullman Train.

It operated from 1941 to 1968 as an all room train. It ran from Los Angeles in the south to San Francisco and Oakland in the north. In 1957 it was combined with the coach only Starlight which ran the same route.

At one point it ran with 13 sleeping cars, and a rare triple unit kitchen/diner/lounge car.

It also wasn’t the only All-Pullman train the Espee operated. The Cascade from Oakland to Portland was all pullman from 37-50. It also had a triple unit car as well.

That's amazing to learn! Wish sleeper trains like this still ran, along with also nice kitchen/diner/lounge cars like that.

Here's a picture of my racing bike on top of the wheelchair lift on a California thruway:

This is, I was told, the only Thruway in California service with a proper transit bike rack:

View attachment 15726

That is really cool to learn, that California Amtrak Thruway buses do allow bikes! Wouldn't have guessed that was permitted, but good to learn they do. Am nervous to try to figure out if bikes would be permitted, on any Midwest(or connecting from other points in the middle of east to west long distance train routes in the US?) Amtrak thruway buses at all? I worry they wouldn't be allowed(i.e. the Amtrak thruway bus between Newton, KS and OKC), but who knows?

Re the Lark: it was reincarnated as The Spirit of California in 1981, taking 14 hours from Sacramento to LA on the coast route.

Apparently it did not do all that well. It was state-supported, and withdrawn in 1983, even as additional San Joaquins and San Diegans were added.

It seems like now might be a fine time to try again, since we're already running San Diegans and Capitol Corridor trains over most of the coast line, and a lot of the freight traffic has moved off of it. It'd be much easier to get an overnight train on the coast line than get a train over Tehachapi Pass any time of day.

And it could be done with only one trainset rather than two - by the simple expedient of extending the California Zephyr to Los Angeles rather than turning it in Oakland.

It'd be interesting, to revive the Lark/Spirit of California somehow. Not sure if Amtrak would consider extending the California Zephyr past Emeryville, but at least maybe doing 2 thru cars could be done, a la how the existing setup is for having #421 and #422 between San Antonio and Los Angeles where those 2 cars are removed from the Texas Eagle, and attached to(or removed from) the Sunset Limited for the rest of the trip to(or coming back from) LA? With less freight traffic on the coast line, you are right that it'd probably be doable to test such a train again.