"Another landslide in San Clemente stops trains just days after resuming service"
https://www.foxla.com/news/second-landslide-in-san-clemente-halts-rail-service
https://www.foxla.com/news/second-landslide-in-san-clemente-halts-rail-service
Status of Surfliner Service between Oceanside and Irvine
- Thread starter thully
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Oh no:
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/lo...il-service-out-of-north-county-again/3240023/
Those pictures do not imply this will have a "quick fix".
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/lo...il-service-out-of-north-county-again/3240023/
Those pictures do not imply this will have a "quick fix".
I had a reservation from LA to San Diego next Monday. Just got a call from Amtrak saying all Surfliners are canceled, with no alternate transportation,at least for the next two weeks. I did have a reservation in San Diego,so I changed it to Ventura for my two days in SoCal. Arriving on the Eagle/Sunset from Chicago and leaving on the same route. Booked last August during a points sale.
I looked online and through the app and it looks like all services south of San Juan Capistrano is canceled until further notice.
I
two weeks. No alternate transportation so I changed my San Diego reservation for Ventura for my two days in SoCal. Arriving and departing on the Texas/Sunset from Chicago. Couldn’t pass up a 40% points sale last fall when I booked.
Apparently this schedule is running up until the 11th. On Twitter pacific surfliner stated that they are looking at several options in service after the 11th. This is why if you try to buy a ticket after the 11th to San Diego it shows all services are canceled.
Service plans have been announced for after June 12:
http://pac.surf/trackadvisories
This is reduced from the current/previous bus bridge schedule - only 3 trips in each direction between LA and San Diego. Also, there is no connection with the Coast Starlight in either direction at LAX, and no evening departures with a bus bridge from either LA or San Diego. Also, no cafe or Business Class from SAN-OSD, no baggage service, and ticket offices at SOL/SNA/ANA are closed.
This seems particularly brutal - essentially kills any San Diego-LA day trips as well as severing the Starlight connection (there may be some alternative involving the San Joaquins). Seems like the cost of running bus bridges is getting to be too much…
http://pac.surf/trackadvisories
This is reduced from the current/previous bus bridge schedule - only 3 trips in each direction between LA and San Diego. Also, there is no connection with the Coast Starlight in either direction at LAX, and no evening departures with a bus bridge from either LA or San Diego. Also, no cafe or Business Class from SAN-OSD, no baggage service, and ticket offices at SOL/SNA/ANA are closed.
This seems particularly brutal - essentially kills any San Diego-LA day trips as well as severing the Starlight connection (there may be some alternative involving the San Joaquins). Seems like the cost of running bus bridges is getting to be too much…
Do you think, if the progress of fixing slopes along the track closer take a long time, they would consider canceling service in all? I'm really worried because I depend on this service to see family
Short term " Fixes" are just Bandaids, I'd suspect you might be going up 101 via Bus and Car for awhile.
Long Term plan to Fix this will entail $$$$$% and lots of Political Manuvering!
We are now less than three weeks out from when we will depart for Ohio. The first leg of our trip is from San Diego to Los Angeles on the Pacific Surfliner, and we already have our tickets in hand.
According to the revised Pacific Surfliner schedule posted on the PSL Travel Advisories page, and which goes into effect on Monday, June 12th, our 777 train is operating with a bus bridge between Oceanside and Irvine.
It is our understanding that, if the bus bridge is still in effect on the date we plan to travel, Amtrak will e-mail us a new “bus bridge” ticket to replace our “train only” ticket.
This morning, I called Amtrak at 5:00 a.m. California time (8:00 a.m. on the East Coast) and spoke to an agent to find out when that revised “bus bridge” ticket will be e-mailed to us. She was adamant that that didn’t apply to us. She did say that Amtrak would e-mail us if there was a change to our reservation. (So far, Amtrak has not contacted us.)
Is the revised schedule effective June 12th that is posted on the Pacific Surfliner Travel Advisories page accurate? Was the agent giving us the correct information about the “bus bridge” ticket not applying to us? Do we, in fact, need a revised ticket to ride the bus or will our “train only” ticket suffice? If we don’t hear from Amtrak after the revised schedule goes into effect on June 12th, should we call back and ask to speak to an agent?
According to the revised Pacific Surfliner schedule posted on the PSL Travel Advisories page, and which goes into effect on Monday, June 12th, our 777 train is operating with a bus bridge between Oceanside and Irvine.
It is our understanding that, if the bus bridge is still in effect on the date we plan to travel, Amtrak will e-mail us a new “bus bridge” ticket to replace our “train only” ticket.
This morning, I called Amtrak at 5:00 a.m. California time (8:00 a.m. on the East Coast) and spoke to an agent to find out when that revised “bus bridge” ticket will be e-mailed to us. She was adamant that that didn’t apply to us. She did say that Amtrak would e-mail us if there was a change to our reservation. (So far, Amtrak has not contacted us.)
Is the revised schedule effective June 12th that is posted on the Pacific Surfliner Travel Advisories page accurate? Was the agent giving us the correct information about the “bus bridge” ticket not applying to us? Do we, in fact, need a revised ticket to ride the bus or will our “train only” ticket suffice? If we don’t hear from Amtrak after the revised schedule goes into effect on June 12th, should we call back and ask to speak to an agent?
west point
Engineer
It is ambiguous as to when the engineering firms are running the test bores. Just 8 - 5 week days? Does seem no real incentive to get results as soon as possible.
yep your ticket will get updated
they worked M-F 7AM-7PM last time, there is 0 rush by the city, county or OCTA to get this fixed soon they all don't care
24th was the estimated date we got last week, City running the show does not say anything until its done.
Basically back to where the line was on A-day in 1971!
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This has not been my experience. If you already have a ticket for a train that's been converted to a bus bridge, you must call to get your ticket changed. It is not automatic. The only thing you can do online is cancel. It takes manual intervention to issue the new ticket and then (I think) a supervisor override to to do it without a fare increase.
Plugging in random upcoming dates, it looks like the reduced bus bridge is currently scheduled through Monday 6/26. If they do it like last time, they'll extend it week by week as necessary. I have two trips that I've already called and updated.
Once again, don't wait until the day of travel. Call as soon as you know that your trip has been converted to a bus bridge before the limited space on those buses sell out.
People are going to be furious if they were intending to come to SAN for Comic-Con if that schedule holds.
With that new schedule I'm going to have to look at Flixbus to get to Los Angeles if I need to. No evening departures either way is just brutal; the 7pm out of San Diego has been consistently packed. Surprised CalTrans hasn't forked over the money to continue service. Maybe I need to put in a letter to my state representatives....
With that new schedule I'm going to have to look at Flixbus to get to Los Angeles if I need to. No evening departures either way is just brutal; the 7pm out of San Diego has been consistently packed. Surprised CalTrans hasn't forked over the money to continue service. Maybe I need to put in a letter to my state representatives....
caltrans doesn't really have flex money they could use to run more service without some sort of emergency declaration
you really should be bugging them right now with the major transit funding shortcomings statewide. And the removal of capital funding for transit
This morning, we called Amtrak Customer Relations to see about having our e-ticket updated to conform to the new Pacific Surfliner Timetable which goes into effect today (June 12th). Our e-ticket, which was received almost a year ago, shows us departing San Diego on train 777 at 12:01 p.m. The new Timetable has 777 departing as train 1777 at 11:03 a.m. and then connecting with a bus in Oceanside.
Customer Relations could not update our e-ticket because their records don’t show the bus bridge between Oceanside and Irvine as still being in place on the date we plan to travel. (Direct service between SAN and LAX is supposed to be reinstated on June 26th and our departure date is after June 26th.)
We asked about what we should do if the bus bridge is extended beyond June 26th and were told that Amtrak would contact us.
We’re visiting the Pacific Surfliner Travel Advisories pages and monitoring this AU Pacific Surfliner thread on a daily basis. If it looks like the bus bridge will be extended past June 26th, we’ll call Amtrak again rather than waiting for them to contact us.
And that’s how things stand at present.
Customer Relations could not update our e-ticket because their records don’t show the bus bridge between Oceanside and Irvine as still being in place on the date we plan to travel. (Direct service between SAN and LAX is supposed to be reinstated on June 26th and our departure date is after June 26th.)
We asked about what we should do if the bus bridge is extended beyond June 26th and were told that Amtrak would contact us.
We’re visiting the Pacific Surfliner Travel Advisories pages and monitoring this AU Pacific Surfliner thread on a daily basis. If it looks like the bus bridge will be extended past June 26th, we’ll call Amtrak again rather than waiting for them to contact us.
And that’s how things stand at present.
If this was a highway it would be declared a disaster (like the recent I95 collapse in Philly) and the Feds would be falling all over themselves in their rush to send money.
The Amtrak website shows direct train service between San Diego and Los Angeles as being available the last week in June. The Pacific Surfliner Travel Advisories page has no date when direct service will be reinstated. The fact that Amtrak is selling direct train service tickets needs to be taken with a grain of salt since, last year, they sold sleeping car accommodations for sleeping cars they didn’t have available. With a little over a week to go before we are to depart, we are monitoring this situation very closely and will submit updates as soon as we learn anything.
A relevant scenario might be how they handled the Cascades service to Vancouver in the system during COVID. The resumption date was indeterminate. Yet the train was in the system for resumption after various placekeeper dates. I seem to recall the phantom dates were pushed back three times. Only after well over a year of make believe dates was the train dropped from the system entirely. That was actually something of a harbinger of its return. When it finally reappeared it was when they had a firm date for resumption and it only showed up about a month before it started back up.
I was ticketed on one of those trains that turned out to be a phantom train. After the "start" date was moved out from my travel date in the system, I was never notified. My trip just lost its QR code on the app. I had to call to get rebooked.
The lessons here are:
1. When a service is changed/suspended/cancelled for a disruption of indeterminate length, a completely arbitrary restart date can be put in the system. That will be extended/changed as that date approaches to another arbitrary date, which also does not necessarily represent an actual service start.
2. Amtrak will not necessarily
automatically notify you that your ticket is changed once the phantom resumption is moved out beyond your travel date.
In your case, I'd trust what the Pacific Surfliner site says more than Amtrak, they are closer to it. The resumption date is indeterminate at present. The fact that they are cutting service and destaffing stations, including pretty major ones like ANA, to me is a sign they expect it to last a long time. If I were you, I'd assume I'd be on bus bridge on the Surfliner's published schedule, irrespective of what is in Amtrak’s system as of today. I'd also assume that I might not be notified, at least right away, once ARROW is finally updated to reflect a longer disruption. Check your reservation daily on the app. The QR code disappearing from the app seems to happen almost immediately upon the system being updated. Then call.
An agent cannot do anything until the change is actually in the system. Checking QR codes will likely be the fastest way of finding out that happened.
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We called Guest Rewards this morning and were told that Pacific Surfliner Train 777 will have direct service from San Diego to Los Angeles during the last week of June on the date we plan to travel. When I mentioned the temporary Pacific Surfliner Timetable that went into effect last Monday, and which shows train 777 as departing San Diego as 1777 at 11:03 a.m. instead of the 12:01 p.m. shown in our ticket, this came as a surprise to the woman I talked with! She checked with her “support desk” and was told that direct service would be available on the date we plan to travel. All she could advise us to do was to keep checking our e-mails to see if Amtrak has contacted us with an update (and, hopefully, a new e-ticket.) She also said it would be OK for us to call back again (not that it would do much good if the system hasn’t been updated.) So, there you have it. Less than two weeks before we are to depart, there is still a major disconnect within the system that won’t allow us to update our tickets. (We’re assuming that all of the other people who plan to travel on the Pacific Surfliner on the same date we do are in the same position.) If and when we learn anything new, we’ll post an update.
It's also quite possible that Amtrak hasn't fully determined what their medium-to-long-term plans will be during the closure, and they don't want to confuse people with multiple changes if at all possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the current temporary schedule shifts a bit as they figure out timing, demand needs, staffing availability, etc. Doesn't explain why the rep claims that direct service will be available, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's just typical bad Amtrak communication.
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