Oh boy. Today was an interesting one. It’s train day! I’ve been looking forward to this for the last few days, ever since I got the idea to do it. A 10 hour train trip may not seem fun to many, but to me it’s the dream. I got to the San Jose Diridon station around 9 am, for my 10:15 am train and just hung out in the station waiting area for a bit until we were ready to board.
While waiting on the platform, I met a girl named Grace who had just come from the NVIDIA GTC (GPU Technology Conference) and was on her way to Las Vegas (via LA) for another conference. We got to chatting and even after getting our seat assignments, figured it would be fine to sit beside each other until someone else got on and needed my seat.
Turns out the seat assignments aren’t super rigid, and it’s just so they know where you are and can get a head count. As one of the staff members came around to do the count, he was able to just mark us in the seats we were in, to make sure he didn’t put anyone else in them later, which was nice of him.
Traveling by train is definitely a more luxurious experience than flying. I don’t think I even need to describe it, just take a look at this photo of my seat. Yes, my legs are fully stretched out and I’m perfectly comfortable. They even have an adjustable foot rest on the seats.
We got on our way and quickly decided we wanted to get lunch, so we booked a reservation for 12:45 and hung out in the observation car (which was great, but not as nice as on Via Rail) for a while until it was time to eat. There was more non-table seating facing the windows behind me in the photo below.
Lunch was amazing. Grace and I went together, and were paired up with another two people (since they have limited space, so you just get assigned a table and they fill it up with others) who were travelling south with a larger group that were going to a model train conference, which I find extremely cool.
That’s one benefit of train travel, it kind of forces social connection, compared to a plane where you try to actively avoid the people next to you. Trains have a lot more space to walk around and explore, and you have your surroundings to always entertain you and talk to your seatmate or anyone else about.
As for lunch, three of us got burgers, and one of the people we got paired with got a beef sandwich of sorts. They even had dessert!
We carried on our way south through the valleys and hills of central California, and for a while we were on the side of a mountain, looking across a valley to the highway. Seeing the cars on the other side really put into perspective how big this valley was, even if it doesn’t fully come across in a photo.
We eventually made our way out of the valleys and to the ocean, which we would be following all the way until we got to LA and had to turn east to get to Union Station. To be honest, the ocean was not as pretty as the mountains, but was still very pretty. The blue sky had somewhat disappeared by now and we were met with coastal clouds for the rest of the ride, but that didn’t stop me from kicking back and enjoying the view.
That’s about where the “happy fun problem-free” train journey turns into just a “mostly happy, still fun, problematic” train journey. We stopped between Ventura and Oxnard for an unknown reason, but that’s not unusual since often trains need to stop to wait for other trains to pass, which we had done once or twice already. That was, until they came on the announcements to tell us that about a minute earlier, the train ahead of us had collided with a semi-truck on the tracks and we’d be facing a multi-hour delay.
Well darn.
Grace went right to work trying to figure out what was going on and what her best plan of action was, which made me feel a bit bad for just sitting there without a care in the world, since I didn’t have anywhere to be. Though to be fair, I was expecting a 2 hour delay at that point. I was very, very wrong.
There was a lot of moving around the train, talking to different people, figuring things out, but we eventually decided to just hang out and wait to see what happens. The other three people in our group who were headed to San Diego thought about getting an Uber to the station, before finding out that the train they were transfering to was actually right behind us, stuck in the same situation.
Grace was able to finally find a news article about the situation which gave us some much desired information (though to Amtrak’s credit, they’ve been very good about providing updates and keeping us fed, and have been super helpful with any questions). It turned out to be a Uhaul truck that had 3 occupants. One was taken to hospital, while the other two refused treatment. The train that hit them was a Metrolink train, which was now disabled on the track.
A few more hours pass, Grace finds a ride to pick her up from Oxnard station, and we’re still waiting here. We found out that the track had been cleared of the truck, but they’re still struggling to get the Metrolink train to run. They’ve decided to use an Amtrak train on the other side of the situation to push the Metrolink train towards us and into a siding.
As of now, that’s all we know. It’s 12:45 am and I’m getting very tired, having been on this train for 14 hours now, with another 2 at least to get to Union Station, plus however much longer we have to wait. I’m going to head back to my proper seat (I’ve been at a table in the observation car for a few hours) and try to take a nap so I’m not completely dead in the morning.
[ … ]
The smile you see in the photo did not last through the rest of the night. We finally got off the train at Union Station at 2am, and I got to the airport at 4am, where I had to wait a long time for my bus to the parking lot since I was in the wrong spot (it’s not very clear). I got to the Wildwood Rest area (third time!) at 6am, slept for 3 hours, then carried on to Phoenix.
I’d still take the train again in a heartbeat, even though I think there should be a compensation system for delays like this similar to airlines (at least in Canada).