harisrid Tech News

So why did I travel across California … by a train!

I planned a train trip from San Jose, California to San Diego, CA, where I would stay with my aunt’s family – my aunt, her husband, her son, and my grandmother. I could have embarked on a quick one to two hour direct flight between San Jose and San Diego, but I thought the train journey made for a better, more “magical” experience. That, and I am an absolute bona-fide nerd for major transit systems – with train systems in particular holding a childhood fascination. Train travel holds a magical element; just think – the sensory feelings, the breath-taking sights, the vistas, the terrains of planet Earth, and the people you meet – all add up to an amazing experience.

Planning the journey with Google Maps

Planning the journey took a couple of key ingredients : creative thinking, day-dreaming … and a few minutes of playing with the mini-man on Google Maps 🙂 . Now let’s go through google maps and see the route plan.

Before embarking, I thought I would be able to travel directly from San Jose Diridon Station to San Diego’s Sante Fe station, but I was amiss. It turns out that there’s no direct train route servicing between the Bay Area and San Diego. But not all was lost … for luckily, the state of California has more than just one Amtrak line. Let’s look at a map of lines !

Ok back to topic. I split travel up into two days across two segments. The first segment arranged from San Jose Diridon Station to Los Angeles’s Union Station – via the Coast Starlight. And the the second arranged from Los Angeles’s Union Station to San Diego’s Santa Fe Station – via the Pacific Surfliner.

Segment one – through central Cali : the mountains, the farms, the valleys, and the shining Pacific coast!!

Travel by the first segment entailed a minimum of ten hours and forty-five minutes of travel; I started early in the morning around 9:00 a.m. and reached my destination by 8:00 p.m. or so . I didn’t have a DSLR or fancy camera with me, but I did have my mobile phone, a battery park, and a plug-in charger – all the tools I needed for travel photography.

The second segment – let’s race through SoCal!

Luckily, the second segment went more smooth-sailing ; it took only three hours and thirty minutes of transit time. I started early this day, but I reached my destination by noon. Surprisingly, the journey between the two stations actually takes around time – in fact, I would argue less time – than driving down over the interstate. The views from Union Station to San Clemente aren’t that exciting ( we’re deep in the urban core and the suburbs of Los Angeles ), but they morph into amazing vistas during the last mile stretches between San Clemente and Santa Fe.

And in conclusion !!!

I absolutely enjoyed my first Amtrak train experience. The journey – taking place two months after coming into California from the East Coast for a new job – solidified itself as a core memory. I am always advertising and talking on and on about the train trip with my friends – at lunch meetups, at restaurant outings, and even hiking trips. I think I even convinced a couple of guys to go out in a group ( and even bring board games to play on the observation car deck ). Positive formative memories in life are to be made, and Amtrak asserts itself as a way to do so !