Amtrak: Seattle-San Jose
I rode Amtrak from Seattle to San Jose, as an alternative to flying/driving.
The total trip time was scheduled to be ~24 hours, and we remained on schedule throughout.
The train line is named the Coast Starlight, and this is what the full route looks like:
Here is a collection of photographs from the trip.
Initial departure was from King Street Station in downtown Seattle:
Having boarded I acquainted myself with my “Roomette” quarters (space for 2, but I reserved it for myself alone):
I stocked up on banana, walnuts, and gummi bears ahead of the long journey ahead.
I did not realize that 3 full meals a day were included in my ticket:
Once we had departed the station, I setup to watch a lot of internet video (YouTube, mostly) on my phone:
I quickly got up out of my seat and did a little exploring of the train:
It did not seem long (4 hours) before we pulled into Portland, Oregon:
I did not get off the train, but it turns out that the station is in immense disrepair and they do not have financing lined up to repair it, sadly.
We stayed at the station a little longer than expected due to some obscure message conveyed by the conductor over the loudspeaker.
After embarking from Portland, I just took a bunch of photos with some motion blur of the varied sights from the tracks:
I took a few photos when stopping in Eugene, Oregon:
It looks like a really cute city with bikeshare(!) options:
Through Oregon, I noticed a segment with a lot of parallel tracks–which was cool to see:
South of Eugene and before sunset/bedtime, we were treated to some very beautiful sights:
Sleeping went okay, I got 8 hours of it but it was not especially pleasant as I was jostled in the upper bunk over course of the night.
The next morning we arrived into Sacramento station.
It felt like our speed slowed as we entered into the San Francisco Bay Area, taking maybe 2 hours to reach San Jose, passing the 49ers stadium before reaching my destination at Diridon station:
We arrived and I transferred to a newly electric Caltrain, back home to San Mateo:
Quite an eventful, long journey.
I am not sure if I can afford the time to do it again in my next travels to Seattle, but I would recommend the experience as a luxury/nice treat.