Passenger Trains > Pacific Surfliner, Coaster, Metrolink Trains

Hello All:

I've been trying to better understand the various passenger train lines in lower California. I've picked up bits and pieces from schedules and the few online maps (mostly shown in linear fashion), but what I'd really like to see would be a single geographic-style map showing all the routes covered by the Pacific Surfliner, Coaster, and Metrolink trains...can anyone provide a link to such a map?

And I notice--so far as I can understand--that Coaster trains run pretty much the same route (or part of) that the Pacific Surfliner trains run...why the different outfits? Why aren't they all either Coasters or Pacific Surfliners?

Anything you can tell me about these systems would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

--Tom

(by the way, I'll be offline all weekend, but will check in on Monday when I return--thanks again!)

This is a question that can really open the proverbial can of worms. A short answer would be that the whole thing is a big political creation. Coaster is a San Diego County entity and runs trains from Oceanside to San Diego on what one might call a "commuter service plus" schedule. Metrolink runs from Oceanside to Los Angeles on a similar schedule. Fares on both ML and Coaster are generally lower than Amtrak. Amtrak runs the Surfliners from LA to SD on a combination of their track (mostly purchased from Santa Fe), BNSF and San Diego North County Transit District (Coaster) track (also ex-Santa Fe). Orange County is planning to increase Metrolink frequency in the near future; I'm not sure whether it will be all the way to Oceanside or turn back at San Clemente (just on the north side of the OC/San Diego county line). There have been complaints over the years about Metrolink and Coaster deliberately timing their trains to make fast and easy transfers at Oceanside impossible, thus forcing through passengers to ride Surfliners. I should also add that the Surfliners that go to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo use Metrolink's ex-SP track as far as Moorpark. Amtrak tickets are good on some Metrolink trains but not others, and vice versa. Folks who've been to Europe tell me that it's a lot less complicated over there.

Here's a map that will present a picture of the various passenger operations.

---

The Coaster starts in San Diego and stops at Old Town, Sorrento Valley, Solana Beach, Encinitis, Carlsbad Poinsetta, Carlsbad
Downtown and Oceanside.

Amtrak only goes from San Diego, a few trains on weekends stops in Old Town, Solana Beach and Oceanside on the way to Orange
County, Los Angeles and onto points north.


Chris

Quick and dirty, Metrolink and Coaster are both commuter railroads.
Metrolink operates in Los Angeles, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange Counties and the Coaster operates in San Diego County only.

The Surfliner is operated by Amtrak and is intercity service.
It operates between San Diego and Los Angeles with selected trains going to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/09 18:18 by PHall.

Quick- tell him about the Sprinter!

And, perhaps a visit to the MetrolinkMax website would help explain some
other pertinent details and answer some other key questions.
http://www.metrolinkmax.com/

How many cities in the US boast heavy-rail passenger service from at least three railroads (four if you count Sprinter separately) like Oceanside, CA? Oceanside has Amtrak, Coaster and Metrolink.

masterphots Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How many cities in the US boast heavy-rail
> passenger service from at least three railroads
> (four if you count Sprinter separately) like
> Oceanside, CA? Oceanside has Amtrak, Coaster and
> Metrolink.


San Jose is the only other CA example that comes to mind (assuming we are excluding rapid transit). Don't know about elsewhere off-hand.

masterphots Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How many cities in the US boast heavy-rail
> passenger service from at least three railroads
> (four if you count Sprinter separately) like
> Oceanside, CA? Oceanside has Amtrak, Coaster and
> Metrolink.

Chicago certainly. Even if you call METRA one railroad, you have METRA, Amtrak, and the South Shore. And METRA has trains on UP, BNSF, CN, its own tracks, and more.

New York has 4: Amtrak, NJ Transit, Metro North, and LIRR, though not all from the same station. But Penn Station has all of those except Metro-North.

Could one say that Oceanside is the smallest city to receive passenger service from three different rail operations?

There are a few cities, especially in the East Coast that have three trains serving a station, and often times they are not as big as say Chicago or NYP. Trenton, NJ has SEPTA, NJT, and Amtrak. Philly, comparable with likes of big RR stations of Chicago and NYP have SEPTA, NJT and Amtrak. Washington DC - VRE, Amtrak, Marc, Metro. So stations with three rail transit systems serving them are certainly out there and not as unique as one may often think!

Don't forget that San Jose has Amtrak long-distance (the Starlight) as well as Amtrak California (Capitols), plus Caltrain and ACE. Three kinds of service in four paint schemes.

PSurfliner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> masterphots Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How many cities in the US boast heavy-rail
> > passenger service from at least three railroads
> > (four if you count Sprinter separately) like
> > Oceanside, CA? Oceanside has Amtrak, Coaster
> and
> > Metrolink.
>
>
> San Jose is the only other CA example that comes
> to mind (assuming we are excluding rapid transit).
> Don't know about elsewhere off-hand.

The Services out here. Are like the Services in the NEC.
You have Amtrak as the Intercity Provider. Between Boston
and Richmond VA. And you have NJ Transit, SEPTA, MARC, VRE,
MTA-NY MBTA and LIRR as respective Commuter Providers.
In their respected Service Area in the Northeast Corridor.

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/09 02:37 by GP25.

Thank you all for your posts and information...

And Stash, thanks for providing the map, very useful in sorting out the different entities.

Much appreciated, all!

--Tom