Passenger Trains > Coach-Only San Joaquins and Their Axle Count Requirements

San Joaquin trains 712 and 714 were observed today(5/5) leaving Oakland with their café
cars still in the consist--the Oakland Coach Yard may need some time to make adjustments. 
A decision will have to come to meet BNSF's 28 axle minimum: will a revenue coach replace
the café or will a second axle count car be added in addition to the ex-NJT Comet?

The San Joaquins standard six car consist of the last several years is pictured in Oakland's 
Jack London Square.  Roughly half of the 14 café cars remain in service on the Capitol Corridor
with the rest now surplus to requirements.

I've included a couple of stock flickr shots of the interior of the food service cars.  
The menu which both services shared:
https://d34tiw64n5z4oh.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/Cafe-Car-Menu-compressed.pdf

Copy and pasted from the Wikipedia California Car page:

The 14 café cars(CDTX 8801-8814) built for Amtrak California are all named after valleys.
The upper level of the café car is divided into three areas: a lounge seating area with
small tables that face the windows, a table seating area with booths for 2, 3 and 4 people
and a large galley where an attendant sells and prepares food. Passengers order from a walk
up counter at the galley area and may take their items to a seat in the café car or back 
to their seat in a coach car.

The lower level of the café car has a restroom, a storage area for additional food/drink 
carts and additional table seating. This additional seating was originally designed to accommodate
passengers with disabilities and serve as overflow seating but is now used as an office area for 
conductors and other Amtrak crew members and a door has been placed in front of the stairs 
down to this area.

Originally, the cars offered full-service dining in the table seating area. An attendant would 
seat diners, take orders, prepare food in the galley and deliver it to passengers. Even on the
San Joaquins with its 6+ hour end to end travel time, the full-service dining option proved 
to be unpopular and the service was discontinued leaving just the one attendant behind the counter.
Passengers are now free to sit in any seat in the car.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/25 22:28 by milepost20.

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I wonder if any of those Cafe Cars will end up in LA?
I know they might come in handle. If a Surfliner Cafe is out of service.


Do we know how many San Joaquin Trains are now using the Single Level Siemens cars yet?

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

Do I understand correctly that the area in the last photo is now reserved for crew only ?

In almost any other sector on board food service would be a profit center but either because of a CBA or just Cali's housing crisis, even marked up food couldn't support the full cost of staffing the service (extra list + management). The outside the box solution would be to sell the cafe space to private vendors who would take on the risk. Probably not sustainable in the long run, but I'm sure they could find some lesser fools to lose money for a year or so.

I would stock it with gas station type food.
The diet of many Americans.
Coffee, donuts, chips, energy drinks.
On the warmer: hot dogs, pizza.nachos, etc.
In the cooler: pre-packaged sandwiches
Lots and lots of alcohol.

For entertainment: scratch off lottery tickets, gambling machines.

Off duty cops as security.
 

Englewood Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would stock it with gas station type food.
> The diet of many Americans.
> Coffee, donuts, chips, energy drinks.
> On the warmer: hot dogs, pizza.nachos, etc.
> In the cooler: pre-packaged sandwiches
> Lots and lots of alcohol.
>
> For entertainment: scratch off lottery tickets,
> gambling machines.
>
> Off duty cops as security.
>  

You might want to reassess your priors because most people's prefered fuel service options are chains wth great food. Wawa, Sheetz, Stewarts, Royal Farms, Buckies, etc. 

If the Capitol Corridor trains are keeping their food service I am guessing one issue with the San Joaquins was that the attendants had to get put in a hotel at tne end of ever other run and this might have made it expensive to manage the staffing pool. If there's a no show one can't just grab a manager or other qualified staffer to cover a round trip that day. They'd be gone overnight, which is much more disruptive. 

I have only ridden the San Joaquin a handful of times. I rode it in August of 2006 between Emeryville and Bakersfield, in January 2007 between Sacramento and Bakersfield, just very recently in October between Bakersfield and Emeryville, as well as an extremely short distance from Martinez to Antioch-Pittsburg in October 2024 as well. I wish that I could give an analysis about the patronage of usage of cafe service on the San Joaquin. I will say this, when I took the San Joaquin last October the entire distance, we had the cafe car in it and when I bought a hot dog from there, I didn't see too many people in the cafe car besides the single attendant behind the counter. While it may be very upsetting to some people that the San Joaquins will no longer have a cafe car, hopefully there could be food trucks at each of the stations along the San Joaquin corridor. I can certainly see so many people using the San Joaquins who are spending no more than an hour on the train.

 

mbrotzman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might want to reassess your priors because
> most people's prefered fuel service options are
> chains wth great food. Wawa, Sheetz, Stewarts,
> Royal Farms, Buckies, etc. 

You obviously do not live in California.

It was nice while it lasted.

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mbrotzman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Englewood Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I would stock it with gas station type food.
> > The diet of many Americans.
> > Coffee, donuts, chips, energy drinks.
> > On the warmer: hot dogs, pizza.nachos, etc.
> > In the cooler: pre-packaged sandwiches
> > Lots and lots of alcohol.
> >
> > For entertainment: scratch off lottery tickets,
> > gambling machines.
> >
> > Off duty cops as security.
> >  
>
> You might want to reassess your priors because
> most people's prefered fuel service options are
> chains wth great food. Wawa, Sheetz, Stewarts,
> Royal Farms, Buckies, etc. 
>
> If the Capitol Corridor trains are keeping their
> food service I am guessing one issue with the San
> Joaquins was that the attendants had to get put in
> a hotel at tne end of ever other run and this
> might have made it expensive to manage the
> staffing pool. If there's a no show one can't just
> grab a manager or other qualified staffer to cover
> a round trip that day. They'd be gone overnight,
> which is much more disruptive.

The trains are still staffed. They now use a presumably lower paid TA versus an LSA.

The mentality is that this a glorified commuter train service just waiting for HSR so they can kill it south of Merced. Visitors to Yosemite can rough it and put up with it. 

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The mentality is that this a glorified commuter
> train service just waiting for HSR so they can
> kill it south of Merced. Visitors to Yosemite can
> rough it and put up with it. 

Visitors to Yosemite usually either drive or fly into Fresno and take a tour bus to Yosemite.
While there is tour bus service from the Merced station to YNP it's not well patronized.
The vast majority of the visitors drive, either their own car or an airport rental.

There a several train sets of Siemens cars available for service, however the maximum number is limited to the number of available serviceable NPCUs (Cabbage Cars) in the Oakland pool. This is due to the cab cars not being allowed into service for several different reasons, and the fact that the Chargers have such a poor reliability / availability that Oakland can not afford to use two locomotives per train. Plus with the warmer weather already creeping into the San Joaquin Valley, the Chargers will be relegated to Capitol Corridor trains due to their poor cab air conditioners, which can not keep up with the central valley heat.

M-636

GP25 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do we know how many San Joaquin Trains are now
> using the Single Level Siemens cars yet?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/25 11:39 by M-636.

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The mentality is that this a glorified commuter
> train service just waiting for HSR so they can
> kill it south of Merced. 

Those much talked about six hour trips on the San Joaquins will be reduced to just three hour hops
if future plans hold and may help explain the downgrading of food service on this route.  The service
as we now know it will be discontinued south of Merced with riders transferring to HSR trains if and
when the Bakersfield to Merced high speed line opens(post-2030).

The high speed trains will connect at Merced into trains on the conventional system operated by Amtrak
and Valley Rail/Altamont Corridor Express to destinations such as Sacramento, Chico, Oakland, Union City BART
and San Jose.

The attachment below is from Page 48 of the following report:
https://cdn.sjjpa.com/wp-content/uploads/20250311120849/2025-SJJPA-Business-Plan_Public-Review-Draft_DRAFT.pdf

See page 36 for a look at the "Merced Connection".

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I've never heard of any of those food service venues.  But I live in the Northwest, and you'd be amazed at how many national chains we don't have up here.

One more thing.  Can't they just leave those food service cars in the San Joaquin consists for axle count and maybe even let people sit in them and use the tables??  In fact, can't they set up the grab and go option in those cars?  Does anyone know what the plan is on that?

NPRocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One more thing.  Can't they just leave those food
> service cars in the San Joaquin consists for axle
> count and maybe even let people sit in them and
> use the tables??  In fact, can't they set up the
> grab and go option in those cars?  Does anyone
> know what the plan is on that?

Oh, stop with the logic, for crying out loud. We have a service to run (into the ground). 

Jim

NPRocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never heard of any of those food service
> venues.  But I live in the Northwest, and you'd
> be amazed at how many national chains we don't
> have up here.

You have Jack in the Box. What else could you possibly need?

DutchDragon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NPRocky Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I've never heard of any of those food service
> > venues.  But I live in the Northwest, and
> you'd
> > be amazed at how many national chains we don't
> > have up here.
>
> You have Jack in the Box. What else could you
> possibly need?

They're supposed to get an In-N-Out in Washington state this year too.

If you all want to look at examples of at least 8 hour routes and up to 48 hours with very little to no food service on the trains, come to Canada to ride a couple of VIA Rail’s adventure/mandatory services trains. The Sudbury to White River line which is an 8-9 hour journey end to end only has a few snacks offered. The Winnipeg to Churchill line has nothing but a cafe that sells very few items in the Skyline Lounge car. The Winnipeg to Churchill train used to have a dining car but I think they removed it around the pandemic. It won’t be returning until the future brand new rolling stock replaces the Budd cars. Not everyone riding those routes is traveling end to end plus for very long. For example, on the Winnipeg to Churchill train, much of the ridership is between The Pas and Churchill since there are very few roads running parallel to the train line and many people are only traveling between stations like Thompson and Wabowden.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/25 14:04 by Passfanatic.