Passenger Trains > Mustangs, Artichokes, and Amtraks…Making Due on the Coast Line

On Sunday, June 22nd, I had to take my daughter down to San Luis Obispo where she is doing a summer program at Cal Poly, home of the Mustangs. After dropping her at the dorm, I left her to unpack while I wandered around the campus. It happened that Amtrak Train 11, the southbound Coast Starlight, was cresting the grade at the top of Cuesta, so I wandered down to one of the grade crossings near campus that I thought would have workable light to grab some shots of it. (I was carrying a messenger bag with a micro 4/3 camera and a couple of lenses, just in case!) The long, circuitous route that the Coast Line takes as it descends the pass, with numerous grade crossings in the hills above Cal Poly, provided about 20-30 minutes of audible warning as the train approached.

Photos 1 and 2: AMTK 160 leads Amtrak Train 11, the Coast Starlight, southbound along California Blvd, just off of Cal Poly’s campus.

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Number 11’s northbound counterpart, Train 14, was running a bit late coming up to SLO. Normally it would make its stop at SLO before 11, and I believe they are typically scheduled to meet on one of the sidings further up the pass above town. Train 11 got first dibs on the station stop at SLO. This worked out well, as it allowed the sun to shift a little further west for Train 14’s arrival at my location.

Photos 3 and 4: AMTK 311 leads Amtrak 14 north on the afternoon of June 22nd. There was a college student from Cuesta College hanging out where I was catching 11 and 14’s passing. He was waiting to see the leader on Train 11. He mentioned that the leader on 11 with its throwback livery was welcomed, as apparently the Coast Starlight frequently gets the new Chargers leading. (While I am aware that they are occasionally running Chargers over Donner on the California Zephyr, I don’t seem to see them very often as I always catch the GEs.) He mentioned that the overall situation on that part of the Coast Line is rather mundane, with no scheduled through freights or locals running over Cuesta.
Photo 5: While walking back across campus to pick up my daughter for dinner, this juvenile male Anna’s Hummingbird got rather perturbed about my passing. As small as these creatures are, they are quite feisty and territorial. He held his ground while I moved in quite close to get this shot of him.

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I stayed the night in SLO rather than driving home on the evening of the 22nd. (I spent a couple hours wandering around SLO, and it seemed like a great little college town.) I was up early the next morning and went down to the Amtrak station to record the morning Pacific Surfliner departing.

Photos 6 and 7: CDTX 2116 has shoving duty on southbound Train 774. They rolled out of town right on schedule at 6:11 am on June 23rd.

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After grabbing breakfast, I took the scenic route heading back north towards the Bay Area. I followed as much of the rail line as I could from the north side of the pass down to Paso Robles. The southern reaches of the Salinas Valley are quite beautiful, and as lovely as the Coast Line is south of SLO, there is something to be said of the bucolic beauty of the hill country around Paso Robles, Templeton, Atascadero, and Santa Margarita. Before hoping back on 101 to continue north, I checked the status of Amtrak 11. I estimated that I could catch it in Salinas, and I was off. Upon reaching Salinas, another check of the train showed that hadn’t yet reached Watsonville, so I headed further north to Castroville, the Artichoke Capital of the World. (Or, the Artichoke Center of the World, depending on who you ask.) There must still be slow orders in place around Elkhorn Slough, as it took far longer than expected to make it from Watsonville to Castroville.

Photos 7 and 8: Amtrak 11, lead by a battle-worn looking AMTK 5, is slowly plodding south through Castroville. I’d be curious to know when the last time was that this siding or any of the spurs in Castroville saw a train and rail service.

The amount of semi traffic around Salinas, Castroville, and Watsonville was disheartening, as I suspect it was mostly produce traffic that was being handled by the SP 40 or 50 years ago, perhaps even more recently than that. Whether or not it’s a lack of interest in carload traffic on the part of the railroad, or semis being cheaper than building out intermodal capabilities in the Salinas Valley, etc., I can’t say. It’s really a shame though.

Cheers,
Sean

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Great story and photos! I’ve chased the Starlight a few times both north and southbound between Oakland and SLO and I always like the shots you can get in the southern Salinas Valley. And of course always poignant dropping kids off at college….

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Thanks!

I would have loved to experience the Coast Line when GS or PA locomotives were hauling the Daylight, fast freights were running between Oakland/SF and LA, beet trains were running, and haulers were pulling tons of produce out of the Salinas Valley for eventual transit over Donner to points east. Now I only get to experience it through Signor's and others' books.

Mention of good ol' Cow Po[y took me back to "bright college days" in 1958-59.  I was in a freshman dorm that was a former Navy barracks left over from World War II.  The residents were about half engineering and haff agricultural majors, with a few arts and sciences folks in the mix.  I wasn't into railfanning at the time, but did get pix of the Nikita Khrushchev special when the main man from Moscow came up the coast from LA in Sept 1959..  

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I hadn't realized that Khrushchev travelled up the West Coast during his visit and was so accessible. It would have been money to get him to autograph a copy of Animal Farm.

There was a bi-lingual dining car menu.

Those photos of Nikita Khrushchev and his train are amazing. What was the crowd's demeanor like for the visit? Excitement? Apprehension?  

As for the agricultural products, the business is never coming back to the railroad.  In the past 50 years the supply chain has been reworked to use trucking. Rubber tires are more flexible, faster, and cost effective. Bringing back rail would require massive expenditures in facilities for both loading and unloading at the destination and this would not solve the timeliness problem.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Great report and pictures and excellent responses. 

My father was a train nut and so we were down near Gilroy, CA to watch the Khrushchev train pass by.  As I remember law enforcement at every one of the many crossings.

We lived in Livermore, CA and used to regularly chase the Zephyr eastbound from Livermore out the Altamont Pass until the tunnel.

I think one of the reasons was that they really wanted him to get a look at all the ICBM missiles as the train passed through Vandenberg AFB.

broken_link Wrote:
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> I hadn't realized that Khrushchev travelled up the
> West Coast during his visit and was so accessible.
> It would have been money to get him to autograph a
> copy of Animal Farm.