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Amtrak Surfliner San Diego / Los Angeles Review
Comments(16)
I live in San Diego, work in LA (about 130 miles away). The drive is horrendous. I tried the Amtrak service quite a while back, and found it very easy. Instead of dealing with traffic, you just sit. You’re free to read, eat, sleep, whatever. I’m writing this on the train. The seats are fairly comfortable. It does get more passengers than I had expected, but you can almost always find two seats to yourself.
The view is spectacular for much of the trip, as you skim the coastline all the way up. The service does have its hiccups – it’s not unusual for it to be late. It costs about $40 round trip between Solana Beach and Los Angeles Union Station, but you can get multi-trip passes, like the “ten-ride”, that knock it down to $25 round trip. That’s pretty good, about the same as you’d spend on gas. The trip takes a little over two hours.
From Union Station there’s a pretty decent Metro system that can get you where you want to go. I happen to go to Pasadena, which has a convenient Metro line. If you’re going elsewhere, you may be out of luck, although there are taxis and car rentals at Union Station.
Somehow Southern Californians are afraid of public transportation. I’m here to tell you, don’t be afraid! It’s ok! I’d recommend you take the Amtrak train and see how you like it.
I need to catch a train from LA to San Diego on28 / 12 and return to LA on 31/ 12 . Advise me on time and whether i can book online
dave
You forgot to mention how long it takes.
Terry Pratchett jokes about Amtrak, “You have such a relaxing train system. If I want to get a cup of coffee, I just hop off the train, go to a cafe, and jog a little to catch up again.”
Seriously though, it is a beautiful ride, a relaxing alternative to LA traffic. It’s a great way to go to Universal Studios or the LA Convention Center especially if you’re making a day of it. It can take a little longer than a car would, but it doesn’t *feel* like it so it’s definitely better if you’re not pressured for time. Take along a meal, a book, a pack of cards, and you’re all set.
I’m hoping that the proposed California high-speed rail system will take care of that one issue. A train would still be relaxing at 200mph, and it would beat car travel hands down.
I recently had a experience with Amtrak as our Scout Troop of 19 travled from Raton NM to St. Louis MO on our way to Tennesee.
When we boarded our train in Raton we were told there were not enough seats and we would have to stay in the lounge car until seats could be found. We were loaded in the lounge car with our luggage and backpacks to be stored on the tables. Obviously there was little room and the other passengers were inconvenienced and took their frustrations out on us because the difficulties reaching the snack bar and using the lounge. Never in my life have I traveled and been made to feel like such a second class citizen. About an hour into the trip we were allowed to carry our backpacks to the baggage car, but we still were not given seats. So during the 12 hour ride to Kansas City we were forced to sleep on the floor and on the lounge benches. A few of us found single seats throughout the train, only to be woken up by staff at 3am to tell us to move back to the lounge car! We later found out that another group boarded the train in Raton that was ticketed for another day which is why the train was oversold. It was never explained to us, why they got seats while we were forced to sleep on the floor.
When we arrived in Kansas City we were late and missed our connection train to St. Louis. This caused an additional delay of 7 hours while we waited for the next train. Because we had already arranged for a charter bus to pick us up in St. Louis and drive us back to Tennessee, we were obligated to pay the bus driver extra in compensation for him having to wait so long in St. Louis. We paid over $4,000 for our Amtrak tickets, we traveled on the day our tickets were issued for and had a terrible experience. At no time did the staff on the train offer to help or make adjustments to our situation. We were only told by the Snack Bar clerk that it was “his worst nightmare�. To say the least he wasn’t alone.
at Union station there are buses and/or Metrolink that can take
to other places (ie Santa Monica, ) you can even get to Lax from
Union station (either by bus or via the rail (3 differnt trains connections though)
Thanks for the comments about Amtrak going to LA. I am just beginning to plan my commute to LA from San Diego and your feedback was helpful. Coming from New York, where the whole place is wired with public transportation..it make me want to be a public transportation activist here to get more of it going. Since we have less and less time to relax, why spen it sitting in traffic buring up gas and ruining the air?
I will take the train to LA! I hear you can park for free at Solana Beach. ?
Kitty, yes, parking is free in Solana beach. I’ve been parking there over a period of 2 years, sometimes a few days at a time, with no problems.
I need to know where i catch the amtrak close to studio city to get to Sandiego? How far is the gaslamp distric to where you get off in sandiego?
Please Reply
I plan to do a Friday afternoon/evening trip with family from San Diego to Laguna Nigel. Does it make sense to do an advanced booking? with advance booking, do they let you choose seats too, to make sure we get together seats.
Shobhit, I don’t think you’ll need advanced booking unless you’re traveling at a particularly busy time (eg. holidays). You can book in advance if you’d like, but you’ll pick up the tickets in person, meaning you’ll need to go to the booth anyway. You don’t get assigned seats.
In every car there are several 4-seat arrangements reserved for families; in the unlikely event you don’t find seats next to each other you can ask the people sitting in those seats to move.
Do you still commute between LA and San Diego? I have an internship in LA for the summer (end of may-july) but have an apartment lease in San Diego that I would like to keep for next year. So I am debating whether it would be better to sublet in LA for the summer or to just suck it up and do the amtrak commute. What time do you leave in the morning and what time do you get home?
Thanks for any help. You are one of the few google searches on the subject of a SD-LA commute. I thought there would be more people doing it.
I take the 6:46am from Solana Beach, gets to Union Station in LA at 8:50am. You have to figure out how to get to your final destination from Union Station, but there are plenty of buses and the metro (http://www.metro.net/) so it’s doable.
The commute is fairly exhausting if you do it on a regular basis. I did 3 days a week for about a year, so it is doable, and you’ll find plenty of other regular commuters on the train with you, but you should give some serious thought to getting a place in LA and saving yourself the hassle if it’s an option.
thanks man
I am catching a flight out of San Diego in a couple weeks but live in Sherman Oaks (LA Valley). I was thinking about taking the train but am not familiar bc i just moved here. Any info that anyone can give me would be awesome. My email is [email protected]. Thanks in advance.
Curtis,
I’m not sure which train you can take from Sherman Oaks, but if you can find your way to an Amtrak station, you can take the Amtrak all the way to downtown San Diego, which is quite close to the airport. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are shuttles from the train station to the airport, or you might have to take a cab from there.
What I don’t get is why Amtrak is so expensive. At $34 one-way it makes it really hard for me to justify taking Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego, and while Metrolink is cheap, it doesn’t run often enough to be convenient.
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