Greetings from Horizons Car #54552 that amazingly has been outfitted with AmtrakConnect. I am riding it the final distance to LA-Union Station where my baggage has hopefully already arrived.
This car is on the one single-level old school Pacific Surfliner (San Diegan) train that is a strange consist of Cabbage #90208, Amfleet-I BuisinessClass, and must be once of the few Horizon cars to have Wi-Fi since all the other routes with it are east coast Amfleet-I routes, the Talgos, Acela, and all the other Amtrak California/Surfliner trains that use bi-levels. This is a slow ride since its Metrolink Commuter train time and their four trains have priority. The train I am on even runs on a later tighter schedule on weekends when there are no Metrolink trains to slow it down. The conductors are trying to explain to customers why we are late, and have made a ton of announcements regarding our lateness.
To my day today: I had an early start in San Luis Obispo to catch the 6:56 morning Surfliner. I had planned to check my bag there for the day but was running slowly and got there too late. I hopped aboard as soon as the train pulled into the station from whatever siding it spends the night on (this was at about 6:50) and enjoyed my early morning ride down the coast starting to sort all of my pictures. I wondered downstairs for some pictures out the door (the Surfliners have automatic doors so all open) of Guadalupe and Lompec-Surf Station and am going to call those photo essays good for now (until I am in a car driving up the coast and decide to stop). I got off the train, two TransiTransfers in hand in Goleta (on the surfliner there only useful here and in San Luis Obispo) and do my photo essay of the single platform and siding in an industrial area where two Surfliners are turned around a day (one overnights).
I walk down to Hollister Avenue stuck with my backpack and took the bus that I had unintentionally timed perfectly down to the transit center. From there I walk over to the Amtrak Station where the first northbound Surfliner of the day, train #799, the one single level Surfliner train with old single-level equipment. It is a mixture of Horizons and Amfleet-I cars that are literally alternating one for one. After that train leaves I walk into the station and the agent accepts my bag for the next train at 2:00. From there I finish my photo essay and take the bus that runs only hourly down to Carpeteria, using my second TransiTransfer, they give you two so you can make a round-trip, something I am basically doing.
I get to Carpeteria around noon and learn that the next northbound Surfliner #763 is running almost an hour late so I am able to photograph it passing through on its way north. I finish my photo essay and start walking along the beach to position myself for the Coast Starlight also running an hour late. I find an okay position and catch that train going through before walking back to the station, missing the 1:40 VISTA bus down so I take the next Surfliner #784 (on my multi-trip ticket, getting 100 more AGR points for that tiny leg, taking the bus was going to cost me $3 more) that is running 15 minutes late. I get off in Ventura and do a quick photo essay before dashing off to the Gold Coast Transit bus #6 on Main Street, paying my first $1.50 bus fare of the day. On this bus (that is frequent running every 20-25 minutes) I realize that if my train from Oxnard is on time down for San Luis Obispo I will have just one minute to make the connection. I take this bus south, doing a quick photo stop at the tiny East Ventura train siding, located on a wye that just so happens to be a stop on the three Metrolink trips per day that layover there, (these are the only 3 Metrolink trains that go beyond Moorpark) before hopping on the next bus route #6. I notice that my next train to L.A. is running 20 minutes late so I get off a stop early and walk into the transit center to get my photos. I do my photo essay leisurely and Train #790 using the same single-level consists (it turned in San Luis Obispo) finally comes in a half our late, where I am now posting this.
Just 3 more Surfliner stations to go before I have them all! Doing those is the plan for tomorrow!