I have two goals for my full day in Sacramento, going up to Auburn, the commuter oriented destination of the Capital Corridor with one train (and many buses) per day north of Sacramento and riding the new green line out to its terminus at 7th/Richards Township. I know I can finally take a morning really easy since I’ve gotten all of Sacramento done on previous visits. I first have breakfast with the friendly folks I was hanging out with last night and the German siblings are planning a trip tomorrow to Yosemite (they’ve rented a car) and they ask me if I want to join them. I spontaneously decide that finishing Metrolink can wait until my next trip to California and that going to Yosemitie with these interesting people I’ve met in a hostel sounds like an awesome adventure.
I eventually leave the hostel and wander around Old Town Sacramento but realize there is nothing their that I want to see again. I then head up to the State Capital and go on a tour where I realize I’m the only person from out of state. Everyone else is from throughout California. It is an interesting state capital and we go into the senate chamber where their in session. I leave the state capital and have a pizza lunch (it is decent but not quite New York worthy). I then start walking up to the recently opened oversized terminus of the Green Line’s only station that has one LRV shuttle back and forth from downtown running every 30 minutes during weekdays only. I take the Light Rail back to downtown using a Capital Corridor Transfer (I don’t get checked).
At 3:30, as the connecting Capital Corridor train arrived early I get back to the Amtrak station for my first thruway bus ride up to Roseville to get that station before getting on the thru Capital Corridor train to Auburn there. The waiting area fills up with a few Amtrak California branded buses. At 3:50 I board one going all the way to Reno. My ticket gets scanned, the driver is a bit surprised I have no luggage.
Our driver smokes one last cigarette. I hear we’re waiting on a bus from Stockton. As we wait a woman asks the driver where the station is and the driver gets on the phone to explain the location of the Roseville Station. I like this long grey haired driver today. We finally leave at 4:11. We take I-5 to I-80 that has traffic. I end up chatting with my seat mates about trains. The ride to the train station in Roseville is circuitous, the locals informed me. I get to Roseville at 4:51.
I have a nice time getting a photo essay of the surrounding station including the locomotives in the train yard beyond the station. Two double-stacks pass through the station as I wait. A Sacramento-bound bus shows up for a few passengers, plus Greyhound. Another passenger (who has never ridden the train before) uses the QuikTrak Machine to buy a ticket for my train so I’m not the only one boarding.
Train #536, the weekday Auburn-bound train comes in at 5:48. The conductor tells me to wait a minute and he announces there is police action in Auburn, and they don’t know when the train station will be released but we will continue the 9 minutes to Rocklin anyway. we go along I-80 slowly. I decide I might as well at least get the Rocklin Station. I walk the train to get my ticket scanned, the first conductor can’t gets his scanner to work so I go find the other conductor who is sitting beyond the red flag in the cab car. She is a bit confused with my request (and distracted with the police action on the phone) until I tell her that the other conductor’s scanner isn’t working. Soon the crew announces we will continue to Auburn and that the police have released the platform after clearing a supposed bomb threat on the platform. People in the car joke about where a bomb would actually be left like in the bathroom on the platform. I’m nervous about my photo stop.
We arrive in Rocklin at 5:59, 3 minutes late and its announced that Car 1, the rear car won’t open. We switch onto the opposite track for this station and stop at the grade crossing. There is a fresh new track across from us and a nice looking modern depot. We leave and see some farmland. It’s hilly subject were in the foothills of the Sierras
6:04 – Enter a tunnel and another as we rise. We leave houses behind and go through another tunnels and pine trees.
6:08 – Another tunnel. We’ve climbed up some more. I think I remember this from the Zephyr that does directional running here. We keep climbing and go over I-80
6:11 – Into another tunnel. I see another track rise above us. The trees of the low sierras continue.
6:15 – Another tunnel and across 80 on a high bridge.
We arrive at 6:18. I photograph the train entering its fenced of paddock a short ways beyond the station. It’s a moment when I wish I had a zoom lens. I wander around Roseville and get a pull photo essay of the simple shelter platform that has a single restroom and water fountain located on it. That was where the passengers thought perhaps a bomb could go.
The last bus to the Light rail stops at 7:00 on time. There is a very friendly man that I chat with waiting and on the bus. On the bus (the original plan was to put the bus leg on my ticket to Los Angeles, making it basically free) but my new Yosemite trip changes things. I book a ticket on the 9:00pm thruway bus to the early morning train tomorrow to Lodi, that seems to be the cheapest option at $12 (overpriced for a bus but I want to get Rocklin) and I won’t use the Lodi Segment. The bus zooms down I-80. I kind of wish Rocklin wasn’t a stop but it looked quite interesting from the train, and with it except for two stops on the Central Coast I will have gotten every stop on the Capital Corridor, San Joaquin, and Pacific Surfliner!
The bus drops me off at the Rocklin Community College. I have a nice mile and a half walk down to downtown Rocklin where I get my photo essay at Rocklin. The 7:45pm bus pulls in, excellent! I’ll get back to Sacromento at a reasonable hour. First I have to help the driver with his Amtrak scanner. He apologizes that he doesn’t like electronic stuff and isn’t normally an Amtrak driver. I’m able to use the ticket I bought for the 9:00 bus on the 7:45 bus, excellent!
At 8:01 I’m back at Roseville. One lady doesn’t have a ticket but knows the routine of giving her ID over and going inside at the station for a ticket. The driver is clueless in a I’m new way. He says he normally drives charter buses or MegaBus and that Amtrak isn’t for him, he says he gave up public transit 20 years ago because it wasn’t for him.
We arrive at 8:31 in the sunset back at Sacramento. I walk back to the hostel and catch my new hostel friends going to a coffee house with live jazz (its clearly just jamming) but its nice to chat with the Germans siblings I’m going with to Yosemittie tomorrow, the Taiwanese Man, and Dutch and Ukrainian Women.
AGR Update: A few days later I check my account and somehow the Sacramento dummy ticket (I wasn’t planning to use) posts, an extra 150 AGR Points for me!