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Winter 2012

Starting with MAX to the Portland Tramway, a C-Tran bus to Vancouver, Amtrak Cascades to Tacoma, the Tacoma LINK, and SOUNDER to the Central LINK

Greetings from Sounder as I go north from Tacoma, the final portion of day to only Tukwila right now. I was planning to go to the Boeing Museum of Flight and pay the $18 for admission tomorrow anyway but found out it is free the first Thursday of every month and decided to go today […]

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Winter 2012

A Fun, Chatty and Snowy Coast Starlight Ride North

Happy Leap Day! (I unforchunately only have Amtrak tickets dated February 28 and March 1) Greetings from Portland and Hi-Hawthorne where I arrived almost an hour late due to signal trouble from last nights snow in the Southern Cascades. I am typing this listening to and Aussie and a Texan complaining about the grey 37º […]

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Winter 2012

Almost finishing VTA Light Rail in daytime

Greetings from the Neto Café in downtown Mountain View where I have stopped to let my camera battery charge (both of which for the first time in awhile are dead at the same time, this is a problem I used to have before I got really good about charging) and have just six VTA Light […]

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Winter 2012

Going Back North to San Francisco, Finishing the San Joaquin Corridor

Greetings from the late evening San Joaquin train approaching Richmond that I am taking for a final night in California (San Francisco) before I head north to Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and then across on VIA’s Canadian. This trip started this morning with a ride from the old family friends I was staying with to the […]

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Winter 2012

My Long-Weekend in L.A: a Fun $10 Metrolink Weekend doing the Antelope Valley and San Bernardino Lines, plus finishing Ventura County

My long-weekend in Los Angeles consisted of doing as much of Metrolink as I could using their new $10 weekend pass in particular. I had also thought about doing a station to station of the Orange Line Transitway (a bus line that runs almost entirely in its own transitway with quite genuine station platforms that […]

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Winter 2012

Continuing My Way Down the Coast to LA Getting 6 More Stations

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 […]

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Winter 2012

Starting down the Coast and Surfliner, the Coast Starlight to Paso Robles and the city bus down to Grover Beach (plus missing the last bus to Guadalupe)

Greetings from San Luis Obispo! and the nice little youth hostel here! Todays was the time to head back down the coast to tackle the northern half of the Pacific Surfliner mostly by city bus. I debate taking an early bus to get to Paso Robles at 10:40 but decide to take the Coast Starlight […]

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Winter 2012

Starting VTA San Jose and going out to Stockton

Presidents Day results in transit systems following different schedules and my research found weekend service on CalTrain with a few more Baby Bullet Express trains but full weekday service on VTA Light Rail in San Jose. I unfortunately did not get myself up early enough at the youth hostel for the one morning Baby Bullet […]

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Winter 2012

A Non-Detoured Coast Starlight Ride up to San Francisco (was scheduled via Tahachapi)

This Post I Pre-dated on February 22, 2012, the date I traveled: When Amtrak first announced the detour via Tahachapi I was quite disappointed, it would run northbound only during the first week of February not when I was out in California. Then it was extended to four more dates the second week and I […]

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Winter 2012

Finishing off the Rail Stations of Orange County!

Hello from Irvine, CA, where I’m am staying with relatives at U.C. Irvine! I arrived here yesterday and spent the day finishing off the northern Orange County stations (on my last trip last March I got Orange County from San Juan Capistrano and south, including all of San Diego County). The day began with a […]