Coast Starlight

From Free net encyclopedia

The Coast Starlight is a 1389-mile (2235 km) passenger train route operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States. It runs from Seattle, Washington's King Street Station to the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.

The train's name was inspired by the trains of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) that operated in California, many along the same route as the current Coast Starlight. SP's passenger trains in this region carried the name Daylight in some form (e.g. Morning Daylight and Noon Daylight).

Major stops on the route are Portland, Oregon; Eugene, Oregon; Sacramento, California; Emeryville, California (for San Francisco); Oakland, California; San Jose, California; and Santa Barbara, California.

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Equipment

The train uses Amtrak's double-decker Superliner equipment and is the only train on the Amtrak system to feature a first-class Pacific Parlour lounge car, (formerly Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Hi-Level Lounge cars built in 1955), for sleeping car passengers which offers complementary beverages, a library and games, afternoon wine tasting, plus a movie theater in the lower level.

For children play equipment and other distractions are provided in the Kiddie Car. A Sightseer car has floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the passing scenery.

Locomotives used on the Coast Starlight are primarily Amtrak's main locomotives, the GE P42DC AMD-103 Genesis series. Secondary locomotives are GE P32-8 (Dash 8) Locomotives.

In rare cases, EMD F59PHI locomotives from the Amtrak Surfliner and Cascades routes and Amtrak California F59PHI, or in rarer cases Caltrain EMD F40PH and MPI MP36PH-3C locomotives are used on the Coast Starlight, either as substitutes or are being transported to or from repair jobs.

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History

Before the formation of Amtrak, there was no passenger train running along the whole west coast. The Southern Pacific Railroad operated the Coast Daylight between Los Angeles and San Francisco and the Cascade between Oakland and Portland. Service from Portland north to Seattle was provided by the Burlington Northern Railroad and service south from Los Angeles to San Diego by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

With the start of Amtrak operations on May 1, 1971, a single route was formed between San Diego and Seattle. The unnamed train (assigned numbers 11 southbound and 12 northbound) ran three times a week. Supplementing it on the other four days (northbound Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and southbound Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) was another unnamed train between Los Angeles and Oakland (assigned 98 northbound and 99 southbound). Additional service was also provided between San Diego and Los Angeles and between Portland and Seattle (those became the San Diegan and Mount Rainier/Puget Sound on November 14). In the November 14, 1971 timetable, the LA-Oakland train received the Coast Daylight name that the SP had used for its LA-San Francisco train, and was extended to San Diego and assigned numbers 12 and 13. The San Diego-Seattle train received the new name Coast Starlight and became trains 11 and 14. A few years later, the Coast Daylight was merged into the Coast Starlight, which was expanded to run every day. The Coast Starlight has since been truncated to Los Angeles, though frequent Pacific Surfliner service continues south.

Until April 25, 1982 the Coast Starlight used Southern Pacific Railroad's "West Valley Line" between Tehama and Davis, California with a stop in Orland, bypassing Sacramento to the west. At that time it was rerouted to the line between Tehama and Roseville, east of Sacramento.

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Station stops

The Coast Starlight runs as trains 11 southbound and 14 northbound, making the following station stops:

Template:Amtrak routes Template:Amtrak CA Template:Amtrak NW Template:End box

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Trivia

Until April 25, 2005 the Starlight had a stop in Glendale, California. This was replaced with the current stop in Van Nuys which unlike Glendale has Amtrak staff for checking baggage.

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External links

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References

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