Riding the Amtrak from San Diego to Portland
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
View from Amtrak south of Santa BarbaraJUNE 24 – I had previously taken the Amtrak from San Diego to New York City, and though it was a long and uncomfortable trip riding in coach, it didn’t change my view on traveling by train. Since then, I have always wanted to make the trip up the West Coast by Amtrak. I would have loved to go all the way to Seattle, but as it happened, we were planning a trip to Portland, Oregon, so only going as far as Portland would have to do. So it was settled, we booked one way coach Amtrak tickets to Portland, and then booked our return flights on Southwest. Incidentally, the total price for train plus one way airfare came to within $5 of what round trip airfare would have cost, so […]
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Amtrak Train cross country from San Diego to New York
Friday, January 2nd, 2009Santa Fe Depot, Amtrak, San Diego
Santa Fe Depot, Amtrak, San Diego
Since writing this article I’ve also taken the Amtrak from San Diego to Portland
DECEMBER – Most people I knew at work thought I was crazy to take a trip like this, but I had a good time and would still do it again, though making a few changes.
The trip was by Amtrak, and originated in San Diego (Santa Fe Depot) with the final destination being New York City. I took the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles, then the Southwest Chief from LA to Chicago, and finally the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to Penn Station in New York City. To make it even more interesting, I declined a ride to the train station from my beach apartment and […]
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Woes of public transportation
Friday, July 21st, 2006A while back on one of the blogs I read, Siel wondered what can be done to make public transportation more popular, or “sexier” in a sense. Her first post posing the question, and then in a follow up she pretty much sums it up. The two big problems are 1) reliability and 2) ease of use. I can vouch for both being a problem.
Many a morning while walking to the bus, I see two of my buses go by, one behind the other, only then to go to the stop and wait 20 minutes for the next one. This seems to be utterly foolish. The other problem, ease of use, is a big one too. Luckily it’s easy for me, I only take one bus with no transfers to work, but whenever I try to map a route to some other place I want […]
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Riding the city bus in San Diego – mixed feelings
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. About the mixed feelings I have about my past month of being semi car free. I have been both riding my bike to work and taking the city bus. And I feel great about both. The thing that is a little weird is that I feel like I am one of a very small percentage of people that ride the bus by choice. Taking a city bus here in the US, especially in Southern California is sort of a taboo thing, something reserved for the poor or those with less money. And I am pretty sure that most of the people on the bus, if given a chance, would probably love to be driving a car. So even though I really like taking the bus, for all the right reasons, I feel a little strange, since I don’t have to be, and if the people I ride with knew I had a car, they would probably feel weird too.
