The Coast Starlight is an Amtrak train line that goes up and down the West Coast of the United States, from Seattle to Los Angeles via Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area.
See rail travel in the United States for further information about Amtrak and other train lines.
Understand
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Although the moniker is "Coast Starlight", the coast is visible for only a short while between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo, however the route does also pass through some pine forests with excellent vistas of mountain peaks in Oregon and Washington. Service is daily and takes 35 hours to complete. The train crosses most of three states: Washington, Oregon, and California.
The train is scheduled to reach most stations (except the sparsely populated northern third of California) at somewhat reasonable hours, assuming no delays. Going south, the Coast Starlight leaves Seattle around mid-morning and crosses the Oregon-California border in the middle of the night, to reach Sacramento early in the morning and the Bay Area an hour or two later, then roll into Los Angeles in the evening. Going north, it leaves Los Angeles in the mid-morning, hits the Bay Area in the evening, Sacramento in the middle of the night, crosses the Oregon border early in the morning, and reaches Portland in the late afternoon and Seattle in the evening.
Coach and private sleeper accommodations are available. Meals in the dining car are included for sleeper car passengers but cost extra for coach passengers. Food is also available from the cafe car.
- Coast Starlight on Amtrak's website — includes a detailed list of all the stations
Get in
[edit]You can start and end at any of the stations; major cities on the way include Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco (via Emeryville), Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. It's also feasible to connect to or from another train, in particular the Cascades from Vancouver, Canada; the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and Portland; the California Zephyr from Chicago, which connects with the Coast Starlight in Emeryville; the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles; and the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego. "Thruway" buses also connect some stations to nearby destinations. If you want to make any of these connections, you should book it all as one ticket with Amtrak.
Stations
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From north to south:
Washington
[edit]Oregon
[edit]California
[edit]Dunsmuir, Redding, and Chico are reached in the wee hours both directions.
- 13 Dunsmuir
- 14 Redding
- 15 Chico
- 16 Sacramento
- 17 Davis
- 18 Martinez
- 19 Emeryville
- 20 Oakland
- 21 San Jose
- 22 Salinas
- 23 Paso Robles
- 24 San Luis Obispo
- 25 Santa Barbara
- 26 Oxnard
- 27 Simi Valley
- 28 Van Nuys
- 29 Los Angeles
Alternatives
[edit]On some segments of the line, the Coast Starlight shares tracks with other Amtrak trains that run more often and with more stops – consider these options too if your travel plans are within one of these well-travelled corridors (if relevant, they should show up as options in Amtrak's booking system):
- The stations from Seattle to Eugene are served by the Amtrak Cascades, which runs twice a day (six times a day between Seattle and Portland). Once per day it also continues to Vancouver, Canada.
- Between Sacramento and San Jose, the Coast Starlight shares the route of the Capitol Corridor, which runs many times per day and makes a lot more stops.
- The Coast Starlight also runs together with the Pacific Surfliner, which goes from San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles twice a day and from Santa Barbara to LA more frequently. It makes more stops than the Starlight and continues down to San Diego.
Go next
[edit]- California Zephyr — Amtrak line from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area
- Interstate 5 — boring but direct highway that roughly parallels the Coast Starlight
- Pacific Coast Highway — beautiful scenic highway on the California coast