Amtrak Upgrades Trains on Scenic Coast Route

Surfers to the left. San Clemente cliff-dwellers to the right.

And in their reclining seats, Carmen Zambada and Jewel Smick passed judgment Thursday on the new Amtrak train whisking them from San Diego to Los Angeles.

“Smooth, very smooth,” said Zambada, 66, of San Diego.

“Plush everywhere, not just in first-class,” said Smick, 68, of National City.

There you have it, instant consumer feedback on Amtrak’s boldest upgrade of service in California in years: new double-decker trains for the San Diego-Los Angeles-Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo line, the second most heavily traveled Amtrak route in the United States.

After appearing without fanfare over the Memorial Day weekend, Amtrak’s new Pacific Surfliner made its official debut Thursday--complete with music (mariachi, surfer and barbershop), a Tarot card reader, a stress management consultant, and plenty of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Amtrak executives.

No more, said San Diego Councilwoman Judy McCarty, will Amtrak be but “a dowdy piece of machinery.”

Name it and this train has it: bike and surfboard racks, laptop computer outlets, television screens on seat backs, better food and wine selections, wider seats and more legroom, and extra large windows to allow riders to consume the view.

“It’s a beaut,” said Ray Burns of Fullerton, who runs a Web site called www.trainweb.com for the true rail aficionado.

Only one of the 11 trains that make the trip each day will have the set of five new cars. By next spring, plans are for another eight trains to have the new rolling stock.

There are also plans to expand the number of trains on the route to 14 within five years. And to reduce the time from San Diego to Los Angeles--now two hours and 45 minutes--by half an hour or more.

“This is our future,” said Amtrak President and chief executive George D. Warrington. “This is about offering travelers an attractive, competitive alternative, in the face of massive air crowding and freeway gridlock.”

Consumer advocates say the upgrade is long overdue and part of a surge in popularity for rail travel.

Forget those cliches about Californians refusing to get out of their cars, they say. Rail ridership is increasing faster than population growth.

Richard Silver, executive director of the 7,000-member Train Riders of California, says that with additional Amtrak lines and expansion of service on trolleys in San Diego and the Bay Area Rapid Transit and Metrolink systems, daily rail ridership in the state will soon break 1 million, and may reach 1.3 million in three to four years.

“We’re on the verge of a rail renaissance in California,” said Silver, whose group functions as a watchdog on private and public rail systems. (Part of the renaissance is a planned Amtrak line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by the end of 2000.)

At 1.5 million riders annually, the San Diego-San Luis Obispo line is second only to the Boston-New York-Washington line with upward of 8.5 million.

With Amtrak expanding and upgrading in California, one of the questions yet to be resolved is what role will be left for the state’s proposed high-speed rail system, which has ambitious plans for routes between the state’s major cities.

SB 1840, sponsored by Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), would give the state’s High Speed Rail Authority “exclusive” dominance over trains going 100 mph or faster.

Former state Senate President Pro Tem Jim Mills, a Democrat from San Diego and member of the authority, said the bill could put a crimp in Amtrak’s plans to upgrade tracks to allow for greater speed. “It’s a power grab,” Mills said of the bill, which he opposes.

Amtrak officials, while more diplomatic, are concerned about the 100 mph provision. They hope to see the bill amended to increase that figure to possibly 150 mph, allowing leeway for Amtrak.

Progress always extracts a price and in this case the price was the loss of the name San Diegan, as the route has been known since 1936.

Amtrak marketeers tried the old name and several new ones out on test audiences and picked Pacific Surfliner, a variant of the pre-1936 name, Surf Line.

But “it’s not about being nostalgic,” Warrington said of the name. “It’s about being modern and competitive.”

Determined not to spoil the party, San Diego officials who showed up for the champagne launch at the Santa Fe Depot in San Diego expressed no disappointment in the name change.

“I chose not to mention that” in speaking to the group, McCarty said. “I wanted to stay positive.”

Sal Giametta, vice president of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he doubted the name switch will deter visitors from coming south or San Diego residents from returning home as quickly as possible.

“When you’re in Los Angeles you know it, you can see it and smell it,” Giametta said. “You know where you want to go: San Diego.”