Coast Starlight

Understand

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

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

From north to south:

Washington 1 Seattle King Street Station 2 Tacoma 3 Lacey (near Olympia) 4 Centralia 5 Kelso/Longview 6 Vancouver

Oregon 7 Portland Union Station 8 Salem 9 Albany 10 Eugene-Springfield Station 11 Chemult (Nearest station to Bend and Redmond with bus connections by Pacific Crest Bus Lines. Station is an unmanned platform in a remote location.) 12 Klamath Falls

California Dunsmuir, Redding, and Chico are reached in the wee hours both directions.

13 Dunsmuir 14 Redding 15 Chico 16 Sacramento Valley Station 17 Davis 18 Martinez 19 Emeryville (Nearest station to San Francisco where travelers can connect to the Amtrak Thruway Bus (Rt 99) to get across the bay to San Francisco.) 20 Oakland Jack London Square Station 21 San Jose Diridon Station 22 Salinas 23 Paso Robles 24 San Luis Obispo 25 Santa Barbara 26 Oxnard 27 Simi Valley 28 Van Nuys 29 Burbank Airport South Station (only southbound trains stop here) 30 Los Angeles Union Station

Alternatives

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 shared with 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 from Seattle. Between Sacramento and San Jose, the Coast Starlight shares the route of the Capitol Corridor, which runs many times per day with more stops. The Coast Starlight also runs together with the Pacific Surfliner between San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles twice a day and from Santa Barbara to LA more frequently. The Pacific Surfliner makes more stops than the Starlight and continues down to San Diego.

Go next

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