Trip Report: The Great “Rail” Journey of April 2008

by Ted & Sylvia Blishak

Day 6 of 26, Saturday, April 12, 2008

Domes Down the Valley

This morning at 7am we all meet with enthusiasm in the Waterfront Plaza lobby for our shuttle to the Oakland Jack London Station.

Jack London Square Station

Here is a paragraph from Trains Unlimited Tours website:  "Enjoy a day onboard our luxury California Zephyr dome cars as we run along the shores of the San Francisco Bay and down the San Joaquin Valley to Bakersfield and return. Sit back and relax, enjoy the scenery and let our onboard staff cater to your desires. Our chef will prepare a freshly cooked gourmet breakfast, lunch and dinner and our steward and his staff will pamper you with our award winning first class service. Unlimited drinks and snacks are available all day. We depart from Amtrak's Jack London Square Depot at 7:30am with our dome cars coupled to train No. 712 The San Joaquin. You are welcome to board at Martinez, Antioch or Stockton if you like. We arrive in Bakersfield at 1:46pm. Our return departure is on train No. 717 at 3:45pm getting back into Oakland at 10:00pm."

Only $225.00 /person with an available upgrade to a private Pullman compartment for an additional $120.00/person.  Sound too good to be true?  We signed up for Drawing Room D in Silver Solarium, a very spacious accommodation which will seat 4 in comfort, and invited my nephew and his wife along to celebrate his 36th birthday.

I had booked Drawing Room D of car CZ-10, Silver Solarium, in 1967, but that is another story.  Our complete trip report will be published in the next issue of Passenger Train Journal (PTJ), and will later be available on the Internet.

Silver Lariat and Silver Solarium at Jack London Square

On our return to Oakland at 10pm, we taxied back to the Waterfront Plaza, tired but happy.  However, there was little time to rest, as we were to board the truncated Coast Starlight at 850am the next morning for a trip to Paso Robles.