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Announcing OTOL Pacific Coast RailFest (PCRF) 2016


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#1 KevinKorell

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Posted 01 February 2016 - 12:14 AM

Announcing OTOL Pacific Coast RailFest (PCRF) 2016:  July 11-20, 2016

 

Pacific Coast RailFest 2016 will take place from Monday, July 11th through Wednesday, July 20th.  Those dates represent our Chicago westbound departure at the start, and our Chicago eastbound arrival at the end.  The journey will also feature 3 long distance trains together, including our first time as a group on the Coast Starlight.

 

With the dates in mind, let's go down the list of what will happen each day.


Monday 7/11/16


Leave Chicago westbound on Train #7, Empire Builder.
 

Tuesday 7/12/16


Aboard westbound Empire Builder.
 

Wednesday 7/13/16


Arrive Seattle on Empire Builder. Afternoon activities on LINK light rail and Seattle Streetcar, First Hill Line. The itinerary will for now not show these activities with actual times since neither has yet gone into service. Dinner & stay in Seattle.
 

Thursday 7/14/16


Time for make-up activities in the morning, in case we arrive very late into town and miss riding the streetcar or light rail. Leave Seattle on southbound Train #513, the Cascades, ride to Portland. Dinner & stay in Portland.
 

Friday 7/15/16


In Portland, ride new TriMet MAX Orange Line to Milwaukie, and the Portland Streetcar A & B Loops. In the afternoon, leave Portland southbound on Train #11, Coast Starlight.
 

Saturday 7/16/16


Arrive Los Angeles on Coast Starlight in the evening. Stay in Los Angeles.
 

Sunday 7/17/16


Ride LACMTA Metro Expo Line to Santa Monica, and Metro Gold Line to East Los Angeles end as well as newest segment beyond Pasadena to Azusa/Citrus College. The other thing I would like to do is the city's only funicular, Angels Flight. However it is currently closed and should not be expected to be back in service before our visit. Again the itinerary will not show calling times because the Azusa Gold Line won't be open until March, and the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica won't open until later in the Spring. Second night hotel stay in Los Angeles.
 

Monday 7/18/16


This day can be many things. Penciled in for now is a round trip on the Pacific Surfliner to Anaheim and back. The reason this was chosen is to be able to take a look at the new ARTIC transportation center. However turning there also requires a 48-minute layover. If enough people want to, we might be able to go a little further and turn around on the same chosen trains. Or we can split and some go further and some spend the dwell in Anaheim. Alternatively, we also could schedule a Metrolink round trip somewhere. Or we could go outbound on Amtrak and return by Metrolink, or vice versa. Remember that we no longer would earn 100 tier qualifying Guest Rewards points, so Amtrak has little advantage over Metrolink. This day also allows make-up time if we didn't get to ride all of the Gold or Expo Lines. In the evening, leave Los Angeles eastbound on Train #4, Southwest Chief.


Tuesday 7/19/16

Aboard eastbound Southwest Chief.
 

Wednesday 7/20/16


Arrive Chicago on Southwest Chief.

To summarize hotels, you would need the following:

  • Seattle: 1 night, arriving 7/13, leaving 7/14.
  • Portland: 1 night, arriving 7/14, leaving 7/15.
  • Los Angeles: 2 nights, arriving 7/16, leaving 7/18.

Now an important word about hotels. You may suffer some sticker shock when researching stays on those evenings, particularly Seattle and Portland. Some hotels that may seem logical given their locations near transit lines may show as sold out or be very expensive, whether paying or applying loyalty program points. On the bright side, we have experienced this before in other cities, and eventually some previously sold out rooms became available as did lower rates. However if the prices don't come down, expect a splurge or use this advance time to earn or purchase more loyalty program points.

Synopsis of Amtrak reservations needed:

  • Train #7, Empire Builder, departing Chicago 7/11/16, arriving Seattle 7/13/16.
  • Train #513, Cascades, departing Seattle & arriving Portland 7/14/16.
  • Train #11, Coast Starlight, departing Portland 7/15/16, arriving Los Angeles 7/16/16.
  • Possibly Pacific Surfliner Trains 768 Los Angeles-Anaheim (or elsewhere), and/or Trains 769 Anaheim-Los Angeles, both 7/18/16.
  • Train #4, Southwest Chief, departing Los Angeles 7/18/16, arriving Chicago 7/20/16.
  • Plus any other trains needed to get between your favorite station and Chicago before and after the official Fest.

As always a homepage has been created.  This should be your go-to point for all information and updates related to the Fest.  They will also be mentioned here on the board.  You will find links to tourist information, lists of hotel rooms & restaurants near transit in the cities we will visit, lists of rail transit and commuter rail lines, and railroad scanner information. There will be periodic updates to our itinerary, especially since some of the lines we plan to ride have either not yet opened or they don't have schedules available yet.  

 

The only major element not yet completed are transit cost estimates in the three cities. We've been to all three before, but fares and policies might have changed.  Rest assured these will become available long before the event takes place so that you can know how much the transit rides will cost you up front.  This will also give you plenty of lead time to perhaps purchase fare media ahead of your trip if desired.

 

Now here is our first test to see if everyone can follow directions.  At this time the only information I need is your interest in attending, your hometown if I don't know it, and if not the entire 10 days, then which days you will participate.  I do NOT need your Amtrak travel information, hotel reservations, or anything else at this time.  Please send via e-mail as it need not be posted here.



Kevin Korell


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Lakewood, NJ


#2 KevinKorell

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Posted 01 February 2016 - 12:27 AM

I am decommisioning the web pages I created for the interim around New Years for those wishing to beat the AGR program upgrade.  New permanent webpages with updated information are in the parent note above in this thread. If you bookmarked the original pages, those links will no longer work.



Kevin Korell


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#3 KevinKorell

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Posted 22 February 2016 - 01:15 PM

Revised thinking (but not yet itinerary) based on the number of service disruptions I've seen involving the Portland Streetcar could have us do some of the streetcar riding after Thursday arrival in Portland (before or after dinner), rather than doing it all on Friday. The benefit of doing it all on Friday is to condense all travel under one Day Pass. But in leaving everything for Friday we also run a risk of being unable to ride one of the loops if an accident occurs (they happen all too frequently, even those solely involving vehicles other than the streetcar). We have a deadline on Friday since we have to leave on the Coast Starlight that afternoon. The clockwise and counterclockwise loops in some places are on the same street, but I thought it would be nicer to ride it both ways since most of the line is along couplets of one-way streets so the scenery would be slightly different.


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#4 steve4031

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Posted 24 February 2016 - 08:59 AM

Kevin,  that sounds great to me. 



#5 jis

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Posted 29 February 2016 - 10:36 AM

I am assuming that the Baggage Storage facility at the station in Portland can be used on the day of arrival until we are done with the day's activities. If that is the case then doing the streetcar on the day of arrival should be fine. My hotel is out by the airport, which will be a pain to get to to drop off luggage and then get back for activities on the day of arrival. Of course similarly on the day of departure from Portland it would be desirable to be able to leave luggage at the station at the start of the day.

 

Hopefully the Baggage Storage facility at the station remains open during the hours that we will need it.



#6 KevinKorell

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Posted 29 February 2016 - 12:53 PM

Jishnu, good points. Last time in 2010 in Portland, my hotel was in the Airport area, and the trip on the Red Line to leave my luggage at the hotel took longer than I expected. Of course back then we had arrived earlier in the day so we had the whole afternoon available. This time we are scheduled to arrive in town at 3:05 PM, which should be after check-in time at most hotels. If baggage storage at Union Station is not available, AND assuming we do take a transit ride on the day of arrival, remember we're a group so I am sure you will be able to sub-lease some space in somebody's downtown hotel room to store your luggage until such time as you will be travelling to your own hotel.

One complete circuit on the Streetcar loop takes approximately one hour, so if we were to arrive on #513 on time 3:05, go to respective hotels to check-in and drop luggage, re-convene around 4 or 4:30, ride the loop for an hour, and the have dinner, it would still be a respectable time to have much of the evening free and make your way to the airport area.



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#7 jis

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Posted 03 March 2016 - 11:27 AM

Kevin, thanks for bringing out the possibilities. I actually just raised the question because it seems many of the cheapest deals are around the airport. My stopgap reservation is there, but I will be trying to finagle my way into some downtown hotel using various means without spending an arm and a leg.

 

Well looks like my attempts to get downtown came through on a points reservation at the Embassy Suites Downtown, so the airport question is now moot for me.


Edited by jis, 03 March 2016 - 12:01 PM.


#8 KevinKorell

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Posted 17 April 2016 - 10:45 PM

I've been looking behind lately at previous Fests, and because of the early announcement for this one, news has been rather quiet lately though late Winter and early Spring.   Soon we will get the train accommodations list going (when I announce it within the next couple of weeks), and also we can start looking at lunch and dinner options in three cities.
 
Today I made the first edit to the Itinerary since January 31st, which involves the completion of the LACMTA Gold Line to Azusa and the reopening of the same line south of Union Station after a 3-month construction period.  So I replaced some of the XX:XX with real times for the trips on the Gold Line.  For the Seattle day, I will do the same for the First Hill Streetcar and the LINK extension to University of Washington, but for the former there is no set timetable so I may be going on some guesses with that one. And back in Los Angeles, another edit is coming for the Expo Line  when it opens in its entirety to Santa Monica next month and that timetable becomes available.



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#9 KevinKorell

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Posted 01 May 2016 - 10:14 PM

Itinerary was updated to make the Monday 7/18 Amtrak Pacific Surfliner round trip all the way from Los Angeles to San Diego. A trip to Anaheim is still a subset of that, but we won't be getting off there.    I also removed lunch & dinner from the Monday 7/18 itinerary.  I figure on lunch aboard one of the Pacific Surfliner trips, and I am sure we will opt for dinner aboard the Southwest Chief.

 

Homepage was also updated to reflect same.

 

You can still expect some further changes coming for Sunday 7/17 as the Expo Line schedule comes into focus close to the Phase 2 opening.



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#10 KevinKorell

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Posted 14 May 2016 - 08:24 PM

Itinerary is being updated again as of May 14th now that Expo Line schedule has been published.   I turned the day Sunday 7/17 upside down from the way it was. We would start first with Expo Line (Red/Purple) to get to Metro Center from & to Union Station, Expo Line round trip with 2 hour layover in Santa Monica for lunch and walking around, and then the Gold Line at the end of the day.

 

I also changed the times again for the Amtrak trips on Monday 7/18 since the timetables are going to change slightly.   You will notice as we discussed in the Amtrak Trips thread that the schedule changes cut our available time in San Diego to just 22 minutes.   One option would be to turn back at Solana Beach to catch 777 with a more comfortable dwell.  Another would be to take the following train, 579, as we did in 2009.  This gets to Los Angeles about 4:17 which still leaves about 2 hours leeway before the eastbound Southwest Chief leaves, although should a bad delay happen it could be dangerous connection with #4.  I'm open to suggestions there on what might be best.   If we did switch to 579, perhaps I could also work in some San Diego Trolley, maybe just ride around the downtown loop to kill some time (Day Pass $5.00).



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Lakewood, NJ




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