https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlpS14YO1Lk

After a year and a half, Chestnut’s Amtrak series is finally back. This time I’m writing about a short-hop ride in Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Business Class, plus the Metropolitan Lounge experience at Los Angeles Union Station.

Booking

First, let me explain why I chose a Business Class Seat on this Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trip.

Amtrak redemptions have a minimum threshold of 800pts. But for a short Coach Seat ride from Simi Valley to Los Angeles, the cash fare was only $16.9, which works out to just 2.1 Cents/Pt if redeemed with points—not a good use of points at all.

So I figured I might as well throw in another 128pts and spend 928Pts total for a Business Class Seat worth $26.9. That at least gets me 2.9 Cents/Pt in value.

Outbound

After work, I grabbed a quick bite at Burger King and then drove over to the Simi Valley station in California.

Simi Valley is just a single-track station, but its service level is actually better than the double-track station at Moorpark. Every Amtrak train stops at Simi Valley, while only a pitifully small number stop at Moorpark. Poor Moorpark gets completely shown up here. (top left)

The top right photo shows the big curve east of Simi Valley station.

At 6:41pm, Amtrak 792 appeared right on time around that eastern curve. Its six-car bi-level Surfliner consist was being pushed into the station by a Siemens Charger SC-44 locomotive. A quick note here: because neither San Diego nor San Luis Obispo—the southern and northern endpoints of the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner—has turntable facilities to turn the locomotive around, the train is pulled by the locomotive when departing Los Angeles and pushed by the locomotive when heading into Los Angeles. In push mode, the engineer controls the locomotive from the cab car at the far end of the train. (bottom left)

Classic American train operating style: the train comes into the station at what feels like a very high speed, making you think it might not stop at all, and then the brakes get slammed on hard. (bottom right)

PS: Here’s also why a single Siemens Charger SC-44 on Amtrak usually only handles a six-car consist like this. The locomotive has to provide both traction power and head-end power for the cars, so a significant portion of its output is consumed by supplying electricity to the train. That’s also why Amtrak long-distance trains with 12-13 cars often need two locomotives—one just isn’t enough. By contrast, many traditional K and T trains in China, especially with 25G and 25,000-series consists, use a dedicated generator car for onboard power, allowing the locomotive to devote almost 100% of its power to traction and pull the standard 18-car train.

Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Business Class Seat is... pretty much what you’d expect. The interior is shown in the top left photo, and the legroom in the top right.

Compared with Coach, the main differences are slightly more seat pitch, a coffee urn at one end of the car for self-service coffee (bottom left), and complimentary drinks and snacks (bottom right). Honestly, that snack box really looks like a model train box to me.

As the train approached Los Angeles Union Station, something felt off. Why did dispatch route us onto the east side of the river? Isn’t the west side the usual route? (top left)

Still, this turned out nicely—the view was good. I got a shot of a Metrolink train across the river (top right), and while crossing the bridge I could also take a look at how much water was actually in the LA River. (bottom left)

In the end, the train arrived on time at Los Angeles Union Station. I got off, took a front-facing photo of the Siemens Charger SC-44 locomotive, and then exited the station to catch the subway to the International hotel.

Los Angeles Union Station Metropolitan Lounge Experience

For the return trip, I again redeemed 928Pts for a Business Seat, which meant I could use that ticket to access the Amtrak lounge—the Los Angeles Union Station Metropolitan Lounge.

Honestly, this lounge was hard to find. Even as a railfan, I spent quite a while looking for it and still couldn’t find it. In the end I had to ask station staff, who told me it was behind the rental car counters—just take the elevator up to the second floor.

So I finally found the place, took the elevator upstairs, and located the entrance. (top left) Once inside, I found the lounge to be quite small, and through the glass you can directly see into the station interior. (top right)

To be honest, I’ve always felt California likes to do its own thing. Even Amtrak has to put “Amtrak California” on things to show it’s different. The logo here in the lounge is also printed on the wall in oversized lettering. (middle left)

I took two photos of the lounge interior: the reception desk is in the middle right, and the seating area in the bottom left. Don’t expect a free meal—this place only offers drinks, fruit, and a few light snacks. In a cabinet in the corner, there were also train models and some historical Amtrak memorabilia. (bottom right)

Return Trip

When it was almost time, the lounge attendant told me that 785 was about to come in for boarding. Looks like 785 wasn’t delayed today—what a miracle.

I’ve taken this train many times, and its on-time performance is almost unbelievably bad.

After leaving the lounge, I saw signs for Los Angeles’s three long-distance trains (top left): the Southwest Chief to Chicago (I’ve ridden the full route), the Coast Starlight to Seattle (I’ve also ridden the full route), and the Sunset Limited to New Orleans / Texas Eagle to Chicago (I haven’t tried those two yet).

I checked the departure board to find my track and platform. Found it: Track 8. (top right, bottom left) Then I headed up to the platform via the passenger access ramp. (top right)

Not long after getting to the platform, I saw 785 being slowly pushed into the station. As mentioned earlier, Pacific Surfliner trains are pushed when heading toward LA. But when I looked carefully, something seemed off. It’s normal for Pacific Surfliner to occasionally run with a silver-painted Surfliner car borrowed from long-distance service, but what was that right behind the locomotive? It looked like... a Sightseer Lounge car? (top left)

After the train stopped, my observation was confirmed. On this Pacific Surfliner, the first car behind the locomotive was indeed a lounge car, and the second car behind the locomotive—a silver-painted long-distance-style Surfliner—was being sold as Business Class Seat. (top left, bottom right)

Being a railfan isn’t easy. I wanted to run up front to photograph the locomotive, but kept getting blocked and bothered by baggage carts. (bottom right)

The annoying part was that the lounge car doors weren’t open. What was that about? No matter—we could board through the second car behind the locomotive and then walk into the lounge car. No need to be timid about it. (photo above)

The lounge car interior is shown in the middle photo. To improve sightseeing, the two rows of seats are arranged lengthwise, which makes for very inefficient use of space. (middle photo) Although there is a small table between every pair of seats for placing items (bottom left), it’s awkward to turn and reach for a phone there, so I just put my phone in the “deep groove” below the window instead. (bottom right)

Nothing much happened along the way, and after an hour I arrived at my destination: Simi Valley, California, the place mentioned at the beginning of this post. I’m back again.

After getting off, I took a few more photos of the lounge car I had ridden in. By then it was already after 8pm, and only the last bit of twilight remained in the sky. My new camera, a Canon 6D Mark II, needed ISO 6400 just to barely capture the last trace of deep purple in the sky. (top left, top right)

Just after I finished taking a photo of the locomotive and lounge car together (bottom left), the train started moving again, heading for Santa Barbara.

“As a true warrior, one must dare to shoot at high ISO in the middle of the night!”

I cranked the ISO all the way up to 10000 and panned for one more shot of the lounge car. It actually turned out pretty well—not blurry at all. You can still clearly make out the Amtrak logo and the car number. (bottom right)

That brought back something fellow railfans said at a meetup ten years ago: as railfans, we should excel at stealth shots and panning shots alike... and now I guess I’ve finally managed that too.

Related Amtrak Posts

I’ve previously published three other Amtrak-related articles on this blog, covering Amtrak award redemptions and trip reports. If you’re interested, check them out: