Amtrak features a free wine and cheese tasting on its Coast Starlight service from Los Angeles to San Francisco. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)


By JERRY HAGSTROM

SAN FRANCISCO — A West coast wine and cheese tasting and decent meals were the highlights of a trip on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight service from Los Angeles to San Francisco that was otherwise marked by an accident on a train ahead and a three-hour delay in arrival.

The Coast Starlight, one of Amtrak’s premier trains, travels 1,200 daily from Los Angeles to Seattle, with intermediate stops including Oakland, Calif. (with a bus transfer to San Francisco) and Portland, Ore. The Coast Starlight leaves Los Angeles at 10:10 a.m., with arrival in San Francisco scheduled at 10 p.m. the same day and arrival in Seattle scheduled at 8:37 p.m. the next day.

The main attraction of the trip in California is the view of the Pacific Ocean, although there are also mountains and scenes of intensive vegetable farming, including hoop houses on a grand California scale.

First-class passage on the Coast Starlight means a roomette, even for the day trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those passengers have the use of the Pacific Parlour Car, a remnant of the old Santa Fe’s El Capitan service from the 1950s. The Parlour Car offers an opportunity to socialize with other passengers in a lounge, a theater that shows movies, and a library.

Each afternoon the first 40 first-class passengers who sign up for a free wine and cheese tasting in the Parlour Car are presented with four wines and cheese and crackers.

On December 30, the four wines offered were Summerland Estate Sauvingon Blanc from the Central Coast of California, Paso Creek Zinfandel from Paso Robles, California, J. Lohr Seven Oaks Cabernet Sauvingon, also from Paso Robles, and Edna Valley Chardonnay from San Louis Obispo on the Central Coast. Wines were available for purchase for purchase at prices ranging from $21 to $32.50 per bottle.

The cheeses, offered in bite-size pieces, were No Woman from Beecher’s, a Washington state cheese maker based in Pikes Place Market in Seattle, La Di Da Lavendar cheddar from Rogue River Creamery in Oregon, and smoked mozzarella from the Rumiano Cheese Company in Crescent City, Calif.


Amtrak serves a lunch of a Caesar salad, warm roll and a choice of beverage between Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

Meals served included a Caesar salad with a hot roll for lunch and a steak for dinner. The steak was prepared medium rare as ordered, and other passengers said the short ribs were exceptional but a chicken dish was too dry.

The trip started off on schedule, but was delayed by three hours after a woman drove a van in front of a train ahead and was killed. Passengers from that train had to be loaded onto the Coast Starlight. The train was supposed to arrive in Oakland at 9:30 p.m. so that San Francisco-bound passengers could be bused across the bridge to San Francisco for a 10 p.m. arrival.

Instead the train arrived in Oakland at 12:30 a.m., and it took until 1:30 a.m. to arrive in San Francisco. Some baggage was missing and there were no taxis available at the Ferry Building where the bus stopped.

The Coast Starlight had its problems and is probably not the best option for people traveling on a tight schedule, but from a food and drink standpoint it was a surprising delight.

• Amtrak — Coast Starlight
• Edna Valley Vineyard
• J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines
• Beecher’s Handmade Cheese
• Rogue Creamery
• Rumiano Fine Natural Cheese

Passengers on the Coast Starlight, which starts in Los Angeles and ends in Seattle, leave from Union Station. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)