[vacri]

I was in California in 2009 and found it weird that there was no daily train between LA and SF - it only runs (ran?) every second day. The day I left, I had to get a bus to Bakersfield to connect to the train.

The other striking thing was train travel in the South being heavily subsidised - huge distances travelled for not much money, with power for your laptop and lots of space to move around. If the train schedule was appropriate for you, you'd be crazy to fly instead.

[britta]

The Coast Starlight (http://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train) has been running once a day between LA and Oakland for years, with a connecting bus to SF - here's its schedule: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/935/314/Coast-Starlight-Schedule... It takes about 12 hours if there are no delays. It's a lovely and relaxing trip, but that's a long time compared to flying or driving.

If you want to leave SF/Oakland later than 9 am or LA later than 10 am, you have to take some long bus connections (which aren't very fun) and the San Joaquin or Pacific Surfliner.

[kaybe]

Would that trip be interesting for a high-speed train connection? It's approximately 600 km (380 miles), that should be possible in about 3 hours. The terrain doesn't look too bad either at first glance.

[Sanddancer]

As was stated, it's being worked on. It also runs into one of those things that a lot of people from outside of California don't realize about the state. There are a /lot/ of mountain ranges. The Starlight itself meanders along and through various bits of the coastal ranges of California, which, while absolutely gorgeous, leads to a path that's not particularly amenable to high speed travel.

So, the state needs to build new trackage through a 3000 ft (~1km) pass getting out of LA, and more trackage through a 1500 ft pass getting out of the SF area in order to use the much more straight and speedy right-of-way going through the middle of the state. Once that's done, and the rights of way along the corridor are upgraded, high speed rail will run between the points. Just gonna take another 15-20 years to do so.

[Aloha]

They appear to be working on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

[guard-of-terra]

What you actually need there is sleeper cars.

Imagine getting on the train at 7 in the evening, lying on your own bed reading books and drinking tea, sleeping actually then getting off the train at 9 in the morning at the railway terminal in another city.

[driverdan]

They do have sleeper cars but the trip between LA and SF is far too short to make it overnight.

[TsiCClawOfLight]

I find the railway network in the US simply deplorable. In most of Europe, people complain if they miss an hourly connection, and we have night trains on most days to most large cities.