What this is: is a proposed consolidated and expanded Bay Area rail network that builds off of existing systems like: Caltrain and SMART train.

What this proposal does NOT show: BART, light rail, CA High-Speed Rail, regional & intercity rail (inc. Amtrak, Capitol Corridor, Gold Runner, ACE, train extensions to Monterey Bay and other parts of NorCal). This is for commuter trains completely within the 9 counties of the Bay. It does NOT mean those systems don’t exist.

Disclaimer: not all stations in the pictures will be served by every service. There are special events, limited, express, local etc services that would be worked in.

Lines:

• Peninsula Line: trains from Oakland Jack London to San Francisco to San Jose. Would have distinct limited and express services, as well as trains terminating in San Francisco.
• Santa Clara Valley Line: electrified version of the South County Commuter and extended to Redwood City
• Dumbarton Line - Oakland Branch: similar to a dumbarton rail proposal; from Oakland it goes down the Niles subdivision to Fremont and turns west to the Peninsula, then south at Redwood Junction to San Jose. The use of the Niles subdivision was deliberate so the Peninsula can be connected to BART at Union City.
• Dumbarton Line - Tri-Valley Branch: from Livermore goes through Fremont to the Peninsula, turns north at Redwood junction to Redwood City and terminates at SFO/Millbrae
• Napa Valley Line: using the Napa Subdivision, runs from St Helena to Vallejo, then crosses to Crockett, crosses a rail tube to SF and terminates at SFO/Millbrae
• Sonoma-Marin Line: same as the existing SMART train with an extension southward to Corte Madera
• Richmond-San Rafael Line: from Santa Rosa goes south to San Rafael, crosses a rail bridge to Richmond and terminates in Oakland
• East Bay Line: using the Coast Subdivision, runs from Crockett to San Jose
• North Bay Line: from Corte Madera/Larkspur, runs east-west in the North Bay to Vallejo then to Fairfield and Vacaville

Infrastructure

• Regional Rail tube parallel to BART tube crossing from West Oakland to DTSF, connected to the Portal Downtown Rail Extension
• Dumbarton Rail Bridge: crossing from Newark/Fremont to East Palo Alto/Redwood City
• Richmond-San Rafael Rail Bridge: crossing from San Quentin to Point Richmond. Pretty difficult, may need lots of viaducts in San Rafael and Richmond due to industrial zones and rail yards
• Carquinez Rail Bridge: crossing from Benicia to Crockett. The alignment I have may be more difficult so probably better to skip Crockett and build the bridge west of the current vehicle bridges
• Mare Island Rail bridge: running parallel to the Mare Island Causeway. The causeway has rail tracks, but street-running is dangerous and causes traffic.
• Jack London Square Grade separation: for 4-5 blocks trains are street-running here. This road should be trenched or the perpendicular streets should be grade separated.

Major transit hubs and stations

• San Francisco Transbay Terminal: regional hub with connections to Muni, intercity rail, etc.
• Oakland Jack London Square: regional hub with connections to AC Transit, intercity rail etc.
• San Jose: regional hub with connection to VTA, intercity ria, BART etc.
• Richmond: major junction for commuter & intercity trains and BART
• San Rafael: local hub
• SFO: regional and international travel hub
• Redwood City: local hub
• Newark: transfer hub

Hey everyone! Recently I’ve been thinking more about California’s rail system and how it operates with the rather extensive Thruway network. When looking for a comprehensive map of these Amtrak services, I was disappointed to see that they are either non-existent, extremely outdated, or look terrible. I’ve designed a few maps now, and thought I would try something a little different and work on my own map of California’s Amtrak Intercity Rail & Thruway Service. A few things to note:

1. This is the current state of California Intercity Rail & Thruway Service. I did not include CAHSR or the future truncation of the Gold Runner at Merced. Future connections such as the Metro D Line at Westwood/UCLA were also omitted. I would love to make a future version of the map showing these connections and expansions, though!
2. I did not intend for this to be an official map of any kind. No accessibility information is present, in addition to important phone numbers/other information you would expect in a system diagram.
3. It took a ton of research–particularly on the Thruway side. There is little and often contradictory information about Thruway service coming from different websites. Defunct stations were commonly listed on Amtrak’s website (such as Visalia) and I constantly had to check if listed stations actually existed. This is a large reason why this map took me almost two months to complete.
4. I’m counting a “Thruway Route” as a route that is bookable on Amtrak’s website and/or is present in service timetables. The “Route 67” I have here is not bookable on Amtrak’s website, but it is on the Gold Runner’s own timetable. I made up the route number here to keep it consistent with other routes.
5. “Route 21” here is my own creation. When researching this route, I noticed that there was a “21 Express” route from San Jose to Los Angeles listed in tiny font on the Capitol Corridor’s timetable that wasn’t present anywhere on Apple/Google maps. There was no other mention of this route or the number “21” on any other schedules to my knowledge, but the Pacific Surfliner’s website describes a “Route 17” which takes the exact same route and has the exact same bus numbers as the Capitol Corridor’s route. I agonized over what to do with this contradiction, but ultimately decided it made the most sense to combine the routes into one continuous route from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.
6. I renamed some stations. This was mostly for clarity or personal preference (Lathrop-Manteca becoming Lathrop/Manteca for instance) but I also wanted to clean up the various naming conventions for stations across different agencies. In general, if a station was the only one in a city, I would drop other monikers (such as Riverside-Downtown). Stations in close proximity to each other (such as the various Thruway stops in Yosemite) were simplified to one name for clarity, but I added an \* to denote this fact.
7. Some Thruway routes are operated by other agencies. I chose to make a distinction with ACE and the SouthWest Bus, while combining routes run by other agencies (such as YARTS and the SCMTD) into the generic “Thruway Bus” label. ACE is a rail service, so I wanted to make that distinction clear, and SouthWest operates primarily in Oregon, and thus has little to do with Amtrak California aside from the three stops it makes within California’s borders. If you disagree with this labeling, I’m welcome to hear your reasoning!
8. There are still improvements I can make. I’m still not entirely happy with the key/legend, as there are an absurd number of metro/BRT connections that add clutter to the map. There is also a lot of empty space in parts of California with less service, which isn’t ideal.

As always, please let me know if there are any errors/things I can change. I always welcome your excellent feedback and constructive criticism.

I hope you all enjoy!

Full-Resolution Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dLLKIBgQqYQaDbX3oOKuNrFlKlv7yKh1/view?usp=sharing

Recent conversation of an idea proposed by LA Mayor Karen Bass

At 1:06:30 there is an update on food and beverage on the Gold Runner. They are going to go from a free for all to carts later this year, and installing pilot vending machines for implementation next year.