Los Angeles to Santa Barbara by Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner

It’s just about a month ago that we arrived in Los Angeles and, after a slight drama with an item of my sister-in-law’s luggage being left on the plane and having to be sent by messenger to the hotel, we tried to get a bit of sleep in our hotel after a meal in LA’s Little Tokyo.

The following morning we trundled off with our cases to the Union Station. We had seats booked on the Pacific Surfliner which would take us up to Santa Barbara.  The photos above show the exterior of  LA’s amazing Union Station building and its waiting room with an impressive high gloss floor.

Much to the surprise of many Americans we met, we had a good experience with Amtrak and this was the first of 4  train journeys we made.  We checked in our bags and waited to be assigned our seats, got on the train and climbed upstairs.  Before long they shouted “ALL ABOARD!!” – a call which always makes my spine tingle!

En-route I managed to take some fairly clear photos of the coast through the train window.

The man in the photo at the bottom is Tommy our coach attendant,  a camp version of Bill Cosby, who provided hilarious entertainment.  He was trying to help an elderly lady who had misplaced her black bag.  There was much throwing of his eyes into the air (he caught them every time) as he looked high and low with her to try to find it.  I wish now that I’d been able to film him – it was a gem of a situation.  The old lady eventually came across her BLUE bag and ladies in front of us offered her some stickers for her luggage which would help her identify it more easily in the future.  Tommy’s reaction was one of more askance looks and a suggestion muttered to himself that she might like to put one of the stickers on her forehead.

After a 2 hour journey in hysterics at his antics, we arrived at our destination – Santa Barbara, where wildfires had been raging for the past week.