As you know, on Monday, December 18, a Cascades train operated by an Amtrak crew derailed on a highway overpass in DuPont, Washington, resulting in three deaths and dozens of injuries. Train 501 was making its inaugural trip between Seattle and Portland using a new section of track owned by Sound Transit in Washington State that is intended to reduce travel times for the route.
This blog post was first published in November 2015 in honor of Veterans Day.Â
World War II veteran, Don GĂŒt, and his companions from the Widowed Persons Social Club of Elk Grove snagged the premier spot aboard Franklin D. Rooseveltâs presidential yacht, the USS Potomac, for the annual November 11 Veterans Day cruise on the San Francisco Bay. The group started out their day from the Sacramento Station and rode the Capitol Corridor to Jack London Square in Oakland, where the Potomac has been docked and open to visitors since 1995. More Experience History Aboard the USS Potomac in Jack London Square
The Capitol Corridor offers three main ways to get to the City by the Bay. Hereâs a rundown on each trip: how to do it, and where it can take you.
Take the Capitol Corridor train to the Emeryville Station. There youâll board a comfortable, Capitol Corridor-dedicated bus that takes you into San Francisco. The bus stops at the Downtown San Francisco, 555 Mission Street. The beauty of this option is that you don’t have to worry about figuring out how to make your connection once you get off the train in Emeryville; when you book your trip, you get both your train ride and bus ride in one seamless transaction, on a single ticket. What’s more, since our bus service is dedicated to Capitol Corridor train riders, you can rest assured you won’t miss your connection, even if the train is late.
Where You Can Go
This downtown location provides easy access to many of San Franciscoâs popular restaurants, shopping, museums, and other attractions. Youâre within short walking distance of Market Street, San Franciscoâs main thoroughfare (which features easy, convenient transit connections to other parts of the city), and not much further are the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, which holds a lively Farmerâs Market on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. From here you can also connect to San Francisco’s local bus network, Muni, or hail rideshare for travel to the further reaches of this big, bustling city.
*There is a $.50 per ride surcharge for BART trips paid with a paper ticket instead of Clipper, and BART does not accept paper tickets as payment at some stations. Read more about BART fares here.Â
Where You Can Go
The better question may be, where canât you go? Connecting to BART is a definitely a good choice if youâre headed to the downtown area of San Francisco anywhere near Market Street. Get off at BART’s Embarcadero station for a short walk to the Ferry Building, Embarcadero Center, the California Street cable car, or Muni connections to Oracle Park. For an afternoon in Chinatown or at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Montgomery station is very close (as is the Powell station). Want to hop on the cable car to Ghiradelli Square? Get off at Powell, which is also a good starting point for the Westfield Shopping Center, Union Square, Yerba Buena Gardens, and the Moscone Center. And for many of the cityâs theaters, as well as the War Memorial Opera House, Symphony Hall, Public Library, City Hall, and the Asian Art Museum, take BART to Civic Center.
With this option, you’ll be traveling in style. This trip takes longer than the others, but if you’re not on a tight schedule, it’s a unique and pleasant way to get into the city, combining the comfort of our trains with the relaxing, refreshing, scenic experience of cruising on the San Francisco Bay. Take the train to Oakland Jack London Square, where youâll connect with the San Francisco Bay Ferry. The ferry dock is an easy, roughly 10-minute walk from the train station through Jack London Square, a destination in itself, with excellent waterfront restaurants and live music venues. Like BART, the ferry is not part of the Capitol Corridor or Amtrak systems, so youâll need to purchase your ticket separately and plan ahead for making your connection.Â
Where You Can Go
The ferry from Jack London Square can take you to Oracle Park (during baseball season and for select events all year round), the San Francisco Ferry Building, San Francisco Pier 41, and South San Francisco.
As summer comes to an end and schools prepare for the new academic year, many students from the University of California (Davis and Berkeley), Santa Clara University, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo use the Capitol Corridor train as a greener way to travel between school and home. Here are a few of the reasons why the Capitol Corridor is the environmentally-friendly travel choice of college co-eds: