Amtrak train service from Sacramento to Bakersfield back on track after COVID hiatus

Train service will resume on Monday between Sacramento and Bakersfield after a 19-month COVID-related suspension.

The 6:26 a.m. San Joaquins Amtrak train leaving from Sacramento will be the first since March 2020 after ridership collapsed following the pandemic, said David Lipari, marketing manager for the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority.

“We are really excited about it,” said Lipari. “Before the pandemic it was a very popular train since it was the first train down The Valley.”

A second train will depart Bakersfield on Monday at 6:12 p.m arriving in Sacramento at 11:35 p.m.

Eighty thousand passengers boarded or arrived in Sacramento on the two-round-trips between the two cities and nine other intermediate stops in 2019, according to data from the authority, which is based in Stockton. The body of ten transportation agencies is the state-created entity that manages the trains using state money. Amtrak, the federally-chartered company that runs passenger trains through the U.S, provides the actual service.

The beginning of the pandemic saw ridership drop to 10% of 2019 levels before service was cut in the San Joaquin Valley.

Lipari doesn’t expect the second train each way to resume until next spring but he said it will depend on the severity of the pandemic and the ridership demand. “But that’s not a hard and fast date,” he said.

It was still possible to get to Bakersfield from Sacramento and other Valley cities when the train service was suspended but it involved taking a bus on the first leg.

Amtrak provided bus service from Sacramento to Stockton where passengers would board the four daily San Joaquins trains that originate in Oakland. A fifth train between the East Bay and Bakersfield cut during the pandemic was restored in June.

But the bus ride and the transfer to the train in Stockton added a half-hour to the roughly five hour, 31 minute train ride to the Valley’s southern end, Lipari said.

Ridership increased in recent months to around 60% of 2019 levels in the entire San Joaquins corridor, Lipari said, giving the authority the confidence to decide to restore the one train in each direction all the way to Sacramento.

Lipari said the travel time on the train is competitive with driving a car.

He said many of the passengers in the past were Sacramento-area residents visiting relatives in the Valley but the train also attracted passengers doing business.

The morning train departing Sacramento — with stops in Lodi, Stockton, Modesto, Denair, Merced and Madera — arrived in Fresno by 9:30 in the morning, he said.

Around 30% of passengers continued to Los Angeles and south state points after the last stop in Bakersfield.

But the last part of that journey over the Grapevine involves an Amtrak-sponsored bus again. The total journey, however, takes eight hours, two hours more than a car ride between Sacramento and Los Angeles, assuming no gas, meal or bathroom breaks.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said the 60% passenger recovery on the San Joaquins trains from pre-pandemic levels mirrors passenger increases on other Amtrak routes through the U.S.

Amtrak had cut most of its long-distance trains from daily service to three-times a week in October 2020, restoring it back to daily service in May. The cut trains included its scenic California Zephyr, which runs between Chicago to Oakland with a stop in Sacramento.