A few passionate fans ride Amtrak from Sacramento to Santa Clara for Super Bowl LX
Zach Fillmore had his parents’ help to come up with the $5,500 he would need for a ticket to Super Bowl LX.
He boarded a plane for the first time in his life Thursday to fly from his Boston-area home to watch his beloved New England Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks in California.
There was still the matter, though, of what it would take to park at Levi’s Stadium. This is how, hours before game time on Sunday, Fillmore found himself on an Amtrak train from Sacramento bound for Santa Clara.
“I heard the parking was wicked expensive,” said Fillmore, a 22-year-old middle school teacher. “I have family that let me crash in Sacramento. I heard with parking was upwards of like $1,000.”
The Sacramento area is by no means a destination for people on their way to the the Super Bowl, said Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento. It’s simply too far a trip to Santa Clara to attract much hotel traffic. Still, Fillmore wasn’t the only person taking Amtrak on Sunday and bound for Levi’s Stadium.
Two ladies, different destinations at Levi’s Stadium
The Amtrak train was fairly quiet pulling out of Sacramento on Sunday morning , a good number of people on the train were not wearing any NFL .
Some people were wearing football apparel kept to themselves. Others found one another.
Isis Robinson and Tracy Salvato opted to sit together on the train after meeting at the Sacramento Valley Station. They were each from Sacramento and heading to Levi’s Stadium, albeit for slightly different reasons.
Robinson, who was wearing the jersey of star San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner, didn’t have a ticket to the game. She planned to meet up with friends in the parking lot outside the stadium, where she said her plan was to “Have fun… talk mess and head back to Sac.”
Salvato, who said she was from the Boston area and moved to the Sacramento area in recent years, had lucked into a ticket to the game. She said it would have otherwise been $4,500.
Sunday marked Salvato’s first time going to a Super Bowl. Asked what she was most excited about, Salvato said it was to see the game, though she added, “It’s all about that halftime.”
Fillmore was also heading to his first Super Bowl, by himself.
“I thought: How many people were willing to spend $6,000 on a football game? Not too many,” Fillmore said. “And so this was kind of, right off the bat, just a one-man show kind of thing.”
Fillmore wasn’t entirely alone. With him, he had a wearable custom flag, with a large photo of Patriots QB Drake Maye on the front. A good number of Fillmore’s students had signed the back. The item was completed on Wednesday, one day before Fillmore was to board his plane from the East Coast.
Taking photos outside the stadium
Charles Jordan, an Elk Grove resident, wore a Seattle Seahawks jersey and had two cameras on the table in front of his seat on the train.
He said he didn’t have a ticket to the game but was planning to take photos of fans outside . Jordan expressed some concern over a rumor he’d heard that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be at the game.
“I’m not sure the NFL is gonna really allow that, but that is a kind of concern, because you’re just trying to have fun and all of a sudden the ICE agents are just coming in, just arresting people,” Jordan said.
This story was originally published February 8, 2026 at 1:33 PM.
