CA: Amtrak San Joaquins train service across California’s Central Valley gets new name

The San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority — which works with Amtrak — has changed the Central Valley train-and-bus service’s name to Gold Runner, hearkening back to the days when a train called the Golden Gate operated on parts of the same route.

Formerly, the Gold Runner was called the San Joaquins, and most of its route lies within the San Joaquin Valley.

Gold Runner train service goes between Oakland and Bakersfield, and twice a day the train continues from Stockton to Sacramento. The bus connects to Sacramento far more frequently, and Amtrak reports that more than half of Gold Runner travelers use the organization’s connecting buses as part of their journey. Passengers looking to go beyond Bakersfield into Los Angeles also ride the bus.

The train runs uninterrupted between Sacramento and Bakersfield early in the morning — southbound from the California capital near sunrise — and is scheduled to return from Bakersfield at 11:35 p.m.

Amtrak said in a news release that the new name “signals a bold new era for intercity passenger rail and bus service in California’s heartland.”

The contemporary San Joaquins Intercity Rail Service has always required a bit of boldness to survive. It was hard-won following the collapse of passenger rail service by private railroads — across the Valley as the Southern Pacific’s San Joaquin Daylight and as Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe’s Golden Gate services — and its rescue by Congress in 1970.

As the Oxnard Press-Courier reported in 1971, “the ballyhooed wedding of passenger train and government” represented by the debut of Amtrak did not run through the Valley spine of California. The editorial board wrote, “Sen. Alan Cranston, who helped get the once-deleted Seattle- San Diego route restored in the Amtrak timetable, is still unhappy about the absence of a San Joaquin passenger run.”

Amtrak restored passenger service between Oakland and Bakersfield in March 1974, calling the train the San Joaquins. The route was already under threat due to Amtrak cuts in 1979, when ridership was merely 123,000 riders annually, but California stepped in to subsidize it. Caltrans managed the route until 2015, when the locally-controlled San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority took over.

“Gold Runner represents more than a new name, it’s a symbol of our commitment to our passengers and California’s communities,” David Lipari, interim executive director of the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority, said in a statement ahead of Friday’s unveiling of new designs for the engines and buses. “This new identity captures the energy and optimism of our region while positioning us for the future of passenger rail and intercity bus service. It reflects the spirit of partnership, innovation and service that defines everything we do.”

According to the authority, annual ridership remains down from its all-time high of 1.2 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year. The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on the numbers, but the authority says passenger totals have been steadily rebounding to the 1-million rider mark.

Despite challenges, Gold Runner remains the sixth-busiest rail service in the U.S., according to Amtrak, just behind the Capitol Corridor service between Auburn and San Jose.

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