The number of passengers on Amtrak’s San Diego-serving Pacific Surfliner increased by 38.1% this year, as trains returned to pre-COVID service levels for the first time, according to a new report.

The detailed report covers traffic for January through March, compared to a year earlier, on the 351-mile-long rail corridor between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. It does not include trains delayed or cancelled one weekend in July because of high surf and tides along the beach-side tracks between Camp Pendleton and San Clemente.

Passengers for the Pacific Surfliner, North County Transit District’s Coaster and the multi-county Metrolink combined were up 24.5% for the quarter compared to the first three months of 2025, according to the report by Jason Jewell, managing director of the Los Angeles- San Diego- San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) rail corridor agency.

“Preliminary July 2026 ridership is on pace to become the highest monthly ridership in the history of the Pacific Surfliner with over 300,000 passengers,” Jewell said in an email Wednesday.

“More broadly, ridership during the January through June 2026 period reached 106.2% of the same period in 2019, demonstrating that intercity rail demand has fully recovered and continues to grow,” he said.

Temporary travel restrictions imposed at the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 greatly reduced train travel nationwide. Most commuter rail systems restored full service within a year or two, while Amtrak’s inter-city service returned more slowly.

A 13th daily round-trip train between Los Angeles and San Diego added in February brought the Pacific Surfliner back to its pre-COVID level for the first time in six years. The 11th and 12th trains were restored in 2025.

The additional service came with a slight drop in Amtrak’s on-time performance, said Kristopher Ryan, LOSSAN’s chief finance officer. Trains arrived on schedule 81.6% of the time, down from 82.3% in the previous quarter.

“Adding train frequency on a shared-use rail corridor naturally increases train interference,” Ryan said at the agency’s board meeting.

Amtrak shares the rails with NCTD’s Coaster trains in San Diego County, and with BNSF freight trains that operate across California and 27 other states. The corridor also is used by Metrolink commuter trains that operate in six Southern California counties, from Ventura to Oceanside.

“Last month, Metrolink recorded its highest monthly Orange County Line ridership since March 2020, welcoming 158,414 boardings,” said Meredith Yoeman, director of communications for Metrolink.

Metrolink’s Orange County Line operates along the LOSSAN Corridor between Los Angeles and Oceanside.

“Through the first seven months of 2026, Orange County Line ridership increased 17% compared to the same period in 2025,” Yoeman said.

Riders on Coaster commuter trains between San Diego and Oceanside also increased, though less, about 8% for the quarter, the report states. NCTD restored the Coaster to pre-COVID levels in May 2021 and added another train in October 2021.

The Pacific Surfliner serves 29 stations in six coastal counties on tracks operated by four different agencies. A single train takes almost nine hours to travel the full length of the corridor from San Diego to San Luis Obispo.

In fiscal 2025 there were nearly 2.1 million passenger trips on Pacific Surfliner trains alone, and an additional 3.1 million passenger trips on Metrolink and the Coaster, according to the LOSSAN report.

Amtrak, a federally chartered corporation, hit its all-time peak of 34.5 million passenger trips nationally in 2025. The Pacific Surfliner route remains below its 2019 high point of almost 2.8 million for the corridor.

Arrival times are an important factor for train riders.

Trains can arrive late but not early, an official said. An early train might find its space occupied at the station, and it cannot leave before the time posted for travelers.

Also, delays tend to accumulate along the run of a train, so they are more likely to occur and get longer later in the day.

The LOSSAN report lists train delays only in total minutes per station. Amtrak’s three stations with the most delays were in Oceanside, Solana Beach and Old Town. Oceanside led the list with a total of 8,000 minutes in delays for the first three months of this year.

San Diego’s Santa Fe Depot had about 2,000 hours of delays in the same time. San Luis Obispo, at the opposite end of the rail corridor, was among stations with the fewest delays, a total of about 200 hours for the quarter.

Trains can run late for many reasons, such as mechanical problems, track repairs, scheduled maintenance and conflicts with other trains using the tracks.

Areas with only a single set of tracks can be bottlenecks. Operators such as NCTD have been pushing for years to add a second set of rails, called double-tracking, so trains can pass each other and improve efficiency.

San Clemente and the Del Mar bluffs are two of the most significant bottlenecks on the corridor. Work to repair erosion and stabilize the tracks in those areas has slowed or stopped trains numerous times in recent years.

“One major delay incident can result in cascading delays that impact multiple trains throughout the day,” states the LOSSAN report.

“One factor is that a single train … is typically used by multiple routes/trains throughout the day,” the report states.

“For example, upon its arrival to Santa Fe Depot in San Diego, the same equipment used to operate southbound Train 564 is then used to operate northbound Train 777,” it states. “Therefore, delays experienced by southbound Train 564 have the potential to result in delays for northbound Train 777, as well as any additional trains operated with the same (set of rail cars).”

Metrolink Orange County Line trains have experienced 12,918 minutes of delays so far in 2026, Yoeman said.

“There are a number of factors … including train congestion, routing errors, and signal issues, but freight interference is the leading cause, accounting for around 40% of trip delays,” she said.

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