Graham Kislingbury

Plane tickets were too much and we didn’t want to drive, so we bought round-trip Amtrak tickets from Albany to San Francisco for a vacation last week. (It cost $120 per ticket, which was less than half the cost of the cheapest airline ticket I could find for flights from Portland to San Francisco)

Having not taken the train to the Bay Area in 35 years, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a smooth ride both ways, the food was good (especially the breakfast quesadilla and potatoes on the way back Sunday morning) and it was relaxing.

The Superliner coaches had as much — if not more — leg room as the first-class sections of a commercial jets. And we were able to sleep on both overnight trips.

The crews were courteous and brought fresh pillows every time new passengers came aboard.

We got into Emeryville, Calif., just north of the Bay Bridge, 15 minutes early on Jan. 18. From there we caught the Amtrak bus to the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

The northbound train was an hour and five minutes late getting into Albany this past Sunday. Other than that minor inconvenience, we had no complaints.

I learned something valuable from this trip: Don’t overlook Amtrak.

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