Pacific Surfliner - Rolling Stock

Rolling Stock

A typical Pacific Surfliner consist is as follows:

• F59PHI (locomotive)
• Pacific Business Class Car
• Coach-Cafe Car
• 2-3 Coach Cars (Often including a Superliner Coach car borrowed from Amtrak's mainline fleet, or Superliner coach with Pacific Surfliner colors.)
• Coach/Baggage (Cab) Car

Pacific Surfliner trainsets usually consist of an EMD F59PHI locomotive, a business class car, a cafe car with coach seating, two coach cars, and a Cab Control Car equipped with coach seating, a checked baggage space, and engineer controls. During holiday seasons or days of heavy ridership extra cars may be added. At least one Superliner Coach or Coach/Baggage car will often be added to the Surfliner trainsets just before the Surfliner's Cab Car.

All but one of the Pacific Surfliner trains consist of double-decker Surfliner Cars which are similar to, but not the same as, Superliner cars; the remaining trainset uses four or more of Amtrak's older single-level Horizon Fleet or Amfleet cars, either a GE P32-8WH (Dash 8) or P42DC (Genesis) locomotive, and one of Amtrak's old F40PH locomotives which has been converted to an NPCU. The practice of using Amfleet and Horizon cars mirrors the San Diegan trains of the 80s and 90s.

Most cars are equipped with 120v power outlets for laptops or other electronic devices. Pacific Surfliner trains use cars whose design is very similar, but not identical, to those on the other Amtrak California trains, the San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor. The Pacific Surfliner trains are painted in a blue and silver livery that is unique to this line.

Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner webpage, as well as its timetables, suggest that all trains use a Surfliner trainset; as a result, passengers occasionally become upset due to the fact that the Amfleet/Horizon Fleet cars lack many of the services typically found on Surfliner bi-level cars, do not provide as smooth a ride as the Surfliner cars, and have small windows, making it difficult to view the scenery. Some passengers, though, mostly historians and fans of the San Diegan, are delighted to ride the older cars.

During some holiday periods, the number of cars is increased and reservations are required even for coach seats. In addition, strong ridership has recently led to an increase in the number of trains using six passenger cars; some trains will have as many as ten. The resulting shortage of Surfliner equipment has forced Amtrak to assemble a second trainset of as many as eight Horizon Fleet and/or Amfleet cars, in addition to that mentioned above. Metrolink and/or Coaster railcars might also be used on rare occasions, particularly during the Del Mar horseracing season (i.e. July and August).

On very rare occasions and for special holidays, this train set might include Amtrak's last remaining full-dome car, #10031. This car (named Ocean View) normally is brought down for most of the July and August race season at the Del Mar Racetrack. A full Surfliner set of the Alstom-built bi-level cars will be substituted for a set approximately nine cars in length consisting of a mix of the older Horizon and Amfleet cars, baggage car, and the Ocean View dome car with two locomotives (nearly all combinations of motive power have hauled this train set) for power. This is because Amtrak doesn't have any spare cab control cars for this single-level consist as the Metroliner cab cars are all on the Northeast Corridor. When the Surfliner set is displaced by the "dome set", as it's commonly referred to, the displaced set is broken up. The cab control car and one of the coach cars get added onto other train sets for extra capacity. Meanwhile the Business Class car, Cafe/Coach car, and remaining coach car will float around together (along with a spare locomotive) and are added onto existing train sets that will carry the pre-race and post-race traffic between Los Angeles and Solana Beach (the Amtrak station nearest to Del Mar Racetrack). Once the season ends at Del Mar, the dome set is broken up and all other train sets return to their normal capacity.

In 2009, Amtrak put F59PHI #455 in an Operation Lifesaver wrap. This wrap was orange with a surfer saying the Operation Lifesaver "Look, Listen Live!" slogan. It has been since taken off and the engine is now back in the normal Pacific Surfliner paint scheme.

In May 2010, the California Department of Transportation specially painted F59PHI #457 to celebrate 10 years of service from 2000–2010 and also the 25 million passenger boardings that have occurred since. However, this had to be pulled back quickly when it was discovered that the word "million" was spelled "millon".