Pacific Surfliner

The Pacific Surfliner is a 350 mi passenger train service serving the communities on the coast of Southern California between San Diego and San Luis Obispo.

The Pacific Surfliner is Amtrak's third-busiest service (exceeded in ridership only by the Northeast Regional and Acela), and the busiest outside the Northeast Corridor.

Like all regional trains in California, the Pacific Surfliner is operated by a joint powers authority. The LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency is governed by a board that includes eleven elected representatives from the six counties the train travels through. LOSSAN contracts with the Orange County Transportation Authority to provide day-to-day management of the service and with contracts with Amtrak to operate the service and maintain the rolling stock (locomotives and passenger cars). The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) provides the funding to operate the service and also owns all of the locomotives and some of the rolling stock; with Amtrak owning the rest.

Portions of the line in southern Orange County have been suspended four times between 2022 and 2024 due to coastal erosion.

Operations
The 350 mi San Luis Obispo–San Diego trip takes approximately 8 hours, 52 minutes at an average speed of 38.9 mph; maximum track speed is 79 to 90 mph. Much of the Pacific Surfliner's scenic route follows the Pacific coast, with the tracks being less than 100 ft from the ocean in some locations. However, trains travel inland through expansive farmlands in Ventura County and industrial areas in the Los Angeles Basin, San Fernando Valley, and parts of Orange County.

, the Pacific Surfliner operates ten daily round trips between Los Angeles and San Diego. Five round trips continue north of Los Angeles: two run all the way to San Luis Obispo, and three run to Goleta (near Santa Barbara), with Amtrak Thruway motorcoach service over the rest of the route to San Luis Obispo. Thruway motorcoach connections are also available to San Pedro; to Palm Springs and Indio; and to San Jose or Oakland (with connections to Capitol Corridor trains) via Paso Robles.

Because the stations at the ends of the line do not have wyes to turn equipment, trains are operated in push-pull mode. The locomotive is at the rear of the train, pushing the train from Goleta, San Luis Obispo or San Diego to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles, the train reverses at the station, and the locomotive pulls the train to San Diego or Goleta/San Luis Obispo, respectively. Run-through tracks are under construction at Union Station in Los Angeles to ease congestion and reduce time spent waiting to enter or depart the station. The ongoing North Coast Corridor project plans to increase rail capacity on the route of the Surfliner in North San Diego County.

LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency
Local agencies along with the host railroads formed the Los Angeles–San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency (LOSSAN) in 1989. The Pacific Surfliner is operated by Amtrak under the Amtrak California brand with funding provided by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Serious discussions were held in 2009 regarding the local agencies administering the service rather than Caltrans. California Senate Bill No. 1225, passed in 2014, allowed LOSSAN to amend the joint powers agreement and become the sponsor of state-supported intercity passenger rail service in the corridor. In mid-2015, LOSSAN assumed oversight for the Surfliner. They are also working with Caltrans to assess rail operations from Los Angeles to San Diego to develop better connections, close gaps in the schedule, and optimize the assets of the railroad.

History
The route is the successor of the San Diegan, a Los Angeles–San Diego service operated since 1938 by the Santa Fe Railway. It had been one of the Santa Fe's premier routes until Amtrak took over operations in 1971. Initially there were three daily trips, but the schedule was expanded to six round trips during the 1970s with funding from the state of California. In 1988 the service was extended to Santa Barbara to provide the Central Coast with an additional train to Los Angeles, followed in 1995 with one trip a day going all the way to San Luis Obispo. To better reflect the route's extent, it was renamed the Pacific Surfliner in 2000. The route is named after the Surf Line, which now comprises the route's busiest section from Los Angeles to San Diego.

A stop at Old Town Transit Center was added in 2004. Stops at Orange and Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo were added in 2007 but dropped in 2012. On October 7, 2013, stops were added at Coaster stations at Carlsbad Village, Carlsbad Poinsettia, Encinitas and Sorrento Valley. The Carlsbad Poinsettia and Encinitas stops were dropped on October 9, 2017, due to low ridership. The Carlsbad Village and Sorrento Valley stops were dropped on October 8, 2018, due to changes with the cross-ticketing arrangement with Coaster. A 13th daily round trip was added on October 14, 2019.

On September 30, 2022, all rail service between Irvine and Oceanside was suspended due to coastal erosion under the track in San Clemente. Emergency repairs were expected to take at least 90 days. Full Pacific Surfliner service resumed on April 17, 2023. Service south of Irvine was again suspended on April 27 due to further erosion at Casa Romantica. Service resumed on May 27, 2023. Service was suspended again on June 5 due to continued erosion at Casa Romantica and resumed on July 19. Service was suspended on January 25, 2024, due to a landslide at San Clemente. The state declared an emergency on February 1, allowing the Orange County Transportation Authority to access emergency funding. Limited service through the landslide area resumed on March 6, 2024, followed by full service on March 25.

Route
The Pacific Surfliner runs on track owned by several private railroads and public agencies:
 * Union Pacific Railroad (Coast Line): San Luis Obispo – Moorpark
 * Southern California Regional Rail Authority: Moorpark – Los Angeles
 * BNSF Railway: Los Angeles – Fullerton
 * Southern California Regional Rail Authority: Fullerton – Orange County/San Diego County line
 * North County Transit District: Orange County/San Diego County line – San Diego

Stations
,, and  stations were previously served under the "Rail 2 Rail" reciprocal pass program with Coaster, while Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo and Orange were served under a similar program with Metrolink.

Rolling stock
The Pacific Surfliner uses push-pull trainsets with a diesel locomotive at one end and a cab car at the other. The COVID pandemic saw a reduction in service from ten trainsets operating 27 daily trains to seven trainsets operating 20 daily trains.

Trainsets used for regular service are composed from a fleet of 52 bi-level Surfliner coaches (39 owned by Amtrak and 13 by Caltrans), plus nine leased Amtrak Superliner long-distance coaches modified for push-pull operation. These Superliner's are called flex cars, as they can be used for additional business class or coach seating, depending on the demand.

A typical six-car set has a business class car; one Superliner car; two coach cars; a coach/café car with food sales on the lower level; and a coach/baggage/cab car equipped with coach seating, a checked baggage space on the lower level, and engineer's operating cab.

LOSSAN has expressed interest in acquiring bi-level cars from a variety of sources, such as purchasing Surfliner and Superliner cars from Amtrak, as well as receiving bi-level cars from other Amtrak California services.

The Surfliner cars were introduced in 2000–02, and were designed specifically to handle the demands of the nation's third-busiest rail line. They replaced the California Cars which had been introduced on the San Diegan in 1996, and had been fraught with problems in the latter part of the 1990s.

A dedicated fleet of 16 Caltrans-owned Siemens Charger locomotives began entering service in late 2018. The Chargers replaced a fleet of 15 Amtrak-owned EMD F59PHI locomotives, which were sold to Metra in 2019.

The Surfliner cars and Charger locomotives (and previously the F59PHI locomotives) are painted in a blue and silver livery that is unique to the Pacific Surfliner.

Additional Amtrak-owned cars are added (up to 12-car consists) during periods of high demand, including the San Diego Comic-Con, the San Diego County Fair, events at the Del Mar racetrack, and after the 2018 Southern California mudflows closed Highway 101.