I love the fact that in America, trains have names. It’s true that trains do have names in other parts of the world too, but here in California people actually use them. For instance, if you are heading down the coast by train, you don’t talk about catching the 9:55 Los Angeles to San Diego. You board the Pacific Surfliner. INCLUDES  VIDEO

If you grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine like I did, you know that a train’s name is a hugely important thing, and whoever named American trains did a great job. Take for example my local train, the Pacific Surfliner. As the name would suggest, its route skips in and out of Pacific coastal towns all the way from San Diego in the south to San Luis Obispo in the north; sometimes riding so close to the beach that the rails run through the sand, and ocean surf appears to break beneath you.

VIDEO: The Pacific Surfliner

Big and Glorious

This train is a huge, double-decker, silver beast that mostly cruises along at a sedate 40 to 50 miles an hour. But what it lacks in speed, it more than makes up for with special sound effects. To warn strolling surfers and beach goers off its tracks, it emits an almost continual, deafening “toot toot,” while unmanned railroad crossings close and re-open throughout the journey with a great cacophony of jangling and clanking.

Despite its slow speed and noisy nature, the Pacific Surfliner is a great way to get a feel for the classic surfing beaches and communities of Southern California. If you think you would enjoy watching the passing expanse of surfers catching waves, volleyball players on the beach, and charming small stations like the exquisite Spanish mission architecture of San Juan Capistrano, then a trip on the Pacific Surfliner is the way to do it.

North, South and East

The Pacific Surfliner will take you as far north as San Francisco. A northbound train journey doesn’t have to end there, however. In San Francisco you can climb aboard the aptly names Coast Starlight, pull down a sleeping bed or wrap yourself in a blanket in your roomy seat, and travel on under the nighttime canopy of stars. You depart from California, pass through Oregon, and two days later arrive in Seattle, Washington. If you don’t want to continue north, then in San Francisco you can board the California Zephyr, named after the Greed god of the west wind, and be propelled east all the way to Chicago.

Amtrak operates all the trains in the US. Their timetables and reservation system can be accessed at www.Amtrak.com. Traveling by train through California is relaxing, with big, roomy carriages, generous seats, and very friendly staff – but it also requires a relaxed frame of mind. The Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight are not commuter trains and sometimes share a single track with other rail services, which can cause delays.

When booking a train journey do be aware of the little “bus symbol” on the Amtrak timetables. These bus symbols indicate what Amtrak calls a “thruway bus service” that connects trains where there is no track, or completes a journey where there is no train at that time. With frequent stops at stations to pick up and drop off passengers, thruway bus journeys can be long. The last thing you want to be doing, if it can be avoided, is sitting on a bus when you could be riding on a grandly named American train.