Recently I found myself in Orange County for a conference. It was a great week networking throughout all aspects of my professional community. It’s a set of people I’ve enjoyed immensely in my current career season.

A buddy of mine moved from the Bay Area down to San Diego and I wanted to reach out, see his new digs, learn about his new life, and see a bit of Southern California. For as long as I’ve lived in Northern California, I haven’t spent much time in Southern California. In many ways it feels like a foreign country rather than the southern portion of my own state. I don’t have anything against Southern California, I just don’t often travel there. It’s a long, boring motorcycle ride down to the LA basin through the Central Valley much more suited for an automobile. The coast, while interesting, takes at least two days in each direction and is often closed.

So here I am in Orange County wanting to head down to San Diego. The distance is too short to fly and I didn’t want to have to connect through San Francisco to go down to San Diego. Friday afternoon traffic could make an Uber unscrupulously expensive. Renting a car didn’t make sense as I wouldn’t have had an easy place to park it – nor would I want to drive back to Orange County or pay one-way fees in San Diego. Through the process of elimination, I wound up at Amtrak.

Here in Northern California, I’ve often thought about taking Amtrak to Sacramento to see friends – but driving is often faster with guaranteed flexibility. I’ve also considered taking Amtrak up to Truckee – but that was in the days before ridesharing was commonplace. But still, not having a car in the mountains quickly gets expensive, especially when I can drive.

However, in this use case, the train made absolute sense. I was only going in one direction. I fly home from San Diego. I had a friend with a truck who loves to drive all over God’s green earth. For as much traveling as I’ve been doing, the train seems like a nice change in pace! As an added bonus, I loved riding CalTrain – the commuter rail up and down the peninsula here in the Bay Area. I’d have my specific numbered trains to get me to the city and back with a community of people I came to know.

Since I didn’t know much about Amtrak, I booked a business-class ticket to downtown San Diego (Santa Fe station). Why is downtown San Diego called Santa Fe? No idea but at least it was abbreviated like the airport “SAN.” The business class upgrade was only $10 more than a coach ticket – a reasonable splurge to make rather than the absurdity for a similar jump with the airlines.

Walking into the Anaheim train station, I was quite impressed. Actually, for technicalities it is the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center – what a mouthful! To its credit, Amtrak, MetroLink (the local heavy rail in Orange County) and buses all link to this station, hence the Intermodal moniker. I’m used to simple, spartan CalTrain stations that’s just a simple grade crossing. While the train station was a far cry from a small airport, it was significantly more substantial than I was expecting.

There is no security check, no baggage check-in, or any of the complexities of traveling by air. I went up an escalator, down an escalator – and there I was ready to board. I felt like I should be doing more gyrations that are common with air travel but it really was that simple. Just go to the track and wait for your train.

As I got to the train station early for unanticipated complexities that never materialized – I had about half half-hour wait. The Anaheim station is surprisingly long. To get more steps in I walked all the way to the other end of the platform, stumbling into the Los Angeles Angels Stadium. Now it makes sense why the train station is so long: the Pacific Surfliner boards at the south end of the platform and the municipal rail boards at the north end of the platform. It’s effectively two train stations in one.

The train showed up a few minutes late and boarding was surprisingly simple. The conductor directed me upstairs as all of the downstairs seats were taken. What I didn’t count on is the train being full. Coach was standing room only and all of the window seats were taken on both sides of the train. Plus, the open aisle seats had passengers in the window seats with the curtains closed. Why would you have the curtains closed with a world-class view of the Pacific Ocean?

And we were off! Soon after the train started moving, we were lumbering down the shoreline with million-dollar views. Unfortunately, I was taking photos out of a dirty end of train window, but it was impressive seeing the coastline flyby from the relative comfort of the train. Just like Northern California it was warm and sunny in inland Anaheim and once on the coast, the fog and cold ruled the day.

In business class, Amtrak provides a light complementary snack box, which was a welcome surprise with a nonalcoholic beverage. The dining car had more menu options, but I wasn’t hungry for anything more than the snack box and a Diet Coke (No Coke Zero??).

Seats on the train were more than comfortable – far better than coach in the air and likely on par with regional first class. You could feel the train sway back and forth demonstrably making walking a little more challenging than expected but nothing like moderate turbulence in the air. I just kept a third point of contact along the overhead luggage storage area as I walked down the aisle.

My buddy suggested we meet at Old Town station rather than Santa Fe – which was fine by me. Overall, the train ride was fantastic. Pulling up Google Maps by comparison – the train was even faster than Friday afternoon traffic in Southern California. Cheaper, faster, and better! That’s a win all around!