My wife and I will be taking the SB Starlight from SEA on Friday 9/12 to LA, connecting train to Irvine. If it's on time, we'll be home by midnight Saturday.

We last took the Starlight in 2008, northbound to PDX. Other than being 1-1/2 hour late arriving, it was a terrific trip. The Pacific Parlour cars were newly refurbished, there was afternoon wine tasting, and there was even an on-board supervisor as a sort of concierge, who solicited passenger suggestions and generally saw to it that the sleeping car passengers were satisfied. I confined myself to our sleeping car, the dining car, and the parlor car, so I don't know if he was also charged with looking after the chair cars as well.

I've heard the afternoon wine tastings are no longer on offer, so we'll have to go BYOB, I suppose.