Yes, taking Amtrak to Albany or Eugene, and renting a car
sounds great, but the trouble is that Winterail is held in the
winter, and driving in Oregon in the winter can be dangerous.

The big problem with taking Amtrak to Winterail for those
who come from California is that #14 (NB Starlight) does
not arrive in Albany until 1:22 pm if it is on time. That is only
3 hours and 38 minutes before the Railfan & Railroad pizza party
and slide show begins at 5 pm. That is not enough time if #14 is
late, as it too often is, and you would miss the pizza and most of
the slide show.

But if you do not care if you get to that pizza party and
slide show, then Amtrak will ork well for you, as the doors
wil probably open on Saturday at 9 am, if the schedule will
be what it usually is.

I went to the Winterail website just now and saw that, as of
Feb. 27, only "over" 270 tickets have been sold. The
auditorium at the Corvallis site holds around 600. I wonder
how many tickets Vic could have sold if he had moved the event
to someplace suitable in the greater Sacramento metro area?

Winterail is, in a way, a business, and Vic moved it away from
75% of his customer base -- California -- in 2016. And I do not
think young railfans (20s and younger) even know it exists, if what
one railfan learned not long ago is generally true. He said that
he was out railfanning in the Bay Area, and mentioned Winterail
to the young (20-somethings and teens) railfans who were there.
None of them had even heard of Winterail. If it is true that few
young railfans have even heard of Winterail, that is something to
be quite concerned about and it is way past time for some fans to
let young fans know about Winterail and how much fun it is. It is
way past time for Winterails to have a social media team to promote
Winterail to young railfans.