More than twice a day (one CapCorr run to Auburn and one Zephyr) to Roseville requires adding track between Sacramento and Roseville, for which there's been a project in SACOG's long-lead list for ages, but no money for more than early planning and preliminary environmental studies. For now, a couple of Amtrak buses supplement the trains, and Roseville and Placer Transit have commute buses into downtown Sac. Hope remains...

Butte County has been promoting the extension to Chico, doing various planning and advocacy things. Again, adding track or even (as you point out) restoring parts of the old SN will certainly be needed, as the UP lines are full of freight and unsuitable for much more than the one Starlight round trip a day using them. ACE is doing a lot of improvements on UP lines just to get to Sacramento and Modesto.

Amtrak California has run buses for decades to connect Redding (at one time, even Dunsmuir; not sure if they ever reached KFalls with the bus) with San Joaquin and Cap Corridor services in Sacramento and Stockton. So you *have* been able to buy Amtrak tickets to points north of Sacramento that don't only operate at 0300 (i.e. the Starlight, if it's on time) with a change between train and bus. There's hope (backed by studies, not necessarily by DivRail (which has some other name now)) that trains would attract more passengers. We'll see; though frankly it doesn't seem like anything serious can happen for at least 4 years.