Gold Runner
The Gold Runner is a state-supported passenger train service operated by Amtrak in California's San Joaquin Valley. As of 2025, the service operates seven daily round trips between its southern terminus at Bakersfield and Stockton. Of these, five continue to Oakland and two to Sacramento. Two additional Sacramento-bound round trips are scheduled to begin in fiscal year 2025.
The service is notable for its extensive network of dedicated Amtrak Thruway bus routes, which are integral to its overall performance. More than 55% of riders use a Thruway bus for at least one segment of their journey. These routes are timed to connect with train arrivals and departures, and offer service to destinations across the state, including Southern California, San Francisco, the Central Coast, the North Coast, the High Desert, Redding, Reno, and the Yosemite Valley.
With passengers in fiscal year 20—a change from the previous year—the Gold Runner ranked as Amtrak's seventh-busiest route nationwide and third-busiest in California.
Like other intercity rail services in California, the Gold Runner is managed by a joint powers authority: the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority. Its board includes two elected representatives from each of the eight counties served by the route. The SJJPA contracts the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission to oversee daily operations, Amtrak to operate the trains, and TransitAmerica Services for maintenance of locomotives and passenger cars. Caltrans funds the service and owns the rolling stock.
In 2025, the service was renamed from San Joaquins to Gold Runner to better represent the services provided, which stretch beyond the San Joaquin Valley throughout California.
History
''Golden Gate/San Joaquin Daylight''
The Gold Runner service uses several routes which once hosted a variety of daily passenger trains. Chiefly, those trains were the Golden Gate of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and the San Joaquin Daylight of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Other named passenger trains which served the Central Valley corridor included Southern Pacific's Owl Limited, and Santa Fe's San Francisco Chief and Valley Flyer.Like the modern Gold Runner, the Santa Fe's Golden Gate service ran from Oakland to Bakersfield, with motor coach connections to Los Angeles. However, the Southern Pacific's San Joaquin Daylight continued beyond Bakersfield, directly to Los Angeles via the Tehachapi and Newhall mountain passes; in 1958, the complete journey took just over twelve hours — six hours, fifty-four minutes between the railroad’s Oakland 16th Street and Bakersfield depots, and a further five hours, eight minutes to Los Angeles.
In April 1965, as ridership on passenger trains continued to drop, Santa Fe received permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission to severely curtail Golden Gate operations, and the service was entirely discontinued in 1968. The Southern Pacific's San Joaquin Daylight was discontinued with the start-up of Amtrak in May 1971.
Amtrak era
Amtrak routed all Los Angeles-San Francisco service over the Southern Pacific's Coast Line in its initial 1971 route structure, leaving the San Joaquin Valley without service. In 1972, Amtrak began to revisit the decision at the urging of area congressmen, notably Bernice F. Sisk, who favored service from Barstow to either Oakland or Sacramento. The inaugural run occurred on March 5, 1974, and revenue service began the following day — with one daily round-trip between Bakersfield and Oakland, and bus connections from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and Oakland to San Francisco. The San Joaquin could not continue south of Bakersfield due to capacity limits over the Tehachapi Loop, the only line between Bakersfield and points south and one of the world's busiest single-track freight rail lines. Amtrak chose the Santa Fe route over the Southern Pacific, citing the higher speed of the Santa Fe – versus – and freight congestion on the Southern Pacific. The decision was not without controversy, with Sisk alleging that the Southern Pacific lobbied the Nixon administration to influence the decision.Madera station and Richmond station were added on October 30, 1977, along with a Stockton–Sacramento connecting bus. The schedule was changed on July 19, 1979, with an earlier northbound and later southbound departure, allowing single-day round trips to the Bay Area.
Caltrans era
In 1979 Amtrak proposed discontinuing the San Joaquin as part of system-wide reductions ordered by the Carter administration. The state of California stepped in to provide a yearly subsidy of $700,000 to cover the train's operating losses, and it was retained. The state asked Amtrak to add a second round-trip between Oakland and Bakersfield and to extend the service south over the Tehachapi Pass to Los Angeles. Amtrak added the second train on February 4, 1980, but attempts to extend the train over the Tehachapi Loop failed due to Southern Pacific's opposition.A third round trip was added on December 17, 1989. Two days later, southbound San Joaquin train 708 collided with a tractor-trailer rig at a crossing east of Stockton, killing the driver of the rig and two Amtrak engineers. A fourth round trip was added on October 25, 1992. On May 16, 1999, Amtrak added a Sacramento–Bakersfield round trip - the fifth daily San Joaquins service round trip. A second Sacramento–Bakersfield round trip was added on March 18, 2002, along with an infill station at.
Transfer to local control
Expansion of the service would stagnate after 2002, and 10 years later, frustrated by what was perceived to be Caltrans' slow response to regional concerns, local leaders pushed lawmakers to allow local control of the San Joaquins service.On September 29, 2012, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1779, which enabled regional government agencies to form the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority to assume administration and management of the route, while the state of California would continue to fund operations. Under the joint powers authority model, the service would be governed by a board composed of eight elected officials, appointed by an agency in each of the counties the train travels through. The governance structure was modeled after the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority, which has been operating the Capitol Corridor regional train in Northern California since 1998.
The first SJJPA board meeting was held on March 22, 2013, to begin planning for the shift in control. In that time, the SJJPA board contracted with the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission to provide day-to-day management of the service and contracted with Amtrak to continue to operate the service and maintain the rolling stock. Control of the San Joaquins shifted from Caltrans to the SJJPA on July 1, 2015.
A fifth Oakland–Bakersfield round trip was added to the service on June 20, 2016, the first expansion of the service in more than 14 years.
Two years later, the SJJPA established an early-morning "Morning Express Service" between Fresno and Sacramento, allowing same-day trips to the state capitol for the first time, was expected to result in increased ridership from business travelers. The change was criticized by Bakersfield-area officials, because it required ending the last southbound train of the day in Fresno, reducing daily service to Bakersfield by one daily round trip. The service began on May 7, 2018, but proved to be unpopular, with ridership counts showing an average of just 50 people on the train, compared to 130 with the old timetable. The "Morning Express Service" was eliminated one year later on May 6, 2019, and trains were reverted to their previous schedule.
Sacramento service was discontinued and one round-trip to Oakland was cancelled on March 25, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The cancelled Oakland trip was restored on June 28, 2021, and one Sacramento round trip was restored on October 18, 2021. The second Sacramento round trip was restored on December 8, 2025, returning the Gold Runner to the pre-pandemic schedule.
Future
Near-term service adjustments
, the SJJPA is studying methods to reduce or eliminate crew expenses. The Authority aims to replace staffed café cars on the Gold Runner with more cost-effective alternatives; on May 5, 2025, all onboard food sales — including the sale of hot food and alcoholic drinks — were discontinued, and replaced with complimentary grab-and-go assortments of snacks and soft drinks. The change was billed as providing "equitable service across the board." The SJJPA is exploring a long-term solution of installing automated vending machines on all trains — similar to automat cars historically used on Southern Pacific's San Joaquin Daylight.As well, Oakland to Bakersfield trips take just over six hours, which requires an expensive crew change in Merced; previously, the Authority investigated terminating some trains at Emeryville, skipping stops on some trains, increasing current speeds to, and/or operational improvements like decreasing dwell times, but these proposals were later removed from the Authority's Business Plan Updates, from 2023 onward.
Under their operating agreement with Amtrak, the SJJPA is provided the rights to use the service mark "Amtrak San Joaquins" from the railroad, free of charge; the Authority considers the service mark difficult for customers to spell, and believes it limits public understanding of the scope of the services provided by the Authority. In March 2025, the Authority adopted a resolution to rebrand the service to the "Gold Runner", and the service was rebranded in November 2025.
Long-term service advancements
, the SJJPA is increasing capacity on its routes to avoid conflicts with freight trains and add additional trips as well as plan for connections to the California High-Speed Rail system. These improvements are being done in cooperation with Altamont Corridor Express as part of the Valley Rail project.The Stockton Diamond, a level junction in Stockton where the two Gold Runner routes diverge, was the busiest rail junction in the state by 2019. As part of the Valley Rail project, these lines will be grade separated: the north-south Union Pacific line is planned to be elevated over the BNSF line. This project is expected to finish construction in Summer 2027.
File:ACE and San Joaquins routemap with Valley Rail extensions.svg|thumb|left|upright=1.5|Altamont Corridor Express, Capitol Corridor, and San Joaquins schematic route map, with Valley Rail project extensions. The Sacramento Extension project segment, connecting Stockton and Sacramento, uses the Sacramento Subdivision, which runs parallel to and west of the present route, which uses the Fresno Subdivision.
Two additional Sacramento round trips are planned to be added, routed over the Union Pacific Railroad Sacramento Subdivision north of Stockton and west of the present route, which uses the Fresno Subdivision north of Stockton. Unlike the 1999-initiated route, the Sacramento Subdivision has spare capacity to allow the increased service. Six new stations are planned: Lodi, Elk Grove, three locations in Sacramento, and Natomas. Trains operating on the Sacramento Subdivision route will not serve the existing Sacramento Valley Station, but SacRT light rail connections and a shuttle bus to Sacramento International Airport are planned elsewhere.
When the Valley Rail project is complete, ACE will share the route to Natomas from Stockton and add an additional branch south to Ceres in 2023 with an extension to Merced in 2027. When the Natomas runs are initiated, one existing Oakland trip is planned to terminate at Stockton-Downtown, freeing a slot for a full Natomas to Bakersfield round-trip while continuing to provide five trips from the Bay Area.
The San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority will serve as the high-speed rail service provider in the Valley per a memorandum of understanding with the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Upon completion of the high-speed rail initial operating segment, trains are expected to terminate at that system's new Merced station to act as a feeder to high-speed service. A new rail link is planned to connect the BNSF and Union Pacific lines, to allow Gold Runner trains to access the new station directly.Sacramento to Merced service is thus planned to increase in frequency to hourly service.
In December 2023, the Federal Railroad Administration accepted an application by Caltrans to enter the Gold Runner route into its Corridor Identification and Development Program. Proposed improvements include additional frequencies and an extension north to Chico and Redding. The program grants $500,000 toward service planning and prioritizes the corridor for future federal funding.
In 2024, the Butte County Association of Governments released a Strategic plan, named North Valley Rail to extend The San Joaquins service to Chico. Construction is expected to commence in 2029. The SJJPA is investigating a further extension to Redding.
Longer-term proposals include extending Oakland trains to Oakland Coliseum station to provide a connection to Oakland International Airport and an additional BART connection, routing some trains via the ACE route through the Tri-Valley, and consolidating all Stockton service at either Robert J. Cabral Station, or a station east of the developing Stockton Diamond junction. The SJJPA is also working with Caltrans and the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority to develop a plan to enable some Gold Runner or Capitol Corridor services to be short-turned at Martinez.