That's very good time. I could see taking this. Last month I took an Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Oakland. It runs along the coast for much of the route and I'd always wanted to take it. But it was purely for pleasure. It runs between Los Angeles and Seattle and the further you are from the starting point the further behind schedule it falls. But, like I said, it's set up for pleasure and we spent a good part of the trip in the observation car.
[WS:] That is a nice trip indeed (I took it at as a part of my cross country train journey), but it takes 11+ hours! if you take the train all the way. Currently Amtrak runs a combination of trains and buses on that route that takes about 9 hours.
What I find mystifying is that given the geography and population density of CA coastal area, an Acela-like train service would be quite feasible there and cut the travel time to about 4.5 - 5 hours (estimate based on current travel time between DC and NYC) plus serve localities in between like Salinas, San Louis Obispo, or Bakersfield. The fact that such a service does not exist can only be explained by only one think - the lack of political will of people who call themselves government.
Wojtek