X Wine Railroad

In 2016 while working on our passenger rail project between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, we thought we needed a "practice train" for our servers on board a train to "practice " service food & drinks on a moving train. We launched the X Wine Railroad for this purpose and began operations of a wine excursion train between LA and Santa Barbara. We found people were willing to pay to ride an all day excursion. To our surprise, we kept raising the price from $249 per person to $369 for the day excursion. We sold out every trip. So, we decided this was a business and set out in earnest to make a go of it. 

 Our model was the operations of the Napa Valley Wine Train, a very successful train excursion on an 18 mile piece of track. They have revenue of $63 million per year. We rode the train and thought we could provide a better experience for wine & train lovers. We did.

A Pause in the Action

We launched the X Wine Railroad service in February of 2017. It was an excursion along the California Coast from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and then inland to Los Olivos, Southern California's hidden wine country. The service was instantly a hit and we sold out our cars. We one competitor on the route we were running, but they quickly folded shop after we introduced our service.

 Then COVID hit in 2020 and Amtrak stopped hauling trains altogether. We were out of business in 2020, until now.

Amtrak has started running trains again and we have reconfigured the service to use their equipment to carry our passengers. We are back in business after an 18 month pause. Our first re start run is scheduled for May 9th, Mother's Day.

Our New Service and COVID Compliance

The X Wine Railroad, as the service is called, will re-introduce travelers to the Wine Country of Southern California via rail. Passengers will board at Union Station in Los Angeles and will travel by train to Santa Barbara. There they will be escorted by luxury tour vehicles to the Los Olivos region of the Santa Ynez Valley, home of some 200 wineries in the region. Travelers will spend several hours on a variety of tour activities such as winery tours and tastings, Old Town Los Olivos wine crawl, or perhaps just taking in the sights of this magnificent wine lovers destination.

With the COVID restrictions still in place in California, we are limited to groups of six together at each winery we visit. So, we have chartered four smaller tour busses with each carrying 12 people. That is compliant. When we get to the winery, we have arranged for two tables of six with appropriate social distance between the tables. All good. On the train, Amtrak already has social distance seating protocol, which we follow for our 50 riders. Again, all compliant. Ironically, having four different busses with 12 riders each allows us to broaden the wine experience as the groups are now small enough to allow us to visit many more smaller boutique wineries in the valley. So the experience is actually better, because of COVID.

All Girls Operations Management Team

Our management team is female dominated. Our President for the X Wine Railroad is Dianne David. She has extensive experience in the operations of passenger rail excursions, having introduced the X Wine Railroad to Southern California in 2017. She has built rail cars, supervised software booking engine development and sold the tickets on the excursions. She is a "ground up" railroader. 

Our other female operations founder is Wanda Witoslawski, our CFO. Wanda has a 10 year career in the development of the X Train service slated for 2021 from LA to Las Vegas. She is the financial brains behind the X Wine Railroad and manages the retail purchases, financial cash flow, and profitability of the company. She works with Dianne David to manage the operations of the service.

Our GM is Elizabeth Borsting who has an extensive history conducting wine tours in the Los Olivos region, PR for wine events and numerous event hosting. She is based in Southern California and will conduct the tours of the excursions.

With this crew of experienced women in rail, we feel we have a unique management team with a proven track record in passenger rail.

Our cars are the newest on the Pacific Surfliner line and are spacious and comfortable. There is a complimentary nosh box included in the ticket price as well as complimentary wine selections. Our customers are escorted to the upstairs compartment of our Business Class seating, which affords spectacular views of the California Coast on our way to Santa Barbara.

Once in Santa Barbara, our customers are headed out to the Santa Ynez Valley and the wineries of Los Olivos. We take you on a tour of some very special boutique wineries with restricted access that only the X Wine Railroad can procure. Spectacular views and fine wine sampling are in store with this unique wine journey.

California Expansion Plan

The excursion of the X Wine Railroad from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara/Los Olivos is just the first step in our plan to create a network of Rail to Vine excursions in California. California has five wine regions and our Los Olivos journey is one of them. We intend to expand the service to serve all five regions and create the preeminent wine rail excursion network in the country.

Come join us in 2021 as we have scheduled 26 runs to wine country! www.xwinerailroad.com