The only good fares for travel to Berkeley from the Midwest is to San Jose. Amtrak?s website indicates a train between the two cities. How difficult is it? Is there a bus connection from the airport to the train station?

I've never taken the Amtrak between San Jose and the east bay, so I don't have any first hand experience, but here's where I would look for ground transportation from the airport:

www.sjc.org and click on Ground Transport - there should be some information about buses or shuttles to the train station.

www.vta.org - this is the site for the Santa Clara county public transportation system.

If there aren't any convinient shuttles or buses, you could always take a cab to the train station. It's only a few miles.

You can take Caltrain to the 4th Street Station in San Francisco(or they may have opened the Milbrae station by now - this is new service). If you have to go to 4th Street, you then take the "N" Judah to the Embarcadero and take Bart to Berkeley. Or, if Milbrae is open, you can take Bart directly from there to Berkeley. If you are coming in on a Saturday or Sunday Caltrain runs buses rather than a train.

There is no Berkeley Amtrak station as such, just a place where the train stops in west Berkeley. When you get there, you're far from downtown or the university and there's zilch in the way of connecting transport (though you can walk to a bus route if you know where to go). So unless somebody is picking you up, you'd probably be wise to follow janesf's advice and switch to BART in San Francisco.

Why not just get off at the station in Emeryville? It's a small town in between Oakland and Berkeley. Catch a cab there to wherever in Berkeley you might be headed. There is no reason to go all the way to San Jose, just to turn around and come back, though you might have to board there.

esm - are you flying into San Jose or taking the train in from the midwest?

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry my original post was not very clear and I had the direction wrong too, a bit nervous.
We're flying to San Jose to go to Berkeley (our son will attend UCB) and plan to rent a car at the airport. Our other son wants to stay a few extra days to visit friends (all students without cars) so I am trying to see how difficult it would be -- and how expensive-- for him to use trains and buses to get back to SJ airport for the return flight. It would cost twice as much to fly to SF or Oakland so I started looking at trains before purchasing non-refundable tickets.
Maybe cab from UCB to station then train to Emeryville and then cab to airport is doable. Any idea how long it will take? Thanks again.

It should take about 15 minutes to get from the Emeryville station to the Berkeley campus. From there, the train to SJ runs very frequently and takes about 90 minutes. Not sure about transit between the SJ train station and SJ airport. I'm sure your son can easily catch a bus or taxi on both ends.

BTW the Emeryville station is rather new and nice.

ahhhhh......

That situation is a horse of a different color. While the Emerycille station is all new and spiffy and such, your son should not try to take Amtrak to get to the San Jose airport. I think the correct answer is BART to Millbrae, transfer to Caltrain, and then get a shuttle from CALtrain to the airport.

Thanks again for your help. Looked at CalTrain map and my son is checking the websites to figure out the departure and connection times for his return.

Taking BART through SF to get to Berkely and back to the SJ ariport is very indirect and roundabout way that would take long time (about 2.5 - 3 hrs.) Also, it's important to keep in mind that Caltrain does not run on weekends.

From the San Jose International Airport take a cab to the San Jose Diridon Train Station (about a 10 minute cab ride). From San Jose to Emeryville it will take 1.5 hrs and from there you can take a cab to Berkeley.

http://amtrak.com/stations/sjc.html

http://sjc.org/trvlrs.html