# Another Beautiful Day on the Pacific Surfliner



## johnny.menhennet (Jun 22, 2012)

Hey AU. I guess this will be a live trip report. Maybe if I start early and keep it going it will be easier to finish. 

The last time I left Solana, the agents gave me crap (as they should) for arriving 15 minutes before train departure with my UM forms. At least I have them already filled out, but whatever. Anyway, my mom brought me at 3:45 for 785's 4:40 departure. We were ticketed by Steven, a man who I nominated as a great Amtrak employee. He was as helpful, professional, and lively as usual. We then walked directly across the street to Chief's and sat down to play cards. I had a little root beer as we played Kings in a Corner. I told my mom the train was scheduled for 4:35 rather than 4:40, because she likes pushing it on getting down to the platform. So we left the restaurant, one we are regulars at, I popped my head into the door of my tae-kwon-do studio and told my wonderful instructor "Bye Ms. Zeno! See you next week!" We walked down to a crowded platform and waited. There was a constant parade of people crossing the bridge, and that even continued as the train pulled in at 4:43, but turned into a run. Steven made the announcements that the train was already standing room only out of San Diego, which is not uncommon. When I got on in business and went to the cafe though, it wasn't all that bad. There were some seats, although still very crowded .  We are lucky we got a 6 car set today.  It really sucks when they equip 785 and 784, the busiest trains of the day, possibly of the system, with only 4 coaches and a biz car. RYAN! collected my ticket. Another great employee! At Oceanside though, many more still boarded, and now it is standing room as I write this through Pendleton. The Cafe Car actually doesn't have any standees, but I can see into car #3 and there are probably 20, not that bad for this train. We are just about to start going along the beach, and this is a wonderful day. No marine layer, no June Gloom as we would expect right now - it is a beautiful day, one after the Solstice. The sun is high and the waves are crashing. Being used to beautiful sunsets, my sunset sense is telling me that the people on 790 will have a very nice post-sunset.  The only UM's on here right now are me, another girl who boarded in SB, and a boy in Oceanside. I hope to keep you all updated, but no promises!

Halfway between San Juan Cap and Irvine. Train getting steadily more full. Angels-Dodgers game in Anaheim tonight. Will get a lot worse at Irvine. Probably 100 standees now. Just went down for some chips - can't walk at all downstairs. I'll update standees to maybe 150 --- and a note: usually pretty quick wifi very slow today

Approaching Irvine - we've been crawling at 20 for maybe 4 minutes now, all of a sudden, a BNSF freight is passing us - all 4 are bright orange bnsf engines - only about 25 cars long, now we're speeding up again. I guess I was just surprised to see it during a rush hour, since there is a Metrolink only 5 minutes behind it.

Left Anaheim 8 minutes down, not too bad. Still about 50-75 standees, maybe 100 people left at Anaheim. Probably to allow more time to get downstairs, Ryan's announcement cautioned people that it would 4 minutes until FUL as we left Anaheim. This is usually 7, but it is good to allow more time. Should be into LA relatively on-time, but even when we are late, the train makes a stop of a minimum of 10 minutes, so will probably be 5 late into VNC.

*** some crazy young black man in FUL just got on and demanded that he be seated somewhere because he was the pregnant man. Again, ***? All of the other pax around him are dignifying him by asking questions like "Really??? You're the pregnant man???" But not in a sarcastic tone, in a interested one. What has the world come to (rhetorical question)? ***?

OK this is me updating now from the Downtown Burbank Metrolink station. The black guy ended up having basically half of the car pose for photos with him. I know he's not the pregnant man - that was a Mexican named Thomas - I've seen the pics. Anyway, he was giving out his phone number for everyone to stay in touch. The number he gave, none other than: 212-555-5555. No kidding. Everybody kept asking if he was being serious, and his reply was yes, he bought the rights to that number. It's a NY area code! He then proceeded to talk about his lack of lady parts. Whatever. I would've ignored it if possible, but he was in the 4 seater in the middle and talking VERY loudly. OK, on to trainy things. After FUL, we probably passed 3 pax and 2 freight trains. It was a slow ride. The SWC coach seats looked fairly empty, and the SSL had NO ONE. The other two Metrolinks we passed seemed all to be standing room only as well, but probably were not, they passed by faster. We got into LA at what I want to say was 7:11. We left at 7:23. As Whooz's photo showed, they have now put up some of the canopy. I think I have found my calling in getting AGR points. As we were in LA, a young guy in his late 20's, obviously drunk, came over to right across from me to start hitting on the girls in front of me. When he was telling the girls that this was only his second time on the train but he loved it and would take it more, I asked him if he had an AGR account. I then very quickly was able to sign him, and the two women in front of me, up for AGR, yes via referrals. YAY! Well now I am arriving into Van Nuys, and I will probably be back sometime tomorrow.

Apart from the trip reporting, I have a question. The announcements in Solana Beach before the train arrived were a little off to me. It was being said that because the train was sold out, tickets were not aloud to be purchased on board and that any body without one would be kicked off at OSD. Are the conductors not required to issue tickets on the most full trains?


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## Shanghai (Jun 22, 2012)

Thanks for your trip report, Johnny. I hope the remainder of your trip goes well.

We have a similar crowding situation on the LIRR when there is a Mets game. The

train is so crowded that the conductors cannot move through the train to collect

the tickets. That may be the reason that tickets are not sold on board.

Have a good evening in California!!


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## Guestlsa (Jun 23, 2012)

Wow I was just working 784 last week (sat and sun &) and from I was told all the 700 series trains are always pack


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## johnny.menhennet (Jun 24, 2012)

Today was beautiful. After spending endless amounts of time in traffic, w ehad anperfect day at the beach and the Santa Monica Pier. 72, pretty breezy, and sunny. Took my cousin on his first ever roller coaster ride  Typing this from my Nook in the bedroom.


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## thully (Jun 24, 2012)

Sounds like an interesting trip! I've always been partial to the Surfliner since it was my first Amtrak experience - and I definitely like the bi-level equipment (way better than the Horizons we get in Michigan) - not to mention the ocean views. Sounds crazy to have tons of standees like that - would suck to have to be a standee SAN-LAX the whole way! Even though I've taken the Surfliner 5 or 6 times, I've never seen it full like that.. However, it's not that surprising to have that happen - I figure if I ever plan on travelling on the Surfliner when there is a major event going on, I'll get business class for the reserved seat.


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## johnny.menhennet (Jun 25, 2012)

thully said:


> Sounds like an interesting trip! I've always been partial to the Surfliner since it was my first Amtrak experience - and I definitely like the bi-level equipment (way better than the Horizons we get in Michigan) - not to mention the ocean views. Sounds crazy to have tons of standees like that - would suck to have to be a standee SAN-LAX the whole way! Even though I've taken the Surfliner 5 or 6 times, I've never seen it full like that.. However, it's not that surprising to have that happen - I figure if I ever plan on travelling on the Surfliner when there is a major event going on, I'll get business class for the reserved seat.


For busy trains, it can get sold out days in advance. The coach seats are just as nice. It really doesn't matter that there was an event going on. 784/785 will always have standees Friday sand Sundays as long as the trains live. It's just th eway things are.


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## johnny.menhennet (Jun 26, 2012)

So I'm on my way home. Yay!

On Sunday, it was kind of our "train day" for this trip. We went to a 5-year-old birthday party at Travel Town, and later went to Live Steamers and rode around there. I was talking with some of the volunteers who are still peeved about City Council giving the LS land to Travel Town back in '84. That night we went to see the goodbye tour of Glen Campbell. He was not really the star there, it was his daughter, who is an amazing banjo and keyboard player. Driving back on Mulholland that night was amazing - IDK if I've ever seen the city that way,

Monday was simple. After one of Mason's teachers drove him to preschool, we were able to relax. I let my grandma cut my hair for the first time because she wasn't happy with the way it looked. Whatever. I wasn't sure it would look good but it made her happy, and it came out amazing. After eating lunch, we went to pick up Mason early and went to Americana at Brand, a wonderful outdoor shopping/entertainment area in Glendale. For whoever's been to the Grove, Americana was designed by the same people, complete with choreographed water shows and trolleys. We saw Brave, which was we had heard great reviews about from friends. It was a nice movie. Went to B&N, got me some books, and played on the playground for a while before going home.

Today was nice as well. Mason was really hard to get up, and we took him in to school at 10, way late. Then we went to a Westfield Mall on Riverside between Van Nuys and Woodman, and went to Macy's to get me some clothes. Hope my description of locations doesn't remind you guys of the SNL episode w/Mick Jagger from almost two months ago. Those who've seen it should laugh.  We spent a good two hours there. My grandma actually has a wonderful sense of fashion but it can be quite picky. I probably tried on 25 shirts in two different departments and 5 shorts in another, and we left with two of each. I'm still happy though, because I need clothes. At almost 16, I'm finally starting to hit my growth spurt, and while I was 5' 1" two months ago, I'm now almost 5' 3". Even these new clothes shouldn't last long. We went to a new trendy place in Studio City called Take A Bao, and had a fantastic albeit small lunch there. After that, it was time to go get Mason. Leaving his school at about 3:20 to head to VNC, we were able to get to the station via Nordhoff and Van Nuys in about 25 minutes. There was a woman and her daughter in line who have never taken any train trip before, but were going to go to Texas by rail in a week. After finally getting to the front of the line, when I was only second, it was already 4:00. The process hardly took 2 minutes, and pretty soon we were outside. My train pulled up at 4:18, and left that same minute.

From there we made great time. We had come to a complete stop at Glendale by 4:33, so it took only 15 minutes from departure at VMC to stop at Burbank at then get to Glendale. We were really hauling a**, which we don't usually do along this segment. Despite leaving 5 minutes late from VNC, we still made it into LAX 10 minutes early. Since I'm used to leaving on Sundays, seeing all of the Metrolink traffic on the main line and in the station was a cool reminder. We passed 1 outbound Metrolink north of Glendale, 2 south of Glendale, 2 leaving the station on the approach tracks right before they all diverge, and then we were in the station. We pulled in on track 11. There was a Metrolink on almost every track by that time, except for tracks 9, 10, 11, and 12, and what looked like 2 trains on 2 other tracks. One pulled in on 9 only about 30 seconds after we got in. This was the express to San Bernardino, and there was already a large crowd waiting for it on the platform. It seemed like a very popular train. Another pulled in on 10 soon after. Our train slowly filled up, going from a train not even half full upon arrival to one where almost every seat is taken. As I'm typing this between LAX and FUL, there are no standees, but close. We left LAX right on time, and every thing has been normal since, apart from the fact that we spent a lot of time at slower running - I think 59, for a lot of the way LAX-FUL. We just passed Buena Park at 5:37, and are now at 79, so will not be more than 4 minutes late out of FUL. Oh just heard the (earlier than usual) announcement of FUL station stop. No notable conductors on this trip, at least that I've seen.

Wanted to add - the wifi was working great up until LAX and for most of the duration of the stop, but with about 2 minutes left before departure I noticed a big slowdown in the speed, presumably because of the number of people all trying to sign in at once.

Also, Hyundai-Rotem is doing a nice job of turning out the coaches for Metrolink. While there have been cab cars on all Metrolink consists for a while now (all the Bombardier cabs are being stored at Moorpark) I've noticed many more coaches. There have been two Metrolinks I've seen made up completely of these coaches - one of 6 cars, one of 4 - and a few trains with only one Bombardier bi-level left. I haven't seen a UTA comet in a while. And a question - there was a car sitting on the track between platforms 8 & 9 that looked like a baggage car, just from the shell, but was darker grey and said something like Passenger Handling or something on it. It didn't say Amtrak anywhere on it and it was not there Friday. I know that's not exactly what it said - it's been 35 minutes and I wasn't paying much attention, but I'd like to know what it was. Thanks

Been steady at about 5 minutes late since we left FUL. Just ran into 785 at SNA. Also very full, but could not see any standees. I wouldn't be surprised if Tuesday is the least busy travel day of the week.

Came into OSD 3 minutes early, but left 3 late, so I should be 3 early into Solana.. Went along the ocean again (of course) and it was again magnificent. The sun was low, the water was clear, and the palm trees were swaying in the breeze. Can't ask for much more 

BTW we are now just leaving OSD and are running right alongside a departing Sprinter


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## johnny.menhennet (Jun 27, 2012)

I guess this was another trip well done 

Does anybody have an answer as to what could possibly the Passenger Handling baggage car thing? This is my final question I promise.


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## trainman74 (Jun 27, 2012)

johnny.menhennet said:


> Then we went to a Westfield Mall on Riverside between Van Nuys and Woodman, and went to Macy's to get me some clothes.


You were definitely in my neck of the woods -- that mall is only about a mile from my apartment. I've bought clothes at that Macy's.


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## leemell (Jun 27, 2012)

trainman74 said:


> johnny.menhennet said:
> 
> 
> > Then we went to a Westfield Mall on Riverside between Van Nuys and Woodman, and went to Macy's to get me some clothes.
> ...


Mine too, I am about one mile from VNC and about two from the Sherman Oaks Fashion Plaza.


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## leemell (Jun 27, 2012)

trainman74 said:


> johnny.menhennet said:
> 
> 
> > Then we went to a Westfield Mall on Riverside between Van Nuys and Woodman, and went to Macy's to get me some clothes.
> ...


Mine too, I am about one mile from VNC and about two from the Sherman Oaks Fashion Plaza.


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## johnny.menhennet (Jun 28, 2012)

leemell said:


> trainman74 said:
> 
> 
> > johnny.menhennet said:
> ...


Then leemell, trainman74, Y U NO COME VISIT ME AT VNC??? anything your doing, even work, is clearly not as important


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## leemell (Jun 28, 2012)

johnny.menhennet said:


> leemell said:
> 
> 
> > trainman74 said:
> ...


I would have, if I had been in town . -_-


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## trainman74 (Jun 28, 2012)

johnny.menhennet said:


> Then leemell, trainman74, Y U NO COME VISIT ME AT VNC??? anything your doing, even work, is clearly not as important


Ha -- I'm actually unemployed right now, so I have plenty of time on my hands.






Sorry, must have missed seeing your itinerary in advance!


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