# Twits On A Train



## WhoozOn1st (Nov 12, 2008)

We'll get to the twits. Calm down.

Ordinarily I wouldn't begin a Travelogue/Trip Report with a bus ride, but my ride to OXN on Friday, 11-7-08, was noteworthy. I've never seen a city bus driver handle a machine so aggressively. He was jackin' that bad boy around like you wouldn't believe. Far from a complaint, it was the first time the ride to the station had been anywhere near fun, and I actually complimented the guy upon leaving the bus at the Oxnard Transportation Center (aka OXN).

Coach tickets had been purchased online, and I had a couple bags to check. As I walked to the Amtrak ticket/baggage window, a small voice in the back of my head (I think it was Wolf Blitzer, but not sure) said "Upgrade. The train's gonna be packed." I took the advice, and as events transpired it was a good call.

Caught the arrival/departure of northbound Pacific Surfliner 799 to San Luis Obispo while waiting. This apparent stepchild in the Surfliner family never seems to have the same consist twice in a row, at least when I see it.

Upon boarding southbound Surfliner 774 to San Diego the Business Class car was already about 2/3 full. BC upgrade, OXN-SAN, was $16, so I boarded with the determination to drink at least sixteen bucks' worth of coffee. The ride into L.A. was on time and uneventful. A few details... When I rode this train BC with MrFSS, MrsFSS, and friends in February we received our snak-paks and wine or water around Moorpark. None of that on the way to L.A. this time. PA announcements were delivered exuberantly, with this one several times: "Seats are for people, not for bags. Or feet. This train will be full from L.A., maybe SRO..." More, but that's the main part. [EDIT: The Metrolink Death Curve outside Chatsworth is back up to speed. Some have speculated that slow running was in tribute to the 25 fatalities, but I believe it was a track maintenance issue.]

At L.A. I hit the ground for a smoke, leaving my table down, my L.A. Times and my notes on it. Upon reboarding they were all gone, and I found some guy about to take my seat. Set him straight, and restarted notes. The $8 worth of coffee I had already consumed (by my calculations) may have helped somewhat in this regard. Snak-paks and beverages were distributed very quickly upon departure from L.A. (new crew). Caffeine-driven inventory of the snak-pak:

Belle Creme "gourmet" cheese spread, .75 oz cup

La Victoria "thick n' chunky" salsa singles (mild), 1.5 oz cup

Cafe de Paris Fancy Sugar Cookie, .75 oz

Darcia's Crostini Rosemary Cracker, .5 oz

Chips To Go "gourmet" tortilla chips, "white and light," 1.5 oz

Orchard Fruit Mix (a trail mix kinda thing), 1 oz

1 piece weird-tasting hard candy

Plastic knife

Saved the snak-pak contents in laptop bag for evening munching at the hotel, and got a bottle of water.

TWITS ON A TRAIN

At Irvine a Gang of Four boarded the BC car and occupied a quad set of facing seats a couple rows in front of me. By this time BC was around 3/4-7/8 full, and Coach was a total zoo. [EDIT: By end of the line at SAN, BC was down to 9 people - I counted.] The Gang of Four was noisy and obnoxious right off the bat.

South of Capistrano the rail line begins running on the coast. The Gang of Four consisted of two females and two males. One of the females was bothered by the sun's direct glare, said "Let's pull down the curtain," grabbed the RED EMERGENCY EXIT handle on the upper frame of her window, and gave it a good tug. Down came the rubber stripping. Rather than informing crew of the mistake, the Gang of Four elected to start playing really crappy music loud and sing along with it. After a time, during which the stripping sagged further and I was hoping the window would fall in and hit the clowns, the conductor passed through, told the Gang of Four to kill the tunes, and noticed the window. For this he was greeted with a barrage of derision and snide insults from a male member of the group.

The conductor was a better man than me, cuz I woulda put them off the train at Oceanside and made them fend for themselves to get to Solana Beach, their destination.

SATURDAY

Saturday I was up bright and early to take a Coaster to Oceanside and ride Sprinter, the new diesel-powered light rail line between Oceanside and Escondido, before returning to San Diego to visit the Maritime Museum of San Diego in the afternoon. Coaster was okay - my first time - and on another beautiful day got some nice shots.

Sprinter was so hideous that it rates its own report, and will not be covered here, though Sprinter photos are included in the overall Picasa album. The separate Sprinter report will include videos.

Following the Sprinter debacle I caught southbound Surfliner 572 to San Diego at Oceanside. My home station of OXN is on a sweeping curve, and otherwise I usually board Amtrak trains at endpoints. At Oceanside the trains arrive on a straight line, which is relatively new to me. No baggage to deal with, so I had used QuikTrak to print my ticket at SAN before boarding the Coaster north.

When 572 arrived a few minutes late I was trackside for photos. A dome behind the engine, and another dome trailing. COOL! Clearly the domes I had seen being moved at L.A. the previous day. Boarded the last coach in anticipation of still more shots of the head end while threading the hills, valleys, and canyons on the approach to SAN. Been over this part of the line around 10 times so far this year, but somehow never grow weary of it.

South of Solana Beach 572 halted, and we got an announcement. A Coaster was disabled, and 572 had to assist. Assist? From what I could gather, the Coaster in question had broken down on the main line and had to be shoved aside so traffic in both directions could resume. To me that's not an assist. That's a "Get the guy outta the way."

At any rate, very slow running commenced as 572 approached the crippled Coaster, a northbound. Good for me, because the slow running allowed pictures along the line that are very difficult, if not impossible, at normal speeds. I wrote off visiting the Maritime Museum - for another time - and enjoyed the experience.

Not everybody was so sanguine. A guy across the aisle from me spent most of the time during this Coaster-caused delay badmouthing Amtrak on his cell phone.

Following the switching evolution, after setting the broken Coaster aside at the Sorrento Valley Coaster station (not an Amtrak stop), 572 boarded some stranded southbound Coaster passengers for the run into SAN. Many more stranded northbound Coaster passengers (the breakdown had been northbound) were picked up by (I think) Surfliner 577.

Return to SAN was about an hour late. I didn't care: I was looking forward to getting shots of private domes Silver Solarium and Silver Lariat. Got those, and a lot more, as you'll see in the Picasa album. Also got this: YouTube Video



The comprehensively captioned companion Picasa album for this Report includes shots of the Twits On A Train, Coaster, Sprinter, and cool dome stuff at San Diego, as well as perhaps a surprise or two: Coasters and Sprinters and Domes, Oh My!


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## GG-1 (Nov 12, 2008)

WhoozOn1st said:


> We'll get to the twits. Calm down.


Aloha

Just where was the Idiot that messed with you while those twits messed with the safety devises on your train?

But on a good note I ant to say I enjoyed your pictures very much.

Till we meet again in person Mahalo

Eric


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## WhoozOn1st (Nov 12, 2008)

GG-1 said:


> Just where was the Idiot that messed with you while those twits messed with the safety devises on your train?


Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that he wasn't around to harass me for getting a shot of the Gang of Four as they detrained at Solano Beach.


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## OlympianHiawatha (Nov 12, 2008)

Another great well written report and some really solid pics! The Sprinters look like little TGVs


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## WhoozOn1st (Nov 12, 2008)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Another great well written report and some really solid pics! The Sprinters look like little TGVs


Sprinter is in fact a T*S*V: Tres SLOW Vitesse. I'm currently consulting a Thesaurus in search of enough synonymns for "sucks" while compiling my report.


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## PetalumaLoco (Nov 12, 2008)

I'm interested in your Sprinter report, and why you say taxpayers got ripped for a diesel system instead of electric. The SMART train in Sonoma-Marin counties touted the Sprinter as the model of the system they'd like to build, as it's cheaper than electrification of an existing freight line, so they say. Not that I know either way.


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## the_traveler (Nov 12, 2008)

Great photos!

From one of your captions



> Red Hat Society members


Don't you also have a "red hat"? :lol:


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## WhoozOn1st (Nov 12, 2008)

PetalumaLoco said:


> I'm interested in your Sprinter report, and why you say taxpayers got ripped for a diesel system instead of electric. The SMART train in Sonoma-Marin counties touted the Sprinter as the model of the system they'd like to build, as it's cheaper than electrification of an existing freight line, so they say. Not that I know either way.


Petaluma, I'll give chapter and verse on why I believe Sprinter is a massive mistake in my report. Sprinter is a very a bad joke. This assessment comes from a long-time and staunch supporter of rail transit. Sprinter is just plain WRONG.


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## Neil_M (Nov 12, 2008)

WhoozOn1st said:


> PetalumaLoco said:
> 
> 
> > I'm interested in your Sprinter report, and why you say taxpayers got ripped for a diesel system instead of electric. The SMART train in Sonoma-Marin counties touted the Sprinter as the model of the system they'd like to build, as it's cheaper than electrification of an existing freight line, so they say. Not that I know either way.
> ...


So why do you think that? I have travelled on those Siemens units on a few branch lines in Germany and granted they are not the best of trains, but they serve that purpose reasonably well. Compared to some of the older units they replaced they are actually a step up. For what is a 22 mile long line (which is often shorter than some of the runs they do in Germany) and for frequent stops they are not the worse choice. (You obviously think otherwise!)


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## WhoozOn1st (Nov 12, 2008)

Neil_M said:


> WhoozOn1st said:
> 
> 
> > PetalumaLoco said:
> ...


Neil (ya Limey  ), I'll make quite clear in the upcoming, separate report on Sprinter why I'm in the uncomfortable position of siding with naysayers in this particular instance of rail transit.


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## Steve4031 (Nov 14, 2008)

I am interested in the sprinter report too. Is it going to be here or somplace else?


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## WhoozOn1st (Nov 14, 2008)

Steve4031 said:


> I am interested in the sprinter report too. Is it going to be here or somplace else?


Sprinter report will be here, Travelogues/Trip Reports (as a new topic), in the near future.


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