johnny.menhennet
Conductor
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?
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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