johnny.menhennet
Conductor
First, I want to start by apologizing in advance if there are frequent typos. I am typing on my grandma's iPad right now, and do not have a lot of time.
On Saturday August 18th, the biggest event for my day by far was my tae-kwon-do testing out in Escondido. from 12-3:30 I was performing and testing in a class I had to take on the road to my black belt. The worst part about it: the AC was not working properly, and the temp never got below 80. It ended up not finishing until 3:45, and I basically sprinted out of there so I could drive to Oceanside. We made great time and got to the station by 4:10. I bought my weekend pass, which I was only going to use for the one-way trip to San Bernardino, but the weekend pass was 5.75 cheaper than just a one-way ticket for those cities.
At 4:25, a Metrolink pulled in, and I almost boarded until a security guy started yelling "this is the train to LA Union Station! If you are headed to San Bernardino or Riverside, this is not your train!" The Metrolink pulled out right after, and I waited for my train. And waited. And waited. It finally came in at like 4:37, fora 4:30 departure. It sat for a little, and left at 4:41. I texted my friend boarding at San Clemente Pier to wait for the second train so she didn't board the wrong one on accident. Something was weird with the tracks on Saturday. Throughout Pendleton, we never hit more than 60 mph. We sometimes were going slower than that. At first I was thinking heat restrictions, but it never really gets above 80 on the coasts, and usually doesn't approach that. W pulled in to San Clemente Pier 15 minutes late where more than 150 people boarded, 135 of them from my friends' church group on their annual trip whee they have a beach mass. We sat together in the fourth car from the engine in a 6-car train. I had purposely seated in a Bombardier bi-level because I had heard complaints about the Rotem seats. We continued along, and the entire time, we never went more than 60 in 89 territory. Even between Laguna Niguel and Irvine, where they usually go very fast, there was slow running. By Anaheim Canyon, we were 20 minutes down. They made the first announcement to check for tix at Anaheim Vanyon, but throughout the whole trip nobody came by to even look at them.
There was a ton of volume right off the bat as we entered the Transcon. Between where we entered the Transcon and West Corona, there were 5 complete freight trains. Sometimes there were two next to us at the same time, as we were sometimes in the middle of three tracks. There was one more freight between North Corona and La Sierra, and one more between Riverside-Downtown and San Bernardino. We left Riverside 32 minutes down. We still had not gone more than 60 the whole way through. I was surprised by the amount of Metrolink trains stored in San Bernardino. As we were pulling in to the east of the auto facility pavement thing, there were 5-10 train sets storerd on tracks just to the east, and there were at least 10 more in the vicinity of the platforms. As we were pulling in late on the northernmost platform, we had a waiting train coming from LAUS on the flyover. More than 200 people maybe 250 left the train at San Bernardino, and it took almost 10 minutes before everyone could clear off the platform because it is narrow and was like a funnel. The LAUS train was waiting the whole time. Ours finally backed up and let the other in at maybe 7:30, because we had arrived only 20 minutes down thanks to padding.
Sunday had nothing to do with trains, so I won't say anything other than we went to church that morning and then after a lunch stop at in-n-out, went and saw the movie Hope Springs, which was hilarious but felt very real and seemed like it could genuinely be a problem with older couples. Great movie.
On Monday, I had to go home because the next morning I had to pick up my school schedule and get my pics taken. The only direct San Bernardino-Oceanside train of the day leave before 5:00 am, so I was not up for that. My friends' mom offered to drive me to Riverside to catch a trAin to OSD, but I told her that because I liked trains and I didn't remember what the line looked like (my only previous Metrolink k ride prior to this trip was on the SB line at night time with my grandma when I was younger), I WANTED to connect in LA and I would get more train time for the same price, since the connection is legal on metrolinktrains.com. I got to the station at San Bernardino at 12:45 for the 1:00 departure, so The train was just arriving from LAUS when I pulled up. I got to the front of the ticket line at 12:50, and that is when they opened the gate to allow people onto the platform. The ticket machine gave my debut card lots of trouble, and K felt bad about it, but her mom offered to pay and I couldn't say no. The train left right on-time at 1:00.
We were on time at every station on the route And we traveled at a high speed UNTIL a meet with an eastbound just outside of the Cucamonga station caused us to get down about 5 minutes. We lost a little bit of time from there out, being 9 minutes down at Baldwin Park. We made up time and got into El Monte only 8 minutes down around 2:15 or so. We waited on the platform for a full 5 minutes where I got worried that for some dumb reason we might be held until 2:50 when the next eastbound would come through. But aftero the unexplained delay, we left and stayed didn't lose any more time. Sure enough, the eastbound was waiting for us right as the double track ended just past the Cal State LA station is. One nice thing about the train was that even though it never got very full, there were people at every station without fail. I'd say that at least 10 people boarded at every station, with bigger numbers at Covina, Cucamonga, and possibly others. At LAUS, we came in on 6, and I went into the station. Ingeneral, I was veryimpressed with the SB line. There afe midday frequencies at half hour intervals and it is very consistent.
I grabbed my CRN and wandered around for a while before going up to 8 at about 3:00. The Metrolink for 3:20 was already on 7, and my train to OSD also scheduled to leave at 3:20 was not there yet. It pulled in at 3:15, and I boarded in the second car from the engine, which I found out was the Quiet Car around Fullerton, which I surprisingly liked, as I read my CRN and then m over on to my Nook. Something I noticed about consists was that every train I had seen on either the IEOC or the OC lines had been 6 cars, while every train I had seen on the SB line was only 4. The commerce station had 1 person board and not one get off, from what I could tell, yet the Norwalk Santa Fe Springs stop was very well used. Buena park didn't have a lot of volume, but Fullerton and most stations south of it did. The beach was pretty as usual.
just after the beach I decided to move into the front car just to see what the Rotem cars were like so I would know what everyone didn't like. in all honesty, I did not see any real difference. They seemed equal. But I don't think I was supposed to move between cars. The doors were very heavy and I didn't see anyone else ever using them. My ticket was checked for the first time the entire trip by a sheriff who just quickly glanced at my ticket around Laguna Niguel. We moved a little faster than we had two days before in Lendleton, but it still didn't seem like Surfliner quality. Maybe there is some rule that only Amtrak can run at 90, not Metrolinks. IDK. I arrived perfectly on time at OSD, where a Coaster was waiting on track 1, scheduled to leave 5 minutes later. If I had had a Coaster schedule, I would have taken this to Solana Beach, rather than having my mom pick me up, but it wasn't a big deal. I wonder if the Coaster waits for peo,e continuing farther south if the Metrolink is slightly delayed. That concluded my trip, and I might try to post something about the Surfliner trip I took the next day later. Again, sorry if it is hard to read. I might try to edit it after posting.
On Saturday August 18th, the biggest event for my day by far was my tae-kwon-do testing out in Escondido. from 12-3:30 I was performing and testing in a class I had to take on the road to my black belt. The worst part about it: the AC was not working properly, and the temp never got below 80. It ended up not finishing until 3:45, and I basically sprinted out of there so I could drive to Oceanside. We made great time and got to the station by 4:10. I bought my weekend pass, which I was only going to use for the one-way trip to San Bernardino, but the weekend pass was 5.75 cheaper than just a one-way ticket for those cities.
At 4:25, a Metrolink pulled in, and I almost boarded until a security guy started yelling "this is the train to LA Union Station! If you are headed to San Bernardino or Riverside, this is not your train!" The Metrolink pulled out right after, and I waited for my train. And waited. And waited. It finally came in at like 4:37, fora 4:30 departure. It sat for a little, and left at 4:41. I texted my friend boarding at San Clemente Pier to wait for the second train so she didn't board the wrong one on accident. Something was weird with the tracks on Saturday. Throughout Pendleton, we never hit more than 60 mph. We sometimes were going slower than that. At first I was thinking heat restrictions, but it never really gets above 80 on the coasts, and usually doesn't approach that. W pulled in to San Clemente Pier 15 minutes late where more than 150 people boarded, 135 of them from my friends' church group on their annual trip whee they have a beach mass. We sat together in the fourth car from the engine in a 6-car train. I had purposely seated in a Bombardier bi-level because I had heard complaints about the Rotem seats. We continued along, and the entire time, we never went more than 60 in 89 territory. Even between Laguna Niguel and Irvine, where they usually go very fast, there was slow running. By Anaheim Canyon, we were 20 minutes down. They made the first announcement to check for tix at Anaheim Vanyon, but throughout the whole trip nobody came by to even look at them.
There was a ton of volume right off the bat as we entered the Transcon. Between where we entered the Transcon and West Corona, there were 5 complete freight trains. Sometimes there were two next to us at the same time, as we were sometimes in the middle of three tracks. There was one more freight between North Corona and La Sierra, and one more between Riverside-Downtown and San Bernardino. We left Riverside 32 minutes down. We still had not gone more than 60 the whole way through. I was surprised by the amount of Metrolink trains stored in San Bernardino. As we were pulling in to the east of the auto facility pavement thing, there were 5-10 train sets storerd on tracks just to the east, and there were at least 10 more in the vicinity of the platforms. As we were pulling in late on the northernmost platform, we had a waiting train coming from LAUS on the flyover. More than 200 people maybe 250 left the train at San Bernardino, and it took almost 10 minutes before everyone could clear off the platform because it is narrow and was like a funnel. The LAUS train was waiting the whole time. Ours finally backed up and let the other in at maybe 7:30, because we had arrived only 20 minutes down thanks to padding.
Sunday had nothing to do with trains, so I won't say anything other than we went to church that morning and then after a lunch stop at in-n-out, went and saw the movie Hope Springs, which was hilarious but felt very real and seemed like it could genuinely be a problem with older couples. Great movie.
On Monday, I had to go home because the next morning I had to pick up my school schedule and get my pics taken. The only direct San Bernardino-Oceanside train of the day leave before 5:00 am, so I was not up for that. My friends' mom offered to drive me to Riverside to catch a trAin to OSD, but I told her that because I liked trains and I didn't remember what the line looked like (my only previous Metrolink k ride prior to this trip was on the SB line at night time with my grandma when I was younger), I WANTED to connect in LA and I would get more train time for the same price, since the connection is legal on metrolinktrains.com. I got to the station at San Bernardino at 12:45 for the 1:00 departure, so The train was just arriving from LAUS when I pulled up. I got to the front of the ticket line at 12:50, and that is when they opened the gate to allow people onto the platform. The ticket machine gave my debut card lots of trouble, and K felt bad about it, but her mom offered to pay and I couldn't say no. The train left right on-time at 1:00.
We were on time at every station on the route And we traveled at a high speed UNTIL a meet with an eastbound just outside of the Cucamonga station caused us to get down about 5 minutes. We lost a little bit of time from there out, being 9 minutes down at Baldwin Park. We made up time and got into El Monte only 8 minutes down around 2:15 or so. We waited on the platform for a full 5 minutes where I got worried that for some dumb reason we might be held until 2:50 when the next eastbound would come through. But aftero the unexplained delay, we left and stayed didn't lose any more time. Sure enough, the eastbound was waiting for us right as the double track ended just past the Cal State LA station is. One nice thing about the train was that even though it never got very full, there were people at every station without fail. I'd say that at least 10 people boarded at every station, with bigger numbers at Covina, Cucamonga, and possibly others. At LAUS, we came in on 6, and I went into the station. Ingeneral, I was veryimpressed with the SB line. There afe midday frequencies at half hour intervals and it is very consistent.
I grabbed my CRN and wandered around for a while before going up to 8 at about 3:00. The Metrolink for 3:20 was already on 7, and my train to OSD also scheduled to leave at 3:20 was not there yet. It pulled in at 3:15, and I boarded in the second car from the engine, which I found out was the Quiet Car around Fullerton, which I surprisingly liked, as I read my CRN and then m over on to my Nook. Something I noticed about consists was that every train I had seen on either the IEOC or the OC lines had been 6 cars, while every train I had seen on the SB line was only 4. The commerce station had 1 person board and not one get off, from what I could tell, yet the Norwalk Santa Fe Springs stop was very well used. Buena park didn't have a lot of volume, but Fullerton and most stations south of it did. The beach was pretty as usual.
just after the beach I decided to move into the front car just to see what the Rotem cars were like so I would know what everyone didn't like. in all honesty, I did not see any real difference. They seemed equal. But I don't think I was supposed to move between cars. The doors were very heavy and I didn't see anyone else ever using them. My ticket was checked for the first time the entire trip by a sheriff who just quickly glanced at my ticket around Laguna Niguel. We moved a little faster than we had two days before in Lendleton, but it still didn't seem like Surfliner quality. Maybe there is some rule that only Amtrak can run at 90, not Metrolinks. IDK. I arrived perfectly on time at OSD, where a Coaster was waiting on track 1, scheduled to leave 5 minutes later. If I had had a Coaster schedule, I would have taken this to Solana Beach, rather than having my mom pick me up, but it wasn't a big deal. I wonder if the Coaster waits for peo,e continuing farther south if the Metrolink is slightly delayed. That concluded my trip, and I might try to post something about the Surfliner trip I took the next day later. Again, sorry if it is hard to read. I might try to edit it after posting.
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