Early rising: the Metro link option

I had to get to LA very early one day last week, earlier than the first Amtrak of the day (my usual #763). So, I left the house at 4.30am and drove 30 minutes to Oceanside, which is the southern terminus of the Metrolink commuter service that links Orange, LA, Riverside, and Ventura counties. The first train out of Oceanside on Metrolink is at 4.40 but I caught the 5.16, which arrived in LA Union Station at 7.10. I had to wrestle with the automatic ticket machine, which did not like my $20 bill and insisted I use a credit card for the $14.50 one way fare. As with Amtrak, the significant savings are for multi-ride or monthly tickets, and single riders pay a premium, but this was still cheaper than Amtrak.

However, you gets what you pays for. Metrolink is much less comfortable than Amtrak. The suspension is rough, the seats very narrow and pitched too closely. They mostly face each other so your knees knock and your feet entangle with the person sitting opposite. There are no power outlets for your computer. The train stops at every station (Amtrak only hits a subset). I sometimes call this the dog-and-lamppost style of rail scheduling.

There were few people getting on at Oceanside but as usual things got crowded after Irvine. It was still so early, though, that many of them slept, except for an annoying man next to me talking on his cell phone. However, since he spoke Chinese, it was less distracting than if I'd been able to understand the conversation.

My return home, I took Amtrak; I just had to remember to get off in Oceanside where I left my car!

Conclusion: on days when I have to be in LA early, this is a viable, though tiring option.

Newbies: missing their stop

If you travel by train in rail-oriented cultures, like Japan, you'll find helpful signs on the train itself to tell you what the next station is, and how long till you arrive. On Amtrak, you have to rely on the conductors to make an announcement. Normally they tell you about 5 -10 minutes before you get to the station. But you have to be responsible for yourself. It's not really that hard--if you don't know the schedule, it's in each car. Since you walked upstairs to your seat, you should know how long it takes to walk downstairs to the door. This is particularly true in the superliner car, which does not have an exit--you have to walk into the next car to go downstairs to the door. Generally, you want to do this before you get to your stop.

This morning, I noticed a woman rushing past me after we stopped in Anaheim with two kids and suitcases. I always sit in the superliner, and almost as soon as they passed me the train started to move. I figured they didn't make it, and a few minutes later they trudged forlornly back to their seats. The doors had closed before they got there.

Unfortunately, it's the #563, which doesn't stop in Fullerton (just 10 minutes further up the line). Nope, they have a 40 minute ride to LA Union Station in front of them, before they can turn around and go back.

I feel sorry for them, but come on. It's a train. You know when it's supposed to get in. You know how long it takes to collect your kids and your luggage! They announced the station, but you should have been already getting your stuff.

Not a very nice way to start your vacation at Disneyland.

The Rules of the Parking Lot

There's a definite culture of the parking lot at Solana Beach, where I park in the morning. For the early train (#763), I can usually find a spot in the section closer to the station. I get there around 20 minute early, because I build in padding in case there's an accident or delay on the freeway. Like most regulars, I back into the stall, which is absurdly wide. This makes the evening getaway easier because of all the people walking through the lot--I can see them better forwards than backwards.

Once parked, I leave the radio on and use my iphone to read the news while I finish my morning tea. Generally most of the cars around me are also occupied, with people reading the paper or sipping coffee. I go down to the platform around 10 minutes before the train is due.

An hour later, on the days I catch #563 (the pseudo-express, which is proving to be rather disappointing), I have to park considerably further away, usually past the third driveway. That gets to be a pretty long schlep to the platform, which I notice in the evenings when I do the walk in reverse. On the rare days it rains in San Diego, it is particularly sucky.

We all queue up to leave --often it's faster to drive away from the station and exit one of the more distal driveways, because the first driveway is clogged with people doing pickups. Then there is a mad dash up to the freeway on-ramp so we can get home and turn around and do it all again the next day.

Note to Amtrak: you can't call it an "Express"

....if you don't treat it as one.

Going into LA yesterday, #563 came to a stop at a signal right before the station and waited.

And waited and waited.

SEems there was no open spot amongst tracks 9,10,11, and 12. We had to wait for them to pull something out so we were 20 minutes late--which means it would have been an on-time arrival for the old #565, non-express.

C'mon. You couldn't put it in the "A" section of the track? moved another one of those trains? Planned ahead?

So how's that express working for ya?

I've been taking the morning (semi) Express, #563, 1-2 times a week to LA.

The train it replaces, #565, was reliably ALWAYS late -- and seriously late, frequently by 20 minutes or so. I was acutely aware of how late this train was (scheduled arrival at 9.50), because I have to catch a shuttle in LA to get to work, which runs infrequently after 10am. And too often I had to resort to the Red Line and the Dash to make it to my office.

The good news is that 563 has been much more reliable. They did this not only by dropping a few stations but by putting it in front of, rather than behind a metrolink. It's scheduled into LA at 9.35 and most mornings, it has been on time.

Today, alas, was an exception. But generally the experience has been much better than expected, and I can make it to work by 10.

Another Surfliner Blog

Check out another Surfliner Blog, a light-hearted view of life on the rails.

Morning commuters, Solana Beach

New SD-LA express service

Amtrak is replacing train number 565 with train number 563 on weekdays. This new train, which leaves San Diego at 7.05 and Solana Beach at 7.39, will make fewer stops in Orange County, scheduled into LA nearly 20 minutes sooner.

If it manages to deliver on time arrival (more on which later), that makes the new 563 a viable alternative to 763 for me a few mornings a week, meaning I could sleep in for an extra hour. I'll let you know!

Update So far so good, 563 has been on time or early the two days I ahve taken it. It gives me an alternative, several days a week, to 763, which is an hour earlier. I can use the sleep.

Why does the dispatcher hate us?

Mobility along the train tracks is dependent upon the good will of the dispatcher, who serves as the rail equivalent of Air Traffic Control. The difference is that the dispatcher is controlling the physical signals and the switches that determine where the train goes (whereas the airtraffic controller tells the pilot what to do). If you sit at a red signal for a period of time, you can reflect on the will of the dispatcher.

Different parts of the system are controlled by different dispatchers--again, just as the air traffic control hands you off from district to district, my train ride involves hand-offs from Metrolink to the freight system BNSF, and so on. Since Amtrak doesn't own any rail, it relies on the good will of the responsible parties to switch it through. It doesn't take much of a cynic to think that if push comes to shove, a BNSF dispatcher is more likely to make the Amtrak wait if he can get his freight train past.

Usually in the evenings I go home on train #582, which has a number of scheduled "meets" with other trains. Because of single track, often one train must wait "in the hole" on a passing track while another goes by. Amtrak 582 has been doing better lately because a Metrolink schedule change reduced the number of meets in Orange County, so we're more likely to be on schedule when we get to Oceanside, in San Diego County.

But San DIego is mostly single track. And there's at least one meet with a northbound Coaster train between Oceanside and San Diego. We used to have this meet up in Carlsbad, but now we're doing it in Encinitas, much further south.

The other night we were all the way to Cardiff when we came to the stop. And we waited, and waited, and waited--almost 10 minutes, before the Coaster went by. Then we started up and ran into the Solana Beach Station, 3 minutes further along. The Solana Beach Station is double tracked.

Now, do you see my frustration? We were three minutes away from a double tracked station. YEt we waited 10 minutes for the coaster to come by. During some of that waiting time, the Coaster was in that station. Thus, we could have safely run into the station while he was still in it. Why did we wait? WHy didn't the dispatcher take us into the station (on time)?

My conclusion? The dispatcher hates us.

Apparently the North County Transit District (NCTD) is taking over the dispatching in San Diego County. Some commenters think that this is a bad thing for Amtrak, because they fear that the NCTD is likely to be provincial and favor Coaster trains, over the long-distance, regional Amtrak trains.

Based on my nightly experience with Amtrak 582, I am starting to suspect they may be right.

A few years ago, we visited Denmark, and wanted to go to one of the islands off the coast. Imagine our surprise to find that the nice person in the railway station could sell us a ticket not only on the train to the coast, but for the ferry over the water, and back again. The system is seamlessly integrated, making for a smooth trip, because everyone recognizes that travel is regional, not local.

But here, Amtrak waits in the hole.

Cars versus trains: the power commute

Earlier this week I needed to move some things out of my office so I commuted by car instead of by train. Because of the residue of the holiday, traffic was light in the morning and I breezed up to LA in 1h40m, significantly faster than my normal travel time. The train ride is only 2h10m, but driving or taking the shuttle to and from the station involves a built-in cushion of waiting time, so my door-to-door travel time by Amtrak is about 3hours each way.

But even with the fast drive to LA, I still missed the train ride. Driving is hard work, requires constant focus, and most significantly prevents doing anything else. Without my morning train time, I didn't have a chance to read my email, scan the news, or get going on work (or write a blogpost! ;-). I arrived at my office feeling behind. While at work, I loaded a bunch of work things to read on my computer for the ride home--only to realize that I wouldn't be able to read them. The drive back was over 2h, with traffic heavy in parts. I arrived home tired, stiff, my back sore, and again, feeling behind. I felt a lot less productive than on a train day, even though I "gained" a couple of hours.

So, the comparison:

	Car	Train	Winner
cost	$35 RT(tank of gas ) + wear plus parking	~$35, RT based on a 10 ride, free shuttle to work	Draw
time	average 2h door to door each way	av 3h door to door each way	car
Productivity	nil	2 hours uninterrupted office work each way	train
PHysical	stiff, stress	roomy, can move around	train
Environment	greenhouse gas	2-300 people sharing	train

Now, if only there were a regular evening Amtrak leaving LA between the 5.10 and the 8.30, I'd be all set….

Some service restored

I noted that a number of people came to this blog by searching for news about the service outage. Amtrak's latest service update says that some service will be restored between Solana Beach and points north. There is still track repair in Sorrento Valley so nothing running between Solana Beach and San Diego. Call them at 800-USA-RAIL or check the twitter feed for updates.

This service is cancelled

Due to the record rainfall in Southern California, today Amtrak service from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano was cancelled. There are floods along the line at Sorrento Valley , and mudslides in Encinitas and San Clemente Metrolink isn't running any further south than Laguna Niguel.

While Metrolink (commuter service in LA, Orange, and other counties but not San Diego) and the Coaster (San Diego commuter service) both have updates on their websites about schedules, and even twitter updates, there is no such luck from Amtrak's website. Check the train status, and it doesn't even say "Cancelled", just "this information is not available" which isn't very helpful. And a phone number.

Then, reading an article about the storm in the OC Register, I found out that Amtrak DOES have a twitter feed for the Surfliner. Note to Amtrak: it's not much use unless you tell us about it! Perhaps it's telling that the Coaster and Metrolink twitters are customized with their logos, and updated frequently. Amtrak's, not so much.

So, finally, I found out there's limited service between LA and San Juan Capistrano, and no alternatives provided. If you need to get between San Juan and San Diego county, you are out of luck.

And the status updates that Metrolink and Coaster put on their front page? The Coaster site says at the top that repairs of the flooded track will take until Christmas weekend (4 days, anyway). It took till after 7pm my time for the main Amtrak webpage to post ANY status update up top--and trains have been cancelled since 6am. On the Amtrak California site, there's no indication of trouble. No, you have to click on a link in a 6pt font for "news" at the bottom of the page. It's not in one of the main menu buttons. NOT helpful, guys.

Amtrak has a real problem with communicating with the customers. Surely it can take a lesson off of Metrolink and Coaster and keep the websites up to date.

Regardless, I'm sure glad I decided to stay home today and telecommute, and that I can telecommute tomorrow too.

Amtrak: get it together, would you? You can't help the weather but you can sure do a better job letting us know what's going on.

Photo from San Diego Union Tribune.

Where's my train?

When I travel, I almost never rent a car, but always take public transit, often rail or light rail, and often in countries where I don't speak the language. I pity those who come to the US and don't speak the language. It's difficult to figure out where your train is, particularly in LA Union Station, and particularly for Amtrak.

Union Station is a wonderful old art deco building (I'll blog about that later) that accesses the platforms via a long tunnel. The individual tracks are reached by ramps or stairs, two tracks per platform. So to find your train, you need to know which track it is on so you go up on the correct platform. If you're on the wrong platform, you have to go back downstairs to the tunnel to go up to the correct one.

Like most stations, LA Union has a big train board in it that lists the trains and their tracks. And, in the tunnels, there are lighted signs at the base of the ramps, that tell you which train is coming next at that platform. IF, that is, your train is a Metrolink. If you ride Amtrak, the signs say "Welcome to Amtrak!" And if you enter the tunnel at the end opposite the main station building, where many busses and the metro come in, there is no big board to help. So you either walk ALL the way down to the station building, or peer up the ramp to see whether you can spot a train. And, if you have a tight connection from your bus or metro, you aren't going to have time to run all the way down the tunnel and back again.

Once on the platform, AMtrak has "crawler" signs that tell you what's coming and what's late (these tend to be more accurate than the Big Board in the main station, which often gets times wrong particularly if there are delays). But again, these are of limited use. They don't tell you a track number, and its the same sign for both the platforms Amtrak uses.

Say, for example, there are two Amtrak trains that arrive at the same time: one going North, the Santa Barbara on Track 10, and one going South, to San Diego on Track 12. Because LA is a dead end station, the trains all arrive and depart from the same direction. If you're running for the train, there is absolutely NO way to tell which train is which, if you don't already know the platform number. The regulars usually know which track a train comes in on, but if there's a delay, that isn't reliable. The loudspeakers on the platform are useless; you can't hear them over the noise of the train's ventilation and mechanical systems.

Amtrak doesn't have a problem with this because they like everyone to line up in the station, and wait for the track to be posted on the Big Board. But the station is noisy and crowded, and many people don't come in that way.

Solution? Activate the signs in the tunnel with accurate information. I really don't understand why they can't do this. It works for Metrolink.

You'd think it would be easier if you are at one of the downline stations, where you can at least tell which direction a train is going. And as long as you know an Amtrak from a Metrolink or a Coaster. But if you are a newbie, you might be unsure which train to take when it arrives at the platform. At least the Metrolink puts their destination on a sign in the train windows. Not so Amtrak. Most stations do have the crawler signs, but they aren't always working.

So, next time you get on a train, unless you are certain where it is going, ASK someone. It would be a real bummer to end up in Burbank when you wanted to go to Irvine.

Do I stay or do I go?

There was a mechanical the other day on the northbound surfliner from San Diego, that led to two trains being yoked together, basically "deadheading" the broken engine up to LA. Once they made it to LA, they split the transets again, but it was start of the evening commute , and there was much pushing and pulling and delay due to incoming traffic before they got the trainset that was supposed to be #582 (southbound, 4.10 departure) re-installed on a platform. Then they had to go push the engines around to replace the one that wasn't working.

Trains live in a one dimensional world that is bound by the track. You can't just jump from one track to another; you have to back up past a switch, then come forward and switch onto the new track, drop off whatever you are dropping off, then back up and repeat . By the time they got the trainset dropped off ( at the far end of platform 11, squeezed in front of another train), and the old engine deposited in dishonor on the center spur, and the new engine attached to the trainset, it was 4.50; the conductors (as frustrated as everyone else on the hot platform) making hand signals to the engineer as they tried to get the air system hooked up and the power going.

Right on time, the southbound train #784 from Santa Barbara arrived, which leaves LA at 5.10 to continue downline. My conundrum: do I continue to wait for #582, which isn't likely to leave much before 5.10 itself, or do I trot over to another platform and get on #775? The conductors shrugged; "we haven't even air-ested it yet," one said (air pressure provides brakes), and there were no lights on in the cars. "You make your decision," commented the head conductor. (She's like that, she never states an opinion on such things.)

At 4.55, I decided to cut and run, betting on the 5.10 train being the first to go. My logic was also based on experience that a train out of its slot picks up more delays as it goes, so I figured it would drop further behind. Of course lots of other people made the same bet, so the 5.10 train was Standing Room Only by the time it left LA, 9 minutes late. And as I looked out the window, I saw that the other track was clear: #582 HAD left before #784, and because tracks are one-dimensional, it would beat us home after all. Sigh. (Although it only left 10 minutes ahead of me).

Given the experience that mine is always the longest line in the supermarket, I just know that if I'd bet on #582, it would have taken another hour to leave LA.

The train is great when it works, but when it doesn't, it's a real pain.

Picture from Trainweb

Missing your stop is not an emergency

I like to say that if you ride the train enough you will experience everything. A while back on my evening commute home, the train started to pull out of Oceanside station and then there was a loud WHOOSH sound and it stopped immediately. After a minute the conductor came on, and said in an annoyed voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, pulling the emergency brake without an emergency is a felony and you will be removed by the police. Missing your stop is not an emergency."

We all looked around, wondering what sort of idiot pulls the emergency brake. The conductors, exasperated, walked through the train looking at each emergency handle for the one that had been pulled, so they could close it again. The emergency brake releases a valve that depressurizes the braking system, thus applying the brakes, so that the train cannot get going again until the valve is closed.

Of course, the errant handle was in the last car of the train. The conductors quizzed the passengers and got a description of the kid around 17 or 18 with a skateboard who panicked when he realized the doors had closed, and pulled the handle. They found him, and after what I hope was a stern talking to, they let him off. I saw him jump on his skateboard and saucily swoop down the platform.

I thought that they should have kept him till the next station, at least, but as one conductor commented, by the time they got the police, and a report, we'd all be much later than we already were. So they cut their losses, and we rumbled home.