I planned this trip and there was an interest so I decided to do both of these new lines for group members. I had taken tours of these lines so there was no need to document them as I normally do. The day before the trip my car had a flat tire and AAA put on the spare. I had to get the tire taken care of so I would only participate in half the trip. So that morning, I got up, had breakfast and did my usual chores before driving to the Santa Ana station where I parked and bought my Metrolink Saturday Day Pass and waited for my train to arrive.
Pacific Surfliner 562 arrived and I took a seat in the Superliner coach for my trip to Oceanside. The train stopped at Irvine and San Juan Capistrano before meeting Pacific Surfliner 763 who was tucked away in the siding. The beach running was foggy with small waves until County Line where their sizes increased and the surfers were all having a good time. We ran straight to Oceanside and took the siding like we sometimes do when Pacific Surfliner 565 is running late, as was the case this morning.
The rear end of Pacific Surfliner 562 at Oceanside.
Pacific Surfliner 562 now departed on time for San Diego.
Pacific Surfliner 565 arrived.
Pacific Surfliner 562 now left on time for San Diego.
Pacific Surfliner 565 departed for Los Angeles. AC Adam soon joined me.
AC Adam clicked a picture of me on the train. We stopped at San Clemente Pier, North Beach, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, Irvine, Tustin, Santa Ana, Orange, Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park and Norwalk before we arrived at LAUPT at 10:13 AM. We walked around the front of the train and found a surprise on the back of the Coast Starlight.
Observation car "Federal", built by Pullman in 1911, was on the rear of the Coast Starlight this morning. We walked to the Fish Tank at the east entrance of LAUPT and found first Brian and a few minutes later Shirley, who would be joining us on this trip today. We walked down to the subway tapping our tickets to catch the next train to the 7th and Metro station. At the third stop we went upstairs and tapped our tickets again before waiting for our Expo Line train.
Our Expo Line train came and soon we were off to Santa Monica. We were riding in one of Metro's newest light rail cars. Its GPS was way off but we all enjoyed the ride out to Santa Monica. Brian and I had already done this but this was new rail mileage for AC and Shirley, who both enjoyed their trip.
Our group on the way to Santa Monica. We had a great trip on the standing room-only train and soon arrived into Santa Monica.
Once there we went to the food court at the Santa Monica Place where I had a Johnny Rocket hamburger with everyone else getting what they wanted for lunch at the Food Court. We then walked back over to the Downtown Santa Monica Metro station. We tapped our tickets again.
Our trip back to 7th/Metro arrived.
A pre-departure group photo. We had a good trip back to 7th/Metro where we tapped our tickets before going downstairs to catch the next subway train back to LAUPT.
A Red Line subway train arrived at 7th/Metro station to take us back to LAUPT. Once there, I walked the group to the Gold Line station before I walked to my Metrolink 664 train for home. I put my bag on a table, had the table across from me watch it and went to grab a picture.
This train had BNSF 5624 on the rear pushing our train south. We left on time and saw RBRX 18520 leading the train. At Orange I walked the train to the cab car and the south end of the train to detrain for pictures.
Metrolink 664 leaves Santa Ana for Oceanside. I went to get my tire fixed, ending another rail adventure.
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