THE EARTHQUAKE IN ORANGE COUNTY : Some Folks Couldn’t Get There From Here

An Amtrak train traveling from San Diego to Los Angeles was delayed for three hours after the earthquake Thursday, leaving about 30 would-be passengers in San Juan Capistrano.

“We’re just calling it the lost train,” said Dana Farr, owner of the Capistrano Depot Travel office in the old station near Mission San Juan Capistrano.

The seven-car train had left Oceanside at 7:35 a.m. and was due in San Juan at 8:03, she said.

But by 9:30 it had still had not arrived, and all but one of the people who were to ride it had found other ways to get where they were going.

Madonna Condor of South Laguna, however, sat beside her suitcase and worried.

“I’m supposed to connect with a train in Los Angeles for San Luis Obispo,” she said. “(Amtrak) promised to hold the connection, but I don’t know. . . .”

A few minutes later, Farr heard that the train was at Capistrano Beach, about three miles away, and “should be here any minute.”

It arrived 70 minutes later, at 10:40 a.m.

The conductor, A.H. Lucia, explained:

“We had left Oceanside, and at 7:49 a.m. (seven minutes after the earthquake), the engineer was told by the dispatcher by radio to stop near San Onofre and then advised to proceed at restricted speed. That means any speed from 5 to a maximum of 20 miles per hour.

“We just crept along and will keep creeping along. When will we reach Los Angeles? I don’t know. Maybe never.”

As a matter of fact, another train from Orange County didn’t get to Los Angeles.

Jeff Abrahams, 34, a free-lance writer from Irvine, boarded a 7:01 a.m. Amtrak train at Santa Ana that was to arrive in Los Angeles at 7:52.

“They stopped the train (after the quake), and we could see power poles swaying near an industrial area,” he said. “They moved forward to what they said would be a safer place, and we sat there for three hours, and passengers were just sort of laughing and joking and playing cards.”

The train then began to move again, but the passengers were concerned about the strength of the bridge over the Los Angeles River. In fact, Abrahams said, the train stopped on the bridge and everyone suddenly became quiet, “almost as if in panic.”

Eventually, a southbound train came alongside, and Abrahams and the others boarded it and rode back to Santa Ana, whence they had departed more than five hours before.