Rail Commuters Get Off the Beaten Track

Train conductor Joseph Byrd glanced anxiously at his pocket watch and scanned the suddenly deserted rail platform just outside the Union Station in Los Angeles.

“All aboard!” he yelled to no one in particular. Then he produced a walkie-talkie from the pocket of his blue suit coat and stepped onto the San Diego-bound passenger train.

“I’m ready,” he barked to the engineer. “Let’s highball Los Angeles.”

Highball, indeed.

On board, the train’s bar car was already doing a brisk business. Two attendants mixed drinks with double shots for weary passengers looking to take the edge off the evening’s ride home--to any one of half a dozen stops between Fullerton and downtown San Diego.

In a standing-room-only crowd, Gary Despain squeezed the last drops from a can of beer and thanked Amtrak for his quality life style. Four years ago, the Poway resident reluctantly thought of relocating his family to Anaheim for job reasons.

Then he learned about the eight daily trains between San Diego and Los Angeles. Now he commutes to work without the headaches of a manic, two-hour freeway stress test.

“I took the train and never moved,” he said, slicing toward the bar for a second beer. “And now I’m a happy man.”

Outside, the train sounded its whistle--a low and humble utterance that signaled frustration as the engine slowly built up speed, for the moment allowing cars on a nearby freeway to steal past.

Burly Phil Heathman heard the whistle and smiled, knowing that another Friday-afternoon commute was finally under way. Balancing himself against the train’s see-sawing motion, he ordered another beer.

An optometrist from Del Mar, Heathman commutes with his father each day to their Pomona eyeglass shop. Every weekday morning, they catch the 6:45 train out of Del Mar and watch the exotic Pacific coastline whiz past, telling jokes and sharing quality time.

Like suburban sailors, they know people at every stop. “Riding Amtrak has replaced my social life,” Paul Heathman, an optician, says. “It’s the only place I meet people anymore.”

On the return trip each night, when his dad is too tired, Phil heads for the bar car for a few beers and a little social shake and bake--the fitting end, he says, to a hectic day.

There, he rubs elbows with the likes of George Thompson of Oceanside, a worker’s compensation judge who commutes to Santa Ana each day. Or Sean Barrett, a Carlsbad corporate banker who, along with his trusty portable computer, travels to a second office in Los Angeles several times a week.

On the train, they’re known as the regulars--these judges and high-profile attorneys, delivery truck drivers and go-go dancers, skip-tracers and little old ladies, bankers, art dealers and optometrists--even the long-haired man who insists he has just been delivered to Earth by aliens.

Last year, more than 1.6 million customers rode the 125-mile Los Angeles-San Diego rail corridor, the nation’s second-busiest passenger train route, according to Amtrak statistics.

Among them are business professionals who spend as much as four hours a day--20 hours a week--fighting the monotony of a commute that takes them from the early-morning coffee to a few high-spirited drinks at the end of the day.

Many are North County residents who catch the train at either Del Mar or Oceanside, joined later by hundreds of Orange County commuters.

Each night, they do a flip-flop--in both direction and attitude--for their return home on the rails.

But the views, regulars say, are best in the morning.

On the San Diegan, the name Amtrak gives the trains, the sea is a familiar companion. At speeds of 80 to 90 m.p.h., the train hurtles past the unobstructed ocean vistas at Camp Pendleton until, heading north, it turns away from the sea.

It passes rolling Orange County hillsides, offering a voyeuristic view into the back yards of suburban homes seldom offered from any freeway.

And then, slowly, sometimes on schedule, the train enters a more urban landscape--the warehouses and factories that make up the underside of Los Angeles.

For the regulars, the reasons for riding are myriad. Some take the train to beat the growing gridlock of Southern California freeway traffic, instead using their time to establish business contacts among regular riders.

Others enjoy the freedom of being able to read a book or newspaper, savor a breathtaking view or allow the rhythm of the rails to lull them to sleep--while they go to work.

Although the train avoids bumper-to-bumper traffic, there are still tie-ups. Often, the train must pull over to let another passenger train pass. Or else it creeps along at 20 m.p.h. when the signals switch to red.

Unlike the train, some regulars are slaves to their schedules. Sean Barrett puts in an obligatory two hours on his personal computer while riding the train each morning.

“Back and forth between North County and Los Angeles is four hours of dead time every day,” he said. “With the computer, I’ve increased my productivity so when I get to the office I’ve got two hours of work under my belt and a good start on the day.”

Others, however, aren’t so time-savvy. They fidget, listen absent mindedly to the rattle of the train, or even take a chance and talk to a stranger with a backpack. Some prefer to ride facing forward; others like the seats that carry them along backward.

Most pass on the custom class, which has cushier seats and costs extra, preferring the regular coaches, where they often sit in the same seats, next to the same faces, day after day.

Some restless men, their suit jackets neatly folded in the luggage rack above them, wander up and down the aisle, telling jokes to the conductors, introducing themselves to women half their age.

Anything to keep from getting behind the wheel of a car.

“When I look out the window and see people backed up on the freeway, I feel like I’m cheating the traffic somehow,” said John Beliveau, a Del Mar resident who drives a delivery truck in Orange County. “And who do you meet driving around in your car?”

Beliveau used to drive 70 miles to work each day in traffic that became so stressful it made his shoulders hurt. Now he reads the paper or watches an occasional dolphin jump from the blue sea.

“Pretty soon, I’m afraid, the people out there on the freeway are going to get wise to the train,” he said. “And then it may be as crowded in here as it is out there.”

Amtrak officials echo that prediction. Someday soon, they say, daily rail travel just may become the rule rather than the exception in Southern California.

By the year 2000, the federally subsidized train service may become a preferred method of travel between San Diego and Los Angeles--perhaps one day matching train travel’s popularity in the Northeast corridor of the country.

Last year, Amtrak trains shuttled more than 12 million passengers between Boston and Washington, officials say.

The handle “commuter,” however, is a four-letter word for Amtrak because of government funding restrictions that preclude such services. Rather than commuters, Amtrak refers to its regulars as “multiride passengers.”

Whatever they’re called, the regulars know that Amtrak is banking on them.

“In the next decade and into the next century, passenger trains will play a more integral role in trips between 300 and 600 miles, especially in California,” said Sue Martin, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Washington.

“When there’s no more room to build new freeways and the air corridors become too crowded, the railroad will become a logical alternative in areas like San Diego and Los Angeles.”

But many local passengers say that Amtrak is still miles away from being able to railroad the rest of the region. Aging tracks and signal equipment, as well as a skeleton staff of conductors, have played havoc with service, they say, making Amtrak a less than reliable way to get to work.

Amtrak has begun a multiphase program to install new track between Los Angeles and San Diego, but top officials recently announced there was no money to add trains or replace aging signal equipment.

Delays of up to several hours are common, especially after an accident on the rails in which the train plows into an unwary motorist, a stray animal or a suicide victim.

For months, Lupe Negrete of National City who works as a volunteer interpreter in Los Angeles, kept her cool when the train suddenly slowed to 20 m.p.h. because of a malfunctioning signal.

“For a while, I was tempted to write a letter, things got so bad,” she said. “But lately, it’s gotten better, the train has been more or less on time.”

In the past, however, rail travel has made her three hours late for work. Like the time the brake problem developed.

Conductors discourage passengers from detraining during such delays. But Negrete got off anyway after accepting a ride to work with a dentist who was sitting next to her.

“He had his pickup truck parked nearby,” she said. “I was scared at first but he turned out to be a very nice man. He even gave me some advice on some tooth implants.”

Judge George Thompson says that, at least once a month, he has to borrow some attorney’s briefcase telephone to phone the court that he’ll be late.

Others are more enterprising. During a recent train breakdown, a man in an adjacent passenger car walked to a pay phone and called a friend to bring a school bus to taxi train riders to their destinations, he said.

“When I die,” Thompson said, “I’m going to put a provision in my will that they clean the windows just once and try to get the train to run on time.”

The regulars don’t suffer delays silently.

“You have to understand, you have a very conservative group of people here--people with nice cars and nice houses--who wouldn’t normally look to public service transportation,” said Mike Bartolic, a Los Angeles librarian who lives in Santa Ana.

“So life on the Amtrak is an eye-opener for them. The trains are short-staffed, and we have to do a lot of things--such as opening doors and handle luggage--that you wouldn’t have to expect to do.

“But there’s a tacit understanding that we have to chip in and do what needs to be done to make the train function.”

Even if the train runs on time, life for the regulars isn’t always rosy. Not long ago, 142 Brownies boarded the train at Oceanside heading north, taking the regular seats of many routine riders. The conductors could only raise their hands. An Amtrak ticket doesn’t guarantee a seat, they explained, only transportation.

“If you ran a business the way the federal government ran Amtrak, you’d go broke,” said Dick Schwald, an Orange County engineer who regularly commutes to Los Angeles. “But I’ll tell you one thing they do know how to do--and that’s throw a pretty good party.”

When Friday afternoon arrives--and the 4:40 p.m. and 5:50 p.m. trains rumble south out of Los Angeles--most rail passengers are ready to cut loose from the week’s frustrations.

Come Friday, the regular rollers are ready to rock.

Perhaps no more so than Bruce, the Pasadena police officer whose die-hard partying antics have become legend among train regulars.

Bruce, a smallish man with glasses and swept-back brown hair, is known as the Don Johnson of the rails--because of his two blond traveling companions, riders say.

When the threesome recently met a friendly buyer from the Los Angeles garment district, one of the women put on a fashion show for the other riders--traipsing around in everything from evening wear to sports outfits.

On Mondays, Bruce brings along a portable television to catch the evening football game. And recently he and his girlfriends engaged the train in a game of Trivial Pursuit, coaxing bar car patrons into outrageous renditions of 1960s rock favorites.

But Bruce isn’t the only wild one. Give the regulars a reason to party, and the bar car will instantly become adorned with balloons, hand-made banners and crepe-paper decorations, routine riders say.

On Halloween, many regulars dress in costume. They exchange gifts on Christmas and, on Bastille Day, celebrate with an assortment of French wines. They also throw an annual sock hop in which prizes are awarded for the wildest socks.

When one regular rider recently turned 40, other passengers hauled in a miniature coffin and convinced conductors to wear black ribbons as a symbol of mourning.

“I hear they even brought in a stripper for the guy,” one regular said. “But I’m not sure. Unfortunately, my stop came, and I had to get off.”

According to one party legend, regulars once staged “snake races” in the overhead luggage bins, trying to out-wriggle each other to the front of the car.

Sometimes, the party continues once the regulars step off the train--to a bar near the station, several Orange County riders said. But not everyone makes it.

One Oceanside woman recently fell asleep on the train after having too much to drink. She awoke at the end of the line in San Diego, where she bought a ticket home, regulars said.

Recently, on two successive nights, assistant conductor Art Holmes said, he asked several drunken passengers to leave the train. “Too much booze, that’s the reason,” he said.

Many regulars say, however, that their partying is not train-wide, but confined to smaller groups--passengers who get to know one another during the routine of months and sometimes years of riding the rails.

“We’re a little Amtrak family, I guess you could call it,” said Bob Buckmann, a 43-year-old sales representative for AT&T; who commutes to Los Angeles each day from Santa Ana.

“As long as we’re not on the road, what’s the problem? We party and look to make new friends and business contacts. The train is just a great way to meet people.”

For some, however, the Amtrak ride out of San Diego each day is anything but a party. It’s a tense adventure that could make the difference between freedom and a bus ride back to the Third World.

Several times a month, U.S. Border Patrol agents board the train at Oceanside in search of illegal aliens who, under the cover of darkness, might have stolen on board in Del Mar or San Diego.

Each year, officials estimate, thousands of aliens are snatched from trains heading out of San Diego.

“Sometimes, we get 50 or 60 of them on a single train,” said Mike Gregg, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. “So it adds up.”

Regulars say the illegals are often found hiding in bathrooms, in the breezeway between cars, even on the roof--their figures casting eerie shadows toward the sea on the morning commute north.

Lupe Negrete says she doesn’t like the way the uniformed border guards pace through the train, snapping questions at anyone who looks poor or Latino. She wants to write a letter to Amtrak complaining about the treatment.

Judge Thompson says he has a grudging respect for the ingenuity of many of the trains’ illegal stowaways.

“I’ve heard the story about the two Guatemalans who every Christmas season head north on the train from North County, knowing they’re going to be apprehended by Customs,” he said.

“Since Mexico won’t take them, they’re flown back to Venezuela. From there they take the bus home, a free holiday trip at the expense of the United States government.”

John Beliveau has another feeling when he sees the timid men and women huddled together in the corner of a train car.

“Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t--the officers jump out and surprise them, herd them off to who-knows-where?” he said. “But it makes you think. They’re just looking for work.

“And so you start to root for them, you hope that the Border Patrol people don’t catch them, that they get to where they’re going. I know a lot of people who do it, they root for the underdog.

“It’s a little bit of intrigue on the morning commute. It’s what trains are supposed to be all about.”