All Aboard Amtrak 571 : Commuting by Rail Offers a Feeling of Camaraderie and a Chance to Relax

At 6:10 a.m., before dawn, John Garrett settles on a stool at the San Juan Saloon in San Juan Capistrano. Over coffee and a cigarette, he scans his newspaper while a lengthening row of men silently do the same beside him.

Garrett is a member of a pioneering breed, the Orange County rail commuter.

More than 200 commuters use Amtrak trains to make the morning trip northward, according to a new study by the Orange County Transit District. That hardly compares to the thousands of drivers on the road at that hour, but rail riders are a dedicated lot.

The commuters--mostly male professionals in their mid-40s--endure occasional late arrivals and pay as much as $17.60 a day for a train ticket, in addition to travel expenses at their destinations.

Garrett, a chief scientist at Hughes Aircraft, has been riding Amtrak’s San Diegan to Fullerton for seven years, ever since he moved to Southern California from Fort Worth, Tex. A major reason he chose to live in San Juan Capistrano was the train station, he says, adding, “Either I’m going to live across the street from where I work, or I’m going to take public transportation.”

By 6:30, the serenity of the San Juan Saloon has given way to preliminary socializing. Most of the 30 or so commuters in the saloon cluster near the bar, where coffee is served, continuing threads of conversations from the day before.

By the pool tables, Jim Mitchell and Bob Ross, co-chairmen of the month-old Amtrak Commuters Assn., huddle over a fistful of documents. The Capistrano commuters have become political animals since the city recently announced plans for a $2-per-day parking fee for the commuters.

For Mitchell, an administrator for the downtown Los Angeles law firm of Hanna & Morton, the parking fee seems particularly onerous. Both he and his wife, Joyce, have taken the 6:38 train into downtown L.A. for the last two years, but because they return on different trains, they must drive two cars to the station from their Dana Point home. The new charge would mean another $500 on top of the $4,000 each pays to ride the train to L.A. each year.

“The commuters are the only ones (who will be) forced to pay a fee. That’s discrimination,” Mitchell insists. “If San Juan wants to project the image of fair-minded, ecologically concerned community, this isn’t the way to do it.”

Ross, a marketing manager at Hughes Aircraft, agrees that train commuters are being penalized for relying on a mode of transportation that government, from the local to the federal level, has declared environmentally desirable.

A former fighter pilot, he has been riding the train for six years. “I’ve driven maybe three times in four years,” he says.

In their first year in Orange County, Ross and his wife lived in La Habra. They decided there were too many people there and began scouting the coast for a new home. After six months they found what they wanted in San Juan Capistrano.

“I timed it during rush hour and said, this isn’t going to work,” Ross recalls. His wife suggested that he take the train. Ross says that at the time he didn’t even know a train went through San Juan Capistrano, but he told his wife that if it did, he would take it.

The crossing bell starts clanging at 6:37.

The commuters empty out of the saloon as Amtrak’s first northbound train of the day slows to a halt. By the time the six-car train stops, there are more than 80 people lined alongside it. The Mitchells separate, Jim Mitchell heading for the smoking car while his wife opts for nonsmoking.

The smoking car is always the next-to-last car on the train. The more gregarious of the smoking car commuters occupy a cluster of four seats that face each other at the front of the car. Martin Dimand, between greetings to the other commuters, sketches the social dynamics of commuting on Amtrak.

After traveling on the train daily for three years, Dimand, who lives in Laguna Beach, knows everyone in the smoking car. “What commuting has done is create a very loose association of contacts; you meet people that live in different cities, work in different cities and you talk with them,” he says.

Although the daily train commute soon becomes routine, riders do occasionally celebrate in style. Every December they have a party aboard the train, chipping in $5 each for hors d’oeuvres and drinks. They decorate the car with lights, tinsel and signs wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.

Over the years, the smoking-car commuters have developed a camaraderie extending beyond the daily train ride. When someone retires, they hold a party. Occasionally some will get together and go to a nightclub, and every few months as many as 18 of them will take the train to the Del Mar race track.

People ride the rails to work because they don’t want the aggravation of driving, Dimand explains. They also feel as if they’re making an environmental contribution because they’re not using their cars for long-distance travel.

Dimand also notes that these are people who can be late to work on occasion without risking their jobs. He is the director of operations for the Charen Corp., a clothing manufacturer. It’s extremely rare for him to drive to Los Angeles; he doesn’t do it more than three times a year. He keeps a car at Union Station and pays $50 a month for a monthly pass for overnight parking. From Union Station it’s a five-minute drive to work in the garment district, where he pays another $50 a month to park his car near his factory.

While the train races through Irvine at 70 miles an hour, one of the regulars does a creative reading of the daily horoscope. Farther back, the more solitary types huddle over computers or papers, taking advantage of the free time to catch up on their work.

From another set of four facing seats across the aisle, Dani Stevens leans over to say that she is a recent convert to the train culture and that what she found surprised her.

The manager of a tool and die company in Placentia, Stevens had begun commuting by train only a week before, after moving to Oceanside. She was nervous on her first day taking the train, she says, but she found she was immediately welcomed into the group.

Before relocating in Oceanside, her drive to work took 15 minutes from her home in Anaheim. Now her commute takes an hour and 15 minutes, but it’s more peaceful, she says. Her boss sends someone to pick her up when she gets off the train in Fullerton. Although she is job hunting in Oceanside, she has enjoyed the train.

After collecting more commuters in Santa Ana, the San Diegan arrives in Fullerton at 7:20. Commuters stream off the train while another 50 or so wait to climb aboard. Garrett and Ross disembark. Hughes supplies them with automobiles that they leave at the station overnight.

As the train begins to roll again, Bob Sharp drops into one of the facing seats. Sharp, a vice president with Workmen’s Auto Insurance Co. in downtown L.A., used to travel on the Chicago transit system. He is less forgiving of Amtrak’s foibles than some of the other riders, but he also appears to enjoy his gadfly role in the group.

“Service is totally inconsistent and unreliable,” he pronounces. “We’re reminded all the time that this isn’t a commuter.”

His total travel time from his home in Yorba Linda is an hour and 20 minutes, if everything goes smoothly--which he claims isn’t often.

Dimand disagrees. In his opinion, the trains run within 15 minutes of their schedule most of the time, and other commuters nearby nod in agreement. Sharp gives his cronies a look that says they’re living in a pipe dream. They grumble about the picture he’s presenting.

Dimand does admit that the train occasionally is as much as an hour and a half late. Some of the delays are unannounced.

Amtrak is replacing track south of San Juan Capistrano, and that sometimes causes delays. When Amtrak warns of track work, commuter ridership drops off because people don’t want to be late.

If the train is running very late, Sharp catches an OCTD Park and Ride express bus that for $2 drops riders in downtown L.A., but he says it’s crowded and uncomfortable and he prefers the train.

The group in the smoking car agree that train service could be improved with the addition of more trains. “We need an earlier train, one that leaves Fullerton at 6:30 or 7 a.m,” Sharp says.

Such a train would reach Union Station between 7 and 7:30, allowing commuters plenty of time to reach work by 8 a.m.

Sharp also proposes an evening train that leaves later than the 5:50 but earlier than the last train, which leaves at 8:45.

Today, the trip proceeds uneventfully, and at 7:55 the train slides into Union Station. The commuters flood from the San Diegan and hurry through the wide, dark halls of the station.

Sharp walks a block and climbs aboard a city bus with Jim Mitchell. The RTD ride costs 90 cents. Mitchell gets off a half-mile away. Ten minutes after leaving the station, Sharp gets off two blocks from his office. In the evening, when he has more time, he takes Dash, a private commuter bus that costs 25 cents and winds its way around downtown L.A.

That evening, on the commute back to Orange County, the faces change a bit. Wine and mixed drinks replace the morning coffee. The daily crossword puzzles pass back and forth across the aisle, traded when somebody gets stuck.

Dimand takes the 4:45 train, arriving home at 6:30. “Naturally, all this is predicated on the train being on time,” he says. Still, to Dimand, the potential for delay is no greater than on the freeway, and there’s an advantage. “When you get home at night, you’re relaxed,” he says.

While the rail commuters’ ranks are growing only slowly, that may not always be the case.

According to Tom Fortune, public affairs officer for the Orange County Transportation Commission, plans are in the works to add a morning commuter train and an evening commuter to the schedule. These could operate at a cost to the commuter of 12 cents a mile, compared to the 20 cents a mile Amtrak charges.

The two trains could be in operation as soon as OCTC, Amtrak and the Santa Fe Railroad finalize their plans, and they could wind up attracting a whole new group of commuters who think the price and the schedule are right.

Until then, despite the expense and the lengthened travel time, Orange County’s rail commuters are still committed supporters of rail travel.

As Bob Sharp says, “I drive to work only a couple of times a year. That’s why I still have my sanity.”

WHO’S ABOARD

Who rides Amtrak’s San Diegan?

The Orange County Transit District found the answer by conducting a survey of 847 riders using its No. 571 and No. 573 northbound morning commuter trains for two days in mid-November. Half of the responses came from Orange County residents. The results:

81% have professional or managerial jobs.

58% are male.

The average age is 43.

69% have household incomes of $60,000 or more.

51% ride the train three or more days a week; 28% ride it every day.

15% wanted better on-time train performance; 12% wanted more trains; 22% wanted added work space, and 11% wanted lower fares or commuter discounts.

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