Countywide : Commuter Service Gets Train for $1

Question: What’s cheaper than a ride on Orange County’s new commuter train?

Answer: The whole train.

The county’s fledgling commuter rail service picked up a used, double-deck train in Northern California on Wednesday for $1 a year, far less than the $14 round-trip ticket price passengers will pay for riding it between San Juan Capistrano and Los Angeles.

Meeting in San Mateo, the Peninsula Corridor Study Joint Powers Board agreed Wednesday to give a surplus train to the Orange County Transportation Commission for a buck. The board oversees the CalTrain commuter service, which is operated by the California Department of Transportation between San Jose and San Francisco.

CalTrain runs 48 trains each day in the Bay Area at a financial loss.

So why charge OCTC only $1?

Caltrans officials argued successfully that they were merely transferring a train they already own to another location in order to relieve the congestion on the Santa Ana Freeway during Caltrans’ own $1.6-billion freeway widening project.

Made by a Japanese company but assembled in the United States, the train to be given to OCTC within the next four weeks was first put into service in 1984.

OCTC inaugurated its commuter rail service Monday, contracting with Amtrak to run the service between San Juan Capistrano and Los Angeles, with stops in between. About 150 people rode the morning train on Wednesday. They arrived early for the third day in a row, OCTC officials said.

Wednesday’s action in San Mateo will save OCTC about $250,000. The savings will be used to purchase more train equipment or improve existing rail service, OCTC spokesman Tom Fortune said.