IRVINE : Passenger Service on Track Again

Ending a 43-year hiatus, passenger rail service returned to Irvine on Friday when the Amtrak commuter train pulled into a new station--on time and to the delight of 25 traffic-weary commuters.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Pacific Bell employee Ray Walters, who has been commuting on Amtrak from Orange County to Los Angeles for seven years and was glad to have a station just five minutes from his El Toro home. “It reduces stress.”

With the freeways clogged and commuters looking for an easier way to get to work, the commuter train, which runs from San Diego to Union Station in Los Angeles, added Irvine to its five other Orange County stops.

Many of the passengers, mostly Irvine and El Toro residents, used to have to travel to stations in San Juan Capistrano or Santa Ana to catch a train.

Standing next to Walters was controller Pat Desmond, who calculated he used to drive 13 miles just to get to the Santa Ana station from his El Toro home. Now he is only 3 1/2 miles away. “I may even bike to the station,” he said.

The train, subsidized by the County Transportation Commission, arrives at Union Station at 7:25 a.m.

A return train leaves Union Station at 5:45 p.m. and arrives in Irvine at 6:43 p.m.

In addition to the commuter train, which operates only on weekdays, two other regularly scheduled Amtrak trains will make stops at the Irvine station each day.

About 2 million passengers a year now ride eight daily, round-trip Amtrak trains between San Diego and Los Angeles.

The old East Irvine passenger train depot closed in 1947. Experts see the new $13-million Irvine facility as a way station for van pools, buses and the granddaddy of transportation dreams--a monorail system linking south Irvine with the John Wayne Airport and other parts of the county.

Eventually, commuters will even be offered the chance to be picked up at home by van and delivered to the station, said Diana Brewer, president of Pinnacle Transport Inc., which will operate the transportation service.

The facility’s first tenant, scheduled to move in today and Sunday, is the nonprofit Irvine Spectrum Transportation Management Assn., which coordinates van pools, ride-sharing, bicycle commuting and train travel for employees who work at 800 area businesses.

Pat Musolf of Sunwest Asset Management Corp., the leasing agent for the facility, said she hopes to attract a car rental agency, snack shop and newspaper stand to the center, scheduled to open and begin selling tickets by Monday.

But Friday, commuters seemed to regard the fact that they had to buy their $9 one-way tickets or $13.50 round-trip tickets on the train as a minor inconvenience.

“They’d rather get on here, near where they live,” said the train’s conductor, E.B. Burwell Jr., as he scribbled the 6:14 a.m. arrival time in a small book.

“Well, we’re going to have to pull out,” the conductor said as the clock struck 6:15 a.m. “All aboard!”