Train Riders to Get Word: Strike May Be on Horizon : Transportation: Both sides say they are far from a settlement. Bush urges the freight railroads and their workers to avert a national walkout.

Thousands of Orange County commuters will be put on notice today that a national railroad strike threatened to begin at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday could disrupt passenger service and force them into the daily crush on Southland freeways.

But President Bush, warning of economic disaster for a nation already in the grip of a recession, urged the nation’s freight railroads and their 235,000 workers Monday to avert a national strike expected to sidetrack commuters and delay freight shipments affecting thousands of Orange County businesses.

Transportation officials urged commuters to call 1 (800) USA RAIL to determine when and whether specific trains will be available. In addition, Amtrak is expected to post notices at all of its stations, including those in San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fullerton.

Orange County rail commuters Monday said they feel caught in the middle:

“I don’t appreciate hearing about this from the media,” Mission Viejo resident Marcus Anderson, 37, said late Monday after his train pulled into the San Juan Capistrano depot, from which he commutes twice a week to his job in Pasadena. “I feel more notice should be given to the riders. I get the feeling nobody cares about us--not Amtrak, not its employees. This means I will have to be stuck in rotten traffic another couple times a week.”

Grace Smith, 48, of Dana Point occasionally takes the train to work in Los Angeles from the same depot. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if they strike,” Smith said. “Maybe rent a horse and carriage. You come to depend on the service, and when it isn’t there anymore, you feel a little nervous and stranded.”

Both sides in the 3-year-old labor dispute continued to predict Monday that the financial differences between them are so great that a walkout at midnight today Eastern time is inevitable.

The potential dimensions of a strike remained unclear Monday. Some of the rail unions said they might strike only a few major railroads rather than walk out nationwide; or they could conduct a “rolling” strike that would hit one railroad after another.

“There is a lot of posturing,” cautioned a congressional source familiar with the dispute. “A lot can happen in 24 or 36 hours.”

A coast-to-coast strike--the most recent of which lasted four days in 1982--would likely result in immediate and massive layoffs in industries that depend on railroads. The Department of Transportation estimates that within two weeks, a strike would cause the layoffs of 500,000 workers in other industries.

The unions are pledging not to strike commuter or passenger rail facilities. However, several major freight railroads that allow their tracks to be used by commuter lines said they will shut down their entire systems should a strike occur.

More than 100,000 people commute each day on trains that operate on lines owned or controlled by the freight railroads.

About three-quarters of them commute to work in Chicago on tracks owned and maintained by the Burlington Northern, Norfolk Southern and Chicago and North Western railroads. Another 11,000 commute to San Francisco on CalTrain, a California Department of Transportation service operating on Southern Pacific tracks. And 2,500 ride Amtrak on eight round trips daily between San Diego and Los Angeles, with stops in Orange County that account for more than 50% of the total ridership. Another 300 ride Orange County’s own commuter train between San Juan Capistrano and Los Angeles each day. That service is operated by Amtrak under contract with the Orange County Transportation Commission.

“It’s too early to tell how Amtrak service will be affected,” spokesman Howard Robertson said. “We have no idea what the unions are going to do.”

But Kurt Brotcke, transportation analyst at the Orange County Transportation Commission, said, “The trains will not run if the strike occurs.”

Brotcke said the station most strongly affected will be the San Juan Capistrano one, as it is the busiest on the Amtrak line; the Fullerton, Irvine and Santa Ana stations would be the next-most affected.

“I won’t go to L.A. if I can’t take the train,” said OCTC Chairman Dana W. Reed, a Corona del Mar lawyer who takes the train to Los Angeles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. “I’m not going to drive up there and fight all that traffic. I’ll just have to stay in Orange County. Life is too short.”

Steven Banks, 33, of San Juan Capistrano visits relatives in Glendale about once a month. “This is the only way to travel during the week because the freeways are out of the question,” Banks said as he departed on a train at the San Juan Capistrano depot. “I hope they settle their differences so they don’t have this strike. It would be inconvenient for me and a lot of other people.”

Mike Martin, spokesman for the Santa Fe Railway, said that about six freight trains make local deliveries and pickups in Orange County each day and that another two dozen pass through Orange County on Santa Fe’s transcontinental line, which also serves the Fullerton area.

Some freight car switching takes place next to the Fullerton Amtrak station, so there may be picketing by striking union members there, Santa Fe officials warned.

Officials at Union Pacific and Southern Pacific could not be reached for comment.

A coast-to-coast strike would put immediate pressure on Congress to impose a settlement and force the unions back to work under the Railway Labor Act, which sets collective-bargaining rules for the rail and airline industries.

Such a settlement would probably be framed around recommendations made last January by a board appointed by the President. The railroads appear to favor those recommendations; the 11 unions that represent rail workers do not.

The labor dispute is particularly thorny because it involves not only pay but also two management demands that have become increasingly frequent sticking points in U.S. collective bargaining: The railroads want their workers to begin paying a significant portion of their health benefits, and they want to tighten work rules that guarantee staffing and pay levels.

Because of safeguards in the Railway Labor Act intended to stave off strikes, representatives of unions and nearly 90 large and small railroads have spent the past three years trying to reach agreement.

A federally mandated “cooling-off” period originally ended in mid-January, but it was extended two months so that no work stoppage would occur during the Persian Gulf War. As of midnight today, the railroads are free to unilaterally impose a new contract, and the unions are free to strike for a better deal.

The presidential emergency board, in its Jan. 15 recommendations, attempted to reach a compromise.

It suggested pay increases totaling 10% through 1994--substantially less than the 5%-a-year increase sought by the unions--and another 11% in lump-sum payments intended to serve as annual “cost-of-living” adjustments.

However, the board recommended that up to half of the cost-of-living allowance be used to help the railroads pay for increased health insurance costs. Employees, whose health premiums are now 100% employer-paid, should pay up to one-quarter of any annual increase in health premiums incurred by their companies, the board said.

The board’s proposals would give railroads some relief on work rules. For example, under current rules, a train crew receives extra pay if it travels more than 108 miles in a day. The board suggested extending that to 130 miles by 1995.

In brief remarks to reporters Monday, Bush stopped short of saying he would ask Congress to intervene before a strike occurred. Times staff writers Mark A. Stein in Los Angeles and David Lauter in Washington contributed to this story. Frank Messina reported from San Juan Capistrano.