Die-Hard Commuters Find Empty Trains : Rail strike: Amtrak’s contradictory advice gives travelers to Los Angeles rare privacy. Bay Area passengers discover their trains had been idled.

Contradictory advice about the nationwide freight rail strike resulted in nearly empty ghost trains running between San Diego and Los Angeles on Wednesday, giving uncommon privacy to a few die-hards who gambled that the trains would run.

Late Wednesday night, after Congress passed legislation ordering strikers to return to work today, an Amtrak spokeswoman said the passenger rail system will probably still be suffering from some glitches for another 24 hours.

Amtrak passenger trains, which constitute Southern California’s commuter service, were not directly affected by the strike against the nation’s freight carriers. But Amtrak spokesman Arthur Lloyd in San Francisco said that uncertainty about whether Amtrak trains could operate safely on the Santa Fe Railway’s freight tracks forced Amtrak officials to authorize service on a “train-by-train basis” for most of Wednesday.

By late Wednesday, Amtrak was promising full regular service this morning of eight trains north and south between San Diego and Los Angeles. However, trains were not expected to roll north of Los Angeles, at least immediately, an Amtrak spokeswoman said.

Amtrak was late in announcing Wednesday that service between Los Angeles and San Diego--the nation’s second-busiest intercity passenger rail corridor--would continue on schedule. Official word did not go out until after rush hour began, and by that time most people had already forsaken the trains for buses or impromptu car pools.

Even after saying that the morning trains were on schedule, Amtrak said that it could not guarantee it would be able to maintain its full schedule later on Wednesday, although it did.

Those who stuck with the train Wednesday found themselves in for an adventure.

At 7:30 a.m., a half-hour after the strike officially began in Southern California and moments before a busload of waylaid rail passengers was to rumble out of Union Station for San Diego, Amtrak officials abruptly pulled them off the bus, announcing that a previously canceled 7:45 a.m. train would be running after all.

Mike Martin, a spokesman for the Santa Fe Railway, which owns and operates the tracks between San Diego and Los Angeles, said that--despite the strike--railroad employees were doing their usual duties dispatching and signaling trains.

Early Wednesday, northbound commuters from San Diego and Orange counties who gambled that train service would run on schedule were treated to the unthinkable--near-empty trains.

“This train is usually standing-room-only by now,” said Gil Roybal, a realtor who was among 20 passengers who boarded the No. 573 as it passed through San Juan Capistrano, where more than 225 commuters normally wait each morning. No. 573, which leaves San Diego daily at 6:20 a.m., carried 164 riders Wednesday, compared to more than 500 on a normal weekday.

Dana Nusser of Dana Point, a fashion designer who regularly takes the train to Los Angeles, said that commuters on Tuesday evening’s train were abuzz with plans to beat the strike--exchanging numbers and making car pool arrangements.

“It was wild,” she said. “People said: ‘Let’s get a limo and a case of beer and have a real party.’ Most people I know are taking things in stride.”

Tina Heldreth of Vista said she heard on the radio that the 7:11 a.m. train she takes from Oceanside to her job in Fullerton would run but she later heard that the 6:20 train would be the last. She raced in her car to catch that train in San Juan Capistrano but decided not to board when she was told there probably would not be a return train in the evening.

In Ventura County, Mildred Musil, 80, of Simi Valley said that Amtrak officials had assured her she would be able to catch the 9:20 a.m. northbound train to Santa Barbara. In fact, none of Amtrak’s San Diegan trains went any further north than Los Angeles.

In the San Francisco Bay Area Wednesday, eager commuters came to stations only to find that commuter trains that normally carry 22,000 passengers a day had been idled when Southern Pacific railroad workers walked off the job at 5 a.m. Limited service was restored Wednesday afternoon and full service was promised even before Congress acted to end the strike.

Bay Area transit authorities pressed more buses and BART cars into service to help ease the morning commute and by afternoon had pulled together the limited commuter train service. But the inconvenience of it all frustrated commuters who have come to depend on the trains.

Getting information from Amtrak was dicey, at best. Its well-publicized toll-free phone number was jammed almost continually. Wayne Mourry of Dana Point called on a speaker phone he had set up in his bathroom, then took a shower. An Amtrak clerk finally answered and Mourry stepped out of the shower to ask if the train was running.

Commuters who opted to drive did not cause much of a problem on the already jammed Santa Ana Freeway.

“It was nothing unusual today--no extra accidents, no extended commute hours,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Randall Thornton.

Ironically, as Amtrak was going out of its way to provide service for commuters who largely did not show up, it was canceling most of its services and offering no alternatives to travelers who did arrive at Union Station.

“One minute they tell you they’ll put a bus on for you and the next minute they tell you it’s off,” said Colin O’Hare, a visitor from Liverpool, England, who was trying to get to Las Vegas with his buddy, Richard Hunt. “I sympathize with the Amtrak people, but it’s a mess, a real mess.”

Lynn Sakamoto of San Clemente, who commutes four hours a day to and from her job with Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, said that she planned to ask a higher authority to step in and settle the strike.

“I’m going to go home tonight and pray very hard that it (the strike) is over tomorrow,” she said Wednesday. “If it’s not, I’m going to get in my car tomorrow and drive again--with a big bottle of Tylenol.”

Staff writers Dan Morain in San Francisco, Jeffrey A. Perlman and Leslie Berkman in Santa Ana, Carlos V. Lozano in Ventura, Myron Levin in San Diego and correspondent Danielle A. Fouquette in Fullerton contributed to this story.