Metro Rail Exhibit Offers Hands-On Ride for Young Passengers

Ricardo Ledesma hit the intercom button with urgency.

“This is your captain speaking,” he called out. “We’re having some trouble on the Metro Rail Blue Line!”

Around him, children scurried here and there, a chaotic crowd. But this was no train wreck, not even a breakdown. It was just a moment’s fantasy at the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, which on Tuesday unveiled a $50,000 exhibit devoted to the wonders and road hazards of the ever-expanding Metro Rail mass-transit system.

With about 50 classmates from Hobart School--on the proposed Metro Rail subway route through the Wilshire District--10-year-old Ricardo became one of the first to explore the 300-mile transit project in microcosm.

Red lights flashed on an ersatz railroad crossing. Video displays showed what it is like to zoom along on the front end of a speeding Metro Rail train. A corrugated metal tunnel led to a facsimile underground construction site, complete with exposed rock walls, warning signs and subterranean pipes.

“It’s pretty neat,” Ricardo said, echoing the sentiments of others who climbed aboard for the experience. Kids will probably learn how to use the system, the fifth-grader predicted, telling how he regularly rides with his parents to the fishing pier in Long Beach. And they will learn safety.

“When the captain’s talking, we’ll be ready for anything,” Ricardo said. “Earthquakes, robberies, crashes--I don’t know what to think.”

As things turned out, the exhibit--paid for almost entirely by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission--opened at at a time when there is trouble aplenty aboard Metro Rail.

In recent days, The Times has disclosed a raft of questionable expenditures by the powerful transit commission, including a three-day, $9,000 retreat for its accountants and financial analysts in Palm Springs. The commission is also debating whether to bail out the beleaguered Southern California Rapid Transit District, which is rolling along on a budget shortfall of $60 million to $75 million.

“Certainly there are going to be people who say we could be spending this money on something else,” said Herman Hagan of the commission’s Metro Rail construction division, referring to the $50,000 cost of the exhibit. “But I can’t think of anything better to spend money on than future riders and safety. . . . These children are going to be our riders when the system’s finished.”

For many of the young visitors, the hands-on display was at once fascinating and confusing.

“It’s pretty cool here,” said Ellis Machuca, 10, who rapidly punched a series of lighted buttons to activate TV images of a streaking Blue Line train. Hit some buttons and the train hurtled forward; hit others and it sped in reverse. “I learned that when the pole comes down and the train’s coming, never try to beat the train (in a car),” he said.

Peter Kim, 8, stood at another TV screen, punching buttons to no effect. The display kept showing Metro Rail maps and graphics--not what he wanted at all.

“It’s weird. It doesn’t work,” he complained. “I want to play some games.”

Joao Hwang, 7, had similar difficulty with a mock-up of an automated ticket booth: Nothing was coming out. By the look on his face, he had just missed that crucial last train to Clarksville.

“I tried this thing,” he said, looking up sourly, “and it doesn’t work.”

Still, 11-year-old Celia Palma was impressed. She had ridden the school bus downtown expecting to see dinosaurs and statues, but, hey, this was nifty too. Trains will mean “less traffic and less pollution,” she said.

David Yniguez, 11, already was familiar with the Metro Rail mascot--the grinning, red-feathered Travis the Owl--who had somehow passed muster with the preteen crowd. Or, as Yniguez put it, “He’s cool.”

Juan Saldate, 10, came away with a smile. The tunnel was great, he said, and he learned that you have to obey those railroad-crossing signs, or else.

Or else what?

“Boom!”