Metrolink Cars Arrive for October Service

Commuter train service has come a step closer to reality with the arrival of the first Metrolink train car in Los Angeles. The double-decked cars, each of which can carry 145 seated passengers and 155 straphangers, are scheduled to start service in October.

Initially, service will be offered along three existing lines, from Ventura County, Santa Clarita and Pomona to Los Angeles Union Station, with several stops in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

The periwinkle-and-white passenger cars--85 feet long, 16 feet high, 10 feet wide--eventually will connect downtown Los Angeles with San Bernardino and Riverside, and later will supplement Amtrak intercity service to Orange and northern San Diego counties.

When the Metro Red Line opens next year, commuters will be able to take a train to Union Station and ride the subway downtown, where they could connect with the Metro Blue Line to Long Beach. Until then, special bus fleets will shuttle passengers between the station and downtown.

“The arrival of the first Metrolink car signals a turning point from plan to action in building the Southern California commuter train system,” said San Bernardino County Supervisor Larry Walker, co-chairman of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority.

The rail authority is a regional government agency with representatives from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

The 45-mile Moorpark line is expected to carry 3,398 passengers a day; the 30-mile Santa Clarita line will carry 2,688.

Pomona line ridership is difficult to estimate because original studies assumed that the line would extend to San Bernardino. That extension is blocked because the rail authority and Santa Fe Railway cannot agree on a price for the track.

As the first train car arrived last week, Metrolink received another $135 million in construction funds from the California Transportation Commission. The money came from the sale of $1 billion in state transportation bonds authorized by voters in 1990. A similar bond sale will be put to voters this fall.