Strike Gives ‘End of Line’ New Meaning : Trains: The Amtrak stoppage puts smiles on some vacationers’ faces--but frowns on many, many others.

British tourists Lucy Pembrey and Clare Topliss didn’t get much of a welcome to Los Angeles when they stepped off their train Wednesday at Union Station.

They got the word that they had reached the end of the line--at least until an East Coast machinists’ union strike is settled and Amtrak passenger train service resumes.

“They have one-day strikes in England but they don’t stop everything ,” grumbled Pembrey as she lugged her backpack and duffel bag into the station waiting room and made hasty plans to check into a Los Angeles youth hostel.

The shutdown was affecting about 5,500 passengers who ride 25 commuter and passenger trains that pull into the downtown station each day. Although the machinists’ strike began at 9:01 p.m. Tuesday, the last passenger train did not chug into the station until more than 11 1/2 hours later.

It carried passengers who had boarded in New Orleans, Dallas and Phoenix. And they were not a happy group.

“I hope they take care of us. This is my first strike,” said Betsy Harrison of Wimberley, Tex. Hours before the strike started, she had begun a monthlong sightseeing odyssey to Oregon, Colorado and on to Tennessee with two small and fidgety children.

Ilene McHatton was returning home to Redding with her 94-year-old mother, Hazel McClure, after vacationing in Oklahoma and Texas. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” McHatton worried. “I can’t even reach my husband to tell him not to meet the train at 2:30 tomorrow morning.”

But as a baggage carousel dispensed luggage from the train, Amtrak officials issued assurances that no one would be stranded in Los Angeles. Buses would be provided. And airplane seats would be reserved for those traveling on for long distances.

That brought smiles to Australian tourists Bernie and Mark Tippins and Gary Cameron. They were on their way from El Paso to Salt Lake City. And they reasoned that Utah was too far away from Los Angeles to rate a bus ride.

“We’d rather be flying to begin with, but the cost was too high,” admitted Cameron. He said that he and his friends were saving money on their U.S. visit by using $199 go-anywhere Amtrak passes good for 45 days.

Gale Simon wasn’t smiling, though. He and his wife, Nell, were wrapping up a tandem bicycle ride that had taken them from Minnesota to Louisiana. They had looked forward to relaxing on the train between New Orleans and their home in the Northern California town of Richmond. But Simon saw a bus in their future.

“We took a bus on the first half of our trip from California to Minnesota and it was a fair form of torture,” Simon said. “The seats were small, the leg room was short and they stopped for every meal at McDonald’s.”

The thought of more Big Mac attacks caused Simon to laugh. “When you’re at the mercy of public transportation, you have to have a sense of humor,” he said.

Fortunately for Amtrak, most passengers were showing just that, according to Bruce Heard, Amtrak’s spokesman in Los Angeles.

“People are basically being good-natured about it,” Heard said. Of course, the free ticket exchange agreement with Greyhound and USAir and a reduced-fare arrangement for Amtrak passengers with United and Delta airlines was helping, he said.

Back inside the Union Station waiting room, rail passenger Ty Gilsoul of Lake Chelan, Wash., acknowledged that he was happy to trade the train for a plane.

“The train’s nice. But they said they’ll fly us home. And that’s even better,” he said.