Training Run : Metrolink Rail Service Makes a Promotional Tour

Smog cloaked the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and traffic choked the San Bernardino Freeway to the south, but all was clear Friday morning on the rails as a Metrolink commuter train made a whistle-stop tour to promote the start of service this fall.

About 100 curious commuters turned out at the freshly graded site of the future Montclair station, the first stop on the tour, to catch a glimpse of the richly appointed, double-decked, periwinkle-and-white Metrolink cars.

More potential riders took pictures of the eight-car train and nosed around its interior at other future station sites in Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino and Claremont. Generally, people said they liked the train.

“It’s about time we had something like this,” Norma Bran of Fontana said. “I can’t wait until it’s up and running and we can just hop on board. We won’t have to arrange our whole day around traffic.”

“I don’t think I can overstate the importance of this to Southern California,” said San Bernardino County Supervisor Larry Walker, vice chairman of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. “. . . I’m glad San Bernardino County is part of it.”

Limited Metrolink service is scheduled to start Oct. 26, one week before voters will decide the fate of another $1 billion in statewide rail transit bonds that will permit expansion of the system.

Initially, Metrolink will have three lines radiating out from Los Angeles’ Union Station to Moorpark in Ventura County, the Santa Clarita Valley and Pomona, with interim stops in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

Protracted negotiations with the Santa Fe Railway over track purchases have pushed back the scheduled start of service to western San Bernardino County until January. Trains going out to San Bernardino will not be ready until next spring.

Service to Pomona--as well as the lines to Moorpark and Santa Clarita--will operate on track purchased in 1990 from the Southern Pacific railroad.

The rail authority plans to operate six lines in five counties within a year. Service will extend from western Ventura County to northern San Diego County and deep into the urban end of the Inland Empire.

Money to buy the track and the trains came from statewide bonds, as well as local sales tax surcharges in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.

“The reason this is possible,” Walker told visitors touring the train, “is that the people of San Bernardino County voted in 1989 to assess themselves a half-cent sales tax and the people of the state of California voted in 1990 to approve $1 billion in rail bonds.”

Unlike subway and light-rail lines operating or under construction in Los Angeles, which have stations less than one mile apart and are designed for all-day transportation, Metrolink commuter trains stop every five miles and are designed chiefly for rush-hour commuting.

That was fine with the people gathered in Montclair, who sipped free lemonade and listened to the “Colonel Bogey March” over a public-address system as they waited to tour the train.

“I’m really looking forward to mass transit,” said Lee Mayfield of San Bernardino. “I love going to San Francisco, because you can get anywhere without using a car. It’s a shame that it has taken us so long to get this, but I’m glad it’s here.”