Train Turns Into a Super-Stretch Limo for Prom-Goers : High school: Palmdale teens charter Metrolink cars for big dance in L.A.

The sleek train sped across the High Desert carrying goateed young men in dark glasses, smoky-eyed young women in black evening gowns and the whispered words of romance. Not since the Orient Express had the railways offered such intrigue, such promise.

Of course, this train had departed from Lancaster, not Paris. But at least it wasn’t a school night, and the dapper travelers could revel into the wee hours.

On Saturday night, nearly 500 young lovers--and just good friends--from Palmdale High School chartered one Metrolink train and changed it from a no-nonsense ferry for suburbanites into the grandest senior prom limousine on earth.

As the sky slipped by, 18-year-old John Perez--clad in a blue-and-black tuxedo and skateboard sneakers--nodded and gave his approval: “Cool.”

Like small-town high-schoolers around the country, the juniors and seniors at Palmdale High wanted big-city glitz and metropolitan night life on the evening of their prom. In the past the dance was held at the local fairgrounds, but the odor of hay and show hogs wasn’t much for atmosphere, so the class of 1995 chose the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles--77 miles away.

Riding charter buses to the big to-do, however, seemed only slightly more chic than slow-dancing at the fairgrounds, and taking their own cars was out of the question because of fears that students might mix drinking and driving.

So the Metrolink got the nod--until school administrators found out it would cost in the neighborhood of $12,000 to charter the needed locomotive and five cars.

Students started raising money and doing the hard-sell with the $120 prom tickets. Then Bill Hunt, who hosts a morning cable TV talk show in the Antelope Valley, stepped in, offering five minutes of free advertising time to anyone donating $50 or more.

And Metrolink cut its fee about in half--figuring this was a perfect introduction of its services to possible future riders--and the deal was done.

“Make-out session down below!” someone shouted Saturday as the train approached Santa Clarita.

While dressed in fine clothes and sporting corsages, these were still high school students, and along with the air of romance went the kind partying and excitement that the exotic rails of Europe and Asia probably never had.

Throughout the train, couples performed the deep tongue-kiss as only teen-agers can. Others sneaked between cars to find friends in spite of strict warnings not to. Just as on campus, they broke up into cliques of surfer-dudes, cowboys and “brains.”

At the rear of one exceptionally rowdy car, Daisy Hopper and Ryan Richards sat in utter silence. All their friends were seated on another car.

“This car has all the popular people,” Daisy said, clearly feeling out of place.

As evening approached and the tuxedo-wearing conductor pointed the “Palmdale High School Prom Train” toward the Downtown skyline, many of the couples were celebrating their transformation.

Palmdale High, they explained, is considered by some one of the rougher schools in the Antelope Valley, blue-collar, maybe, a bit ragged around the edges. One youth pointed to a scar on the back of his shorn scalp. “I got stabbed at school,” he said.

This train ride to a luxury hotel was a way to show the world just how classy Palmdale High students could be.

“Next year,” said Jenny Breidert, “we’ll take airplanes.”