The Prom Express : Palmdale High Students Charter Metrolink Train for Unique Ride to Dance

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 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 prom 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.

Taking charter buses to the big to-do, however, seemed only slightly more chic than slow-dancing at the fairgrounds, and students taking their own cars was out of the question because of fears that students would consume alcohol and then attempt to drive.

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

Buses it would have to be.

“We’re like, ‘no,’ it’s either Metrolink or we’re not going,” said senior Leticia Perez, who boarded Saturday afternoon even though her date had to cancel at the last minute due to work.

Students started raising money to pay for the train and doing the hard-sell with the $120 prom tickets.

Bill Hunt, who hosts a morning cable TV talk show in the Antelope Valley, stepped in, whipping up a froth of community support by offering five minutes of free advertising time to anyone making a donation of $50 or more.

Then 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 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 of 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 against doing so. They broke up into cliques of surfer-dudes and 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 in another car.

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

Ryan nodded. “A hundred and twenty bucks--it kinda bites.”

As evening approached and the tuxedo-wearing conductor pointed the “Palmdale High School Prom Train” toward the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles, however, many of the couples were celebrating a 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 dapper 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 School students can be.

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