Metrolink Riders Help Mark Commuter Train’s 5th Anniversary

I met Dante aboard a Metrolink train on a rainy October night. Chaucer was introduced to me one morning at the Chatsworth station.

So begins an essay by James Bemis praising the virtues of reading on the way to work. Bemis entered it in a contest sponsored by Metrolink on the fifth anniversary of the commuter train that links Los Angeles with surrounding counties.

The grand-prize winner in the contest was Camarillo resident John Nevarez, who received a one-year train pass for his poem about how Metrolink made life easier for him.

On Monday morning, when Bemis got off his Ventura County Line train at Union Station, he was greeted by Metrolink officials with news that his was one of three award-winning essays in the “How Metrolink Changed My Life” contest. His prize: a six-month free pass on the train.

Bemis is one of 26,000 people who ride the train, most of them paying $176 for a monthly pass.