The Train

Don had tested the "Acura to Santa Ana, Amtrak to Solano Beach--same thing in reverse to get home" route once on his own before he took his new job in San Diego, just to make sure it was do-able. It was around the July 4th holiday so he couldn't be certain of how it compared to the commute on a regular weekday. We weren't sure how a weekend trip would compare either, but Don asked if I'd be interested in taking the train to Solano Beach as he would be doing daily, and I jumped at the chance.
Don wanted to see where the Irvine station was because he'd be needing to use that one Tuesday so he could get to his final class right after disembarking from the train, so that's the station we headed to. We left early so decided to stop at the Car Faire at Irvine Valley College on the way. Don loves to look at cars, and is thinking of possibly buying an inexpensive one to support his commute at one end of the trip or the other (The Camrey may need replacing, or he may not want to leave his pretty Acura at the Santa Ana station all the time.)
We saw one that was appealing and decided we'd call about it when we got back to Orange County. As we drove on to the train station though, we started to wonder if we should have at least taken the owner's number down. "Oh well, if it's gone when we return, it wasn't meant to be."
We got a fabulous parking spot at the Irvine station.

See, there's Gandolfa the PT Cruiser, about the 4th car from the left. Now turn around 180◦ and there is the station.


Now let's get a little closer....
Yep. That's it. The Irvine train station.
And gone are the days ---at least at the train stations we visited---where you step across train tracks. Now it's up the stairs (or the elevator) to the footbridge, and down the stairs (or elevator) to the train landing.

For 8:15 in the morning the station was fairly busy.

As we were walking in we'd heard an announcement that the 8:30 train would be about 30 minutes late, so Don bought our tickets for the (now) 9:05 train.

"Should we go back and get the information off that car?"
"Sure! Let's do it!"
So we did. It's a Mazda. The posted price is $3,900.00. It's a strong maybe, but not so strong that it's going to keep us from our day on the train we decide...even though the tickets are good for a year or some such surprisingly long amount of time.
Feeling especially daring about our ability to catch the train, we also stop for Don's Big Gulp.
It was actually an error on my part taking that picture, but as long as I did, it DOES illustrate the story. (smile)

Welcome to Irvine Transportation Center. Wait. Do we recognize the face under that baseball cap in the lower right corner?

Why YES! That's Don! "Why does it look like he's wearing a photo of a baby?" He's not silly, that's the train tickets in his pocket.

Woo-hoooo, here comes our train!

"All abo-oard!" No, you're right. They don't say that anymore (or did they ever---maybe that's only on hollywood sets). Yes, you are also right that this image is blurred. That was intentional, to give you that "hurry up and get in before it leaves without you" feeling. (I suppose that fib would work better if the prominent figures in the image didn't look oblivious to the presence of the train.)

And here we are at the Solano Beach station, crossing the tracks on a footbridge. Sorry you missed the ride itself but pictures through a train window just don't convey the thrill.

The train was crowded so after walking to the front and finding no two empty seats together we opted for Don to sit right behind me. A while later the nice man next to Don agreed to let me sit in his seat and he took mine. I mentioned to Don that the fellow who'd been beside me had commented on the train being busy "today" as though he might be a regular, so Don asked him if he was. It turns out that, as a matter of fact Jake rides the train to Solano Beach a few times a week due to his being a Transportation Consultant. He was able to tell Don what to expect through Del Mar fair and horse race seasons and even showed us a great place for Don to leave his car on days when the station lot was too packed. Having come from L.A., he was also able to tell us why the train had been delayed---they'd had to change the engine! Yeah, maybe I heard wrong. It DOES seem like it would take more than 30 minutes to change a train engine. Also we got slowed down through Oceanside because the crossing gates weren't working. Still, I think it must have been about 10:20 that we arrived. Not too long. At least not when you're in no hurry.

OK, well, time to go eat ice cream, so I'll save the Solano Beach part till next post.

Thanks for reading.