Passenger Trains > Delays on Surfliner today - Ventura Co. (March 11)

Amtrak has a Thruway Bus Connection between Bakersfield and Torrance that stops at Van Nuys along the way.  I tried the Torrance-Van Nuys section (bus 5919) and it arrived at Van Nuys about 20 minutes early, at 12:20pm.  Not bad, considering it uses I-405 for part of its route (I-405 is a frequently-clogged interstate that bypasses downtown L.A.).  The bus arrived just as an almost-hour-late southbound #774 was at the station.

While waiting for northbound Amtrak 769 to arrive, a UP switcher headed west towards Anheuser-Busch, pushing 3 hoppers.  It returned with an additional CNW hopper just as #769 was boarding.

​1. #774 preparing to depart Van Nuys
2. UP local heading west
​3. CNW hopper on UP local

more...
 

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Southern California has had a lot of rain earlier in the year, and the hillsides were green.
​The train was on time to Carpinteria - no delays, no hassles

​#4, lineside near Moorpark
​#5  #769 departing Camarillo.  This was the last train I would see this afternoon.  On the way up, the train had some problems with the head-end power.  The A/C did not work for a while, and the cafe could not heat up anything in the microwave.  The doors between cars did work - maybe for safety reasons those still work even when the HEP does not.

​I had planned to ride #784 back; it was scheduled to depart Camarillo at 3:08pm.  I got a series of delay alert text messages.  The departure time changed to 3:34, then 3.44.  When the next message came saying it would be 4:24, I cabbed it back to Van Nuys.  I was able to get bus #5910 back to Torrance; it was running late due to much heavier congestion on the freeways.  While riding back, additional delay text messages showed up: 4:54, 5:24, then 5:50.  That last one must have been real, I received no further messages. Al,ost 3 hours late at Camarillo.  I had tried to call Julie a couple of times, but she had "trouble connecting" and I was transferred to the agent but was put on hold.  After 10 minutes of waiting I hung up.

​I never heard what happened.  Maybe #784 was caught up in the trespasser strike delay that impacted #14 earlier.  Not sure why Julie could not provide train status - maybe heavy call volume from bad weather elsewhere in the US. 

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784 got caught up in the mess with 14 and the trespasser strike. They sat at Santa Barbara for almost 3 hours waiting for the tracks to open up and for 14 to come thru.

That means No. 4 took a hit in LA waiting for connections later on!