Passenger Trains > Southern California passenger trains

Last month we had a quick trip to Southern California to see my wife's family.  There was one quiet day where my in-laws were taking a break so my oldest decided to take the train and explore downtown LA, especially the library, while the rest of us went to the beach.  On the way home from the beach in Ventura, I noticed the signals along the track east of Somis were green.  I've always wanted to get photos and video of a train passing the fields between Somis and Moorpark, but 118 was way to crowded that day to attempt anything.  So I went to the station in Moorpark and waited a few minutes.  Turned out it was Surfliner #784 headed east/south.  After I dropped my wife and kids at my in-law's in Simi Valley, I went over to the train station to pickup my oldest.  His train had to wait for the one I saw at Moorpark, so he was cracking some jokes about Amtrak being late as we texted back and forth while I waited for his train to arrive.  I had been checking the Transit app and noticed a Metrolink train was coming, so I told my son he was stuck chasing trains for a minute and he chuckled.  We drove a little further west and waited at the Los Angeles Ave crossing for the Metrolink train before we headed back to my in-law's.  Nice little afternoon of train chasing.

*I've noticed the Surfliners seem to have at least one Superliner in them, but the train my son was on had 2.  One of them was the Amtrak California scheme, that was a surprise!

Photo - normally I'm just out chasing trains, but today's train chase had a dual purpose, picking up this kid after his adventure in LA.

---

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

There is a nice memorial garden for victims of train accidents that affected Simi Valley residents.  It's on the east side of the platform, out of the way of the main entrances to the platforms, so I hadn't noticed it before on previous visits.  Stumbled on it this time because I ended up on that end to get a video of my son's train approaching.  The dark spots on the ground in the first photo are name plaques, and then there were signs for the 2005 (Glendale) and 2008 (Chatsworth) crashes.  The memorial is very well done, nice to see something done to recognize those lost in some horrible incidents.

Nathan

---

---

---

Nice video with a good amount of passenger action in Simi and Moorpark.  Good to know about the memorial there.

Rich

Does anyone here know how well Metrolink ridership is doing on the Ventura County Line.

I know Amtrak Service to Santa Barbara Is doing well. But I haven't heard much with Metrolink's VC Line

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

I don’t know about the Metrolink numbers, but there were a decent number of folks getting on and off the Amtrak trains that day.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

Nice set of pictures and video. Boy that metrolink train horn sounds pretty bad to me. I did like the sweeping view of the crossing and the train going away from the camera.
Robert in Island City Oregon 

Nice video and pics!

A good video and story from beautiful California . Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks for the photo of the memorial garden.  I didn't know about it, I'll have to stop there next time I'm in that area.

mapboy

Congratulations on VOTD! I enjoyed your video very much!

Dan

Posted from iPhone

dschlegel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Congratulations on VOTD! I enjoyed your video very
> much!
>
> Dan
>
> Posted from iPhone

I'll second that!

Larry