Trains

When I lived in the city of Lancaster I rode the Metrolink trains a lot. The girl I was seeing at the time lived in Buena Park, and the car I had at the time wasn't cut out for road trips (or going anywhere since it didn't really run), so on weekends I'd spend gold dollars at ticket machines, ride the Antlope Valley Line to Los Angeles Union Station, then get on the 99 Line and get off at the stop in Buena Park, then walk the five or six blocks to her place. I didn't mind the interchange from train to train, nor did I really mind the sketchy solo hike through city streets at all, nor the amount of time I spent waiting and slowly moving along. Watching the view from the window go from high desert to trees to urban sprawl was fascinating. Wasting time at Olivera Street in L.A. was interesting. Not having to drive the I-5 was a dream come true. The people I met, tried to avoid, and observed on the trains and at stations were fascinating. Since I'd never been on a train before that point-- and haven't been on one since-- the act of train commuting was pretty fun for me.

Sitting in train stations is a great way to observe some of the more interesting people in a given area. People in business suits, families going on day trips, panhandlers, shady people, and the nutty folks all cohabitate on the concrete platforms before shoving themselves into a metal tube on tracks. People, some carrying briefcases, others with big packs on their backs, a few hauling matching luggage being them, make their way around the stations and stops, getting in the way of people that will eventually be in the way of someone else. The faint smell of sweat, cologne, and diesel fuel hangs in the air. The echos of footfall and voices echos off the ceiling of Union Station. The loud hiss of the locomotive's brakes sounds off, and people make their way into the cars.

My favorite thing about taking the train was watching the scenery change. The rolling hills through the Antelope Valley, without much more than Joshua trees and sagebrush dotting the landscape, can be hypnotic to watch. Staring at the tan ground set against the big blue sky, coupled with the clacking and droning of the train, was something I found really relaxing. Going through the mountains was always neat too, partly because of the change from the desert and the tunnels, partly because of being diverted off the track as to not collide with freight trains. Watching different cities and their stations pass by until getting to the end of the track, the occasional sunset over Los Angeles, the desert at dusk, all of it brought back memories of family trips where I'd stare out the window and watch the world go by.

It's been a few years since I've taken a train anywhere. I don't have a lot of reasons to go to L.A. much anymore, and I have a reliable car for when I do want to go on a trip, so I've been away from the Metrolink since 2009. Sometimes, though, when I find myself on a trip and I'm sitting in rush hour traffic on the I-5/14 interchange, I think about how nice it was to hang out on a train and walk a few miles down sketchy city streets to get where I wanted to be.