As some of you know, I was born and raised in the valley. Most of the time in Burbank. My family all still lives up there. I’ve made the drive there and back more often then I care to remember over the last 7 years.
Yesterday I decided to give Metrolink a try. This isn’t my first time, mind you. I mentioned in Will’s post over on the LA Metblog that I attempted this once, but I got on the wrong train out of Orange and started heading towards Corona. Luckily we stopped at the Anaheim Hills station, but since the gap between trains is stupid long, I had to cab it home from there.
Well after taking a closer look at the schedule I managed all the right trains this time, and it was awesome!

Through the magic of my Twitter I learned that fellow OC Metblogger Jeff was also going to taking the train. I hoped to see him so I’d have someone to chat with, but we never saw each other. You can read about his train encounter here.

My round-trip ticket cost me $15. Certainly more than I would have paid in gas for my little roller skate (aka Ford Focus), but I really didn’t want to sit in Friday morning and afternoon traffic from OC to LA and back.
My train ride up was relatively uneventful. The trains were both on-time. I didn’t get too lost at Union Station (though I did have to ask which track I needed due to a wrong turn). I ended up in Downtown Burbank right on time! (My reason for heading up there was to be there for my mom, as she was having shoulder surgery……she’s fine, thanks for asking). She was supposed to be done with her surgery by about 2, giving me more than enough time to make the 3:10 train. Well, we didn’t end up leaving the surgery center until about 3:30. I thought, if I rushed, I could make the 4:19 train, but since I’m a good son, and my mom needed a little extra help when she got home, I missed that too. In the end I took the 4:54 train to Union Station, was forced to sit there for about 30 minutes, then the 5:40 to Orange County. I made it home just fine, and when I passed over the 5 fwy on our way through Commerce, I was very thankful to be on the train. I’d call it a big success!

My only complaint, as is everyone’s, is the lack of trains available. The stress over trying to catch a train or risk waiting a long time, or just having no trains at all is too much. Rush hour should have more trains, no doubt, but I’d like to think Metrolink could benefit from running at least 1 train to all stops once an hour all 24 hours of the day. This would also make it possible to train it north and back south when we want to go out in LA.

Times aside, I recommend everyone do what Jeff and I did and use the train whenever you can! It’s affordable (enough), better for our environment and just a helluvalot easier than sitting in traffic!

neeeeeet!

PS Does anyone know what this car is about?? There were many different types of cool classic train cars like this at Union Station. Are there fun, old-time train rides you can take? If so, where are they and what are they about?? Would be fun to do!