All Aboard! : Big Crowds Turn Out to Take Metrolink to County Fair

Metrolink made its first cross-county commuter run Saturday to bring east county residents to the Ventura County Fair, a transportation experiment that turned out to be so popular that it caused some unexpected problems for would-be riders along the route.

The commuter line that normally transports Moorpark and Simi Valley residents to downtown Los Angeles and back was so jammed with passengers that the first train from Simi Valley to the fairgrounds turned out to be a standing-room-only ride for more than 1,200 passengers.

And by the time the Metrolink train reached Oxnard, it was so full that the train did not even stop to pick up crowds that had gathered there to make the last leg of the journey, passengers reported.

“It’s very unfortunate that people had to wait for a following train, or change their plans,” said Teri Raley, a spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fair. “But I hope they understand that every effort was made to accommodate them. Nobody could have anticipated that kind of response.”

Despite the problems, Raley said that fair officials were thrilled with the popularity of the train on its first day of runs to and from the fair. Raley estimated train ridership to be between 3,500 and 4,000.

“We are absolutely delighted,” she said. “I think our success exceeded our wildest expectations.”

The train’s first run in the morning featured one engine and three cars. But by afternoon, the car count rose to 11, Raley said.

Many riders said the attraction lay not just in leaving their cars at home, but in traveling on a form of transportation some had only read about.

“If I did ride on a train before, I was so young I don’t remember it,” said Maggie Wendland, 37, as she waited at the fairgrounds for the 1 p.m. train to take her and son Mike, 10, back home to Simi Valley.

Wendland and her son had driven out earlier in the morning with her husband, but he was staying late.

“We’re going to have a good time,” Wendland said, grinning at her son. “We’re going to have window seats, huh?”

Wendland and her son had no problem finding seats on the afternoon run. But earlier in the day, it was a different story.

The first ride began in Simi Valley at 9:30 a.m., and was scheduled to make stops at Moorpark, Camarillo and Oxnard before finishing at the fairgrounds at 10:23 a.m.

But the ride proved wildly popular--too popular.

By the time Metrolink reached the Moorpark station, the cars were filled to standing-room-only, and after loading yet more passengers in Camarillo, the train had far overstretched its 1,200-person capacity, Assistant Fair Manager Art Emilio said.

The train finally just sped by Oxnard because it had no space left, arriving in Ventura 20 minutes late, about 10:40 a.m., he said.

Still, many passengers said, they enjoyed their rides.

“Oh, it was packed,” said Larry Lerner, 35, of Camarillo, waiting Saturday afternoon at the Amtrak platform to take a later train back home. “It was a cattle car on the way here, but it was worth doing, I thought.”

Some other riders, like Joe and Carol Slitko of Simi Valley, had the luck to hop on at the first stop. “We just relaxed, sat back and took the trip in ease,” said Carol Slitko, 51. “It was great. We loved it.”

On the other end of the line, Lola Lopez, 72, lost her morning to Metrolink enthusiasm. Time that she and her two daughters and granddaughter had planned to spend at the fair ticked slowly away instead at the Amtrak station in Oxnard, after the first train passed them by.

“I was a very bored old lady because I couldn’t go anywhere,” Lopez said. “But my daughters kept my spirits up.”

The four women arrived at the fair at 1 p.m., on the second train instead of the first, with considerable enthusiasm restored after the novel ride.

“It was my first time on a train,” said Laura Asbury, 13, Lopez’s granddaughter. “It was real clean and it had big windows. It was neat, because usually (in a car) you are on the ground looking up, and now you are looking down.”

Some of the Metrolink riders arrived in time to catch the second half of the annual Ventura County Fair Parade, which ran on East Main Street from North Catalina to California streets between 10 a.m. and noon.

The parade featured 13 youth bands, school cheerleading squads, high-stepping horses, waving politicians and a potpourri of civic and neighborhood groups, all marching block after block.

Parents with their young children jammed the route. Some toddlers hid from the clowns and some teen-agers enviously eyed lowrider trucks and cars that cruised down the parade route.

But squirming parade-watchers Sean Legeman, 8; Josh Legeman, 10; Eric Estrella, 5, and Eddie Estrella, 8, found more entertaining moments to capture their attention.

Chewing on red licorice and gulping down cans of Dr Pepper soda, the four boys giggled and pointed as the passing marching bands stepped squarely in the manure piles left behind by the equestrian teams.

Some other parade watchers said the marching bands were the reason they came to the parade.

Jim Durlee, 29, of Ventura, said he liked how much pride the teen-agers took in their music and marching.

“I get a big joy out of that,” he said.