Train travel is making a major comeback in the US, especially in LA
When the Los Angeles Union Station’s Train Festival 2023: A Celebration of Past, Present & Future is held September 9-10, it will really have a “future” to celebrate.
One of the station’s biggest customers, the national carrier Amtrak, is working on a 15-year, $US75 billion ($115 billion) expansion.
Rail in Los Angeles has begun to flourish.Credit: iStock
Rail has languished, if not disappeared, in many parts of the US. The far-reaching plan, dubbed Amtrak Connects Us, will restore services as well as create new ones, with cities such as Las Vegas and Nashville to be plugged into the network.
Replacement trains are on the cards too, with some routes, mostly regional and overnights, to get new Airo trains by the end of 2026.
Related to the US Government’s mega-dollar Infrastructure Bill, there will be much needed upgrades to tracks, bridges and other fixed inventory.
It is, as is often the case in the US, dependent on the co-operation of the states – California is a willing participant.
The advent of LA’s car culture and unplanned and sprawling development that didn’t have defined peak hour directions, meant rail – and the city’s main station – were underutilised for much of the latter part of the 20th century. However, rail in Los Angeles has begun to flourish.
Since 1990, Metrolink has opened 100 train stops on seven lines. Another extension, due next year, will link the airport to the network in time for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
LA’s spectacular Union Station.
Completed in 1939, Los Angeles Union Station is known as “the last of the great train stations” in the US, with the likes of New York’s Grand Central built in its “grand” form some 30 years earlier.
With the Metrolink expansion, the Mission Moderne station has become the US’s fifth busiest and the number one busiest in the west.
It’s also a beautiful station and worth a visit for architecture and history buffs as well as train nuts. It features a spacious ticket concourse equipped with a 33.5-metre ticket counter made of American black walnut, a vast waiting room with nine-metre-high windows, art deco-inspired chandeliers, inlaid marble floors and hand-painted geometric tiles. Outdoors, there are two expansive shaded patios lined with palm trees and a clock tower above the entrance.
The Train Festival will offer tours and displays of railroad equipment on tracks 13, 14, and 15, including the world-renowned Steam Locomotive Santa Fe 3751 of the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society, as well as modern day passenger and freight equipment.
Other highlights include the LARail.com vintage private car, the Tioga Pass, which was built in 1959 by the Canadian National Shops and designed for railroad executives, and the Pacific Railroad Society’s National Forum, a 1956 Pullman sleeping car. Metrolink’s F125 Locomotive will also be on display while the company’s Talgo-Rehabilitated Bombardier Train Car and Rotem Cars will be open for inspection.
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