Metrolink to Victorville

I was wondering, with the completion of the 3rd track over the Cajon pass, would Metrolink ever consider sending 1-2 round trips up to Victorville?

I know out here we have people who commute from West Virginia to DC, which is pretty far. I love the town, and I notice there are so many nice homes and buisnesses.

From what I have heard they don't have the power to haul over cajon pass somebody correct me if im wrong. The extension thats been in the talks and might be happening soon is the extension out to Perris/San Jacinto.

I have never seen Cajon before, but I do know that the coaster engines appear to have no problem pushing a 9 car train up Mirimar hill near Sorento Valley and just north of SD.. but like I said before I have never seen cajon before.. I assume it could be much greater a climb than mirimar.

Its a big stretch of a pass. Its not a 5 minute ordeal. Ill try and get some video this weekend.
I might be going out in that area off roading.

No, I know it's a big pass. It's one of my fav. places to go in CA.

Google maps shows it's about 58 miles from Victorville to Pomona. It's approx 85 miles from Martinsburg WV to DC. It's about 90 miles from Victorville to Downtown LA. While I imagine it prob wouldn't appeal to someone wanting to live in Victorville and work downtown, it might for someone wanting to live in Victorville and work in the Inland Empire.

Oh ya! dont get me wrong, its greatly appealing!. I know a ton of people out that area that commute down here and would much rather take Metrolink. Metrolink is a BIG trusted name when it comes to commuting around here and qite favorable to that of the bus which is slow, smelly,annoying and comes with weirdos.

There are other long commuter trains that already set a precedent for service like this. There is the aforementioned 85 mile Martinsburg,WV-DC run from MARC. There is the 96 mile NJT/MNRR Port Jervis Line. There is the 91 mile South Shore Line in Northern Indiana. The longest commuter run in the country is the 117 mile Montauk Line of the LIRR. When cost of living is high enough, people are willing to live 90 miles away from where they work.

M&Eman wrote:The longest commuter run in the country is the 117 mile Montauk Line of the LIRR. When cost of living is high enough, people are willing to live 90 miles away from where they work.

There's a big difference between Victorville, CA and the Montauk, NY. It make a tremendous amount of sense to service the wealthy commuters who work in Manhattan and live in the Hamptons, especially during summer months. On the other hand, Victorville is hardly an ultra expensive beach front community. Victorville is pretty much on the edge of the Mojave Desert. There's a big aircraft boneyard there, which all considered, seems to be the most interesting thing about Victorville.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 6780.story

I can't possibly imagine commuter rail service from LA to Victorville, especially with the State of California on the brink of bankruptcy. It just doesn't make any economic sense?

It would be nice If Metrolink could get to Victorville. Any news? Beyond this Here?

Agreed! Running a train over the Cajon Pass to LA makes little sense at all. Amtrak's Southwest Chief is currently running between Los Angeles and Victorville in just over three hours (6:15 PM departure and 9:20 PM arrival.) Then factor in the additional Metrolink stops that would be made (granted, those are shorter than ANY stop Amtrak make), and you are looking at a good 3-3.5 trip back and forth to work. Putting this in perspective, it would be like someone flying to Denver from Los Angeles everyday. Now, I realize that some routes that Metrolink has, such as the Antelope Valley Line, are a good 2 hours or more. The fact remains though, not many people live in Victorville that work in Downtown LA. Plus, imagine the fare. It is currently almost 13 dollars for a one way ticket to Lancaster from Los Angeles, and $365 for a monthly pass. Taking the additional mileage into account, that adds up to roughly $500 per month. 500*12=$6000 per year in JUST commuting. I doubt anyone would rather live in VRV, of all places, and pay this (or gas money) when other living options exist.

Now, if you were talking about (as several have mentioned) a route that goes VRV-RIV, or perhaps BAR-RIV, that seems more feasible in the short term.

Any other ideas?

Hopefully in the future DesertXpress will come over the Pass on its own alignment with a connection to the SD HSR line. If Metrolink were to extend, they would need to have a full double track on the SB line from Baldwin Park-San Bernardino at least. I am not sure how you could squeeze in another track to the I-10 section until CSULA. Even then, the CSULA section to LAUS is quite a small distance.

Never say never, Victorville and Hesperia wre programmed into the window signs on the Bombardier cars, along with numerous stations on the SP Sunset route east of Colton. We got a laugh out of Palmdale and Lancaster back then ...

Just tinkering around, I made up this pretend schedule:

Train 703 (VRV-LAX, same schedule RIV-LAX as current 703)

Victorville 4:45 AM
Hesperia 4:59 AM
San Bernardino 5:58 AM
Riverside/Downtown 6:12 AM
Riverside/ La Sierra 6:22 AM
North Main Corona 6:32 AM
West Corona 6:38 AM
Placentia 6:56 AM
Fullerton 7:03 AM
Buena Park 7:08 AM
Norwalk/ Santa Fe Springs 7:15 AM
LA Union Station 7:40 AM

Train 704 (LAX-VRV, same schedule LAX-RIV as current 704)
LA Union Station 4:20 PM
Norwalk/ Santa Fe Springs 4:39 PM
Buena Park 4:45 PM
Fullerton 4:51 PM
Placentia 4:58 PM
West Corona 5:16 PM
North Main Corona 5:23 PM
Riverside/ La Sierra 5:32 PM
Riverside/ Downtown 5:42 PM
San Bernardino 5:56 PM
Hesperia 6:57 PM
Victorville 7:15 PM

Accurate?

eaglestar wrote:Just tinkering around, I made up this pretend schedule:
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Accurate?

Hard to tell without actual passenger train running times, or a train performance calculation (TPC) run to establish minimum run times.

Why not run a couple of Amtrak round trips to Las Vegas as they hoped to do shortly after the Desert Wind was discontinued?