Fe’s Surf Line. I first saw them with red-nosed E9s and SDP40F’s in the mid-1970s, but by 1984, the 14 daily runs through El Toro had settled into a reliable routine of F40PH’s and sleek Amfleet cars. Improvements made to San Diegan service during 1984 included a new sta- tion on the edge of the Anaheim Stadi- um parking lot and a new multi-modal “transportation center” at Oceanside. Construction was already under way for a stylish new station at Santa Ana, with train-length platforms and orange tiled roofs that would be a far cry from the small Santa Fe stucco depot that had served there since 1939. The Surf Line itself was still jointed rail and
mostly single track.
Younger railfans who grew up with the vast and varied operations of to- day’s SoCal commuter rail might chuckle at the failed attempts of such service back in my day. In 1978, there was the El Camino, which famously worked the Surf Line for a mere six months with a five-car consist of mixed heritage, capped off by an ex-WP dome- lounge-observation. In late 1982, Cal- trans launched an L.A.-to-Oxnard com- muter on SP’s Coast Line that began with Amtrak P30CH’s and Amfleet coaches but soon morphed into SP GP9s and bi-level
coaches, making
Santa Susana Pass look more like the outskirts of San Francisco. It lasted on-
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