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Alameda Corridor Opening Ceremony BEHIND THE SCENES WITH RAY AND STEVE Ray and I drove from our office upstairs at the Fullerton Santa Fe Depot to Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles. The directions said to park anywhere along Washington Blvd. between Alameda Street and the Los Angeles River. We parked just about at the corner of Alameda Street and Washington Blvd. right next to one of the van stops that the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) had set up. The van stops were at every block and ACTA had placed a staff member at every stop to explain to visitors where to park and to tell visitors that the vans picked up about every 2 minutes. The van held about 20 passengers and was absolutely first class with comfortable seats, large windows and a TV/VCR unit. These vans were probably chartered by ACTA just for this event. With the amount of available parking, the amount of staff allocated to direct visitors and the frequency of the shuttle vans, ACTA was extremely well organized to handle the 1,000 or so visitors that were expected to attend this event.
Ray and I had parked our car at about 8:45 A.M. and were thus a bit early. The grounds were officially scheduled to open at 9:00 A.M. with the ceremony scheduled to start at 10:00 A.M. Only two other people rode with us around the van pickup route and to the location of the event, but later shuttle vans were filled with arriving visitors.
After checking in and obtaining our badges, the first thing we noticed was that they had certainly rolled out a long red carpet for visitors! We also noticed that there was a passenger train next to the red carpet. Some of the passenger railcars were owned by the railroads and some were owned privately. I hadn't looked at the program of events yet, but that is when it struck me that ACTA was probably going to provide a tour of the Alameda Corridor by rail for the people attending this event. I was right about that, but I was wrong that it would be on the train of private railcars. A tour was provided for all the attendees by a Metrolink trainset.
As we walked down the red carpet, someone from Operation Lifesaver handed me a bag of souveniers for Operation Lifesaver. Operation Lifesaver had set up four locomotives on the other side of the Alameda Corridor trench behind the stage. On the left was an Amtrak F59PHI in Pacific Surfliner colors, followed by a black Pacific Harbor Line locomotive, a BNSF locomotive, and then a Union Pacific locomotive. The stage for this event was set up right at the north end of the Alameda Corridor trench where the tracks begin to come up to surface level. Thus, the trench behind the stage was half way between the 30 foot maximum depth of the trench and surface level. This was an ideal spot to see the first trains come out of the trench or go into the trench.
There was quite a bit of media there to cover this event. On each side of the stage there was a huge screen. This screen was used for two purposes. They were used for a video presentation about the building of the Alameda Corridor at the beginning of the presentation and they were used as closed circuit monitors so that all the visitors could easily view all the events of the ceremony as they unfolded. The University of Southern California Spirit of Troy Marching Band was seated in front of the video screen on the right side of the stage. The band played continuously up to the start of the ceremony and then played special songs during appropriate times during the ceremony.
We noticed a few people that we knew at the event, including Gil Mallory, President of Amtrak West, and Constance Underhill, Chair of Orange North-American Trade, Rail Access Corridor Authority (OnTrac).
Click on each of the following links for coverage of the actual event:
At the conclusion of the presentation of the Keynote Speaker, Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, all the key officials came down off to the front of the stage. In the above photograph, you can see several white boxes at the foot of the stage. The key officials simultaneously pulled the levers on these boxes. That turned the signal green for the first freight train to proceed out of the Alameda Corridor. It also caused a "bang" and for a great amount of confetti to burst into the air as the finale to this opening ceremony!
Ray and I boarded the first Metrolink train to go down into the Alameda Corridor trench. The train went about 10 miles south in the Alameda Corridor. Narration was provided over the P.A. system of a number of features of the trench as we passed each feature.
The above photographs were taken out the window while we were in the Metrolink train riding through the Alameda Corridor trench.
At the start and end of our Metrolink ride, the train had to switch tracks beyond the top of the north end of the trench right by the Amtrak Redondo Yard. Above, if you look carefully, you can see the ATSF 3751 Steam Locomotive in the above photograph. Only the top of the locomotive can be seen in one. You can see part of the tender in the other photograph. This equipment is temporarily being stored in the Amtrak Redondo Yard, near where the roundhouse stood before it was torn down.
The Metrolink train almost went under the new Redondo Junction Flyover as it made its switch between the yard tracks and the Alameda Corridor tracks. You can see the Flyover in the above photograph which was taken out the window of the Metrolink train.
At the conclusion of our ride through the Alameda Corridor trench on the Metrolink train, we were each presented with a certificate shown above.
Unfortunately, Ray and I left the event a bit late and ACTA had run out of gift boxes. Except for that one small shortcoming, the entire Grand Opening of the Alameda Corridor was a first class celebration of the most major rail event in Southern California, and maybe for the nation, in this century.
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