Railfanning Ventura - East (w/ F125) - 7/2/18

After a pleasant night stay in Ventura, I headed out on an early Monday morning to railfan the East Ventura Metrolink Station in continuation of my railfanning trip along the Coast Line; as well as my first video along Metrolink’s Ventura County Line and first time seeing an EMD F125 ! The East Ventura station particularly is solely only a Metrolink station and serves as the terminus for the Ventura County Line, whereas a separate Amtrak dedicated station serves the City of Ventura closer to Downtown and across from the city fairgrounds. Although this station does not have many amenities, the train activity here is intriguing to watch, whether in the morning or evening in correlation with the commute times. This station however is especially interesting mainly because it sits on the northern portion of a railroad wye connecting the Santa Paula Branch Line with the Union Pacific Santa Barbara Subdivision (Coast Line), thus resulting for some interesting switching movements. In essence, all trains that come out or into the station will enter the wye and proceed onto the Santa Paula Branch briefly before ultimately reversing direction to either proceed towards Los Angeles or into the station itself. Compounded with the fact that this location also serves as an overnight storage facility for Metrolink trainsets, the switching activities in the morning and/or evening make for a flurry of back and forth movements. In total, one trainset, from startup to departure in the morning goes as follows : The train will proceed out of the storage yard onto the Santa Paula Branch, where it will then switch and back into the station. After boarding passengers, the train will then head back onto the Branch Line briefly, then switch over and reverse direction to turn on the wye and proceed south to Los Angeles. This procedure is exhibited with all trainsets and the opposite is done for evening, terminating trains. Please note that although this video is rather lengthy, it is mainly to illustrate the typical morning operations to start up the Metrolink trains for the day. Overall, this station makes for a nice, quick early morning railfanning opportunity; where spanning only two hours, one can watch how Metrolink trains begins their day as only a small part of a bigger, major commuter rail system.

Train 1 : Metrolink #102 with F125 #910 & CabCar #653. First time seeing the EMD F125 and I’ll have to say, it looks good ! Maybe even better than the Siemens SC-44 in my opinion ! ;) Included are close up shots to show the details of this new locomotive in addition to the contrast between the old and the new, with the F59PH and F125 side by side.

Train 2 : Metrolink #104 with F59PH #861 & CabCar #658. Very intriguing to watch the crew run through their typical morning routine with a load test of the locomotive and inspections prior to beginning their revenue run south.

Train 3 : Metrolink #106 with MP36PH-3C #890 & CabCar #672.

Thanks for Watching !