From Train Track to Race Track, It’s Time to Let It Ride

It’s no trick to spot the one-day southbound passengers milling around in the cavernous Union Station terminal on Saturday mornings. They’re the ones with coolers instead of luggage, dazzlingly bright in summer shorts, sandals and sunglasses, maybe already a little chatty after their morning mimosas, waiting for the 10:50 San Diegan to take them away from smoggy Alameda Street to the sea-breezy land of the big exacta.

During seven weeks in midsummer, the usual bunch of train travelers at the station--sagging under backpacks, lugging parcels filled with Los Angeles souvenirs, dragging suitcases on rollers--are peppered with horse-racing fans with binoculars hanging around their necks, pencils behind their ears and racing forms snapping in their hands.

End of the Line

For from late July through mid-September, the end of the line for most of the passengers on the 10:50 is not San Diego, but one stop up the line at Del Mar, where their ultimate destination, the race track, is only a short drive from the seaside train station.

The fans come during the racing season on every day except Tuesday. Some bask in the warm sun of the infield; others choose the grandstand or clubhouse, while still others place bets between glasses of champagne at the Turf Club. And for many of them, riding the iron horse to Del Mar to see the real thing is half the fun. Further, for the devotees who insist on arriving for the first post at 2 p.m., only one train will do: No. 774 from Los Angeles.

Saturday, 10:20 a.m.--Many of the Los Angeles County race fans already have arrived at Union Station and already have begun consulting the daily Racing Form, but now the weekenders are beginning to show. Most of them are not serious handicappers, but simply race--and train--fans for whom a cool day in Del Mar sounds like the perfect summer tonic.

“I usually drive down with a bunch of guys once a year,” said Joe Farnan of San Pedro, who, with his wife, Lisa, and two friends had just left the ticket counter. “But this year the women insisted on coming too.”

And, said Lisa, they insisted on taking the train, even though it involved a detour north from San Pedro.

“We felt like we wanted to take the longest train ride possible,” she said. “It’s an adventure.”

Waiting a few feet away was Manuel Iglesias of El Monte, who said his train ride to the track would be less novel.

“I go anywhere in the world for horse racing,” he said, “and I love Del Mar. I normally take the train because the highways are so crowded, especially coming back. It’s a lovely ride, and trains are an attraction for me. I’ve ridden them all over the world.”

10:50 a.m.--No. 774 pulls out on time, rolling slowly through the long rail yard east of Downtown. For the next 34 minutes, the scenery is mostly industrial back yards. There is plenty of room on the train.

This changes abruptly at Fullerton, where several dozen passengers, many of them race fans, board the train and trundle up and down the aisles in groups, searching for seats together. The scene is repeated at the Anaheim and Santa Ana stations a few minutes later. By the time the train reaches San Juan Capistrano, most of the seats are occupied, and passengers who aren’t poring over tout sheets are talking animatedly as a festive atmosphere begins to take hold.

For several of the fans, the train becomes a rolling midday cocktail hour and a few spirits are buoyed.

“You can’t get a 502 (drunken driving citation) on the train,” said Craig Woods of Sunland, one of a large group of friends heading for Del Mar.

One of the conductors announces that although liquor is available in the cafe car, Amtrak regulations forbid passengers to consume their own on the train.

12:45 p.m.--The train continues to follow the shoreline as it pulls out of Oceanside for the last leg of the trip to Del Mar. Engineer Greg Luiz, standing in the tiny control compartment in the end of the passenger car at the front of the train (on the southern trip, the engines push the train from the rear; on the return to Los Angeles, they pull from the front), said that several years ago a special train was added to the line specifically to cater to Del Mar fans who rode down from Los Angeles. Much midsummer madness, sober and otherwise, went on during the trip, he said. And, he added, the train used a special spur that left the main line at the beach in Del Mar and allowed the train to roll directly up to the track.

The special train and the spur are gone now, and transportation from No. 774 to the race track is provided by a handful of London double-deck buses that wait near the tracks for the train to arrive.

12:56 p.m.--The buses are waiting, as advertised, ready to transport the fans at $1 apiece. Some of them are parked on the depot side of the tracks and are quickly filled by passengers streaming off the train. The rest are parked across the tracks, with the train between them and the platform. As the train pulls out, the passengers waiting on the platform dash across the tracks and quickly fill both levels of the buses. A couple of minutes later, they are off for the short drive to the track, several fans on the upper decks cheering. Those few left behind take taxis. The fare is about $5.

1:30 p.m.--The race track parking lots are jammed with cars and the foot traffic is heavy on the way into grandstands. The male Turf Club members are distinguishable by their required jackets, the women by their fashionable dress, which often resembles outfits that might be seen in the Royal Box at Ascot. There is the occasional blue blazer, club tie and straw-boater.

One Del Mar regular, dressed in rumpled sport shirt and trousers, and an even more rumpled rain hat, goes unnoticed by the haute couture crowd as he stands by the track entrance glowering at a tout sheet: actor Jack Klugman.

2:30 p.m.--The waiters in the Turf Club (a members-only section of the clubhouse) are beginning to move even faster, fetching trays of salads, wine, champagne and other lunch items to the well-dressed patrons in their private boxes. One member, John Ettlinger, a television programmer and distributor whose business is in West Hollywood, said he had not taken the train to the track that day, but was anticipating a rail trip to Del Mar soon that would be the answer to most train travelers’ dreams.

Once a year, he said, he and other members of a philanthropic group, called the Viking Charity of Scandia, charter a private railroad car for the trip from Los Angeles to Del Mar.

“We’ve been coming down here for 20 years,” Ettlinger said. “Four years ago, we started using a private dome liner called the Golden Spike. It has full dinner service and seating for 50 people. You can get up and walk around and visit with friends--and the party we have going back . . . well, Amtrak can’t do that.”

3:45 p.m.--Out in the infield, the lines at the parimutuel windows are longer, but the suntan lotion is more plentiful and it’s easier to feel the breeze off the ocean. Everyone seems to have a folding beach chair, and a margarita is often the thirst quencher of choice. To see the races, however, it is usually necessary to pick your way through the crowd to a rail.

Craig Woods’ wife, Jennifer, said the trip by rail to and from Del Mar was one of the main incentives for her group of 15 friends to come to the races at all.

“Leaving from Union Station and walking through that place, you can almost feel the past,” she said. “The whole experience is a lot more fun than taking the bus.”

She and her husband, as well as several others in their party, had not touched a set of car keys that day. They had taken an RTD bus from near their home to Union Station, and would reverse the trip on the homeward leg.

“I don’t like rushing and I don’t like flying,” said Dave Augustinus of Glendale, another member of the Woods group. “I like to see as much scenery as I can. You can do that on the train. And I’m just a train fan, myself. It’s the best way to go.”

For one member of the party, Tom Wilson of La Crescenta, the day was both fun and profitable. By the sixth race, Wilson had won a daily double and an exacta. And while Wilson was savoring his victory, Sandy Brown, another member of the party, was prancing among the crowd waving a winning ticket for the sixth race.

4:30 p.m.--The fans who have stayed through the ninth and final race begin to trickle into the train station parking lot. A few minutes later, the double-deck buses arrive and the platform fills with homeward-bound horse players, most of whom are enthusiastic and talkative. The big winners whoop from the upper bus decks.

The sun, blindingly bright for a time as it hangs low above the sea horizon, begins to soften as departure time draws closer. A few waiting passengers take time to watch the brilliant golden sunset.

But this is, after all, the Del Mar train crowd, and the gambling fever has not quite broken. As the 5:17 train, northbound for Los Angeles, rounds the short bend and pulls into the station, several race fans are grouped at the end of the platform, facing a loading dock wall and cheering.

They are pitching quarters.