by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

I grew up hearing my grandfather’s wistful recollections of riding the Pacific Electric Red Cars — once the once largest light rail network in the U.S. with more than 1,500 miles of track — from Downtown LA to Redlands in the 1930s and ‘40s.

This was the 1970s, and by then the Red Cars had been gone for more than a decade, jettisoned for good in 1961 in favor of gasoline powered American steel and LA’s “state of the art” freeways. We all know how that turned out.

As a result of all those stories, rail travel has long held a nostalgic, old-timey place in my imagination.

My first experience with a functioning urban rail system was during my maiden trip to New York City in the mid-1980s. I rode the subway to all the boroughs, marveling gleefully in its efficiency and how it forced one to interact directly with other humans. I loved everything about it. The graffiti-covered cars were just traveling urban art exhibits to me. I caught flashing glimpses of what looked like an underground city, with hundreds of so called “mole people” living in darkness in abandoned tunnels, just a few feet below the unknowing bustle above. Fresh off the plane from suburban Glendora and immersed in the grit and grandeur of the greatest city in the world was exhilarating beyond description.

By contrast, Los Angeles seemed adrift and without a center, a flat, expansive, dirty mystery. New York asserted itself as a serious place with a digestible scale and a palpable soul. I was able to discern all this in a matter of days because the map was right there in the subway station; all I had to do was get on board and see it.

Since then I’ve sought out train travel in other American cities like Chicago and San Francisco, and overseas in Italy, England, Scotland, and elsewhere.

The lure has always been romantic. Traveling by train just felt downright civilized when compared to the isolation and rage of Los Angeles’ car culture and filthy, congested freeways. The partly based in truth conspiracy theories of the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” which was on repeat on our house when my oldest daughter was young, only served to heighten the allure. The fact that my city’s then nonexistent light rail system had once been the envy of the country seemed a cruel joke.

In 1985, LA Metro began construction on the Blue Line (now the A Line) from Downtown LA to Long Beach. It opened five years later, and has since spawned three more light rail lines and two subway lines. The latest — the A Lineextension from Azusa to Pomona — opened September 19, with a glistening new station just blocks from my home. It was just a matter of time before I had to give it a whirl, or a whirr, as is the language of the A Line’s electric cars.

The new Metro A Line Pomona North station is at 505 S. Garey Ave., just south of Bonita Avenue. It’s also home to a nearby Metrolink stop for the San Bernardino line, a Foothill Transit Bus connection for lines 291 and 492, and a stop for the Bronco Link Shuttle to Cal Poly Pomona.

The occasion/excuse that finally got me on board the new A Line extension was a visit from my 10-year-old grandson Vincent, who had made the mistake of telling me he’d never been on a train. So on a perfectly sunny, not too warm recent Sunday morning, he and my two youngest kids and I piled into my electric shoebox (the good ol’ Hyundai Kona) and whirred on over to the Pomona North station.

The new 300-space parking lot was wide open, and at just $3 for 24 hours, the price was certainly right. The fare was $7 for all four of us. After buying rechargeable/reusable TAP cards for $2 each, I was out a measly $18, roughly the price of a couple fancy coffees.

Vincent said he was “kind of” excited to be riding a train. His lack of enthusiasm softened some as we whirred our way west through new A Line stations in La Verne, San Dimas, and Glendora. Soon we were moving briskly through Azusa, Irwindale, Duarte and Monrovia, and I noticed him perking up. By the time the A Line converged onto the middle of the 210 Freeway in Arcadia, his ambivalence gave way to a sudden, “Cool!”

Veering south after passing through the Lake Avenue station in Pasadena, we ducked under Colorado Boulevard and Old Town Pasadena for about ½ mile, emerging at the Memorial Park station. We continued on through South Pasadena, over the LA River, through Chinatown, into historic Union Station, then finally to our destination, the new underground Little Tokyo/Arts District station. The whole thing took us a little over an hour.

My kids and I have taken this ride on the A Line many times. It’s always a fun day. We spent a couple hours showing Vincent some of the cool Japanese shops then had another great lunch at 53-year LA institution Oomasa, where he destroyed an entire plate of rainbow roll, some salmon sushi, and a bowl of rice. By then the sun, the walking, and the metric ton of food had done a number on the 10-year-old. It was time to go.

With the sun beginning its descent and a hint of a late afternoon breeze, we crossed Alameda Street and got back on the A Line, headed north.

LA’s light rail v.2, now 40-years and six lines in, is a great resource. My kids and I have great memories of trips to Little Tokyo, Pasadena, Olvera Street, and Santa Monica, and have plans to soon take a ride from Pomona to Long Beach. It’s cheap. It’s clean. It’s efficient. What else could we hope for?

Metro aims to one day take the A Line all the way to Montclair, with a station in Claremont along the way. The politics are murky, but I sure hope the powers that be at the State of California, LA Metro, and the cities of Claremont and Montclair will one day get it together.

A long time ago, my grandfather told me when he was a young man he could get most anywhere he needed to be in Southern California on the Red Cars. Those days are gone. But many forward thinking folks are working right now to recreate a semblance of that vast system. I for one and looking forward to where it takes us.

Trains run every eight to 20 minutes out of the Metro A Line Pomona North station at 505 S. Garey Ave. Check out LA Metro schedules and maps at metro.net/riding/schedules-2.

‘Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan’ director Q and A coming to Laemmle

Claremont nonprofit event production company Dirty Opera is hosting a one night only 7 p.m. screening the 1982 classic, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” on Tuesday, November 11, with a Q and A with director Nicholas Meyer to follow, at the Laemmle Claremont 5, 450 W. Second St.

“With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon,” reads the tagline.

Dirty Opera’s screenings always sell out, so I’d recommend getting your tickets in advance at laemmle.com/film/star-trek-ii-wrath-khan.