Okay, I tried, really I did. I'm located in Rosamond, CA, the middle of what has been named the high desert here in California. I had heard of this mythical rail system that can shuttle people from Lancaster, CA to Union Station in Los Angeles.

"Wonderful", I thought. I can drive the 12 miles to the train and then ride the train into LA.... or so I thought. Now I've been on the Washington Metro, I've been on San Francisco busses, I've been on the trolley in San Diego. I've ridden the German intercity trains, and long distance from Prague to Munich. I even rode the mass transit streetcars in Prague that the Soviets left there and are still in operation. In all of these cases, even the cases where I did not speak the local language, I was able to get around quite easily. Purchasing tickets was actually very easy in Germany, Prague, Washington, SanFran and Sandy-a-go.

So I planned to have plenty of time. I showed up 20 minutes before the train was to leave at the tiny platform. We had parked the car only 50feet from the train and walked the 30feet to the platform/ticket machine. When we arrived, the train was already there. So we go to purchase tickets. I had read online about ticket purchase at the stations. The Transit Authority had installed new state-of-the-art Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) that would accept cash, credit or debit cards. We get into what seemed like a long line for the TVM (one of only two). The folks at the front of the line are taking quite some time. We continue to wait for 20 minutes!?! In that time only two people were able to purchase tickets. Maybe it was the issue that the TVM screen had so much sun glare because it was facing the sun (what genius did that). Or that there were only two machines for the city of 60,000 people? No! I've got it, the card reader for credit and debit cards wasn't working... right??

The train was scheduled to leave when we decided to try to beat it to the next station about 8 miles away. The train passed us when we got stopped at a light about halfway to the next station. So we missed a second chance and gave up. There is no option to buy tickets more than 3 hours in advance, unless you buy a monthly or 10-trip pass. So now I understand why everyone in LA drives.

I'm rather aggravated. It took me less time to decipher German and Czech and buy tickets there.... and I don't speak either German or Czech!?!?

Here's the real insult. If you are riding and do not have a ticket you can be fined on LA Metro up to $250 and 48 hours of community service. So what happens if you simply can not buy the ticket from the malfunctioning machine??

http://www.metrolinktrains.com/
http://www.metro.net/default.asp

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