Amtrak

Elisa Lam: Video Of Missing 21-Year-Old Released By LAPD

The LAPD this week released video of missing, 21-year-old Canadian Elisa Lam, hoping the imagery will help someone recognize her and call authorities. Cops say her disappearance is "suspicions;" they believe "foul play" might have played a role. The tourist was supposed to be en route to Santa Cru ... More >>

Elisa Lam: 21-Year-Old Missing From Downtown L.A. Possible Victim Of Foul Play

Cops were searching for a missing 21-year-old, Elisa Lam, who came to Los Angeles from Vancouver as a tourist. Unfortunately, investigators believe that her case is "suspicious" and might involve "foul play," according to an LAPD statement. She ended up in a sketchy part of downtown and stayed in a ... More >>

Old Railcars at Union Station Are Ready for You to Charter for $5,000 a Day

Los Angeles Union Station isn't just a mass-transport hub. It's also a semi-retirement home for a cluster of vintage railroad cars that occupy the station's annex, also known as "the garden." Most of the trains won't move. A few get lucky and land the occasional film permit, scoring a cameo in a sce ... More >>

Magic Johnson Lied to Dodger Fans About Frank McCourt's Role In Parking Lots

Updated below: Dodgers will lose millions on the parking deal, after they pay McCourt.Magic Johnson stood up on a podium at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday and flat-out lied to Dodger fans.Johnson, the front man for the team's new ownership group, said that ex-owner Frank McCourt was "not involved in an ... More >>

Amtrak's Ancestors: The Huntington's Exhibit on the History of the Transcontinental Railroad

Long before studios, hippies, method actors and reality-show wannabes headed out west, the Pacific Coast was a destination for farmers, miners, prospectors and other wagon-wheeling homesteaders who were looking for a new way of life. Two years after California struck gold in 1848, it became a part o ... More >>

How to Enjoy L.A. Arts and Culture Without a Car

When someone asks me if they have to rent a car when visiting L.A., I really, really, really, really want to say no. Of course you can experience L.A. without a car. I do it every day. But for me to explain all the quirks of navigating our transit-nascent city to a wide-eyed visitor, I'd pretty much ... More >>

CicLAvia Route Map: Restaurants, Bars, Tips and Points of Interest

CicLAvia takes places on April 15, 2012; on that Sunday, ten miles of streets will close to cars--from Melrose to Boyle Heights--cutting three ways through the heart of Downtown. It's a perfect occasion to sample the fruits of our fair city. To aid that pursuit, we've compiled a map cross-referenc ... More >>

Boycott The Lots: The Dodger Fan's Guide To Avoiding Frank McCourt

​Thousands of Dodger fans boycotted the team last year out of disgust with Frank McCourt. Now that McCourt has sold the team for $2 billion to an investor group led by Magic Johnson, those fans are celebrating.But there's a rat in the punchbowl: Frank McCourt will partner with Johnson's group to o ... More >>

$100 Billion Bullet Train

Democrats fray as cost skyrockets, feds bail, and Amtrak starts to look good

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey Review

Total Bummer: Annual Amtrak Mooning in Laguna Beach Suffers from Crackdown (With Photos, NSFW)

Paul T. BradleyTake THAT, British archers, er, Amtrak...​ There's an annual Orange County wildlife spectacle rife with enough tradition, mystery, and lore to intrigue even the most seasoned of naturalists. Swallows be damned, we're actually talking about the Annual Mooning of the Amtrak in La ... More >>

Feds Raid L.A. Union Station for Illegals, Tweeters Claim; 'Union Station' Starts Trending on Twitter

​[Update: Erick Huerta, who says he was one of the first to Tweet about the feds at Union Station on Friday morning, says he saw three men from the Department of Homeland Security -- one in full Transportation Security Officer uniform, another in "dress pants and a polo shirt with a 'Homeland ... More >>

Chrome-Plating Shop in Van Nuys Fined for Improperly Storing Toxic Sludge Near Valley Residents

Google MapsCrown Chrome Plating: jewel of the Valley.​If you lived anywhere near Van Nuys Boulevard and Roscoe in the Valley before spring 2009 -- time to get righteous. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, you might have been exposed to some improperly stored hazardous wastes at ... More >>

Three Victims, Possibly Taggers, Dead After Amtrak Train Hits Them In Commerce

Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner.​Updated throughout. Third man confirmed dead. First posted at 11:02 p.m. Monday. Three males were dead after an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train struck them in Commerce Monday night, according to reports. The pair might have been suspected taggers, and the area wher ... More >>

Mayor Getting Singed by Fallout from Fire Cuts

Talk about the chickens coming home to roost. Only a few weeks ago the mayor was excoriating the firefighters union for sending out mailers claiming that Mr. Villaraigosa's July fire department budget cuts would compromise public safety. The mailer, which used images from Chatsworth's 2008 Amtrak di ... More >>

Freak Wildfires Hit County

It's bad enough when an Amtrak tour bus catches fire on I-5 and is destroyed by flames. Worse, however, would be if the blaze then sets off yet another Castaic-area wildfire -- which is what happened today. According to Associated Press, all nine bus passengers and their luggage, plus the driver, sa ... More >>

Union Station Makes Photographer Erase Pictures

The Photo Police have struck again! According to Discarted (via L.A. Observed) a photog known as ShutterBuda was merrily snapping pictures inside L.A.'s highly photogenic Union Station when two Amtrak employees and an irate traveler ("I'm an ex-Guarian Angel!") told ShutterBuda to shut it down -- an ... More >>

Abiding Joe Biden: Obama's VP Pick Exposes the Dems' Shallow Talent Pool

The senator's predictably unpredictable verbal eruptions will make a memorable campaign season

Hancock, America's Low-rent Superhero, Just in Time for the Recession

It's a bird... It's a plane... It's Superbum?

Good Times Never Seemed So Good: Snapshots From Coachella

From the express train to the Gobi Tent to the VIP and beyond

Rolling on the Coachella Express to Indio

On the Coachella Express, there are a few distinct types of people: the media, which was invited to document the maiden voyage of the Amtrak line that departed LA's Union Station Thursday afternoon, and who wouldn't leave the kids alone. Local LA news crews were doing their two-minute Coachella ... More >>

Best Escape From L.A.

The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner

Best of L.A. 2007 Armageddon it!

The last things we'd ever do

The Minuteman's Tale

A Political obituary: Jim Gilchrist, 2005–2007

Peter Case: Living Precarity

The singer-songwriter’s memoirs, round one

Mooning America

The Lobbyist

Appreciating L.A.’s greatest open spaces

Beheading on Mount Baldy

The strange tale of how a man lost his home, his money and his head to the woman he took in

The Death Squads

When dying is downright dirty, these guys clean up the mess

Congress on ’Roids

The Hobohemians

On the rails with the new freedom riders

On the Beach: What Happened at Tower 53

An Exquisite Scar

Life and commerce along the Alameda Corridor

Paranoia Runs Deep

Scary Movies

Joe Berlinger’s worked-over Blair Witch 2; Marc Singer’s lovely Dark Days

Two Trains Running

Riding the rails in Fillmore

Poetry in Locomotion

Bump, Set, Spike

South Bay Volleyball with the Best of ’em

Marry Me Before I Get Fat

Elizabeth Wurtzel wants to be bad, but not all by herself

Why Do You Think They Call ’Em Hams?