1995: The Start of Service for a Commuter Rail Station in San Clemente

March 6, 1995

Operations began for a newly built rail station in the city of San Clemente on the coast of Orange County, California. This station is served by both the Orange County Line and Inland Empire-Orange County Line of southern California’s commuter trains network Metrolink. San Clemente station is specifically located in the North Beach area of the city.

“Starting today, San Clemente residents can park their cars for a buck in North Beach and take the train to Los Angeles,” reported Los Angeles Times staff writer Ching-Ching Ni on the day of the station’s opening.

Francisco Oaxaca, Metrolink’s director of media and external communications from 1993 to 2010, similarly highlighted the key advantages of San Clemente station for local residents and their daily commutes. “The added benefits of the train are you can take a nap, read a book or talk on your cellular phone,” said Oaxaca. “You don’t have to deal with the stress of traffic, so you can be in a better mood when you get home.”

Metrolink in its entirety consists of eight lines and 69 stations altogether within Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties. This system covers a grand total of 546.6 miles (878.1 kilometers) of track.

Photo Credit: Florian Boyd (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)

For more information on San Clemente station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Clemente_station

Additional information on Metrolink stations is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metrolink_(California)_stations