AntSol Travel

Good morning! Welcome aboard Metrolink Antelope Valley line #205, from Los Angeles Union Station to the train terminus of Via Princess Street station in the Canyon Country neighborhood of Santa Clarita. Then the train switches directions and heads back to LA as the AV210. All but two trains per direction end at Via Princessa, while the rest of the trains end at Lancaster in Antelope Valley. For those trains, there are motor coaches from Newhall to Lancaster, along with Acton/Vincent Grade. A one-way fare costs $7 per person per way, which includes transfer fares for local transit agencies, in this case, the City of Santa Clarita Transit.

This is a pop up edition of my video on my transit channel: with information about places & the train system along the way.

This was filmed on May 16, 2023, which was during the bike-to-work week. If you brought your bike on the Metrolink train that week, you get to ride on the train for free! This was filmed on my GoPro Hero 9 attached to my bike’s handlebars, the beginning & ending shots are in this configuration. I parked my bike on the older bike cars where you lean the bike on the bike rack and hold it down with a hook and loop hose system. When I was in my seat, I had a second camera, a GoPro 8 on a short tripod. 

The Antelope Valley 204 arrived at Los Angeles Union Station at 7:20 am and we boarded after passengers disembarked the train. The train left at 7:39 am as the AV 205. From LA Union Station, we head north paralleling I-5, passing by the LA Metro Rail light rail maintenance facility & Metrolink Central Maintenance Facility, where trains get maintained while off duty. 

Then the first stop is Glendale, serving Metrolink AV & Ventura lines, Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, Glendale Beeline, and LA Metro buses. The station was originally owned by Southern Pacific and opened in 1923. Glendale is known for its shopping: The Americana at Brand which is mixed used with retail & apartments, Glendale Galleria which was home to the first Disney Store, and Porto’s, a well-known Cuban bakery & restaurant chain based in SoCal known for its sandwiches & pastries. All three locations are accessible by taking the city of Glendale Beeline bus, line 1 up south Central Avenue. 

Continuing on, we went under the CA134 and into Burbank with the first stop downtown, where only a few Pacific Surfliner stop there. On the opposite side of the station is Downtown, which has many hotels & restaurants as a place for the studio staff to rest while on production since Burbank is home to many tv, movie, and animation studios, including Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios, Universal Studios, and more. After that, the Metrolink Ventura & Pacific Surfliner split and headed to Burbank Airport south and to Ventura, while the Antelope Valley line goes north to the Burbank Airport North Station. 

Past Burbank Downtown is Past the station is Burbank Empire Center, a surprisingly large strip mall with a lot of surface parking. It has many shops and restaurants including one of my favorite stores, REI for outdoor gear! You can see the many retailers on the signage along the way.

The next stop is Burbank Airport North, the stop for Hollywood Burbank Airport, the airport opened in 1930 as aerospace was booming in the San Fernando Valley and later the glitz of movie production down the road in Glendale & Burbank. It is over 555 acres with two runways, serving regularly scheduled passenger service, general aviation, and military flights. For regular passenger service, Southwest has many destinations in the west & midwest hubs, American Airlines stops at Dallas & Phoenix, JetBlue to JFK, Delta to Salt Lake City, Alaska Airlines to smaller west coast destinations, United to Denver & San Francisco, Spirit Airlines to Las Vegas, and Avelo Airlines to smaller regional airports. 

Burbank Airport North opened in 2018 as an infill station so passengers can get to the airport from the AV line; there are LA Metro buses that stop at the terminals. Metrolink passengers can use their bus transfers to take the bus to the airport at no additional cost. 

Next is Sun Valley, which is now back in Los Angeles limits, located in the titular named neighborhood of Sun Valley, and has bus service with the LA Metro Bus 294. 

The last San Fernando Valley stop is Sylmar, with several bus line connections with the LA Metro Bus and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation bus network. 

From Sylmar, then we go through the San Fernando tunnel, a 7,000 ft tunnel completed in 1876, connecting San Fernando Valley to Santa Clarita Valley by train. The tunnel goes under the I-5/CA14 interchange, which was completed in 1964. 

After the tunnel, we are greeted with groves of trees as up the Newhall pass to our first Santa Clarita stop, Newhall. The city of Santa Clarita was incorporated in 1984, with the merging of the towns of Newhall, Saugus, Valencia, and Canyon Country to be unified in city governance. The valley area was like the wild west back in the 1800s with many people trying to settle down & farm but was disrupted by nature, geography, crime, and rich mining businessmen. 

At Newhall, since the AV 205 terminates in Via Princessa, passengers heading towards Lancaster in the Antelope Valley Transit Authority route 790 or take the Acton/Agua Dulce Shuttle and Amtrak motorcoach, all three can take a motorcoach there from Newhall. Newhall is also a transfer point for the City of Santa Clarita Transit to many of the bus lines 4,5,6,14, and 627. The station was opened in 2000 to relieve congestion at the next stop, Santa Clarita Station. 

Then up five miles is Santa Clarita station, an original station from opening in 1992. It has bus connections with, the City of Santa Clarita Transit and Kern Transit to Bakersfield. The final stop was Via Princessa, built-in 1994 to relieve Santa Clarita station from the collapse of the I-5/CA 14 interchange after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It only has bus service on bus route 12 for the City of Santa Clarita Transit.

If you took a bike like I did, you can go down Via Princessa west to Whites Canyon Road or east to Sierra Highway like I did, then you can bike along the Santa Clarita River bike trail and the city bike network to bike around town. The City of Santa Clarita has been awarded a bike-friendly city by the League of American Bicyclists thanks to its 77 miles of bike trails, which I will go on some of them in my upcoming videos.