Camarillo gets a trolley

Those of you who know me know a couple of things:

1. Lock your doors and hide your children if you see me pull up to your house.

2. If I start talking, just humor me and act interested. I'll go away sooner or later. Just make sure you have enough food and water to wait me out.

Those who know me really well know that in addition to 1. and 2. above, there's more:

3. I am an avid amusement park fan nut and have been since I was very young.

4. I have been a transit fan nut since I was very young.

5. I like to take myself on adventures that could be classified as "off the wall."

Number Five occurred today and involved Number Four.

My city of residence for 28 years now has added a free trolley service to take riders to the various shopping centers around town. This trolley doesn't run on rails. It's just a bus all made up to look like a trolley. It makes a loop from the train station, over to the Target shopping center, to the outlet mall, and back to the train station. This loop takes 30 minutes and the trolley stops at a few points in between.

If you want to ride the trolley, look for this sign and wait right next to it.

I've seen this trolley all over town and decided to give it a try. Passengers can board at any stop identified by the sign shown above. I decided to get on at the Camarillo Amtrak station.

Here she comes!

This service is operated by Roadrunner Shuttle with the approval of the City of Camarillo. Here's proof:

Now, everyone knows to allow any passengers to disembark before attempting to board. Not everyone does so, but here is a nice line of people waiting to board after the others have gotten off.

Before getting in line, I got a shot of the trolley from the other side so you can get a good idea of what it looks like.

The trolley tried to escape my lens by using the shadow of a tree. That didn't work so well...

Once I got inside, I managed to get a front seat. Here is my view out the front window:

I happened to glance into the driver's rear view mirror and saw what appeared to be a grumpy old man sitting there. I was going to run, but then I realized who it was...

Most agencies forbid unnecessary conversation between passengers and the driver in order for the driver to stay focused on driving. This is for our safety. However, in my conversation with our driver, I learned that the trolley drivers have actually been told to engage in conversation with passengers in order to make their trip more pleasant. I learned a lot about our driver during the 30 minutes we spent together—except for his name. Who knows...it could have been a witness protection program issue.

At one point, a former co-worker climbed aboard and recognized me right away. Ginger and I had worked together at Semtech four years ago when I was there on a temporary assignment. She was headed home and using the trolley to save some time and money. We got caught up before she had to get off a few stops later.

Camarillo has a dial-a-ride service called CAT (Camarillo Area Transit), but I haven't had the chance to ride it as of yet. One day I'll take a ride on it somewhere and write about it.

And then there's Gold Coast Transit in Oxnard...