San Diego, California

The San Diego U2 cars were the first modern light-rail equipment I ever rode as a boy, and they made quite an impression. I was schooled on street railways in hometown New Orleans, so the words "modern" and "streetcar" were to me strange bedfellows. Needless to say, I was impressed with the German-built units that sailed down the Blue Line at better than 40 miles per hour. At the time of our visit, they were only a few years old. Dad and I rode the Blue Line during a family vacation to southern California. We boarded downtown at the old Sante Fe depot and rode a shiny U2 set all the way south to the end of the line: the Mexican border. I remember that day well: Before we left our friend's house in San Diego, my mother kept warning me "not to eat any of the food across the border." It was my first time to leave the country, and in my anxiety I remember repeatedly asking my father how the border police would know I was a citizen upon our reentry, seeing as how I did not possess a driver's license or the like. Of course, I was about as Anglo-looking as they came; the patrol people at the gate didn't even notice me on the way back in. Relief! We rode another MTS set northbound to the city center, and later in the week we hopped one of Amtrak's San Diegans for our return trip to Los Angeles.