RailPAC President Paul Dyson writes;

Once again, at the busiest time of the year, the Surfliner service has fallen apart. 769, 12.30pm from LAUS, departed 5 hrs 30 minutes late. No southbound train from Santa Barbara all afternoon, over 200 people on the platform after the Starlight departed.

According to eyewitness reports on Trainorders.com this all started when train 567 the 8:10AM departure from San Diego had engine problems in San Diego. This train was combined with train 769 which is supposed to leave at 9:30AM. By Solana Beach the 2 trains were 35 minutes late. Before the trains reached San Juan Capistrano both trains lost Head End Power so no power for the trains. After giving up trying to fix the Head End Power the trains went ahead as far as Anaheim before the batteries in the cars died. After train 573 from San Diego arrived it was added to the other two trains! It was 2:35PM before the three trains left Anaheim only to be delayed more. The 573 was supposed to leave Anaheim at 12:46PM. Needless to say operations on the second busiest rail passenger corridor in the Nation was disrupted for the rest of the day on the busiest travel day of the year. NB