My LA + Orange County transit network. Current Metro, proposed lines, Metrolink, and my own OC system
I wanted to share my current LA + OC transit build in Subway Builder. This one is a mix of real-life inspiration and custom expansion.
LA side is not a fully fictional network. It mostly follows the structure of current LA Metro rail, but I modified some existing lines, added proposed corridors, and included some regional rail as well.
The Orange County side is much more my own creation. Most of the OC rail network is custom, although I used historical Pacific Electric corridors where possible and incorporated the real OC Streetcar in Santa Ana.
I basically wanted to see what a much more connected LA/OC rail system could look like.
LA side:
This side is mostly based on current LA Metro, but with some changes and additions.
I kept the overall idea of LA Metro’s main rail backbone and then adjusted it to work better in-game and as a larger regional network.
A Line - Light Rail: kept as is, except it stops at San Dimas instead of Pomona due to the in-game limited map.
B Line - Heavy Rail: kept as is.
D Line - Heavy Rail: kept as is, plus phase 2 and 3 real-life extensions.
E Line - Light Rail: kept as is.
C Line - Light Rail: modified. I removed the Aviation/Century station, and I made an east extension to Metrolink's Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs station by adding two stations (Imperial/Firestone and Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs).
K Line: This is probably one of the lines I modified the most. Going south from LAX/Metro Transit Center, I removed Aviation/Century and instead added a station inside LAX itself. Without it, the distance between the Metro Transit Center and the next station felt awkward for a line supposedly serving one of the largest airports in the world. From there it continues to Mariposa and then follows the real-world route. On the northern side, I extended the K Line north from Expo/Crenshaw, based on the real-world northern extension concept, eventually reaching the Hollywood Bowl. On the southern side, I continued it beyond Redondo Beach using the real-world southern extension concept, and then added my own additional extension all the way to Long Beach, where it connects with the A Line. So in my system, the K Line becomes a very long north-south route linking Hollywood, South LA, LAX, the South Bay, and Long Beach. Light Rail
G Line - Light Rail: I know it is BRT in real life, but I built light rail instead.
V Line - Heavy Rail: based on the Vermont Transit Corridor proposal.
S Line - Heavy Rail: based on the Sepulveda Transit Corridor proposal.
R Line - Light Rail: based on the Southeast Gateway Line proposal.
F Line - Light Rail: based on East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit.
X Line - Heavy Rail: based on nandert's idea, moves along Venice Boulevard in the west and Pico Boulevard in the east.
Y Line - Light Rail: This one is completely my own. It is essentially a coastal connector. It connects: Downtown Santa Monica (E Line) to Venice Beach (X Line) to LAX/Metro Transit Center (C/K/S Lines). The idea is to provide a direct rail connection along the coast instead of forcing passengers to travel inland and transfer back toward the beach.
Metrolink:
Orange Line: kept as is, except it stops at San Clemente Pier.
Antelope Line: kept as is, except it stops at Sylmar/San Fernando.
Ventura Line: kept as is, except it stops at Chatsworth.
All of these lines are commuter trains
OC Side:
Orange Coast Line - Light Rail: The name is pretty straightforward. It starts at the A Line's Willow Street station in Long Beach and then follows the general route of the old Pacific Electric coastal line through Orange County. I used fewer stations than the historical Pacific Electric service because I designed this as modern regional light rail rather than a local streetcar. It eventually ends at Balboa. This effectively creates a continuous coastal rail connection between Long Beach and Newport Beach.
Red Line - Light Rail: The name is a reference to the old Pacific Electric Red Cars. It begins at Pioneer Station, which is the end of the LA Metro R Line in my network. From there, it follows the general route of Pacific Electric's old inland Orange County line, again using fewer stops than the historical service. It eventually reaches Santa Ana with the real-world OC Streetcar line. So the R Line and Red Line together effectively create a continuous LA-to-Orange County rail corridor.
Beach Line - Light Rail: Pretty much exactly what the name suggests. It runs along the Beach Boulevard corridor, from Huntington Beach north to Buena Park Metrolink Station. Beach Boulevard is one of the biggest north-south corridors in western Orange County, so it seemed like an obvious place for rail. It also gives Huntington Beach a direct connection into the regional rail system.
Irvine Line - Light Rail: Named the Irvine Line because most of it runs through Irvine. The line branches from two stations on the Orange Coast Line in Newport Beach and then connects several of the biggest destinations in the Irvine area: Newport Beach to John Wayne Airport to UCI and ends at Irvine Metrolink Station. One of my priorities was giving John Wayne Airport and UCI direct rail service, since both are major destinations but currently depend heavily on cars and buses.
Disney Line - Light Rail: This line begins around Valley View Street and uses the old Southern Pacific Company right-of-way for much of the route. When it reaches the Disneyland area, the line goes underground. It serves the Disneyland area before continuing to ARTIC, where passengers can transfer to Metrolink. The idea was to connect Disneyland directly into both the local OC network and the regional rail system.
One of the things I noticed while building this network is that the LA map itself really needs to be expanded. I would especially like to see the developers include all of Los Angeles County instead of cutting the playable area off where it currently does. The map limitation is the main reason why my A Line has to stop at San Dimas instead of reaching Pomona, why the Antelope Valley Line stops at Sylmar/San Fernando, and why the Ventura County Line stops at Chatsworth. Those are not places where I actually wanted the routes to end. I simply ran out of map. For a region as geographically huge as Los Angeles, having the entire county available would make regional transit networks much more interesting to build. It would also open up places like Pomona, Santa Clarita, the farther San Gabriel Valley, and other parts of the county that currently cannot really be incorporated into the network.
I would also really like to see buses added as an actual transportation mode. Rail is obviously the main focus of Subway Builder, but a real transit network cannot put a train on every street. Buses could serve lower-ridership neighborhoods, connect people to rail stations, and fill the gaps between major corridors. It would also make it possible to build realistic bus rapid transit lines. For example, I converted the real-life G Line into light rail because the game does not really give me another way to represent it. If buses and BRT were available, players could actually choose whether a corridor should remain BRT or be upgraded to rail.
Trams and streetcars would be another really useful addition. They could be treated differently from normal light rail by allowing them to operate directly in streets, use smaller stations, and cost less to build. This would be especially useful for something like the OC Streetcar in Santa Ana. Not every urban rail corridor needs to have the same infrastructure or capacity as a full Metro light-rail line, and having streetcars as a separate mode would make systems much more realistic.
I would actually like the game to go even further and make the different transportation modes behave differently from each other. Heavy rail should be extremely expensive to construct but offer very high capacity and speed. Light rail should be cheaper and more flexible, especially when running at the surface. Streetcars could be inexpensive and work well for shorter urban trips, but they would be slower. Commuter rail should be designed around longer distances, higher speeds, and widely spaced stations. BRT and regular buses could cover corridors where rail would not make financial sense. That would make choosing the transportation mode part of the challenge instead of having rail be the answer to almost everything.
Another thing I would like is better support for regional transportation systems. Southern California is not really one city with one transit network. LA Metro, Metrolink, OCTA, and other agencies all serve different purposes, but passengers still need to move between them. That is what I tried to represent here. Someone could theoretically travel from the San Fernando Valley through LA, transfer onto another Metro line, continue into Orange County, and then use one of my OC lines to reach places such as Disneyland, UCI, John Wayne Airport, Huntington Beach, or Newport Beach. Metrolink acts as another layer on top of those local systems.
That is also why I spent so much time on the OC side. LA already has a substantial rail network and several major expansion projects either underway or proposed, so there was an existing system for me to work with. Orange County was basically a blank canvas. I wanted to see what would happen if OC had a real interconnected rail system instead of relying overwhelmingly on freeways and cars. I also liked using the old Pacific Electric and Southern Pacific corridors because in several places I was basically putting passenger rail back along routes that historically had it.
I am definitely not finished with the network yet. There are still corridors I am considering, especially in OC, and I may eventually make some changes depending on how ridership develops in the game. At this point, though, it has basically become my attempt at imagining a much more complete LA-OC transportation system while still keeping the LA side recognizable as LA Metro.
I probably won’t use mods to add buses or trams because I want to keep this build compatible with the base game and avoid depending on unofficial content that could break after updates. I’d rather see buses, BRT, and streetcars added as proper official transportation modes with their own mechanics and balancing.
I am curious what everyone thinks, especially about the OC network since that is the part where I took the most creative freedom. Are there any corridors you think I am missing? Would you change any of the existing LA Metro extensions I made? And if Subway Builder added buses, BRT, and streetcars, what would you want to build first?