"We can't afford to lose the natural history of this area." Irvine Company was approved to build the Orange Heights community in 2005, which included 4,100 homes between East Orange and Irvine Park.

The one-third scale electric train replaces the propane-powered locomotive that had transported hundreds of thousands of passengers at Irvine Regional Park since the mid-1990s.

Those are some of the reasons Robinson and nearly 7,000 other area residents have signed a petition in recent weeks opposing Irvine Company’s long discussed and now looming plan to turn those ...