Here is the link to the UT San Diego article on the potential revival of the SD&AE line running from San Diego to Plaster City, via Baja California. This is a little more in depth than the news wire entry.
Thanks, for the link, Chuck!
That is quite a picture of the Wooden Trestle at Goat Canyon. I am curious about the quotes from the people at Toyota. What kind of auto transport cars will they be able to use?
The current Auto transport Cars; I would think would require a re-work of the on-line tunnels to improve clearances? Even the high cube boxcars that are used to haul in auto parts are excess height and would require the same tunnel clearances as well. If the PDF mentioned increased clearances to accommodate those types of excess height cars, I may have missed it, in my skimming of the PDF. Certainly, that would require a lot of extra funds to accomplish.
IIRC, the line ends at the Gypsum Operations in Plaster City.
Their own property is served by a NG plant railroad(?)
. Is there a potential for the line to become a through route?
Thanks
The portion of the original line running from Plaster City to El Centro was retained by SP when the SD&AE was sold to the MTS in the late 70’s (why sell a good customer’s connection, eh?). Looking at Google Earth, it certainly looks like the two lines are still connected at Plaster City.
I remember a few years ago seeing a single UP unit pushing some ratty looking cars out to Coyote Wells siding, perhaps within the past ten years or so. The line used to be straight through Plaster City, but USG expanded the plant at some point and the line has to veer around it to the south.
I really doubt if conventional auto racks would make it over the line, but I could be proven wrong on that. My guess is that auto racks would still go north on BNSF trains like they do now.
There was a nice article a couple of years ago in Trains on the NG railway at the USG plant at Plaster City. Got a kick out of the fact that the guy keeping things together was someone I knew as a kid (younger brother of a classmate and teammate). That narrow gauge operation was always fascinating, as there was often something going on with it if you happened to be around Plaster City.
There was a railroad recently operating the line. The last I heard, they were only operating in Mexico.
samfp,
I see very little liklyhood that the old SD&AE would become a through route for these reasons
It would be a bridge line between UP and BNSF. They both have much better and shorter lines into the LA basin. I would expect any LA basin traffic with BNSF origin or destination and UP line haul to continue to be interchanged in LA. Traffic going out of basin BNSF line haul would continue to exit the basin via other routes.
Second reason is IIRC San Diego bought the line to run commuter trains on. That means the freight has been shoved into a few hour window at night, a major capacity constraint. Reliably hitting that window with a train from Tuscon or east would be a challenge.
Mac
To reopen the SD&AE to relieve truck congestion at Otay Mesa, I guess…
It took an hour-and-a-half to cross the border at San Ysidro (Tijuana) to come home in the late 70’s, In a PEUGUOT sedan.
There’s other reasons I’m sure, including, shortening the San Diego/Tijuana/Ensenada route to the west shore of Mexico on the the Sea of Cortez via Plaster City-El Centro-Calexico-Benjamin Hill (on the Sonora Baja California) if it still exists.
But, that bridge is in the middle, more or less, of a sidehill grade including if memory serves, 19 tunnels, a bunch of less impressive trestles and dozens of 18 degree, including a lot of 20 degree curves; that is in about 8 miles.
Double-stack loads, piggyback cars, current intermodal tech., 2.2 % grades on either side of the Hipass summit…
I think Carriso Gorge wins.
And, I was the last Raod Foreman of Engines on the SP-owned SD&AE. which was commonly termed the “SD&A” by the troops of the…
I hope for them success in their enterprise…
From Plaster City the line on Google Maps aerials was followed eastward to the El Centro area. Is the linked aerial a minor …
LINK: Train Wreck?
Looks like “pick of the week” there. Played a lot of baseball in my mis-spent youth just to the west of that incident. Looks like one corner of the wye is pretty fouled. At least it looks like nothing is actually on the ground.
My information is old and I don’t have any updates.
Seems to me there was talk of several washouts and I doubt they’ve been repaired. The Carriso Gorge Trestle, aka bridge span is getting old and would most likely need to be replaced.
There was talk of building a large terminal for sea going vessels in Mexico and portions of the SD&A were looked at but the access would be difficult and a new rail hub further inland was being considered. UP chatted up some ideas but I don’t think anything came of it.
So, other then for the fun of using it as a tourist railroad or possibly a short commuter run down to the border. I wouldn’t give it much hope of ever being anything useful in the future.
Personally, I don’t see it as a viable alternative for rail service.
There was some talk a couple of years ago about a Gulf of California, perhaps Puerto Peñasco or maybe Guaymas. Both place have rail service, but Guaymas has more mature port facilities. The proposals, though, called for connecting to the UP near Yuma, rather than coming up to Mexicali and connecting with the UP there, which makes a lot more sense.
I would hazard a guess that UP has a lock on most all of the traffic to or from the Imperial Valley which leaves the SD&AE route to find customers between the west side of Plaster City and Campo plus whatever ag commodities they can skim for Port of San Diego. As folks say, “Good luck with that!” It does look to be a tough proposition.
Sentimentally, I would love to see the line revive. It was the first railroad I knew, as it ran about 2 miles from where I did the first 17 or so years of my growing up (a process my wife insists has still not progressed very far) and actually had good daily traffic. I still have a soft place in my heart for those black Geeps that headed up the trains. But sentimentality aside, I don’t have high expectations for the route’s chances.
Commuter runs to the border are now handled adequately by the Trolley Blue Line from four in the morning to about one the following morning (leaving a very small window to get traffic up and down from the border to the yards south