Your latest installment in the occasional Trains News Wire feature offering links to online articles of interest:
— The New York Times takes a long look at the fight in Del Mar, Calif., over relocating the former Santa Fe Surf Line, and frames it as part of coastal erosion issues statewide. The link should allow non-subscribers access.
— While the article may be exaggerating a tad by calling the moment in question “one of the most famous scenes in movie history,” this story from Oregon’s Redmond Spokesman on a Buster Keaton film that blew up a bridge as a train crossed is still a good one. Readers may need to provide an email address for access.
— The advocacy group Transportation For America looks at the recent Federal Railroad Administration Long-Distance study (which is available here) and suggests it should have focused on projects that could be brought to fruition relatively quickly.
Maybe they need to bite the bullet , and move the whole section over to beside (or part of), the I5 highway.
daniel bentz is completely correct. sigh.
whoops!! big mistake. the photograph is “looking” north.
and yes, the red markers of course indicate the rear of the
train. so, yes, the train is northbound, at the south end of
the del mar bluffs. i haven’t posted in a while … obviously,
i should keep quiet and keep this space over to folks who
have it “more together”.
the train depicted is definitely southbound. it is reaching
the end of the del mar bluffs and is about to turn inland,
crossing under the camino del mar bridge and heading,
on a long tangent track, toward the coaster station at
carmel valley. sometimes engines run on both ends of
surfliner trains. the position of the engine is not indicative
of train direction.
I would offer that the photo above shows a “southbound” train, not northbound. That is, unless we’re talking east coast.
Surfliner trains run push-pull, with the engine facing away from Los Angeles. Since the engine appears to have red markers on, I’d say it’s a northbound.
This is just the beginning. There is no place I know of where coastal erosion can be overcome permanently, and now it’s accelerating. The tracks in Del Mar and other places along the Pacific coast are the most vulnerable right now. But everywhere there are low-lying tracks in coastal areas (BNSF in Washington, NJ Transit North Jersey Coast Line and the Amtrak Northeast Corridor spring to mind immediately), they are vulnerable as sea level rises. And reports suggest that’s happening a lot faster than anticipated.
The seemingly immense cost is what’s really slowing things down in arriving at a solution. Losing the Surf Line permanently is an option of course, but there are big costs for letting that happen, too.
All the economic development served by these rail lines, especially adjacent to them, are at risk, too. Makes some of the efforts to address climate change (EV charging infrastructure, for example) seem almost quaint.
Erosion has been going on forever, and sea levels have been rising for at least 150 years. A recent article on Nantucket showed that the coastline these is receding much faster than in Southern California.
ERIK and KEVIN. Are the seas rising and if so by how much? Where’s the number and what’s the source of that number.
I don’t know why Nantucket is washing away (Wall Stret Journal, I think February 28th or maybe February 21st). Is Nantucket’s south coast the only place where oceans are rising? How about Chatham on Cape Cod, the closest comparison. Did WSJ ask if Chatham is still there? Of course not. They take Nantucket’s catastrophe as proof of rising oceans and don’t bother to examine ocean fronts on the rest of the world or even comparable places like Chatham and Martha’ Vineyard.
What a dead end! I guess the railroad line will eventually be abandoned. It’s really sad now that the tracks have been in that location for over 100 years. Meanwhile, the NYT article is so enlightening.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
They can, foolishly and expensively, try to keep the rising ocean away from the tracks or, more sensibly but still expensively, move the tracks away from the ocean. The problem is the new tracks will have to go through, or under, somebody’s million dollar back yard.
They need to fix those tracks. But the problem is they have a worthless mayor nimbys living right close to the coast and that useless Governor named Galvin Newsom and his aunt Nancy Pelosi pulling the strings. The problem is nobody rebuilt in this area properly they had a fire 6 months ago, they had heavy rains, the ground is sinking in places, most recently they had a sinkhole, and landslides are destroying the landscape! They need to let Amtrak and BNSF conduct a study in this area and get some pilings in the ground before it is too late. If they don’t get those tracks nailed down and stabilize the slope the city of Del Mar will be gone tracks and homes will head into the sea and a landslide will destroy the town. Del Mar more has three options to fix this and they need to choose one quick. Option one build a seawall the obvious option, often two place pilings, an option three move the tracks. If this is not done by the next storm we are going to lose the surfline around and the coastline subdivision and San Diego and Baja will be cut off from the national network. We need to fix this and we need to fix it now!
I read the NYT piece on the Del Mar “fight” along with the comments. Can’t believe how many people thinking that the I-5 corridor option would be easy.