Western Railroad Discussion > SD&AE Update.

Back on 12/19/16, TO's lamta_jay asked about any new progress on the PIR/SD&AE railroad, 
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4183505,4187542#msg-4187542.
​A friend who regularly hikes around the Carriso Gorge recently sent me some photos of
his latest trek into the gorge. He gave me his permission to post these photos.

The East portals of Tunnels 8 and 16 are blocked by rockfalls caused by recent earthquakes
and rainfall. One is relatively minor, about 10-15 tons of rock and the other is a major rockfall,
somewhere in the 500+ ton range!

Pacific Imperial Railroad has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, back on 10/13/16, and at this point 
in time still has done ZERO work on the line, let alone any attempt to clear these new blockages.

1st photo is the East Portal of Tunnel 8.
2nd photo was taken from atop the rubble pile just outside the East Portal of Tunnel 16.
3rd photo taken from inside the east end of Tunnel 16.

Looking at the 2nd photo, the original tunnel portal was located behind the man at the bottom of
the pile, at the far end of those vertical walls. During the fire, a chimney up through the rocks opened
up approximately 100 feet in from the east portal and 100 feet up the hillside. The fire burned for 3 days
and burned out just about every piece of wood inside the tunnel! Tunnel 16 is now 100 feet shorter than
it's original 743 foot length. 

While working for the original Carrizo Gorge Railway, I helped dig out both of these tunnels, which
were both burned out by either arson or accidental fires. Tunnel 8 in 1988 and Tunnel 16 in 1986.
The line was closed by another fire in the gorge which burned out 2 trestles just outside of 
Tunnel 6 in 1983.

Tunnel 8 was partially cleared out and lined by a crew from Morrison-Knudsen in the early 90s,
but was shutdown due to supposedly running out of money, more like politics interfering!

We were building up the money to purchase the materials to complete the Tunnel 8 lining and
for the full relining of Tunnel 16 when CZRY was hostilely taken over in late 2006/early2007.

Just a little recent news about the SD&AE!

Mike

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Looks pretty bad for the future of the line.

Larry

Unfortunately, this line has no future.
JB

Is this line open to hiking by anyone?  

This damage  was before the line was open to Plaster City  in the late 90s or early 2000s  wasn't it? 

I don't remember the dates, but I went through  there on a sand train when I was going to train engineers on grade territory.

I walked part of the area in 2010 I think and there were a few places inside a few tunnels where shelling was going on,  but not enough for a total shut down. But thats been , 10 years ago.

Nudge

Mike would know but it's been tough to figure out when they actually ran anything through there.

Out

Looks like this line has as much of a chance of reopening as the NWP between Willits and Eureka, Sad!

Not a problem!!!!! Get a cat up there, and a six pack, and it will be clear.

Posted from iPhone

spnudge Wrote:
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> This damage  was before the line was open to
> Plaster City  in the late 90s or early 2000s
>  wasn't it? 
>
> I don't remember the dates, but I went through
>  there on a sand train when I was going to train
> engineers on grade territory.
>
> I walked part of the area in 2010 I think and
> there were a few places inside a few tunnels where
> shelling was going on,  but not enough for a
> total shut down. But thats been , 10 years ago.
>
> Nudge

Nudge, these rockfalls are fairly recent, within the last few weeks!
The line was clear through most of last year.
The Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum out of Campo, ran some 
motorcars through the gorge last year!

Callum_out, this should answer your question!

Mike

"Sad", first word to delete from the dictionary.

TonyJ Wrote:
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> Looks like this line has as much of a chance of
> reopening as the NWP between Willits and Eureka,
> Sad!

They made their $500,000 semiannual lease payment in December 2016. 

Rob Wrote:
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> They made their $500,000 semiannual lease payment
> in December 2016. 

​With $3 bills!

I wonder who made the payment PIR or Baja Railroad!

Mike

This happened recently, 3 or 4 weeks ago. When I hiked out there a month before everything was still ok.
andy