Railroaders' Nostalgia > Tuesday Track & Time: More '78 Slides

One part of the storm damage in 1978 was the stimulation of renewed movement of several slides. Here are images of two slides that are not due to slipping blocks on overly wet sloping strata like the prior posts. In fact one is not technically a slide. But only geotechnical engineers worry about those details.

First is the chronic slides at Ortega, between Santa Barbara and Carpenteria. Movements in prior years and attempts to stop them have resulted in a modest peninsula of rip-rap and mud projecting into the ocean at the larger slide, some of this was placed as a buttress to try and stop the movement and some was the toe of the slide moving everything out to sea. In 1978 they both moved again, the embankment dropping out from under the tracks and shifting towards the sea. The Southern Pacific had prior troubles here, I found a large drainage gallery between the railroad and highway (perhaps 6 feet wide, 90 feet long, and 20 feet deep). It was dry, which certainly helped the soil strength under the freeway, but enough water found its way into the railroad embankment to cause it to lose strength and follow the law of gravity, it slumps down like the heap of soft mud it is.

At Ortega we took the siding out of service and dumped ballast to ramp down to the low spots on the main line and later to raise it back to the original profile. Traffic levels on the Coast did not justify spending money to restore this 5168-foot siding with Carpenteria 3.5 miles to the east and Santa Barbara 4.5 miles to the west. We left a maintenance spur for several years but it was later abandoned.

Second is the chronic erosion and small slides on the bluffs above the track just west of Seacliff. These are described as “mudslides” but are really more of a lot of debris washed down by the heavy rains and not a geotechnical shifting of the ground. Trouble either way. At the time the SP was built it was placed on a tiny ledge between the bluffs and the ocean. Culverts and bridges were installed at the many drainage chutes coming down from above. In later years a two-lane highway was built on fill out in the ocean and in the 1950s-60s a huge fill was placed further out to sea for the multi-lane version of Highway 101. We looked at shifting the track away from the foot of the bluffs however we found no cooperation from Caltrans and we found a lot of underground oil lines because this is in an active oilfield.

During one of the sets of storm the eastbound Coast Starlight got caught up in battling through this mess. Mud, rocks and junk were flowing out across the rails. Asst. Trainmaster Elie Brown walked ahead of the train checking the rail and throwing stuff to the side. He got coated with mud, but was particularly proud of wrestling with at least one 55-gallon steel drum that found its way into the path of his train. He really wanted to get through to Los Angeles.

To my knowledge the UP (and Amtrak) endure these chronic storm liabilities to this day.

The images:
First is of the Ortega slides from the air on March 8th . You can clearly see the scarp of the two slides, a gang truck, and the projecting pile of material from earlier repairs. If you look closely at the surf line you will see where the SP used concrete bridge and snow shed sections as rip-rap that had been damaged during shipment or were defective when manufactured.
Second is the slide from the seaward side earlier on the 8th. Note the green flag for the slow order just behind the Hy-Rail car.
Third is an aerial of the mud slides at Seacliff, also on March 8th.

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Excellent coverage and photos of the "opportunities" associated with this section of railroad. The removal/retirement of the siding at Ortega proved to be a "thorn" in the dispatcher's side as Carpinteria was length constricted and couldn't be used much for meeting freight trains except maybe for the "Ellwood" local. That left Seacliff to the east of Santa Barbara as the next suitable meeting point. At this time I was the PACE Officer (Paper and Carbon Everywhere) in downtown Los Angeles at Division HQ. I always wondered at that time how the MofW/Engineering guys got to fly around taking pictures from the air and how that expense was accounted for on their books!

I always enjoy your presentations!

Pete Baumhefner

Pete asks about the expense of chartering the helicopter; this will be detailed in a future post, it was a direct order from San Francisco. It was a happy accident that I was near Oxnard and we had to pick up the SP Soils Engineer, Jack Newby, at Surf before going to Cajon pass so I used that leg of the trip to get a close look at the coast line. Jack wanted to see the Coast Line too so we followed it again to Montalvo then up the Santa Clara river and the Santa Paula Branch to Saugus, then the San Joaquin Division to Palmdale, then the Palmdale-Colton cutoff to Cajon Pass.
The pilot and I used IFR and VFR ("I Follow Railroads" and Visual Flight Rules, per FAA). It was about as precisely navigated a trip as anyone could have made, I knew/know every inch of those routes.

Believe ChoochooCharlie has a picture of the spreader work train cleaning up the mud at Seacliff from this event

Another really fascinating and informative post. Although I am not a professional in the field, I have an interest in geology and soil science, so your references to the geotechnical aspects are especially interesting. And flying enthusiast that I am, I envy you the helo ride along the line.

As always, thanks -- and keep 'em coming.

MC
Columbia, Missouri

Terrific stuff as always. I was in High School in Santa Barbara, commuting home to Carpinteria during this time and was aware the Coast Line had problems, but the Ortega slide/slump/mass wasting looks much more severe that I thought although it looks scary enough moving right up to the main line.
In the second picture, I have often thought why not move the main line right out on the two lane road, the old Coast Highway? The Oil piers have long been removed so the access under the freeway can be moved as well with a new strip of asphalt right next to the Freeway embankment. Leave access for cyclists, beachgoers and fishermen and get that main away from the mud cliffs and slide fences. It would raise the speed on the curves there too.
Do you have any information on operations with temporary trainorder offices? I think that was part of the 1983 floods that took out Tehachapi. Please keep this great information coming to us.
dbinterlock

Current day operations:

MOW Spur at Seacliff was removed a number of years ago when CTC was installed, July 2001.

Carpinteria has no sidings or spurs.

Ortega still has the west/north switch and it is used for MOW and setting out BO cars. The track from the slides to the east switch was removed back in '78.

Santa Barbara still has a spur off both mains, the ocean side being the old Amtrak spur and the inland side the old scale of house track.

Caltrans and SP had plans at one time to straighten out the track at Seacliff [Seacliff to La Conchita], but budgets among other things got in the way. A nice interchange/bridge was to have been installed to service the Rincon Hotel and pier plus La Conchita; the railroad was going to run parallel to the straighter 101 freeway and a long 10,000 siding in addition to the current 4960 foot siding installed. Current construction on Highway 101 is adding a third lane each direction, but no bridge allowing access from the seaward side to inland side and no realignment of either the highway or railroad tracks.

Passenger trains take a minimum 25 minute hit now if opposing trains arrive at Santa Barbara and Seacliff at the same time. Talk of putting in a "short" siding at Ortega for passenger trains has occurred, but no dollars have been allocated or construction begun. The siding would be reminiscent of Hasson between Simi and Tunnel #26 before it was extended to its current length.

A night to remember...
I was on the last westbound coast freight train on march 8, before the coast was shut down due to numerous washouts. I was a working as the rear brakeman called off the extra board, to work with conductor Warren Butler. Can't remember who the engineer or headman was. I do remember it never stopped raining from the time we left LA...
At around 10pm as we were approaching Santa Barbara we were told by the coast dispatcher to secure the train at Santa Barbara and that we would be deadheaded back to LA via Greyhound bus.
We caught the bus around midnight, and as we were traveling south on 101 between Carpinteria and Seacliff, the CHP pulled along side us and signaled for us to stop. It just so happened US 101 was impassable down around Seacliff, and that we would have to head back to Santa Barbara, where the SP would get us a hotel room for the night. So we turned around and headed north to Santa Barbara. I told Warren that I would be getting off at Carpinteria, where my folks lived at the time, and stay with them instead some fleabag hotel. I also told him I would call the crew dispatcher and advise them of my/our situation. Which I did...
The next day my crew was flown back to LA, and I somehow got a ride back to LA a couple of days later.
In my 35 year career with SP/UP, that has to be one of the more memorable trips I had ever been on...

What happened to Highway 101 was that just west of the Ventura River, where the highway curves to the north and the inside edge is up against a cliff. A drain inlet plugged with gravel, brush, and debris causing a lake to full up across the whole 6 or 8 lanes of the freeway.

I've spent about an hour studying these amazing photos and reading the text. Can't tell you how enjoyable this is! Thanks for taking the time to share and post these gems. They rank on top of the T.O. chain.