Western Railroad Discussion > Redondo Transit hub funds approved

Tonight the funding was approved by the Redondo Beach City Council for the prelim design and ultimate EIR in the coming year. Lets get going with baby steps. Its good news for the south bay.

Artical from Monday before the meeting.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/

I saw the advance notice in the Breeze. Passenger rail on the Harbor Sub? Sure, why not...

My understanding (from a BNSF maintainer) was that
scrra bought the Harbor sub from BNSF years ago. But I could be wrong.
I do know that BNSF needs permission from scrra (or some county agency) to use
the track between Lairport and Hyde Park.

That being said, my understanding was that the commuter rail folks
have been looking at the Harbor line for service to south bay for
some time. It's mostly 130lb rail and in good shape...the biggest problem
is all the grade crossings, especially parallel to Slauson Blvd.

I think the BNSF has always held the speed down to 10-20 mph because
the line is dark, and there used to be multiple trains running in the
same area at the same time.

Another problem is that there aren't many sidings - one at Lairport and one at Torrance I think.

And while the rail is in good shape, I think it would need an upgrade.

BNSF had the line up to 20MPH for a while before the traffic went away to the Alamedea Corridor in 2002. Since then, it has been received only the work needed to get the 711 job up to El Segundo and back, save for some crosssing work that occurred in 2003 and the building of the Douglas Street Underpass that is continuing. Why spend money when they don't have to? If you look at the track, much of it is in good shape, but there are big pumped dips and other soft spots at the bolted joints to either side of many of the grade crossings from Lawndale through Ironsides.

SCRRA does indeed own the ROW, and it appears that it could be brought up to decent shape with a few trains of ballast and a good tamping job. One problem is all the grade crossings, especially those between MP8 and MP14 that haven't been used in five years now, some of which appear to have been vandalized. It is also unsignaled. It would surprise me to see passenger trains on an unsignaled line. Even the Escondido line has signals now for the DMUs they are running there.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a power pole at MP 13.3 (the area where the store empty well cars on the main from time to time) that was leaning across the tracks after being hit by a truck in an accident. It sat there for days before someone from this board called it in to BNSF, who sent out a maintainer to look it over. That is how closely they are watching things at the moment.

- Kit

Here is the link to today's breeze article about the vote from Tuesday nights Council meeting.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/9051167.html

CimaScrambler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One
> problem is all the grade crossings, especially
> those between MP8 and MP14 that haven't been used
> in five years now, some of which appear to have
> been vandalized.
Doesn't the BNSF Hi-rail truck still travel this section of the line? Sure it's "not a train" but still it would make sure the line is open and passable.

Once and sometimes twice a week.