Is there any freight traffic up the coast from LA?

[Anonymous]

or does most freight go to bakersfield?

[mudchicken]

Most goes inland to Bakersfield and avoids mixing with the commuter trains at the ends at SF/SJ and LA along with the more complex grades, connections and curves.

[MP57313]

There aren't very many through freights. Some local business in Santa Maria, Lompoc, and Oxnard, but otherwise there really aren't that many on-line freight customers between the end points.

[Anonymous]

then why does the starlight always get delayed in that section?
Brad

[chad thomas]

Last I heard there are 8-10 through trains a day on the coast. That was before the storm damage this winter. I would imagine things are back to normal by now.

[TheS.P.caboose]

Most of the traffic is between Los Angeles and Moorpark. This is largely due to Metrolink. The Pacific Surfliners on the most part are between Los Angeles and Santa barbara/Goleta area, although two trains (1 in each direction) operates into/out of San Luis Obispo. The Coast Starlight between Los Angeles and Seattle. Union Pacific operates, normally like Chad says, 8 - 10 freights a day.

[ericsp]

I would hate to ride a boxcar through the San Joaquin Valley in the summer.

[daniel3197]

Yes the former SP Coast Line from LA thru Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo,
Salinas, and San Jose to Oakland currently averages
about 3 through freights each way on the now UP Coast Line.
There are a few more local freight trains that cover partial segments
of the coast on both the extreme north and
extreme south ends (north of Salinas and south of San Ardo - mostly south of Oxnard). The Coast "Oil cans" OWPDO - ODOWP cover from
Wunpost (6 miles south of San Ardo) SOUTH to LA--Long Beach (Delores)

Train traffic is currently restricted by hand-throw siding switches and modified train order territory(almost dark territory over the long middle section from Salinas to Goleta--Santa Barbara).

The State of California paid to CTC the Coast from Gilroy northward
to now both San Francisco and Oakland -- and-- from Goleta south into LA. The south end is used by the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Corridor
while the north end is used by the Capitol Corridor and Caltrain Gilroy Commutes. Of course, Caltrain owns the line outright
from San Jose to San Francisco for their basic commute corridor.

The rather short Salinas via Watsonville to Gilroy Coast Line portion is mostly one-way double track with a short stretch of CTC from Castroville to North Salinas.
The only protection that most of this "almost dark" railroad
has from Salinas to Goleta is the lineside Automatic Block System
which does NOT provide movement authority unlike Centralized Traffic Control CTC where siding switches are controlled by the dispatcher.
The ABS does provide protection against broken rails etc.
Track Warrant Control is currently used by the Union Pacific
to dispatch this long ABS railroad (about 225 miles out of a total of about 460 odd mles). The Southern Pacific used
Direct Traffic Control or DTC to dispatch this trackage from the
mid-1980s onward.
This train-order (almost dark territory) is only
broken with a short stretch of CTC over Cuesta Grade from
Santa Margarita to SLO.

All of This certainly can be a major, major political scandal having the
only direct railroad mainline connecting the giant - major
San Francisco and Los Angeles metro areas still
using hand-throw switches, SINGLE TRACK mainline and train orders in the now 21st century!!!
This is not to mention the slow, circuituous, also SINGLE TRACK route taken by the only mainline freight railroad over the Tehachapi Mountains
from Bakersfield to LA. Oh well At least Tehachapi is dispatched using CTC!!

The former SP Coast Line is discussed in more detail on
the "headsupcoastfans" and "coast_discuss" yahoo (egroups).
--- Daniel

[unclejoe009]

there is quite a bit of freight traffic in san luis obispo, and at all times of the day too. when i was at school at cal poly, you could hear them at all times of the day. and yes the pacific surfliners are consistently backed up from santa barbara to san luis, if anybody plans on taking the train up that way dont expect to be on time, and from what the station master has told me, the coast starlights are even worse.

matt