Status of Surfliner Service between Oceanside and Irvine

[west point]

"IF" there is an extended delay can some way to ferry Amtrak cars to LAX? That probably will depend on how unstable the ROW is ?

 

[thully]

Schedules for 10/3 and beyond have been officially announced:

https://www.pacificsurfliner.com/plan-your-trip/alerts/travel-advisories/
This is exactly what was showing up on the reservation system yesterday - 7 round-trips IRV-LAX, 4 round-trips OSD-SAN with bus connections to meet one of the IRV-LAX trains, and one LAX-SAN bus replacing the last southbound of the night. The SAN-OSD stub trains will have different numbers - most will just be the train it’s connecting to with a 1 added, though a couple weirdly aren’t. The system currently shows this schedule through 10/21 (22/23 have no trains south of IRV due to pre-planned track work), with the regular schedule resuming 10/24 (likely a placeholder for now).

I wonder if they are going to try and add more service south of IRV before track work is finished - it does seem a little weird they are operating 7 trains IRV-LAX, but only 4 beyond that with a bus bridge. Particularly since the weekends with scheduled track work (Oct 8-9, 22-23) are still showing 7 IRV-LAX round trips with bus connections to SAN for all 7. Given that, I’d guess that 4 round-trips is all they could arrange on short notice (the weekend closures being known far in advance).

 

[texline]

We got caught this time, stranded in San Diego. Not a big surprise but the confusion was a bit more than usual. We got a call from Amtrak Friday morning, and they said that nothing would be put in place until Monday. Ok then we will take the Coaster to Oceanside and Uber to Irvine, guest rewards modified our ticket. Only once at San Diego station, the station agent said it wouldn't work, all trains were cancelled. Nothing northbound. He insisted no Surfliners south of L.A. Before we got on the Coaster, the station agent said we could bus to union station instead. But no bus bridge according to guest rewards so we were confused. He directed us to a lady who ran a charter service. She pooled a dozen people together and offered to take us to Union Station. Once in the van, I called guest rewards back, they checked with three different supervisors and said San Diego was very wrong, the trains were running, have no idea why he was telling passengers that. Most of us then said we wanted only to go to Irvine. They agreed to stop in Irvine, so we paid up and took that option (everyone ended up getting off there as the rest contacted Amtrak and were told the same thing I was). It worked for us because the price of the charter was less than what it would have cost to Uber or Lyft between Oceanside and Irvine (we meet a lot of folks that did that option and Lyft hit them for $90). Got to Irvine and all the trains were running north from there. Some bad communication going on.

 

[jis]

We got caught this time, stranded in San Diego. Not a big surprise but the confusion was a bit more than usual. We got a call from Amtrak Friday morning, and they said that nothing would be put in place until Monday. Ok then we will take the Coaster to Oceanside and Uber to Irvine, guest rewards modified our ticket. Only once at San Diego station, the station agent said it wouldn't work, all trains were cancelled. Nothing northbound. He insisted no Surfliners south of L.A. Before we got on the Coaster, the station agent said we could bus to union station instead. But no bus bridge according to guest rewards so we were confused. He directed us to a lady who ran a charter service. She pooled a dozen people together and offered to take us to Union Station. Once in the van, I called guest rewards back, they checked with three different supervisors and said San Diego was very wrong, the trains were running, have no idea why he was telling passengers that. Most of us then said we wanted only to go to Irvine. They agreed to stop in Irvine, so we paid up and took that option (everyone ended up getting off there as the rest contacted Amtrak and were told the same thing I was). It worked for us because the price of the charter was less than what it would have cost to Uber or Lyft between Oceanside and Irvine (we meet a lot of folks that did that option and Lyft hit them for $90). Got to Irvine and all the trains were running north from there. Some bad communication going on.

This sort of internal confusion within Amtrak appears to be par for the course these days, unfortunately.

 

[Railspike]

Think this a long-term disruption? There's a lot of traffic on this route

Metrolink and Amtrak Suspend Service Between LA and San Diego Indefinitely Due to the Ground Shifting

 

[GDRRiley]

sounds like they are going to try and replicate what has been being done at del mar with pilling to try and stabilize it in addition to more rock.
but thats only a short term fix. the 2 bypasses need to be pushed forward 2035 is too far out

 

[thully]

Looks like the soonest they’re looking at resuming service is early to mid-November:

 

[GDRRiley]

mid November is rough. We need to be working to get ahead of these issues not reacting to them

 

[Railspike]

Traveling from Santa Ana to LAX on Oct 25th (Pacific Surfliner). Looks like they're still running trains from Irvine to LAX so maybe I'll be OK.
Love playing Amtrak roulette.

 

[GDRRiley]

Track Outage in California Impacting Train Operations in and out of San Diego | Service Advisory | BNSF
Hopefully this means they'll put pressure to get this done faster. months out of service isn't good enough

 

[west point]

Track Outage in California Impacting Train Operations in and out of San Diego | Service Advisory | BNSF
Hopefully this means they'll put pressure to get this done faster. months out of service isn't good enough

Already saw a picture showing BNSF train droping rip -rap. If not otherwise engaged BNSF has the equipment to speed up the work even if only paid partially for the work. UP ???

 

[GDRRiley]

Already saw a picture showing BNSF train droping rip -rap. If not otherwise engaged BNSF has the equipment to speed up the work even if only paid partially for the work. UP ???

UP doesn't run trains here, BNSF is moving riprap to stabilize it. best count we have is 20,000T most of which was put down last year. The state has released 1/2 of the estimated 12M need to stabilize it

start of this has some cars going to drop of riprap
cal.streetsblog.org

 

[allanorn]

Traveling from Santa Ana to LAX on Oct 25th (Pacific Surfliner). Looks like they're still running trains from Irvine to LAX so maybe I'll be OK.
Love playing Amtrak roulette.

You'll be fine short of something happening between IRV and LAX. Even Metrolink will be running trains if Amtrak doesn't.

 

[allanorn]

Track Outage in California Impacting Train Operations in and out of San Diego | Service Advisory | BNSF
Hopefully this means they'll put pressure to get this done faster. months out of service isn't good enough

I had not heard that down here. The last I heard was BNSF could move cargo across but at reduced speed and/or loads. That's a big change in the economics because a lot of cars get dropped off at the Port of San Diego to be loaded into auto racks.

Thanksgiving week is also huge for Amtrak. I know a lot of people use it to get to LAX and further north because driving I-5 is a nightmare. If the track isn't open by then it'll be a nightmare drive for anyone traveling in the region.

SANDAG just recently received $300M for the Del Mar tunnel project (initial planning) so that's at least moving.

 

[GDRRiley]

I had not heard that down here. The last I heard was BNSF could move cargo across but at reduced speed and/or loads. That's a big change in the economics because a lot of cars get dropped off at the Port of San Diego to be loaded into auto racks.

Thanksgiving week is also huge for Amtrak. I know a lot of people use it to get to LAX and further north because driving I-5 is a nightmare. If the track isn't open by then it'll be a nightmare drive for anyone traveling in the region.

yeah BNSF will want this open as fast as possible.
I hope they can get it open before that rush.

SANDAG just recently received $300M for the Del Mar tunnel project (initial planning) so that's at least moving.

thats a completely different section this has nothing but an idea from 2003 that a single ~10 mile tunnel should be built mostly under I-5

 

[thully]

Changes to the Pacific Surfliner schedule were just announced. Not sure what if anything is different from the temporary schedule announced 10/3.

 

[MIrailfan]

https://www.pacificsurfliner.com/plan-your-trip/alerts/travel-advisories/

 

[GDRRiley]

"IF" there is an extended delay can some way to ferry Amtrak cars to LAX? That probably will depend on how unstable the ROW is ?

there is 2 sets trapped in SD thats okay, with the OMF for coaster being there they can get all the work done they'd need on locos.
Metrolink moved all their cars north before the closure.
but as for any spare cars there are none, the states been short on cars for 15 years now. with ventures coming there will finally be some cars freed up but most of those will go into replacing superliners that the state returned to amtrak.

 

[Bob Dylan]

According to a Post on trainorders, BNSF won't be finished with the Trackwork along the Coast between LAX and SAN until December, with resumption of Passenger Train service on the Full Route not resuming until Jan of 2023.

BNSF is currently running 1 Freight to/from SAN instead of the usual Six nightly Trains.

 

[dcipjr]

Back in February, I booked a trip PHL-WAS-CHI-LAX-SAN for December, but a glitch with Amtrak's system only allowed me to book through to LAX. At the time, I figured I'd book the Surfliner portion later.

I guess that glitch wound up doing me a favor—we'll just be renting a car in LA and driving to San Diego, instead of dealing with bustitution.

 

[jis]

The article that was posted on this subject and excerpted by @Bob Dylan above

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...8/rail-repairs-will-take-longer-than-expected

 

[GDRRiley]

According to a Post on trainorders, BNSF won't be finished with the Trackwork along the Coast between LAX and SAN until December, with resumption of Passenger Train service on the Full Route not resuming until Jan of 2023.

looks that was flipped

“The new timeline of mid-January for the completion of construction — and a mid-December decision on the restoration of passenger rail service — came about in discussions with the signed contractor, Condon-Johnson, which was not the original construction firm contracted,” Orange County Transportation Authority spokesman Eric Carpenter said by email Tuesday.

Not surprised BSNF has cut their trains you don't want to put more down bad track then you need.


until OCTA has a firm replacment plan and them and SANDAG with Del Mar can start pushing for state and fed money to build bypasses this will be an issue

 

[jis]

The sad thing is this is not like something that happened out of the blue. That this was going to happen has been well known for several years now. But I suppose one has to hit a crisis before anything can be initiated to fix it.

 

[GDRRiley]

The sad thing is this is not like something that happened out of the blue. That this was going to happen has been well known for several years now. But I suppose one has to hit a crisis before anything can be initiated to fix it.

there are plans dating back to 2003 around that mention a number of bypass that should happen
https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2020-08/lossanplan1.pdf

 

[MIrailfan]

Now they say December. Move the tracks or build a tunnel!

https://abc7.com/train-services-orange-county-san-diego-amtrak-surfliner/12347651/