(The following article by Nathan Welton was posted on the San Luis Obispo Tribune website on February 28.)
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Amtrak’s trains are finally chugging through San Luis Obispo County after fierce winter weather damaged tracks and stalled railroad traffic for two months.
On Saturday, many of the Pacific Surfliner trains again rode the rails between San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles.
Surfliner stops on the Central Coast also include Grover Beach, Guadalupe and Surf Beach near Lompoc.
All the trains were working along that route — which stretches from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, by Sunday.
The other service that passes through the Central Coast — the Coast Starlight, which goes from Los Angeles to Seattle — is set to resume service today.
A southbound train will leave from Seattle, while a northbound train will leave from Los Angeles Tuesday.
Because of storm damage, the northern trains have been traveling between Seattle and Emeryville, north of San Francisco. Amtrak has been using buses to get passengers to their destinations.
The rains caused rock slides and flooding along the tracks on the Central Coast, as well as a large sinkhole in the Gaviota coast west of Santa Barbara.
Track owner Union Pacific Railroad had restricted use of the tracks to a limited number of freight trains.
Earlier this month, Amtrak announced that some 86,000, or nearly 17 percent, more passengers used the Pacific Surfliner between October and December of 2004 than the same period in 2003. Amtrak said that ridership for each month was a record-high.
For information on Amtrak’s closures, visit www.amtrak.com or call 800-USA-RAIL.