OAKLAND — Work has begun on a new rail maintenance yard in West Oakland that promises to bring 200 jobs to the area and improve Northern California rail service, the Tri-Valley Herald reported.
Amtrak and Caltrans are sharing the $65 million cost for a new shop which should start servicing 17 locomotives and 78 passenger cars on the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin and Chicago-bound California Zephyr lines in two years.
“We are working in a facility that was cobbled together after the Loma Prieta earthquake,” said Bill Bronte at the Caltrans rail program. “We’re at a point now where we’re falling over each other.”
Instead of borrowing part of the Union Pacific yard and relying on freight railroad mechanics to do much of the work, “we will have a site where we can service our own trains faster and to a better condition,” Bronte said.
Currently, Capitol Corridor locomotives have to go to Los Angeles for repairs.
About $38 million for the new maintenance yard comes from the state transportation account, the rest from Amtrak, which teetered on the edge of bankruptcy last summer.
The facility will be located on abandoned railroad property and will allow Amtrak and regional passenger rails to wash, fuel, inspect and repair trains more quickly and efficiently.
Work on the new 22-acre maintenance yard comes as California and Amtrak are investing $88 million to improve tracks and platforms on the Sacramento-to-San Jose Capitol Corridor line.
The fastest growing passenger rail service in the U.S., the Capitol Corridors announced that it is adding an 11th daily round-trip run.