(The California Aggie published the following story by Zachary Amendt on its website on August 28.)
DAVIS, Calif. — Twilight comes early and mute in Davis. Then a train wails in the distance. It is Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, kissed by ocean spray from Los Angeles to Seattle. Or a freighter stacked with timber. Or a lethargic, paper-clip chain of boxcars waiting for the right of way.
The steel furrows that run through Davis still carry freight and commuters, but it is more expensive now, both to travel and maintain. The rails are smooth and silver with wear; if you walk on them, your shoes get powdered with rust and grease. And along them runs a gauntlet of trash and transience that poses a problem for railroad professionals and Davis residents.
Heavy concentrations of bottles and cardboard line the rails just south of downtown. The homeless reside there, with sleeping bags and makeshift mattresses rumpled in brown oleander and smelling of eucalyptus.
Davis officials say there have been few complaints about railroad blight. However, city expenditures for railroad trash removal have increased. Railroad representatives say that left unchecked, railroad blight threatens to discolor Davis’ green, utopian image.
Passing the buck
Union Pacific representative John Bromley said railroad companies are responsible for maintenance of the tracks, contracting out clean-up duties to private companies. As to how often that occurs, Bromley said it “depends on the area.”
Response times for Davis vary. “With spills and emergencies, [clean-up crews] come out pretty quick,” said John Murphy, an Amtrak ticket agent. “But if it’s just unsightly trash they probably could care less.”
That leaves Davis residents and small-rail proprietors doing most of the caring.
Bob Jones drives into Davis twice a day to maintain the strip of rail owned by California Northern Railroad. He clears the trackside of refuse and knows the rail blight situation intimately.
“It’s no different in Davis than it is in Southern California or Wyoming,” said Jones. “Tires, appliances…you name it, it’s an issue.”
As General Manager of California Northern, Jones estimates that clean-up efforts alone cost his company $15,000 annually. He has considered barricading access to the tracks to deter vagrancy and pollution. But doing so would only put his maintenance crews at risk in case of an emergency.
Lena Kent, a spokesperson for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, said that before contracting a clean-up team, BNSF first determines if the trash violation occurs on railroad property.
“We’re not in the dump business,” Kent said. “We don’t have the resources to pick up other people’s trash.”
But railroad companies may unknowingly be the biggest culprits of trackside blight. Murphy said that boxcars and freight flats sometimes open in transit, depositing refuse on railroad property, which in most cases extends 20 feet out from the rails. Since conductors can’t see the material they drop, most rail refuse goes unreported ? leaving rail officials to blame communities for treating the railroad like a garbage dump.
“We need help from the public to police it.”
City Councilmember Ted Puntillo and Assistant City Manager Susan Miller said they have received no complaints about trash along the railroad tracks. But public works employees joke about the high number of “mystery couches” that are dumped along obscure stretches of track, making rail blight look like a constant — albeit quiet — irritant to the city budget.
When railroads and private property owners fail to clear trackside refuse, the city picks up the tab. Fred Delevati, senior public works supervisor, said that railroad trash disposal has become “quite expensive” due to the initiative of city works employees, who in the end dispose of the refuse themselves — with no recourse against offending property owners.
Jones says that increased public vigilance and volunteerism would help his and other rail companies defray mounting clean-up costs.