(The following story by Andrew Silva appeared on the Daily Bulletin website on August 13.)
CAJON PASS — The passionate train watchers who flock to the Cajon Pass are being treated to the added bonus of big yellow machines working beside the long trains chugging up and down.
BNSF Railway is building its third line through the pass, the first major rail expansion there since Union Pacific built a track nearly 40 years ago.
That’ll go a long way to clearing the bottleneck at the pass that can back up the entire rail system.
And it has the potential to mean shorter waits for motorists at rail crossings because trains will be able to travel faster in some areas.
Currently, “people have to wait longer for 8,000-foot trains to go by at 15 mph instead of 30 mph,” said Ty Schuiling, of San Bernardino Associated Governments, the county’s transportation authority.
BNSF’s first track through the pass was built about 1885 and the second in 1913. Union Pacific built one track in the late-1960s.
The new line will enable the pass to handle up to 150 BNSF trains a day, compared with a normal capacity of 100 today, said Bob Brendza, director of facilities development for the railroad.
About 90 trains per day use the pass but it’s not unusual to have more than 100.
That makes it tougher on the entire system when maintenance and inspections have to be done. Each line gets a detailed visual inspection four times a week by someone driving a pickup truck with rail wheels.
With global trade continuing its explosive growth, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are sending more and more freight through San Bernardino County on its way to the rest of the nation.
The ports handled 7.9 million of the 40-foot containers in 2006, a nearly 13 percent jump over the 2005 total of 7 million.
Freight traffic is expected to triple by 2030, putting a huge strain on jammed roads and increasingly crowded rail lines.
Bridges over rail crossings are in the works to eliminate any wait times at all.
The first of five top-priority bridges is under construction at State Street/University Parkway near Muscoy with Hunts Lane in San Bernardino due up next.
Money is already identified for several more, so the bridges, called grade separations, will get done, Schuiling said.
Construction on the nearly 16-mile, $80 million third track got under way last month and is expected to be done before the end of next year.
Deep cuts in the side of the rugged terrain are needed to make room through the narrow gullies and canyons.
“This isn’t like building a standard railroad. We literally have to move mountains,” Brendza said.
At one cut being done just below Highway 138 east of the 15 Freeway, 100,000 cubic yards of earth are being excavated as a hill 80 feet tall is carved away.
The entire job will require moving about 1 million cubic yards of earth.
Cajon Pass is so famous among train buffs around the world that, during the environmental review, a comment letter came in from New Zealand, Brendza said.
As the earthmovers worked about 100 feet below Highway 138 last week, 61-year-old Herbert Miederhoff stood on a dirt shoulder watching the action.
The German resident often vacations in the United States and many of those trips have included stops in the Cajon Pass.
European freight trains tend to be smaller, faster and quieter, he said.
“I enjoy especially American railroads,” he said, a camera dangling around his neck. “Long trains with many engines working hard up this hill, that’s fascinating to me.”
The 19th century track is at a 3 percent grade, and the new track is being built next to the 1913 line, which has a gentler 2.2 percent grade, meaning the elevation changes 2.2 feet for every 100 feet forward.
Trains are required to keep their speed at 20 mph through sections of the pass, and 30 mph through others.
Two 1913 tunnels will be demolished as part of the project.
Instead of boring parallel tunnels, engineers decided to cut away the earth around the old structures to create an open lane wide enough for the new track, which will be 15 feet from the existing line, said David Miller, BNSF’s engineering manager on the project.
Standing next to the German tourist was Lloyd Palmaymesa, 51, of San Diego, who’s been watching trains in the pass for more than 30 years.
“This is quite a big dig project,” he said.