(The following story by Cecily Burt appeared on the Oakland Tribune website on March 28, 2009.)
OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s been a few years since freight trains rumbled down the tracks that divide Glascock Street, a short thoroughfare along the central waterfront that features hundreds of new lofts and condos on one side and remnants of the area’s industrial, artistic roots on the other.
So word that Union Pacific plans to use the Glascock tracks to deliver freight to businesses northwest of 29th Avenue has created quite a stir in Jingletown. Residents wonder whether they’ll still be able to park on the street, or worry how ambulances and fire trucks will reach them if trains are blocking the street.
Although some folks are hopping mad, many others wonder what all the fuss is about.
“My main complaint is people want to move into an industrial neighborhood and then they complain about the funk,” said Saundra Warren, a ceramic tile artist and owner of Saundra’s Garden on Glascock Street.
The sleepy little industrial area began to change six or seven years ago when the 27-unit Waterpark Lofts was built on the estuary side of Glascock Street, just south of the Park Street Bridge. It was followed a couple of years later by the 100-unit Estuary condominiums, then the 81-unit HarborWalk lofts, both by Signature Properties. More condos are in the works.
Things changed
Until three years ago, Union Pacific used the Glascock route to deliver wheat to the ConAgra flour mill on East Seventh Street and bulk olive oil to Veronica Foods on Dennison Street. Some of those trips were made in the wee hours of morning.
Then things changed. Just as the street was becoming more and more populated, the trains stopped coming, running instead along a separate spur route that begins near Fifth Avenue and parallels the Embarcadero before veering west toward Union Point Park.
The Estuary sales office had buyers sign waivers saying they were aware of the trains. But some people who since have bought lofts and condos from private sellers don’t remember whether they were told or not. Some sheepishly said they saw the tracks but didn’t worry because there weren’t any trains.
Those details grow in importance now that the trains are coming back. It probably won’t happen until next year, but Union Pacific’s Fifth Avenue spur route (the Hanlon track) will be obsolete once Caltrans starts a $120 million seismic retrofit work to widen lanes and add shoulders on the elevated portion of the Interstate 880 freeway.
The support columns will be bigger, leaving no room for the spur tracks under the Fifth Avenue overpass, said Lauren Wonder, the transportation agency’s spokeswoman.
For a while it looked like Oakland City Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente had blocked the route change by winning support on the council in December 2007 for a resolution that revoked Union Pacific’s permit to use the Glascock tracks, which the railroad held since 1949.
But in subsequent months of discussions with Caltrans and Union Pacific, De La Fuente said he realized the railroad holds federal powers to go where it needs to go to serve its customers, and in this case, the company really had no choice. The council rescinded its own resolution on Feb. 3.
That doesn’t mean he is happy about it. De La Fuente is negotiating with the various agencies and doing everything he can to make sure Union Pacific limits the length of the trains and that Caltrans foots the bill for numerous safety features along the new rail route, such as signals, street lamps, pavement marking and rail crossing warning signs. Wonder said Caltrans will pay for those items, as well as $1.2 million worth of infrastructure improvements requested by the Jingletown community.
“The most important thing is that 300,000 people a day travel that damn freeway,” De La Fuente said. “And we’ve had money allocated to that (freeway) corridor for three years, so if it isn’t used we might lose it.”
Opinions vary
It would be easy to assume that neighborhood opinion over the trains splits neatly along the tracks, with the newbies on one side and the artists, tinkerers and industry types on the other.
But the line isn’t so straight.
“It will suck,” said Lee Krasnow, a wooden-puzzle maker who leases a bright and airy work/live space in an older building with huge windows facing Glascock Street. “My bedroom is right there. But what can I say? I saw the train tracks there (when I moved in).”
Kathleen Dieden lives in a new condo facing Glascock Street. The trains disturbed her at first when they ran in the middle of night, but she quickly got used to it.
“When it came through (on Fridays), it was a fascination for my granddaughter,” Dieden said. “I’m not terribly disturbed that it will happen again, if they stick to the schedule they had previously.”
But Danny Wan, city attorney in Menlo Park and a former Oakland council member, doesn’t want them back. He worries about safety and recalls the hideous crashing and grinding noises the trains made when stopping and starting down the street, and his unit faces the water, not Glascock.
Wan said Union Pacific could have done a lot more to ease residents’ concerns, but the company has not been free with much information, and it will not promise to limit the length of the trains or the number of shipments coming through.
“That’s what’s really bothering a lot of people, that we’re not getting any straight stories,” Wan said. “If Union Pacific hadn’t taken the attitude that they didn’t need to talk to us, this thing would have blown away and you’d never have heard about it.”
There is plenty of work that has to be done on and around the tracks before any trains come through. Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said the agency will have more information for the community once agreements with the city and Caltrans are complete.
“Nobody makes money off idling trains, and there are safeguards if something unusual happens and a train has to stop,” Richmond said. “Employees can cut the train to create segments so cars and emergency vehicles can go through.”
Schedule change?
Although some residents have asked whether the trains could come only during the day, Richmond said she did not expect delivery schedules to change, unless a customer requested it.
ConAgra gets 160,000 bushels of wheat every week, delivered in three shipments: Tuesdays and Thursdays between 1 and 4 a.m., and Fridays between noon and 4 p.m. Veronica Foods receives 175,000 to 185,000 pounds of olive oil a week delivered in one-car shipments between 5 and 6 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, said Kurt Ecklin, the company’s commodity buyer.
Ecklin prefers the shipments come during nonbusiness hours to minimize disruptions to traffic.
Cynthia Elliott, a resident who has lived and repaired exercise equipment in a work/live space on Ford Street for seven years, said the nighttime runs actually were a concession to the neighborhood from the days when it was a thriving, industrial area with lots of truck deliveries.
“In the meetings, one of the issues brought up by the condo owners is they don’t want to be awakened at night, but people learn to sleep through it,” she said. “They are forgetting that the train goes behind Lucky’s, crosses Ninth and Elmwood, and would back up traffic crossing Fruitvale. They are only thinking of themselves.”
Elliott, an organizer for the Jingletown Arts and Business Community, isn’t thrilled about the trains. But she said De La Fuente is doing all he can to lessen the impact to the neighborhood, including asking for an electronic gate at the Cemex yard so the trains aren’t held up on Glascock before crossing 29th Avenue and entering the property.
“(The trains are) disruptive, but one needs to choose the battles one fights,” Elliott said.
Michael Mutz bought a Signature Properties townhouse about a year ago. He said there was a page in the dozens he signed that said the trains ran there before but the tracks had not been used for several years.
Still, he was concerned enough to go online, where he found the action taken by the City Council in 2007 to revoke Union Pacific’s permit to use the tracks because of safety concerns. He thought he was home free.
“I didn’t worry about it. Now I found out that federal government trumps the city,” Mutz said. “Needless to say, I’m not happy about it. “… There are safety issues. Before when it ran there weren’t a lot of residents here.”
Bill Silveira, a longtime warehouse resident and artist, said the trains lent an air of industry to the neighborhood, and he thought they were cool. Still, he said there’s a lot more traffic on the street now, and he understands how it could be inconvenient if the trains stop for long stretches and it prevents folks from getting in or out.
“If they keep it to 10 or 12 cars maximum and they role through at 8 mph, I don’t have a problem,” he said. “But if they run longer trains (and stop), that could be a problem.”