(The following story by Eric Firpo appeared on the Tracy Press website on August 13.)
TRACY, Calif. — Tracy officials have time to figure out how to respond to a plan by the Union Pacific Railroad that might one day revive freight traffic through the heart of Tracy, a move that could cut the town in two and cause staggering disruption as miles of trains lumber through the city.
For months now, there has been talk that UP would once again put freight trains on little-used tracks that run along Byron Road in western Tracy, through the Bow Tie area downtown and past 11th Street and MacArthur Drive in eastern Tracy.
But it’s only recently that the company has talked openly about its plans, which cropped up at a July City Council meeting in the Bay Area town of Oakley. Runs could include as many as 40 trains a day, up to 2 miles long, through Tracy.
UP spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said it’s “premature” to assume that freights will soon be a common sight on Tracy’s railroad tracks. But it’s true that the company has already decided to reactivate long-dormant tracks in the region so it can move more goods into and out of the Port of Oakland.
Whether the railroad will put rumbling freight trains back on what’s now known as the Mococo line in Tracy remains to be seen.
The railroad must first decide what needs to be repaired on the little-used tracks. And homebuilding and other growth undoubtedly mean part of those tracks are no longer up to code, Richmond said, another facet the company has to analyze. She said the company would go into schools to teach kids about the dangers of freight trains if they become a more common sight in town.
The plan is driven in part by high fuel prices that make moving goods by truck increasingly pricey.
Mayor Brent Ives, a board member of San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, believes it’s unlikely that UP would put dozens of trains on those tracks. But even a handful of trains, officials say, would be bad news for the city.
“The Mococo line would create some dire consequences for Tracy,” said City Manager Leon Churchill.
The biggest worry is that freight trains would cut the town in two not just for residents, but also for fire trucks and police cars that need to speed to emergencies, not to mention school buses, city buses and ambulances.
The tracks that UP plans to revive cross some of Tracy’s most heavily used roads, including 11th Street, Central Avenue, Tracy Boulevard, Corral Hollow and Grant Line roads.
It would also seriously complicate the city’s plans to breathe new life into the economy of downtown Tracy, where the city recently broke ground on a $12 million transit station that someday envisions passenger trains, which take a back seat to freight. The city hopes to one day build housing near tracks in the Bow Tie area, and officials wonder how appealing those homes would be if freight trains there were a fact of life.
“I don’t believe it fits with our vision of what we intend to have happen downtown,” Ives said.
But other than persuasion, it appears there’s little officials can use to prevent the company from reviving tracks that have barely been used for the past 20 years.
Last year, former City Manager Dan Hobbs and Andrew Malik, the head of the engineering department, met with Union Pacific officials after the city first got wind of the company’s plans, Ives said. Malik is on vacation and is unavailable for comment.
“We have got to get together with (Union Pacific) again so we can have a real heart-to-heart,” Ives said.
Ives said cities can work with railroads sometimes to lessen the ear-piercing blare of train whistles, but what the city might to do prevent maddening traffic delays is another matter.
It may have to start planning now to build overpasses or underpasses, which county officials peg at a cost of $35 million apiece.
“It’s a nightmare,” Ives said. “It’s really is a bad scenario for us. We’ll fight it to the degree that we’ll have to.”