Union Pacific repairs force Amtrak to reroute
(The Record Searchlight posted the following article by David Benda on its website on March 18.)
REDDING, Calif. — Redding residents wanting to hop on the train will first have to drive a few hours.
Amtrak’s Coast Starlight is making a three-hour detour that has it bypassing four north state stations through May 7.
Work on 34 miles of track between Lakehead and Dunsmuir prompted Amtrak to choose an alternate route between Sacramento and Klamath Falls, Ore., spokeswoman Sarah Swain said Monday.
The detour means Amtrak trains will not stop in Chico, Red Bluff, Redding and Dunsmuir until the work is finished, Swain said.
Instead, the Coast Starlight will take a nonstop route to Oregon, going east of its typical course.
Amtrak is scheduled to resume its normal Coast Starlight schedule May 8.
Union Pacific, which owns the tracks Amtrak trains run on, is doing the work. Crews are replacing wood ties with concrete ones, UP spokesman Mike Furtney said.
Furtney explained that train traffic will be halted while workers repair the tracks. Once work is finished for the day, around sundown, the tracks will reopen. Freight trains, however, will be making up for lost time at night, creating additional traffic.
“A fair number of trains will be waiting in both directions,” Furtney said from San Francisco. “It wouldn’t be a predictable schedule for Amtrak.”
The Los Angeles-to-Seattle Coast Starlight makes daily runs, stopping in Redding southbound at 2:21 a.m. and heading north at 3:14 a.m..
Swain said that passengers who made reservations before the work started were notified of the detour by ticket agents.
Amtrak’s latest ridership numbers show that 6,912 passengers either got on or off at Redding in fiscal year 2002. That’s down from 7,844 the previous year.
Swain said the drop in passengers had nothing to do with Amtrak’s decision to seek an alternate route while UP crews work on the track.
“When the host (UP) says we need to do some track work, we don’t have much of a choice to reroute and disrupt service,” she said.