(The following article by Jondi Gumz was published in the 1-3-03 online edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.)
APTOS, Calif. — Another Union Pacific train has derailed in the Aptos area, halting all commercial rail traffic in the county for the third time in two months.
The latest derailment occurred New Year’s Eve, when four cars loaded with lumber came off the track near the New Brighton Road crossing. Eleven carloads of lumber destined for San Lorenzo Lumber are on hold until the track is fixed.
The lumber company relies on rail deliveries, about 200 carloads a year, because it’s more economical.
“The alternative is truck, and that raises the freight,” said Albert Colombini, general manager at San Lorenzo Lumber’s 41st Avenue yard. “We’re still not sure when (the derailed cars) will be delivered.”
It’s more than a matter of the cars slipping off the track. It’s how much track has to be replaced.
“Each one of those carloads weighs 280,000 pounds,” Colombini said. “When those things tilt, they take the track with them.”
Union Pacific crews were at the derailment Thursday making repairs. The sound of metal scraping against metal could be heard all along Pinetree Lane, the private road where homes have back yards abutting the railroad right of way.
Dwayne Hillman, a Union Pacific supervisor, estimated the work would take at least a few days.
RMC Pacific Materials, which relies on rail to deliver coal for its cement plant in Davenport, was told it could take longer, until Jan. 13.
“We’d like to see the rail back in service,” plant manager Tom Gibbons said. “It makes our life very difficult.”
The plant generally gets three deliveries of coal a week. When the rail line is shut, coal has to be unloaded from rail cars in Watsonville and trucked in.
Last month, after two derailments in two weeks, Union Pacific officials shut down the 31-mile line for repairs. Both derailments were in Aptos. One was Nov. 18 at Estates Drive, not far from New Brighton Road; the other was Dec. 1 at Buena Vista.
Union Pacific hasn’t reported the cause of the three most recent derailments in Santa Cruz County to the Federal Railroad Administration, but John Bromley, a Union Pacific spokesman in Omaha, said nearly all of them have been track-related.
RMC’s Gibbons said rail officials told him the rail line was “waterlogged” because record rainfall slowed repairs.
“We hadn’t finished when the storm came in,” Bromley said.
Several of the ties where the lumber cars derailed were marked for replacement, he added.
Locally, rain has been heavier than usual, but not record-setting. From July to December, Santa Cruz had almost 19 inches of rain, more than most years, but not as much as in 1996, when nearly 23 inches fell.
People living along the rail line contend the problem is not rain but neglect and poor drainage.
“Look at the conditions of the ties,” said Rich Ross, who lives on Pine Tree Lane. “The roadbed is past its useful life. Obviously Union Pacific isn’t going to dump a lot of money into the line. The amount of revenue doesn’t pay.”
Last month, Deb Snyder and Becky Burgin said they could see the track shifting behind their homes on Estates Drive because the ground was soggy.
Big Creek Lumber in Watsonville is still waiting for Union Pacific crews to repair its spur line after six months.
“They don’t have the manpower,” said Gayle Lovell, a buyer at Big Creek, which gets up to four rail shipments a month.
Bromley countered that Union Pacific is “committed to doing more track work” starting in 2004.
“We plan extensive cross-tie replacement, and hopefully we’ll get ahead of the situation,” he said.
To take care of the immediate needs, the railroad will continue its 30-day maintenance program to get the line up to standards, Bromley said.
The rail line runs from Watsonville to Davenport.