Flooded tracks stop Amtrak service to San Diego and Coaster commuter trains

[nadinbrzezinski]

Source: LA Times

Flooding from the rain pummeling Southern California on Wednesday forced Amtrak to suspend passenger rail service to San Diego and also halted the Coaster commuter train, which runs between Oceanside and San Diego. Here was the situation as of Wednesday afternoon:

Amtrak officials suspended service on the Pacific Surfliner between San Juan Capistrano in Orange County and San Diego because flood waters had engulfed a stretch of tracks in the San Diego area. The train normally runs between San Diego and San Luis Obispo via Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and other cities.

Amtrak wasn't providing alternative transportation beyond San Juan Capistrano, said spokesman Marc Magliari. Ticket holders who were expecting to travel Wednesday to San Diego can apply for a refund on the unused portion of their ticket between San Juan Capistrano and San Diego.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-trb-train-service-rain-20101222,0,934800.story

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All I can say is... what a friggin' mess!

If you live in the area, I will be shocked if San Diego Health does not issue a boil water order given the sewage system has been overwhelmed.

Yes got my water...

[Angry Dragon]

1. It could have been snow..............

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Well here is the problem, if the tracks are under water, it makes me

wonder just how long (thankfully it stopped raining) that I-5 would be under water around Sorrento Valley.

[Angry Dragon]

3. It sounds if the ground is full of water

and you may have late mud slides

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Yep we have water bogged terrain

When doing the rescue shtick south of the border, in 1993... after the rain stopped, we had slides for up to a month...

Ah and a hill near where I live looks a little unstable... thankfully it will only close my way to the shop... but there are houses on top, and a complex at the bottom.

[aggiesal]

5. I live in San Diego, and take the train to Orange County everyday ...

Here is what I was told by an Amtrak Employee at the Oceanside Station.

1) The track between San Diego and Oceanside is flooded.
2) That there was a mudslide in the San Clemente area, in Orange County.

I later found out that the flooded area is at the Sorrento Valley Station,
which is between the San Diego Station and 1 stop north at the Solana Beach Station.

The mudslide in San Clemente story was not mentioned at all in the LA Times story,
so now I'm suspect to this even being an issue.

So as I see it, why can't AMTRAK run from Solana Beach Station north, servicing everyone
except the San Diego Station?
Why can't the Metrolink service everyone north of Oceanside, which is their regular route?
Assuming of course that the San Clemente mudslide was a bogus story.

This is all BS. I believe that both the AMTRAK and the METROLINK could have run today
servicing as much as 95% of their normal customers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Train service does not stop just because

reaching for emergency worker hat.

And I am betting that once water recede they are doing a full track visual inspection.

There is more, what they told you is what they were told, and if this was very near the actual event, it could have been very much what they thought, not what was going on.

I hope water recedes by tomorrow and they can do a full check of the track and resume service. They will try as fast as they can, but they need to do that... any problem with the track and they may have to replace sections of track.