Tehachapi Double-Track Project

[eric220]

Dunno about that. The area got pretty soaked yesterday.

[ednadolski]

The area got pretty soaked yesterday.

I doubt anything will green up much again until spring, it is all dormant now.  The rains at this point seem just to contribute to erosion.

Ed

[C855B]

Yeah, that's the flora and the soil in the area. The soil isn't all that bad (runoff considered "moderate" by the soil experts), but long periods of dry then a sudden deluge doesn't make the absorption rate any better, it just washes away. Dormancy with the expectation of dry summers is the nature of the grass there, so you can water it all day and it's still just going to be straw.

[eric220]

I doubt anything will green up much again until spring, it is all dormant now.  The rains at this point seem just to contribute to erosion.

Actually, the seasons are backwards out here. It greens up in the fall and goes dormant in the spring.

And we prefer "golden" to "straw".   

[coosvalley]

Isn't this tunnel under the hill you can watch the loop from?..I wonder how this will change the access to the area?

[GaryHinshaw]

I got to spend the day on "the hill" today (long story, but here I am) and they have already made significant progress on the cut around Tunnel 10: they're about 25% of the way down.  This prompted me to go back to the OP and look up the PDF file that Ed linked there, and I found this simulated image of the finished project:



Tunnel 10 will remain!  In other news, there is a construction office (trailer) now set up at the Bealville road crossing for the Cliff siding extension project.  This will extend the largely inaccessible south end of the siding by a third of a mile (right up to Tunnel 7, I believe).  It is the second of 5 double-tracking projects that will be undertaken in the next 5 years.  The other three, in construction order, are: Rowan-to-Woodford, Caliente-to-Bealville, and Bena-to-Ilmon.  Segments that will remain single track are: Bealville-to-Cliff, Cliff-to-Rowan, Woodford-to-Walong, and Marcel-to-Cable.  No tunnels will be removed. 

The report alludes to railfans in several areas, including the following comment about access to the area above Tunnel 2 when a new cut is in place for track 2:

The 1⁄2:1 cut slopes would also prevent all but the most determined railfans from reaching the over-tunnel position on foot. The over-tunnel vantage points would be considered inaccessible following the cutting of the slope…. Access to points over Tunnel 2 is comparatively unimportant relative to many other viewing positions from which the rail line can be viewed and photographed. A search for web-posted photographs taken from points over Tunnel 2 identified just two, compared to 1,123 taken from other positions. The loss of access to points over Tunnel 2 would not, therefore, constitute a substantial adverse impact.

Frankly I'm impressed that railfans were considered at all.

[James Costello]

Catch a few trains then Gary?

Speaking of vantage points, it would be really nice if they formalised a Rochelle-esque railfan viewing platform at Tunnel 10 as part of these works.....

[C855B]

Accommodating in a controlled fashion rather than draining resources and personnel energy to fight it? What a concept!

[GaryHinshaw]

Catch a few trains then Gary?

Indeed!  I got here Tuesday evening around 6 pm and saw 7 or 8 trains before it got dark (~8:30).  I was also able to hike out to the Tunnel 10 dig site and have a look (from behind all the fencing).  On Wednesday I never waited more than 15 min between seeing trans (sometimes the same train on a chase) until a lull around 5 pm.  That's when I took a hike up the Pacific Crest Trail to the top of Cameron ridge, and wow was it windy up there.  No wonder there are hundreds of windmills… Heading back to Sonora now.

[ednadolski]

Tunnel 10 will remain!

Personally I have my doubts.  That pic is at least 3-4 years old, and tunnels are an ongoing maintenance hassle for the RRs.  Since actually removing the tunnel would be costly too, I suspect they might just run two parallel tracks thru the new cut and just seal off the bore of 10 (unless the surrounding rock would become too unstable with the new cut, so that would force the daylighting of 10).

Tunnel 9 seems likely to remain for a long while.  It would not make much sense to open it up unless the single track all the way to the south Woodford switch were also doubled.  That would mean not only opening & widening Tunnel 9 (and installing a double-track bridge in its place), but also a substantial amount of cut/fill widening, and re-building the 4th & 5th crossing bridges over Tehachapi Creek.   All without significantly disrupting service on the line

Double-tracking the upper Tunnels 14-17 also seems like a pretty involved proposition (tho perhaps they would start with the shorter ones).  No way to be sure of anything until it is actually done

it would be really nice if they formalised a Rochelle-esque railfan viewing platform at Tunnel 10 as part of these works.....

100% agree, but who exactly is "they"?   The RRs...?  The city/county/state...?  Private landowners...? someone else...?  (If we foamers had to pay for it, it would be a long wait indeed!  )  (might even have triple-track by then )


Ed

[Smike]

Hey Gary, you could almost model the double tracking project in real time on the layout. I think that would be super cool to see a prgression of changes in operations as you make updates (just like the real deal)

[GaryHinshaw]

From the Photoshopped image it certainly appears that the cut will be wide enough to accommodate 2 tracks.  Time will tell what actually happens with Tunnel 10.  A viewing platform with radio feed would be great.  It would make sense to connect it by footpath to the historical markers on the nearby road, but that would require a public easement across private land, probably a parking area, and Yadda Yadda…

Hey Gary, you could almost model the double tracking project in real time on the layout. I think that would be super cool to see a prgression of changes in operations as you make updates (just like the real deal)

I thought about this, but the selective compression on TBC has Tunnels 10 and 14 merged to one, so this project wouldn't really work.  But the forthcoming stretch between Caliente and Bealville could be done.   Happily, the other two segments of single track on TBC are slated to remain so on the prototype for the foreseeable future.  This makes model ops much more interesting. 

[C855B]

... 100% agree, but who exactly is "they"?   The RRs...?  The city/county/state...?  Private landowners...? someone else...?  ...

UP. They're currently on a "feel good" PR campaign and are passing money around like candy to various communities they're about to screw with one expansion project or another. Anyway...

Like I sort of said, they can spend time/money/energy and liability risk fighting the railfans trespassing on the property, or they can do an observation platform with a respectable view but far enough away from the "dangers" to keep most of the visitors out of their hair. Lord knows they're not going to discourage the railfans - we've had years of reports of bad actors (like "Rusty", the self-important track supervisor or whatever he was), and it has done nothing to stem the tide.

[GaryHinshaw]

I would love to see UP foot the bill for this, so the public can watch a parade of BNSF trains roll over the hill.   

[C855B]

Oh, it would be indirect so they don't get hit with the liability tab. Maybe the museum in Tehachapi should take this on under a sponsorship. Too bad I don't live out there any more... it would be an interesting project to take on now that I sorta know how civic wheels turn.