SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — Officials have no estimate when rail service might resume past the site of a landslide near the San Clemente Pier, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
A Wednesday, Jan. 24, slide destroyed a bridge on a pedestrian trail, sending debris and parts of the bridge onto the Surf Line tracks below. The latest slide is at a different location than two previous incidents that disrupted passenger service through the area between Sept. 30, 2022, and July 16, 2023, but it is only a few hundred yards north of the slide location below the Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens that halted rail traffic last June.
As of Wednesday night, Metrolink has halted service on its Orange County and Inland Empire-Orange County lines at Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo on weekdays and San Juan Capistrano on weekends. Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner has significantly modified its schedule through at least Friday, Feb. 2, with two trains in each direction cancelled entirely, five others operating on shortened routes, and three in each direction offering through service with a bus bridge between Irvine and Oceanside. A full schedule is here. (This schedule was originally set to run only through Monday, Jan. 29, but has been extended.)
Scott Johnson, Metrolink communication director, said work crews removed the two damaged sections of the bridge on Thursday, and told the Union-Tribune that officials from Metrolink, the Orange County Transportation Authority, and private landowners “are working to determine a course of action to remove soil and implement grading to assure that no additional debris falls onto the right-of-way.” BNSF Railway will determine when to resume freight traffic, he said.
San Clemente City Council member Chris Duncan said the new slide could be more difficult to repair than the one at Casa Romantica, where a temporary slide fence has been installed.
“In this case, the landslide is coming from private property, which we have no control over,” Duncan said. “Also, the slope is more sever. It’s almost straight down. The landslide is going to be more powerful, and there’s less room to build some kind of wall or structure.”
— Updated Jan. 29 at 7:40 p.m. CT with revised Amtrak schedule through Feb. 2.
