SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — A California tourist railroad has stepped up its campaign against potential adverse abandonment of the branch line connecting it to the national rail network, calling the railbanking effort under consideration by a local agency “a fantasy” and saying it places its tourist operation under threat.
Roaring Camp Railroads, which operates the seasonal Santa Cruz, Big Trees & Pacific excursions to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, said in a statement last week by CEO Melani Clark that the abandonment under consideration by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission would eliminate federal regulatory protection by ending the possibility of freight service on the Felton Branch.
The commission is considering asking for an adverse abandonment — one opposed by the owner of the line, in this case Roaring Fork — as part of its effort to build a rail trail along the route [see “Tourist railroad asks agency to drop railbank plan,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 24, 2022]. Discussion of the abandonment is slated for the commission’s meeting this Thursday, Feb. 3, and a report included in the meeting’s agenda says railbanking would increase “local control of the corridor” for the trail process. It also says it would end the need to contract with a freight operator (currently, Progressive Rail), and notes that the line needs an estimated $48.7 million to $63.7 million in repairs.
That report notes that railbanking requires the right-of-way to be maintained for future reactivation of freight operation. But Roaring Camp, in its statement, calls that a fantasy because, it says, “in the 40 years since railbanking was introduced, 25,000 miles of track have been pulled up and not one single mile has returned to rail service.”
The commission has said that the abandonment effort would address freight service only, and that Roaring Camp could be granted the right to continue to operate its excursion trains over the line. But Roaring Camp’s Clark says abandonment would mean“our ability to reach the Boardwalk with our tourist trains will be entirely controlled by the RTC and subject to the whims of the current RTC board and leadership, as well as those of the future.” This is because freight operation — or even potential freight operation, since the line currently has no freight service — involves common-carrier status subject to oversight by the Surface Transportation Board.
The agenda report from Guy Preston, the commission’s executive director, says the commission has discussed the possibility of having Roaring Camp take over the freight operating agreement, but the company declined, saying that agreement “creates too large of a burden on the operator” because of the extensive line repairs needed. The commission, in turn, declined to act on a proposal from Roaring Camp in which the commission would perform the initial repairs and Roaring Camp would handle subsequent work for normal wear and tear. It also says an agreement with Roaring Camp remains preferable to any adverse abandonment proceeding.
The commission’s meeting Thursday is set for 9 a.m. In the meantime, Roaring Camp is running a “Save the Beach Train” campaign on its website.
Railbanking only makes sense when there is no possible use for a piece of track. Right now we badly need more rail for freight to get trucks off of the road.
But I find I don’t understand what’s going on here – what’s the point if tourist service is maintained on the track in question?
I don’t understand why the RTC won’t kick in some of the I believe Prop 7 money toward repairs on the Santa Cruz Branch line. Roaring Camp does not have 68 ish million dollars to conduct repairs to the rail line and RTC can come up with that money from different funding sources. Some sort of deal should be struck here to allow the Beach Train to continue as this is a Unique tourist railroad that is very rare in Northern California.
Someone is thinking of the Sierra…also, not needed, the request for adverse abandonment should be denied. Santa Cruz county needs employers, they lost 2 because of inadequate rail service, and one has been converted to mixed use retail(the old Lipton soup plant downtown, though it used intermodal the site could’ve been used by someone else for a rail served business). Also, there are customers that could receive inbound freight and Cemex needs to sell the cement plant in Davenport to Granite Rock(they might actually know something about using the railroad).
Send Doc Brown and Marty McFly back in time for another “science experiment” to make the railroad famous.