STOCKTON, Calif. — Southward expansion of the Altamont Corridor Express commuter rail service to Merced, Calif., received a key administrative boost Friday, as the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission approved the final environmental report for the new segment.
The Modesto Bee reports that the vote concludes an environmental review that began in June 2020. It opens the door for engineering and construction work that means the latest expansion could begin operation in 2025. It will use approximately 35 miles of Union Pacific trackage, with stations in Turlock, Livingston, and Merced. Portions of the Union Pacific route will be double tracked to reduce conflicts with freight traffic.
ACE currently operates between San Jose and Stockton, with expansions southward to Manteca, Ripon, Modesto, and Cere, and a northward branch to Sacramento, previously approved. Those additions are expected to begin operation in 2023.
Nice that the service is expanding but it is a bit silly that the ACE trains and the San Juaquin trains use different stations.
Yep, The bigger, sillier one is now having Caltrains, ACE, and Capitol Corridor all running heavy passenger commuter/intercity rail in Northern Cali. You literally got five organizations/authorities running passenger trains or will if throw in Amtrak and at some point CAHSR.
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Be nice, as a Cali resident, if the statehouse can see the efficiencies of combining agencies. At minimum ACE and Capital Corridor should be combined as they will literally form a loop encompassing East/South Bay & Central Valley with ACE expansion as well as the fact that both are essentially running on either UP or BNSF tracks. Give Caltrains control over running future CAHSR trains
Yes, CA, and the Bay Area in particular has too many rail and transit operators. It’s a mixture of politics, economic geography and history. Amtrak’s inter-city rail corridors in CA used to be administered and partially funded by the CalTrans Division of Rail, but their administration is now handled regional Joint Powers Authority Boards (JPAs). The Pacific Surfliners and San Joaquins have joined the Capitols with there own JPAs. The potential problem is that they only think inward. However, so far, ones ability to transfer between the three is not broken.
The economic and geographic component is housing. The quest for home ownership has elongated Bay Area commutes out into the northern San Joaquin Valley. So, led to establishing ACE in the early ’90’s. This also led to the establishment of the Capitol Corridor, too. However, people are commuting from further out. Hence the need to expand south along the UP / Hwy 99 corridor to Merced, and north along UP’s less used former WP R/W to and through downtown Sacramento (but with no connection to the existing Amtrak Sacramento (former SP) Depot) and onto a stop close to the Sacramento Airport.
What we will be up against are some parallel routes. The San Joaquins run on BNSF south of Stockton, the pre-Covid two that ran north to Sacramento use the former SP mainline. Future expansion north will, like ACE, use the former WP. In the early ’90’s and pre-JPA and pre-merger, Caltrans decided the BNSF route would be better than the UP route down the valley, despite the fact the UP route goes through the various downtown central business districts all the way to Bakersfield.
This is the historical component. The UP route (former SP) established many of the towns along its route and pre-dates the BNSF (former Santa Fe) by 25 years. I believe it was the quality of the Santa Fe’s 1/4″ thick bid (with engineering drawings) versus the dying SP’s approximate two page contract offer letter.
However, with proper schedule coordination and joint ticketing between Amtrak, ACE and future CA HSR the obstacles of different trains and parallel routes may be overcome. Besides, some valley communities along the BNSF north of Fresno have grown eastward justifying duplicate stops and service.