Santa Maria Valley Railroad summary
The Santa Maria Valley Railroad (SMV) is a short line railroad that operates on the inland from California’s Central Coast. It’s owned by the Coast Belle Rail Corporation as a subsidiary. With headquarters out of Guadalupe, 14 miles of standard-gauge track serves both Santa Maria and the Santa Maria Valley.
History
At over a century old, the Santa Maria Valley Railroad is only a few years younger than the original Southern Pacific Railroad. Construction on the short line began on July 11, 1911, by an English syndicate to haul oil and asphalt from Roadamite to Guadalupe. By the end of the year, the line was completed with trains not only shipping the commodities but also reaching the town of Santa Maria. The railroad through its lifespan went through three owners, an extension to what is now the Santa Maria Airport, and the abandonment of the section between Sisquoc and Roadamite. While crude oil was a catalyst for the initial startup, the SMV was well known for its sugar beet traffic with the Betteravia’s Holly Sugar refinery as a major customer until its closure in 1993. In 2006, the railroad was purchased by the current owner, Coast Belle Rail. In partnership with the Friends of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad, a railroad enthusiast group of the SMV, the goal became rebuilding both the line’s physical plant and customer base.
Operations
There are more than two-dozen customers on the Santa Maria Valley Railroad’s main line and branches. One of the branch lines heads southeast from Guadalupe to the 5-acre Betteravia Industrial Park. This major customer of the SMV provides transloading facilities, on-ground and covered storage, warehouse space, and food-grade storage silos. Freight traffic on the railroad includes fresh and frozen vegetables, lumber, building material, steel, machinery, asphalt, aluminum, fertilizer, propane, and other industrial products. Other services provided are locomotive and railcar maintenance, contract track repair, and storage.
Five diesel locomotives make up the motive power of the roster. Two General Electric 70 tonners, plus a GP7, GP9 and GP35 from EMD handles both switching and mainline responsibilities.
Guadalupe serves as the interchange point for the Santa Maria Valley Railroad with connections to the Union Pacific’s coastline route between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The work week on the SMV is dictated in large part by the schedules of UP’s connecting freight trains along the route.
Read more about the Santa Maria Valley Railroad in Trains’ June 2013 issue.
