+Keith Chestnut I worked on the reopening of the line between 1997 and 2003 and was a maintenance foreman and train conductor until 2004. We had the line open to the connection with the Union Pacific at Plaster City and were hauling sand for the concrete companies from the desert to Campo. Toyota was planning to have a spur track built to their plant in Tecate, Mexico, to load partly built pickups on autoracks for shipment to Texas where they would be completed, but it had not been built in 2004 when I moved to Idaho. I heard that operations on the eastern part of the line were suspended, but I do not know the status of the line today. However, the tunnels are open and the track is usable, unless the wind has buried it with sand at Silica again.
+Allen A Operation of the Desert Line was taken over by the Pacific Imperial Railroad in 2012 who allegedly began a long process of inspecting and rehabilitating the line. In the last few years, with little to show for it, investors and former company officers began asking questions and were running up against a wall of silence. Investigations have begun into the current principals of PIR (who have been involved in several previous fraud suits filed against them) and it's now appearing to some that the PIR was being used as a vehicle to launder money ... essentially a Ponzi scheme. Besides infighting, at least one major investor has filed suit. The whole sordid mess is being covered in a series of stories (available online) by the San Diego reader.
Allen A The line of course is fully operational from El Centro to Plaster City to serve the big gypsum plant there. It should also be open to west of Ocotillo where it winds through a wind farm there. Google Maps show there is a line of stored boxcars in the siding at Coyote Wells but I read those were removed a few months ago. If you look at Plaster City, you'll actually see a windmill train parked on the mainline outside the plant. I don't know where they're unloaded though and I didn't see any new wind turbine sites in the area.
I used to hang out at Chula Vista Jct. and made friends with the trainmen working the local freight, specifically Tom Brady (St. Augustine '37). Since I was going to Saints in the fall,(1969) he took a liking to me. There is a pic of him in this video. He is kneeling in front of a loco with a utility cover on his head. I was a biking fool in those days and would meet them at the SDAE yard, load my bike in the caboose and ride the train down to San Ysidro. Those guys offered to let me ride with them to El Centro but my parents wouldn't have it. Several years later I tried to hike out to Goat Canyon from I-8 but was kicked out by a SDAE track walker. A few years after that I had a job working as a San Diego Deputy Sheriff and rode with the track walker from Jacumba to Dos Cabezos several times to kick people out like me. Needless to say, everyone got off lightly. Tropical Storm Kathleen came a few months later and closed everything down. But I did see Carrizo Gorge.
Sadly, I saw a video with a man who built a speeder to traverse the line. Sections of the line near Tecate have been pulled up. It's on borrowed time now, as the line is being removed in places.
Great Video on this rail line. I can only hope this line opens fully !
+Keith Chestnut I worked on the reopening of the line between 1997 and 2003 and was a maintenance foreman and train conductor until 2004. We had the line open to the connection with the Union Pacific at Plaster City and were hauling sand for the concrete companies from the desert to Campo. Toyota was planning to have a spur track built to their plant in Tecate, Mexico, to load partly built pickups on autoracks for shipment to Texas where they would be completed, but it had not been built in 2004 when I moved to Idaho. I heard that operations on the eastern part of the line were suspended, but I do not know the status of the line today. However, the tunnels are open and the track is usable, unless the wind has buried it with sand at Silica again.
+Allen A Operation of the Desert Line was taken over by the Pacific Imperial Railroad in 2012 who allegedly began a long process of inspecting and rehabilitating the line. In the last few years, with little to show for it, investors and former company officers began asking questions and were running up against a wall of silence.
Investigations have begun into the current principals of PIR (who have been involved in several previous fraud suits filed against them) and it's now appearing to some that the PIR was being used as a vehicle to launder money ... essentially a Ponzi scheme. Besides infighting, at least one major investor has filed suit. The whole sordid mess is being covered in a series of stories (available online) by the San Diego reader.
whiteknightcat Thanks for the info. I am a long way away from there now and may never get back there.
Allen A
The line of course is fully operational from El Centro to Plaster City to serve the big gypsum plant there. It should also be open to west of Ocotillo where it winds through a wind farm there. Google Maps show there is a line of stored boxcars in the siding at Coyote Wells but I read those were removed a few months ago. If you look at Plaster City, you'll actually see a windmill train parked on the mainline outside the plant. I don't know where they're unloaded though and I didn't see any new wind turbine sites in the area.
I used to hang out at Chula Vista Jct. and made friends with the trainmen working the local freight, specifically Tom Brady (St. Augustine '37). Since I was going to Saints in the fall,(1969) he took a liking to me. There is a pic of him in this video. He is kneeling in front of a loco with a utility cover on his head. I was a biking fool in those days and would meet them at the SDAE yard, load my bike in the caboose and ride the train down to San Ysidro. Those guys offered to let me ride with them to El Centro but my parents wouldn't have it. Several years later I tried to hike out to Goat Canyon from I-8 but was kicked out by a SDAE track walker. A few years after that I had a job working as a San Diego Deputy Sheriff and rode with the track walker from Jacumba to Dos Cabezos several times to kick people out like me. Needless to say, everyone got off lightly. Tropical Storm Kathleen came a few months later and closed everything down. But I did see Carrizo Gorge.
Sadly, I saw a video with a man who built a speeder to traverse the line. Sections of the line near Tecate have been pulled up. It's on borrowed time now, as the line is being removed in places.
cool
The line is finished too much money involved to take it over and repair. Your talking millions.