The Alameda Corridor is a freight rail "expressway" owned by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority that connects the ports of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

with the transcontinental mainlines of the BNSF Railway and the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

that terminate near downtown

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Running largely in a trench below Alameda Street, the corridor was considered one of the region's largest transportation projects when it was constructed in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Background

Prior to the construction of the Alameda Corridor, cargo traveling by rail to or from the ports of Los Angeles or Long Beach could be routed along the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

Harbor Subdivision The Harbor Subdivision is a historic single-track main line of the BNSF Railway which stretches between rail yards near downtown Los Angeles and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach across southwestern Los Angeles County. It was the primary l ...

or the Southern Pacific Railroad's tracks down Alameda Street. The Harbor Subdivision was long, traveling out to the west side of Los Angeles, before turning back east towards the ports. Meanwhile, the Southern Pacific route had more than 200 street-level railroad crossings where automobiles had to wait for lengthy freight trains to pass. Many of those same rail lines were inadequately protected with little more than “wigwag” crossing signals dating from the original construction of the lines. By the early 1990s, the Southern Pacific was in a difficult financial position and sold the Alameda Street corridor to the Ports of Long Beach for in December 1994 ($ adjusted for inflation). The ports formed the Alameda Corridor Transit Authority to use the newly acquired

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

to begin building a freight rail "expressway" from the ports to the major railyards near Downtown Los Angeles. The centerpiece of the new Alameda Corridor would be the "Mid-Corridor Trench" a below-ground, triple-tracked rail line that is long, deep, and wide. The trench and the larger Alameda Corridor would allow freight trains to travel without concerns about grade-crossing collisions or having to blow their horns as they travelled through neighborhoods. The corridor would be open to both BNSF Railway and

(UP) trains via

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may ...

. The line began operation on April 15, 2002, and reached a peak of 60 train movements per day by October 2006. In 2007, the line carried 17,824 trains carrying 4.7 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of containers. In 2013, the railroad carried 33% of the freight traveling to and from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Fifteen percent of the nation’s container traffic travels through the corridor according to the Transit Authority. While the Mid-Corridor trench is the spine of the corridor, the Alameda Corridor Transit Authority also maintains more than of freight rail track, with 125 turnouts, ten rail bridges, signals at 48 locations, seven grade crossings, and two stormwater pump stations. Alameda Corridor map

Future development

Alameda Corridor–East

The Alameda Corridor–East project, currently under construction, will grade-separate many of the crossings along UP's Alhambra Subdivision and the Los Angeles Subdivision. Many crossings, which are currently at grade, tie up traffic on north–south streets for long periods multiple times a day as long freight trains pass en route to and from the UP yards in Vernon and

Commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

. The project includes 19 grade separations and elimination of 23 grade crossings. Included as part of the Alameda Corridor–East project is the $336.9 million San Gabriel Trench, which will submerge the track between Ramona street and San Gabriel Boulevard in San Gabriel. Construction began in 2012 and was completed in 2017.

Possible electrification

The Alameda Corridor was built in a way to permit

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

with the use of electric catenary wires, which would increase the environmental benefit by displacing the use of diesel fuel; but the electrification has not happened as of yet. This solution has largely been ignored due to lack of familiarity with electric freight technology in North America, although electric freight trains operate in many other parts of the world. Electrification could reduce air pollution in the region, which has been described as a "Diesel Death Zone" due to the pollution from trucks on

Interstate 710 Route 710, consisting of the non-contiguous segments of State Route 710 (SR 710) and Interstate 710 (I-710), is a major north–south state highway and auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the ...

References

External links