Alameda Corridor
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Image:Alameda Corridor map.svg The Alameda Corridor is a 20 mile (32 km) freight rail "expressway" owned by the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (AAR reporting mark ATAX), directly connecting the national rail system near downtown Los Angeles, California to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, running parallel to Alameda Street. The project is notable for its "Mid-Corridor Trench", a below-ground, triple-tracked rail line that is 10 miles (16 km) long, 30 feet (10 m) deep and 50 feet wide (15 m), shared by both the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad via trackage rights. The Alameda Corridor allows trains to bypass 90 miles (145 km) of early 20th century branch lines and the Santa Fe's historic Harbor Subdivision along a high-speed grade-separated corridor (mainly built on the alignment of a former UP line), avoiding more than 200 at-grade railroad crossings where cars and trucks previously had to wait for long freight trains to slowly pass. Many of those same rail lines were inadequately protected with little more than crossing signals. One important use of the corridor is to take cargo containers to the ports.
The line went into operation April 15, 2002 and has handled an average of 35 train movements per day. It is credited with significantly relieving congestion on the Long Beach Freeway (I-710) and elsewhere in the region. During the first four months of 2005, the line carried 5,434 trains, equivalent to an estimated 900,000 truck trips that would otherwise have been required [1].
Caltrans, the Port of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority have publicly announced plans to electrify the corridor, in order to reduce the troublingly high particulate emissions along the route. Plans also exist for an Alameda Corridor East along UP track through the San Gabriel Valley, which would connect the massive UP yards in Vernon and Commerce to existing or newly constructed marshalling yards near San Bernardino, and thereafter to major railyards in Barstow and Coachella. In the western San Gabriel Valley, UP track is already in a below-grade-level trench adjacent to Valley Boulevard; the Alameda Corridor East project would not extend this trench, but would eliminate numerous grade crossings along the route.
