After SP gave up on their SD&AE, it was sold to the Metropolitan Transit Development Board (now MTS?) which built the San Diego Trolley over most of the San Diego area right of way. There is actually still an SD&AE which is wholly owned by MTDB/MTS and the board includes a representative of the current freight operator. The first contract operator was Kyle Railways who also ran it as the SD&AE. Too little freight and too many damaging storms resulted in the desert line being closed and Kyle letting their contract expire. The next contract freight operator was the San Diego & Imperial Valley (SDIY) which was the first railroad for Railtex. There was some repair work in an attempt to reopen the desert end of the line, but I don't recall SDIY ever operating through freight service on the east end due to a lack of sufficient traffic demand and incomplete repairs. Railtex became part of Rail America, now part of Genesee and Wyoming and SDIY is still the contract freight operator.

The Mexican portion of the line was purchased long ago from SP as part of the nationalization of the Mexican rail system. They performed the maintenance but never ran their own trains. At some point the operations in Mexico became a separate contract and I'm not even sure who is now running it, but the primary partner must be a Mexican company. In the late 1980s the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum established a permanent museum in Campo (45 miles east of San Diego by road at MP 66) on the desert line. They were able to negotiate an agreement giving them trackage rights to operate passenger trains (as the SD&A) on the closed line and have continued to do so ever since and have assumed some maintenance responsibilities. PSRM/SD&A currently operates trains over the section from Campo west to Division where Tunnel 4 crosses the international border. The Mexicans are currently daylighting collapsed Tunnel 3, so the museum expects to be able to resume special trains to Tecate this year.

Because SDIY is not interested, there have been numerous freight operators on the east end over the last 15 years or so, all are actually subleases of the freight operator with SDIY and SDAE/MTS agreement. It seems to some extent it recycles the same questionable investors or promoters. There was through freight service between Plaster City and San Ysidro for a while, but most of their activity seemed to be mining sand from the adjoining right of way for San Diego construction use. The line needs millions of dollars in bridge and tunnel reapirs, not to mention ties and it is still mostly 75# rail. Several engines and other equipment is still stranded at Jacumba with contested ownership. The current promoter bought several former INPR GP40s (GP35 prime movers in them) but not sure they ever ran a train with them and presumably they are still parked somewhere outside Plaster City.

At this point the only freight the east end will see is snake oil. Part of the problem is they do not have the track capacity or clearances to move what freight is available. Once at El Centro, the traffic would have to go to either West Colton or hope an eastbound would pick it up at Niland. Way back when there was a slightly more direct route where it would go to Mexicali and use the Inter-California on the Mexican side coming back across the border just west of Yuma. With the increasing congestion on the San Diego-LA line, there might be a demand for another rail outlet, but the problem has always been that San Diego is in the corner of the US and has never been in the mainstream of US rail or water transportation.