Puerto Suello Hill Tunnel for commute rail delayed

[www.marinij.com]

By Mark Prado, Marin Independent Journal
POSTED: 03/18/15, 6:01 PM PDT | UPDATED: 2 HRS AGO 6 COMMENTS

The Puerto Suello Hill tunnel is undergoing preparation to lay rail tracks for SMART. Robert Tong — Marin Independent Journal

The 135-year-old Puerto Suello Hill train tunnel in San Rafael will need more work than previously expected to get it ready for rail service in 2016.

The tunnel beneath Lincoln Avenue has been abuzz with activity since last July as Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit crews work to ready it for trains to bring passengers through Terra Linda into downtown San Rafael.

The tunnel partially collapsed in 1961 in a blaze that took the life of a firefighter. When the railroad company rebuilt the tunnel, it used a wooden shoring system to reconstruct concrete walls. That wood has since decayed, creating empty pockets.

To prevent movement during earthquakes, industrial-strength grout is being shot into those gaps. But there are more pockets than originally thought and an additional $1.5 million — that’s 1,360 cubic yards worth of grout — has been approved by the SMART board, including $485,000 Wednesday.

The extra work will delay the completion of tunnel work by four months, but will not delay the planned 2016 launch of service.

“We are OK with time,” said Farhad Mansourian, SMART’s general manager. “When you are dealing with a 100-plus-year-old structure like this you want to leave time and we have.”

All told, the tunnel work will cost about $4 million. In addition to the grout, rails will be placed in the tunnel, cracks are being repaired and walls are being bolted down. Overall, the tunnel was deemed to be in remarkably good shape by engineers.

Excavated in 1879, the tunnel served a rail line between San Rafael’s main station to one in the Los Ranchitos area and points north, according to the Marin History Museum. It helped facilitate freight traffic and the lumber trade for decades in the North Bay.

After re-opening after the fire, it was used into the mid-1980s and then closed. The Northwestern Pacific authority and the Golden Gate Bridge district took control of the existing Northwestern Pacific Railroad right of way — including the tunnel — beginning in the 1970s with an eye toward a commuter service in the future. The agencies turned it over to SMART in 2003.

Meanwhile, work continues on the $427.9 million project linking downtown San Rafael to the Sonoma airport. Officials reported the first SMART train left Illinois Wednesday bound for the North Bay. It will be unveiled at a ceremony in Cotati April 7 and then tested on tracks between Novato and Petaluma.

Marin SMART stops will include downtown San Rafael, the Marin Civic Center and stations in Novato at Hamilton and Atherton Avenue. Most of the track in Sonoma has already gone in. There will be 17 miles of track in Marin, with a planned addition of extension to Larkspur after service begins in 2016, officials said.

“It has gone amazingly well,” said Judy Arnold, chairwoman of the SMART board. “There have been some resident concerns. I think people who live near the tracks never thought there would be a train. We are working to address their issues.”