Perhaps when "The Big One" ruptures the San Andreas fault and knocks Tehachapi offline for months, Uncle Pete will rethink their allowing the coast line to fall into poor repair.

We live in a different world than 1952, where Espee could have Tehachapi back in working order in less than a month. All that earth moving, daylighting of tunnels, building of shoo flys and whatnot would get bogged down today in lawsuits and who-knows-what-else. Having at least some redundant capacity is just common sense.