I do not know of any packing houses still shipping by rail anywhere on the Coast Sub. My understanding is that most of this traffic that goes by rail is trucked to the BNSF in the San Joaquin Valley, and is either reloaded to reefers, or more often the trailer/container is added to a stack train.

The Santa Barbara Sub still has a handful of packing houses, though I dont know how active any are when it comes to rail shipment. Looking through some old notes, there were a few in Oxnard. There is one Citrus packing house in Ventura that very occasionally shipped citrus via rail, only a few cars a year, 5+ years ago... not idea if they have shipped anything more recently. Additionally the Santa Maria Valley Railroad has a handful of packing houses that ship mostly (or only?) frozen produce by rail.

The Guadalupe Turn (hauls cars between Gemco and Guadalupe) was a favorite to photo back when I lived in the area. Only reliable freight at the time, down to the only freight now. Pretty sad.

Here's the Turn a few miles south of Guadalupe starting up Shuman Hill.


And the SMVRR with a few reefers at the rear of their train.
Guadalupe, CA by Matt Batryn-Rodriguez, on Flickr

Best regards,
~Matt