MobileTrainSpotterRxR at YT checked out the passing track construction in Folsom from a bicycle a few days ago. Braver than I would be, mixing it up with Folsom Blvd traffic that runs at 55-65 mph. Anyway, there's been visible progress in the last few months, after what seemed like a year or more with nothing much happening. Nearly everything seems now to be in place, and RT is hinting at opening it some time in November. We'll see.

BTW, this new segment includes single-light signals (some seen in the YT above) at each of the grade crossings in and near the project with flashing lunar lights. Hadn't seen those before; RT's (fairly basic, crude) signaling mostly held trains in a station until at least the first couple of grade crossings were down between the departing and next stations. Does anybody recognize that kind of setup, which is in addition to the usual 3-color block signals.

FWIW, this is the key improvement needed to get 15 min service all the way to the end of the line in Folsom. When the original extension was built in the early 2000s there was money trouble, and about 1/2 of the line segment from Sunrise to "Historic Folsom" at the end of the line had to be left single track. So service to Folsom was only 1/2 hourly. We got used to it, but it's certainly going to be a little more convenient not to have to plan around train times quite as much. A lot of the line will still be single track of course (a second phase of the project, that hasn't started yet, is suppose to realign the freight track to make room for extending the existing double track from near Beck's Furniture to the east end of the Hazel station, which will add flexibility for inevitable late trains), but RT has plenty of experience with that since many parts of their system were originally built (to save money - the original light rail line as built as cheaply as possible and the ridership reflects that) as single track with short double track sections, especially where bridges were involved. Most of that has been upgraded to double track over the years; Folsom was (and will continue to be) one of the last places with single even if they now can let trains pass.