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Re: Santa Cruz and Commuter Rail?
Author: mook
Date: 01-16-2012 - 18:33
Let's try these one by one:
>1. The cement plant at Davenport could be modified in a number of ways to allow either
> going back to natural gas, or be otherwise repurposed.
Per other sources, it appears that a substantial chunk of the quarry land has been given/sold to a conservation group. If the quarry sold was the Ben Lomond Mountain operation (the most recent quarry used), that's it, forget it, plant is gone. The only remaining RR need might be to haul out the remains. Otherwise, reopening with n.g. would be interesting but would not help much in terms of GHGs -- the cement making process produces a lot regardless of what they burn -- so the local activists wouldn't go for it anyway. And the plant never did run on n.g.; before the conversion to coal (along with a complete reconstruction of the plant) in the late 1970s, the old plant ran on fuel oil delivered in tank cars or tankers. Interestingly, in the 1950s, the plant loaded a dedicated ship off Davenport Landing with cement for transport to the Bay Area and elsewhere along the coast; they also got their fuel oil from tankers in the same general area -- look at some old charts for the facilities.
>2. A small intermodal yard could be created on the West side to allow general merchandise
> to be delivered in containers, allowing truck traffic to be limited on Hwy 1 between
> Watsonville and SC. This would allow SC trucking to be "local". Enough gas from me
> for now.
I kind of like the idea, but S.C. doesn't get or produce a lot of in/outbound truck traffic outside of Watsonville. So all you'd be looking at is sort of a "team track" which probably wouldn't change the number of trucks on 1 or 17 noticeably.
>3. A "commuter" rail operation really should reoccupy the mountain route for obvious
> reasons. Lacking the impetus to do that, the next best solution is to upgrade the
> tracks on the Watsonville-SC segment and connect to Caltrain/Amtrak at WJ.
> Historically, back in 1989, the state began "discussions" with SP about purchasing
> the entire Coast Line. When the extension of Caltrain to Salinas occurs, there will
> only be the gap beyond Salinas to San Luis Obispo with no state trains. Reasonable
> speculation would see that gap being filled at some point. All that is necessary is
> money and politicians willing to stand up to NIMBYs for the benefit of the majority
> of the populus.
Somebody will probably correct me, but my impression is that SP was thinking of selling the Coast Line to Metrolink, not the State. There was even some talking. The money wasn't there right away (the State wasn't interested in RRs much at the time - AmCal came later) then for some reason (probably several) SP got cold feet. Now if Caltrain started running something regularly to Salinas then yes, I could see some kind of connection making moderate sense, but most of the commute traffic still goes "over the hill" which a Watsonville connection won't work for.
>4. There is an experiment that would be ideal for the unique "environment" in Santa Cruz.
> The sewage treatment plant for SC is a stone's throw from the one-time depot. Methane
> (natural gas)could be manufactured from the sewage and used to power CNG type locomotives.
> Besides being a generally good idea, it undermines the perception that railroads aren't
> "green".
Interesting idea, and if RTC does pick up the line it might be worth trying. *NG (LNG or CNG) locomotives have been tried at various times, and there might even be a CNG switcher still running in the LA area. They haven't been very successful compared to diesels, but if the fuel is more or less free that might raise the ante a bit. Of course, the buses in S.C. all run on n.g. (or should be soon) too, so they're probably an earlier target for sewer gas use, to the extent that the sewer plant doesn't just burn it itself for on-site power (many do). Another local source of methane (probably bigger than the sewer plant) is the Buena Vista landfill -- again, I suspect they're already collecting it and doing something with it for air quality reasons, but if they have surplus why not use it?
>1. The cement plant at Davenport could be modified in a number of ways to allow either
> going back to natural gas, or be otherwise repurposed.
Per other sources, it appears that a substantial chunk of the quarry land has been given/sold to a conservation group. If the quarry sold was the Ben Lomond Mountain operation (the most recent quarry used), that's it, forget it, plant is gone. The only remaining RR need might be to haul out the remains. Otherwise, reopening with n.g. would be interesting but would not help much in terms of GHGs -- the cement making process produces a lot regardless of what they burn -- so the local activists wouldn't go for it anyway. And the plant never did run on n.g.; before the conversion to coal (along with a complete reconstruction of the plant) in the late 1970s, the old plant ran on fuel oil delivered in tank cars or tankers. Interestingly, in the 1950s, the plant loaded a dedicated ship off Davenport Landing with cement for transport to the Bay Area and elsewhere along the coast; they also got their fuel oil from tankers in the same general area -- look at some old charts for the facilities.
>2. A small intermodal yard could be created on the West side to allow general merchandise
> to be delivered in containers, allowing truck traffic to be limited on Hwy 1 between
> Watsonville and SC. This would allow SC trucking to be "local". Enough gas from me
> for now.
I kind of like the idea, but S.C. doesn't get or produce a lot of in/outbound truck traffic outside of Watsonville. So all you'd be looking at is sort of a "team track" which probably wouldn't change the number of trucks on 1 or 17 noticeably.
>3. A "commuter" rail operation really should reoccupy the mountain route for obvious
> reasons. Lacking the impetus to do that, the next best solution is to upgrade the
> tracks on the Watsonville-SC segment and connect to Caltrain/Amtrak at WJ.
> Historically, back in 1989, the state began "discussions" with SP about purchasing
> the entire Coast Line. When the extension of Caltrain to Salinas occurs, there will
> only be the gap beyond Salinas to San Luis Obispo with no state trains. Reasonable
> speculation would see that gap being filled at some point. All that is necessary is
> money and politicians willing to stand up to NIMBYs for the benefit of the majority
> of the populus.
Somebody will probably correct me, but my impression is that SP was thinking of selling the Coast Line to Metrolink, not the State. There was even some talking. The money wasn't there right away (the State wasn't interested in RRs much at the time - AmCal came later) then for some reason (probably several) SP got cold feet. Now if Caltrain started running something regularly to Salinas then yes, I could see some kind of connection making moderate sense, but most of the commute traffic still goes "over the hill" which a Watsonville connection won't work for.
>4. There is an experiment that would be ideal for the unique "environment" in Santa Cruz.
> The sewage treatment plant for SC is a stone's throw from the one-time depot. Methane
> (natural gas)could be manufactured from the sewage and used to power CNG type locomotives.
> Besides being a generally good idea, it undermines the perception that railroads aren't
> "green".
Interesting idea, and if RTC does pick up the line it might be worth trying. *NG (LNG or CNG) locomotives have been tried at various times, and there might even be a CNG switcher still running in the LA area. They haven't been very successful compared to diesels, but if the fuel is more or less free that might raise the ante a bit. Of course, the buses in S.C. all run on n.g. (or should be soon) too, so they're probably an earlier target for sewer gas use, to the extent that the sewer plant doesn't just burn it itself for on-site power (many do). Another local source of methane (probably bigger than the sewer plant) is the Buena Vista landfill -- again, I suspect they're already collecting it and doing something with it for air quality reasons, but if they have surplus why not use it?
