RAILWAY PLANS MOVE FORWARD FOR A BINATIONAL RAILROAD IN EAST COUNTY

By Miriam Raftery

Photo by Miriam Raftery: Trestle over Carrizo Gorge

July 8, 2015 (Campo) – Plans to revive the long-closed Desert Line freight railway from Campo to Imperial County appeared to be in danger of derailing after the Pacific Imperial Railroad fell behind in payments to the Metropolitan Transit System. But now the company has made its latest  half-million dollar payment to the Metropolitan Transit, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.The 99-year-lease requires two such payments annually.

In addition, Pacific Imperial has announcement an agreement it has forged with Baja California Railroad to enter into talks about opening a bi-national railroad.  The Mexican company controls 44 miles of the line which crosses south of the border, then back into the U.S.  

MTS awarded the lease to Pacific Imperial in 2012. But the first management team hired drew controversy including allegations that money from investors had been fraudulently paid to principals in the company.  The company denied this and MTS reportedly found no evidence of fraud, however the management team was replaced in early 2014.

Major repairs are needed to get the Desert Line rolling. The Desert Line, once known as the impossible railway due to many disasters that plagued it during construction including the great Depression, the Mexican revolution-when workers left to join the insurrection, World War I that saw steel supplies diverted to the war effort, and the great flood of 1916 that sank an engine into the mud.

Finally, on November 15^, 1919 sugar mogul-turned railway magnate John D. Spreckels drove in a golden spike in Carrizo Gorge. Two weeks later, a train rolled into San Diego’s Union Station downtown, marking completion of the Pacific Coast end of the transcontinental railway.

And soon, trains may be rolling down those tracks again.