SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System is seeking new partners in its ongoing effort to reopen the 70-mile former San Diego & Arizona Eastern line from Tecate, Mexico, to Plaster City, Calif., the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The agency has owned the line since 1979 and made several attempts to reopen the route. It hopes the line can serve as a link from San Diego and Mexico to eastern markets in the United States without having to pass through Los Angeles. The line connects to Union Pacific near El Centro, Calif. It is currently in use from San Diego to Tecate, near Tijuana, and by the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum near Campo, Calif.
The line was incorporated as the San Diego & Arizona Railway by entrepreneur John D. Spreckels and dubbed “The Impossible Railroad” when it was completed in 1919. The line features 17 tunnels and 57 bridges, most of which would need rebuilding or repair. The route includes Goat Creek Trestle, one of the largest curved railroad trestles in the world. In 1932, Spreckels’ heirs sold their interests to the Southern Pacific, who operated it as the San Diego & Arizona Eastern until 1979, when the line was sold to MTS for $18.1 million. It was leased and operated by Kyle Railways until 1983 when fire destroyed two bridges.
In 2003, the line was leased to the Carrizo Gorge Railway and reopened in January 2005. That revival was short-lived due to expensive repairs needed to the line’s numerous bridges, and the line was embargoed in October 2008.
The railroad was leased in 2017 to Baja Rail, based in Tijuana and owned by Tijuana boxing promoter Fernando Beltran. It laid out a vision for rehabilitating the line, but with little progress, the company stopped making biannual lease payments of $500,000 to MTS last summer.
Sharon Cooney, CEO of MTS told the Union-Tribune she’s not giving up. “We still think the project has real potential,” Cooney said. She said it will likely take MTS a year or more to find a new leaseholder and is looking for funding to study the feasibility of rebuilding the line. “I do believe it’s an asset for the region, and if we have any opportunity to make the project work, we owe it to the public to try,” she told the Union-Tribune.
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