SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — Work has begun on a 200-foot-long wall to protect the Surf Line rail right-of-way from landslides at the site that has halted passenger train traffic through San Clemente since Jan. 24, the Orange County Transportation Authority announced.
The wall, expected to be 10 to 15 feet tall, will be anchored by support beams placed 30 feet below ground. Drilling rigs began preparing holes for those support beams on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The wall will be similar to one built last year below the nearby Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens, site of the last slide that interrupted operations by Metrolink and Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner. BNSF freight traffic past the slide site is also currently halted because of continued hillside movement; freight trains have been able to move intermittently during overnight hours, based on hourly monitoring of the hillside and stabilization work.
Current estimates are that the wall will be completed in mid-March, and that regular passenger service could begin late that month or early in April, once track repairs are complete.
Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson told KABC-TV that the work is “very, very challenging.
“The area is so incredibly narrow in terms of the workspace and the equipment that needs to be brought in. … That right-of-way is relatively narrow, only about 100 feet wide. The hillside is all privately owned so we are unable to really do anything to stabilize the hillside, not only at Mariposa Beach but along the entire San Clemente bluff.”
Metrolink service remains suspended south of the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station on weekdays; weekend trains run as far as San Juan Capistrano. Pacific Surfliners continue to operate on a modified schedule including cancellations and a bus bridge; the latest version of that schedule is available here.
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