The Pacific Harbor Line was formed in 1998 to take over the Harbor Belt Line (HBL). In 1998, the Alameda Corridor was nearing completion, allowing for a massive amount of railroad traffic from the largest harbors in the Western hemisphere:

Port of Los Angeles The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "America's Port", t ...

and

Port of Long Beach The Port of Long Beach, also known as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies of land wit ...

. The railroad has with a web of of track.

Overview

The PHL was formed to create a level playing field for shippers. Up to that time, the HBL was owned and operated by the major railroads in Los Angeles; the

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

, the

Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and S ...

and the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

. One of the problems with the HBL arrangement was that a shipper could have problems getting their goods to or from the port depending on where an individual railroad's track ended. The PHL, privately owned by the Anacostia & Pacific Company, operates on tracks and facilities owned by the ports. The PHL is a neutral switching railroad that serves shippers at this large port complex. PHL handles 40,000 carloads of freight a year excluding intermodal traffic. The Alameda Corridor provides rail service to port complex through

BNSF BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

and UP railroads. PHL was the first railroad to have its locomotive fleet composed only of Tier II and Tier III "clean diesel" locomotives. Pacific Harbor Line was named the 2009

Short Line Railroad of the Year ''Railway Age'' is an American trade magazine for the rail transport industry. It was founded in 1856 in Chicago (the United States' major railroad hub) and is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. History The magazine's ...

by ''

Railway Age ''Railway Age'' is an American trade magazine for the rail transport industry. It was founded in 1856 in Chicago (the United States' major railroad hub) and is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. History The magazine's ...

'' magazine. In July 2013, Pacific Harbor Line signed a new five-year

collective agreement A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company (or with an ...

with the

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the US. A year late ...

(BLET). BLET has represented workers at the company since PHL was formed in 1998. On March 31, 2020, Eduardo Moreno attempted to crash a Pacific Harbor Line train into the hospital ship , which was in the Port of Los Angeles to provide Los Angeles with additional hospital capacity during the

COVID-19 pandemic in California Ten of the first twenty confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States occurred in California, the first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. All of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China, as testing wa ...

, but the train stopped approximately from the ship.

References

External links

*
About PHL founding
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pacific Harbor Line Inc. California railroads Switching and terminal railroads

Overview

References

Further reading

External links