Pacific Sun Railroad was a

short line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the f ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

that worked on the Escondido Sub, the Miramar Branch, and in Stuart Mesa Yard. It was based out of Stuart Mesa Yard in Oceanside. It is owned by

Watco Watco Companies, L.L.C. (Watco) is a transportation company based in Pittsburg, Kansas, formed in 1983 by Charles R. Webb. Watco was composed of four divisions: transportation, mechanical, terminal and port services, and compliance. Watco is t ...

History

The Pacific Sun Railroad commenced operations on October 25, 2008, after being contracted by

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 ...

. As of October 1, 2020, the Pacific Sun Railroad's contract with BNSF expired and BNSF will once again run local freight operations on the NCTD Escondido Sub and the Miramar Branch off the NCTD San Diego Subdivision.

Operations

Pacific Sun Railroad ran trains weekdays late at night along the

North County Transit District The North County Transit District (typically abbreviated as NCTD) is the agency responsible for public transportation in Northern San Diego County, California. The agency manages the COASTER commuter rail service between Oceanside and San Die ...

Escondido Subdivision The Escondido Sub is a branch railway line between Oceanside, California and Escondido, California, in the North County region of San Diego County. It is primarily used today by the Sprinter light rail and local freight trains serving Escond ...

, between Oceanside and Escondido, and the Miramar Spur off of the NCTD San Diego Subdivision.

Equipment

Pacific Sun owns four locomotives. Two

EMD GP35 The EMD GP35 is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between July 1963 and December 1965 and by General Motors Diesel between May 1964 and January 1966. 1251 examples were built for American railro ...

units originally owned by

Seaboard Air Line The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , which styled itself "The Route of Courteous Service," was an American railroad which existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, t ...

, and two

EMD GP40 The GP40 is a 4-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between November 1965 and December 1971. It has an EMD 645E3 16-cylinder engine generating . The GP40 is longer than its EMD 567D3A-engined pred ...

units originally owned by

Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dire ...

References

External links

* * http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2008-10-03-E8-23375 Defunct California railroads Transportation in San Diego County, California Watco {{California-transport-stub