The San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad (SD&IV) is a

class III railroad In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$5 ...

operating freight rail service in the

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

area, providing service to customers in the region and moving railcars between the end of the

BNSF Railway 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 ...

in Downtown San Diego and the

Mexico–United States border The Mexico–United States border ( es, frontera Estados Unidos–México) is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traver ...

in San Ysidro. The railroad has exclusive

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may ...

to operate over tracks of the

San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway The San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway Company is a short-line United States, American railroad founded in 1906 as the San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&A) by sugar magnate, developer, and entrepreneur John D. Spreckels. Dubbed "The Impossi ...

, a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of the

Metropolitan Transit System The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (''SDMTS'' or often simply ''MTS'') is a public transit service provider for Central, South, Northeast and Southeast San Diego County. The agency directly operates a large transit system that includes th ...

, the regional

public transit Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

service provider. Tracks are shared with the

San Diego Trolley The San Diego Trolley is a light rail system operating in the metropolitan area of San Diego. It is known colloquially as "The Trolley". The Trolley's operator, San Diego Trolley, Inc. (SDTI), is a subsidiary of the San Diego Metropolitan Tra ...

, another subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transit System, and freight trains are only operated at night when passenger service is not in operation. The San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad was established in October 1984 and is owned and operated by

Genesee & Wyoming Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and formerly Australia. It operates ...

, a holding company that operates more than 100

shortline 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 ...

s like the SD&IV.

History

The San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad was established after March 8, 1984, when

RailTex RailTex was a transportation holding company that specialized in owning and operating short line railroads across North America. Based in San Antonio, Texas, the public company was a leader in making unprofitable lines shed by Class I railroads ...

signed an agreement with Metropolitan Transit Development Board (known as the Metropolitan Transit System after 2005) to operate freight service across its San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway. The Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) had purchased the railroad from the financially struggling

Southern Pacific Railroad 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 ...

in August 1979 with plans to convert the Main Line between San Diego and San Ysidro for use by light rail passenger trains and to preserve rail freight services between the

Port of San Diego The Port of San Diego is a seaport in San Diego, California. It is located on San Diego Bay in southwestern San Diego County, California, and is a self-supporting district established in 1962 by an act of the California State Legislature. In add ...

and the

Imperial Valley , photo = Salton Sea from Space.jpg , photo_caption = The Imperial Valley below the Salton Sea. The US-Mexican border runs diagonally across the lower left of the image. , map_image = Newriverwatershed-1-.jpg , map_caption = Map of Imperial ...

. The MTDB initially signed an agreement with

Kyle Railways Kyle or Kyles may refer to: Places Canada * Kyle, Saskatchewan, Canada Ireland * Kyle, County Laois * Kyle, County Wexford Scotland * Kyle, Ayrshire, area of Scotland which stretched across parts of modern-day East Ayrshire and South Ayrsh ...

to operate the line, but a storm in January 1980 damaged the Desert Line (between the Mexico–United States border in Tecate and Plaster City) and the portion of the line between Tijuana and Tecate (owned by another company) which wasn't repaired until January 1983. Just six months after the line reopened, a fire on June 18, 1983, destroyed two bridges on the Desert Line. After the fire, Kyle Railways petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to abandon the railway, a request that was denied on April 25, 1984. RailTex's application to operate freight service along the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway was approved by the ICC on August 9, 1984, and the San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad began operation on October 15, 1984. The new general manager of the SD&IV, Dick Engle, persuaded local carriers to ship on this line and invited Mexican customers to start receiving shipments. The effort was met with much skepticism and took place more than 10 years before the signing of the

North American Free Trade Agreement The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...

, that would increase cross-border shipping. On August 1, 1986, the SD&IV entered into a multi-year agreement with the Mexican Government to provide freight service into Baja California. The work to repair the Desert Line proved challenging. In July 1989, SD&IV began to repair the burned trestles and collapsed tunnels on the line, but the estimated cost for the work was overwhelming for the railroad and work was halted in the early 1990s. In the early 2000s, investors calling themselves

Carrizo Gorge Railway Carrizo Gorge Railway, Inc. was a railroad operator on the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway (SD&AE) from Tijuana, Mexico to Plaster City, California (Tijuana Tecate Short Line and Desert Line). History In March 1984, the Metropolitan Trans ...

made an offer to make the needed repairs to the Desert Line and pay fees to the SD&IV and the MTDB in exchange for trackage rights. The deal was approved by all parties in April 2003 and repairs on the line began. In 2000, the Coronado Branch from the 12th Street Junction in National City to Imperial Beach, CA saw its last shipment. Since then, the line has seen no traffic, and the connection to the Main Line has been removed. The Desert Line reopened to freight service in January 2005. By October 2008 the condition of the track had deteriorated to the point that the Carrizo Gorge Railway closed the Desert Line. The Metropolitan Transit System (former MTDB) terminated the deal with Carrizo Gorge Railway in December 2012 and awarded new, long term operating agreement for the Desert Line to the

Pacific Imperial Railroad The Pacific Imperial Railroad (reporting mark PIR) was a company in possession of the SD&AE Desert Line right of way in Southern California, colloquially referred to as the Desert Line. The Desert Line starts at the border crossing at Division, ne ...

. Earlier that year, on January 1, 2012, the

Baja California Railroad Baja California Railroad, Inc. (BJRR) is a class III railroad operating in the northwest of Baja California, interchanging with San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad in San Ysidro, California. After rehabilitation efforts are completed on the Des ...

assumed control of the line between Tijuana and Tecate which connected SD&IV's Main Line in San Diego with the Desert Line. The Pacific Imperial Railroad spent years negotiating a deal with the Baja California Railroad to transport freight over its tracks, which it said delayed its repairs to the Desert Line. The Pacific Imperial Railroad declared bankruptcy in October 2016. The Baja California Railroad purchased the rights to use the Desert Line in March 2017 with an agreement to pay the Metropolitan Transit System a million dollars per year to retain its lease. Baja California Railroad has made no repairs to the line.

Current operations

The San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad holds the exclusive right to operate freight service over three lines owned by the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway: * The Main Line which runs 15.5 miles from Downtown San Diego south to San Ysidro, and is also used by the Blue Line of the San Diego Trolley. * The La Mesa Branch which runs 16.1 miles east to the city of

El Cajon El Cajon ( , ; Spanish: El Cajón, meaning "the box") is a city in San Diego County, California, United States, east of downtown San Diego. The city takes its name from Rancho El Cajón, which was in turn named for the box-like shape of the va ...

, and is also used by the Orange Line of the San Diego Trolley. * The currently unused Coronado Branch which splits from the Main Line in National City and runs 7.2 miles south to Imperial Beach. The San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad does not hold the rights to operate over the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway's Desert Line in the

. Those rights are currently held by the

. Despite operating on the electrified right-of-way of the

, the San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad uses two

NRE 3GS21B The NRE 3GS21B is a low-emissions diesel genset locomotive built by National Railway Equipment (NRE). Instead of a single prime mover, the NRE genset locomotive is powered by three separate Cummins QSK19C engines providing a total power output ...

diesel-powered

genset locomotive A genset locomotive is a locomotive in which a number of smaller diesel engines are used rather than a single large engine. The term is short for "generator set." Aspects of gensets A genset uses one to three small diesel engines to provide powe ...

s instead of electric locomotives, as the

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...

s used to marshal the trains are not electrified. However, genset locomotives are more fuel-efficient and have lower emissions than most traditional diesel locomotives as they are powered by three smaller engines that are turned off and on as needed. The overhead electric wires also prevent the double-stacking of

shipping containers A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...

on rail cars on the line. Freight trains only operate between 2 am and 4 am when San Diego Trolley passenger trains are not in operation. The railroad interchanges with the BNSF Railway in San Diego and the Baja California Railroad in San Ysidro and the railroad's main source of traffic is moving railcars between the two other railroads. The primary commodities hauled are petroleum products, agricultural products, and wood pulp. The SD&IY hauled around 6,500 carloads in 2008.

References

External links

San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad Website

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Diego Imperial Valley Railroad California railroads RailAmerica Transportation in San Diego Railway companies established in 1984

History

Current operations

See also

References

External links