Report details plan to greatly increase passenger trains from Modesto to Sacramento
Modesto-area residents yearning for better passenger rail to Sacramento might want to look at a just-released document.
It details track upgrades, station construction and other upcoming work on the Stockton-to-Sacramento portion of the corridor. That stretch has had just two round trips a day in recent years. The improvements could bring the total to five round trips by 2023 and nine by 2026, the planners say.
All of this is part of $900 million worth of projects – already fully funded – that are planned for two rail systems in the region.
One is the Amtrak San Joaquin service, which has had the two daily round trips to Sacramento (shifted to buses for now by the coronavirus).
The other is the Altamont Corridor Express. It has run four round trips each weekday between Stockton and San Jose by way of Livermore (cut to three by the pandemic). ACE will build a northern branch to Sacramento County and a southern branch to Stanislaus and Merced counties.
The document just released is the draft environmental impact report for the Amtrak and ACE work between Stockton and Sacramento.
The EIR process is already finished for the southern ACE branch as far as Ceres. It is now in detailed engineering and could have its first train in 2022 or 2023.
The planners hope to make the region’s trains reliable enough to lure commuters and other drivers off the highways.
“It is a complete service – north, south, east and west – and definitely is a benefit for the cities and towns south of Stockton,” said Kevin Sheridan, director of capital projects for both ACE and the Amtrak San Joaquin line.
Strong support in San Joaquin, Alameda counties
The environmental review is being conducted by the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, which oversees ACE. The panel still needs to certify the EIR and move on to detailed engineering and construction, but that seems likely given its support throughout the planning. The members are on city councils and boards of supervisors in San Joaquin and Alameda counties.
The public has until May 15 to comment on the EIR. This was supposed to include three open houses in the project area, but they will be conducted online because of the coronavirus.
The first will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 23, at a link to be available that day at www.acerail.com. Other online open houses will be at the same time on April 28 and May 11.
The pandemic might have messed with the open house format, but not with the funding or timeline for all of the Amtrak and ACE work. It got separate grants of $400 million and $500.5 million from the gasoline tax increase signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017.
Freight train conflict
The Amtrak San Joaquin service started in 1974 between Bakersfield and Oakland. Getting to Sacramento required transferring to a bus in Stockton until the 1999 debut of direct train service. The trains stop at the historic train stations in the downtowns of Lodi and Sacamento.
Amtrak has had two Bakersfield-Sacramento round trips per day in recent years, mainly serving the leisure market. It tried to entice business travelers with the 2018 addition of a train arriving in the capital around the start of the workday. Low ridership ended it a year later.
The Stockton-Sacramento service is hampered by conflicts with freight trains using the same tracks. The upcoming work aims to reduce this by putting the two additional Amtrak trips and all five of the ACE trains on a lesser-used freight corridor to the west.
The allowable speed on these tracks will increase thanks to upgrades to six sidings and reduction of four curves.
“The riders appreciate consistency,” said Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa, chairman of the board overseeing the Amtrak San Joaquin service. “On-time performance means a lot.”
The upgrades would allow Amtrak to run its additional trains to Sacramento by 2023. The city could get its first ACE train around that time, and four more round trips by 2026.
New stations in Lodi, Elk Grove, elsewhere
A trip from Modesto to Sacramento will still take about an hour and a half, Sheridan said. But the new route will be more convenient thanks to added stations and connections to Sacramento’s light-rail system.
Details on the stations from south to north:
Stockton: Amtrak and ACE will continue to use the Robert J. Cabral Station on the east side of downtown. Another station in Stockton handles Amtrak trains to and from Oakland.
Lodi: The old downtown depot will continue to have two daily round trips on Amtrak. A new station for ACE and the additional Amtrak trains is planned about two miles west of Lodi, along the tracks at either Highway 12 or Harney Lane.
North Elk Grove: A station for ACE and the added Amtrak trains will be built where Consumnes River Boulevard crosses the new rail route. This is close to a stop for Sacramento’s light-rail system, which serves much of the capital region.
Sacramento City College: The new station will be next to the Sutterville Road light-rail stop serving the college.
Midtown Sacramento: The trains will stop on Q Street between 19th and 20th streets.
Old North Sacramento: The station will be at Acoma Street and El Monte Avenue.
Natomas/Sacramento Airport: The station will be at Blacktop Road near West Elkhorn Boulevard. It will offer shuttle buses to Sacramento International Airport.
Sacramento’s historic main depot, called the Sacramento Valley Station, will continue to be the terminus of two Amtrak San Joaquin trains from Bakersfield. The station serves a few other Amtrak routes and the city’s light-rail system.
South of Stockton
Amtrak San Joaquin trains will use the existing tracks and stations in Modesto, Denair, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Hanford, Corcoran, Wasco and Bakersfield.
ACE launched in 1998 mainly to serve commuters to Silicon Valley. Trains head west in the morning and return in the late afternoon and evening. The line has stations in Stockton, Lathrop/Manteca, Tracy, Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont, Santa Clara and San Jose.
ACE’s southern branch will be generally to the west of the Amtrak line and have stops mostly at downtown stations. They include Manteca, Ripon, Modesto, Ceres, Turlock, Livingston or Atwater, and Merced.
This branch will share a busy freight corridor, but the conflicts will be minimal thanks to double-tracking along the entire route. Some double-tracking has long been in place for freight trains. Single-track gaps will be filled as part of the passenger project.
This work will allow ACE to offer one round trip a day between Ceres and San Jose in 2022 or 2023, Sheridan said. It could reach four a day, including trains to Sacramento, by 2026, after second railroad trestles are built over the Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers.
Merced could get its first ACE train by 2025 and four by 2027. This station would also connect with California’s high-speed rail system, under construction for now just between Bakersfield and Merced. Plans to connect to the Bay Area and Southern California are mired in controversy over cost overruns and other issues.
ACE also could get a faster route to the Bay Area via a tunnel and other track upgrades through Altamont Pass. That might have been funded by a $100 billion tax measure proposed for Bay Area ballots in November 2020. The coronavirus prompted advocates to wait until some time in the future.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 2:30 PM.
