Shortline rail service in South Valley may end PORTERVILLE December 19, 2007 8:39am • RailAmerica wants to abandon tracks in Tulare County • Watching for the yearly train More than 30 miles of railroad track in Tulare County would be abandoned and the rails ripped up if a subsidiary of privately held RailAmerica Inc. fights off opponents of its plan. The company’s San Joaquin Valley Railroad has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Surface Transportation Board to dump the route from Lindsay southward through Porterville because it has limited revenue from it. The railroad says no one has shipped anything on the track segment in more than a year. But officials in Porterville, Lindsay and the Tulare County Board of Supervisors are trying to block the move, saying the SJVR tracks are the only rail service they have, without which they might miss out on future development. The most frequent type of abandonment requests the STB receives is from a railroad stating that the track has not been used for two years or more or that the track has so little traffic on it that it is clear that the carrier could not be making a profit on it, the STB says. The board acts as a sort of trial court in approving or disallowing requests for rail abandonment. Generally, the most effective arguments against abandonment are made by companies actually shipping things on the railroad. RailAmerica Inc., based in Boca Raton, Fla., owns 41 short line and regional railroads in the U.S. and Canada.
Hmmm.... RailAmerica, again. Looking at the bigger picture, is there a pattern developing here? Boxcab E50
Sounds like the cancer of Rail America is spreading. Of course if there is no business on the line then it might not be needed. I don't like to see the track pulled out but in some cases there is justification. No Justification for the Rail America action here in Oregon though.
It looks like RailAmerica is no longer interested in hauling freight. If they want to scrap steel I suggest they get into something less destructive to scrap and liquidate than rail infrastructure.
