Metrolink, Amtrak to resume full passenger train service through San Clemente

After half a year of work to secure a coastal bluff along a key stretch of track, passenger trains are expected to resume full service through San Clemente starting on April 17.

The Orange County Transportation Authority announced Monday, April 10, that Metrolink and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner rail services are ready to roll again, connecting Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and Orange County to San Diego County.

Emergency stabilization efforts have been underway since October, following track damage caused by storms that contributed to a bluffside to collapse and big surf that brought waves crashing onto the coastal rail line.  

OCTA declared an emergency following the damage – the second time the tracks had shifted in a year – and began a $13.7 million project to stop the slope movement and stabilize the rail line. The California Transportation Commission contributed $6 million in emergency funding to help cover that cost.

The tracks moved 28 inches between September 2021 and September 2022 because of storm surge and sand erosion on the coastal side and the gradually sliding hillside on the other, OCTA officials have said.

Originally, the tracks were expected to be reopened by February. 

“This emergency work has posed an unprecedented challenge, especially with the heavy rainfall this season, and we’re very pleased to announce that passenger service can safely resume on this key stretch of Southern California rail,” said OCTA Chairman and Yorba Linda Mayor Gene Hernandez in a statement. “We greatly appreciate the public’s patience and their understanding that ensuring passenger safety is always the first priority.”

Metrolink plans to resume all regular passenger rail service along its Orange County and Inland Empire-Orange County lines through San Clemente, once again serving Oceanside seven days a week, officials said.

For inlanders, it means they can again take the coastal train down to south San Clemente and on into the San Diego area.

“I know the residents of the Inland Empire are looking forward to again taking the train to the beach,” Metrolink board chair Larry McCallon, who is also the mayor of Highland in San Bernardino County, said in the announcement.  “I encourage everyone to return to using our rail service to and from the beach areas as the nice weather returns to Southern California.”

The LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, which manages the popular Amtrak Pacific Surfliner service, has operated weekend service through the work area since the first row of stabilizing ground anchors were installed in early February. Now that daily service will resume, a bus connection between Oceanside and Irvine will no longer run.

According to OCTA officials, the addition of 200 ground anchors, which were drilled into the bedrock along the 700 feet of tracks, has halted the movement. As part of the repairs, big boulders, or rip rap, were stacked by the truckload along the shoreline, a method of “hard armoring” the tracks against the ocean waves.

Crews will finish this week installing a second row of stabilizing anchors in the privately owned hillside next to the track, officials said. And, OCTA and its contractors will continue to work in the project area to cover the retaining wall and replant native vegetation.

OCTA is working with necessary state and federal agencies to mitigate impacts from the emergency project, officials said.

The agency, which owns 40 miles of tracks through Orange County, a few weeks ago approved studying both short- and long-term solutions for the 7-mile stretch through Dana Point and San Clemente that is vulnerable to coastal erosion and sea level rise. That could include relocating the track further inland.