REGION — Passenger rail service on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train between San Diego and Orange counties was officially restored on Wednesday after six weeks of closure caused by a landslide above the tracks in San Clemente.
The Orange County Transportation Authority announced Tuesday that substantial progress had been made on the retaining wall at the base of the slope above the tracks since beginning construction in late February, allowing limited service to resume between Oceanside and San Juan Capistrano.
This was the fifth rail closure in the past three years in San Clemente along the 351-mile LOSSAN (Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo) rail corridor.
“With all 33 steel beams for the foundation of the wall in place and Amtrak conducting its own risk analysis, the OCTA, Metrolink and LOSSAN teams have agreed that limited Pacific Surfliner service can safely resume to and from San Diego through San Clemente,” OCTA said Tuesday.
Once completed, the retaining wall (also known as a catchment wall) will stand between 10 and 15 feet above ground and stretch 200 feet along the tracks. A similar wall was built last summer along a different section of the tracks in San Clemente, beneath Casa Romantica, after a separate landslide closed the rail.
Crews also removed a section of the Mariposa Point Pedestrian Bridge that ran along the tracks where the landslide occurred.
While an end to the previously indefinite rail closure is good news, officials recognize that San Clemente’s rail trouble is far from over, with several other sections of the corridor facing instability.
At a March 4 meeting of OCTA’s Regional Transportation Planning Committee, OCTA Program Manager Dan Phu said around $200 million in emergency repairs are needed in the next year to protect other vulnerable areas in San Clemente.
The highest-risk areas targeted for these repairs include the Cyprus Shore site near the San Diego County border, where a separate landslide occurred and shuttered rail service in 2021, and the immediate vicinity of the recent January landslide near Mariposa Bridge.
“It’s not only [milepost] 204.2 that’s been compromised, but it’s really a longer stretch of that area that is susceptible to further landslides,” Phu said, referencing the site of the January landslide.
Proposed projects include the installation of boulder riprap and revetment walls west of the tracks to protect them from the ocean waves, and retaining walls east of the tracks to hold back debris from the steep bluff slopes.
In addition, OCTA identified seven sites that are in need of continued monitoring along the LOSSAN corridor from Dana Point south to the San Diego County border. By monitoring more closely, Phu said they hope to avoid further surprise closures.
“These areas do not quite rise to the case of needing immediate attention at this point, but it’s obviously trending in the wrong direction, so something needs to be looked at at this point,” Phu said.
Some board members were not satisfied with the suggestion for more riprap and said the beaches, first and foremost, need more sand.
“What I think is glaringly missing from this study is sand. I guess I’m concerned that our focus predominantly on riprap as a solution is only going to exacerbate the coastal erosion and the removal of the sand from the beaches,” said OCTA board member and Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a sand restoration project in San Clemente back in December. The project, using sediment from a borrow site in Oceanside, is intended to widen the beach and provide a greater buffer for the rail.
However, the project was stopped due to poor sand quality, and it’s unclear when work will resume and whether another borrow site will be used.
OCTA has already invested tens of millions of dollars into repairs and stabilization along the rail in San Clemente. In 2023, these costs included nearly $22 million for stabilization and installation of tieback anchors at Cyprus Shore and $6 million to install a temporary barrier wall beneath Casa Romantica.
The state has paid for OCTA’s emergency repairs and debris cleanup at the Mariposa Point site, costing about $10 million.
As of March 6, trains with renewed service through San Clemente include the southbound and northbound Surfliner in the morning and evening. Midday service is still stopped while crews continue construction of the wall, which is anticipated to be completed later this month.
Metrolink service also remains stalled through San Clemente. Weekday service only operates as far south as Laguna Niguel. According to OCTA, the weekend Orange County Line service will go as far south as San Juan Capistrano.
For more updates about construction at the Mariposa Point site and train service through San Clemente, visit octa.net/RailUpdates.
