Baja California moves forward on rail line

Saying a cross-border rail link is critical for development on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, Baja California’s governor announced Monday he has secured more than $15 million from Mexico’s federal government to help rehabilitate 44.4 miles of track between Tecate and Tijuana.

The Mexican funds will allow Baja California to fix a stretch of the rail line, build a cargo transfer center, repair a bridge, and reopen collapsed tunnel near the Tecate border. For the immediate future, it will add spurs to expand the state’s capacity to send goods across the border through San Ysidro.

Still, the greater dream of an improved binational rail line remains stalled without progress north of the border on rebuilding a 70-mile stretch between Campo and Plaster City that would link to the Union Pacific Railroad.

That stretch, called the Desert Line, is owned by the Metropolitan Transit System, which has granted a 99-year lease to a private U.S. company, Pacific Imperial Railroad.

At a ceremony in Tijuana to celebrate the federal funding, Baja Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid was critical of Pacific Imperial Railroad, saying that it has provided any proof of its commitment.

“We can no longer be waiting to hear that tomorrow they’re going to get the line of credit, or the guarantee for their investment,” he said.

Baja California officials expect the expanded capacity at Estacion Tijuana to be completed by December. But service will still be limited: The cross-border rail can only carry freight during the five-hour period when the MTS’s Blue Line trolley is closed to passenger traffic. And the line cannot carry the double-stacked containers used by the maquiladora industry, a key client of any expanded rail service.

Progress on the U.S. side of the border to repair the rail tracks has been virtually nonexistent, critics say. Pacific Imperial has been beset by management turnover, allegations of fraud and sharp criticism from Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., R-Alpine.

Under the terms of the lease, the company must pay MTS $1 million per year and meet other milestones, such as getting traffic going on the rail line by the end of 2015. Critics say the company has done little work and doubt whether the owners — who have never run a rail line — can meet the deadline.

MTS last month approved a reconstruction plan submitted for Pacific Imperial, said Paul Jablonski, MTS’s chief executive. “We’re as enthused or committed to reopening the Desert Line into Mexico as the governor is,” he said.

Jablonski has been in talks with Mexican officials, and was joined by members of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce last week in Washington, D.C., for discussions about the project with members of San Diego’s congressional delegation and U.S. federal officials.

“We are certainly committed to making this thing happen,” Jablonski said. “We obviously have taken a more active role between the parties in trying to expedite this.”

At the Tijuana ceremony Monday, Andrew Erickson, the U.S. consul general, offered support for the Baja California governor.

“I understand that Baja California has to move forward with its program,” Erickson said. “Even though it’s a complex scenario, your vision is evident, and we are here to support you.”

A big hurdle is getting the U.S. and Mexican sides to collaborate. “We see that we are not synchronized,” Vega said, “but that’s not going to stop us on this side.”

Fernando Beltran, president of Baja California Railroad, which holds a 30-year concession to operate the Mexican line and has a commitment to spend $20 million on its rehabilitation, said “first of all, the U.S. company has to demonstrate that it has the financial capacity,” he said.

But Donald Stoecklein, CEO of Pacific Imperial, said he has been getting little cooperation from the Baja California side. For an economically viable project, he said, Pacific Imperial needs to run trains into Mexico near the Tecate border to pick up freight there. But Stoecklein said he has gotten no response from Baja California to his request.

Sending cargo through San Ysidro “has nothing to do with moving product from the maquiladoras,” he said. “How do you get a double-stacked container through San Ysidro? Double-stacked containers are important from an economic standpoint in moving a sufficient number of containers through the Desert Line.”

Vega, who came into office last year, has stressed infrastructure improvements as key to Baja California’s economic development, and is counting on public-private partnerships to bring the necessary investments. He also plans to revive a dormant project, the building of a railroad from Tecate to Ensenada, to ferry cargo between the port of El Sauzal and the border.

For every rail car, four tractor-trailers are off Baja California’s roads, the governor said, and with more cross-border rail service, there will be fewer trucks queuing up at the commercial ports of entry to enter the United States.

The rehabilitated Tijuana-Tecate line, he said, will also carry passenger traffic, the governor said. “This is not just for industry, but carries an important connotations for tourism.”

Staff writer Greg Moran contributed to this report.

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