From: Holly Osborne
To: CityClerk
Subject: Comments for Redondo Beach city council, January 9 Date: Tuesday, January 9, 2024 3:44:04 PM
You don't often get email from [email protected]. Learn why this is important CAUTION: Email is from an external source; Stop, Look, and Think before opening attachments or links.
Good evening:
This is Holly Osborne, District 5
I want to talk about the Green Line from an angle you have not heard before.
But first, I am going to review a very specific freight train derailment that happened almost exactly 7 years ago, in El Segundo.
Here is a picture from CBS news: (Note the flooded conditions due to weather, and see Note 1) Four fuel tanker cars overturned. This was in the Chevron rail yard in El Segundo, and the news stories made repeated mention that it was fortunate that the accident was in an industrial area, and therefore no residences were impacted.
That is the Green Line overhead; the incident occurred just after the train had crossed Douglas street, but had not passed completely under the Green Line. (Note: The Green Line is totally elevated as it passes through El Segundo, and ends up at the elevated station on Marine Avenue.) For a close up graphic picture, see Fox news, below. The wheels were torn from the carriage.
And another picture, so you can see (sort of) how long the train was: It was the last four cars that derailed.
Below is a close up from the other side. A tanker is about 10 ft in diameter. That edge of the top tanker appears to be about 22-23 ft from track center. (Please remember that number.).
Okay, enough of the pictures. You can see the advantage of NOT having a freight train NEXT to an LRT. And you can see the advantage of an elevated Green Line. What more do I have to say? A little more. Right now, the freight train that goes through the neighborhoods in Lawndale and Redondo (NORTH OF 182nd street) is on a perfectly straight track. On that perfectly straight section, (162nd (Lawndale) to 182nd (Redondo) I did not find any accident reports.
Under the ROW option, the freight train track will NOT be straight. Metro plans to shift it, so that It will swerve closer to homes in Lawndale, then swerve back to go over the bridge at Artesia, and then swerve down 25 feet closer to the the condo complexes near Grant in Redondo. The drawings I have presented previously show center track is 25 ft 5 " from walls of condos, instead of 50 ft BNSF has rules that freight trains have to go slower when in a curve.Curves are inherently not as safe. Why should Metro deliberately swerve track into to the edge of a condo complex? And here is a summary of another freight train derailment incident, this one in Carson:
(December 20, 2018 in 1800 Block of Sepulveda in Carson: BNSF 15 CARS derailed. ) CA1218115N-WATBAR1-21 DERAILED 15 RAILCARS WHILE PULLING INTO YARD TRACK 9953 DUE TO FAILURE TO EXCESSIVE LATERAL DRAWBAR FORCE ON A CURVE. NO HAZARDOUS MATERIALS WERE RELEASED. )
Bottom line:
Keep our current freight tracks on the ROW straight, between 162nd and 182nd.
Keep the Green Line elevated, as it is in El Segundo.
Holly Osborne
Redondo Beach resident.
Note 1:
Here’s why flooding can cause serious problems on the railway Here’s why flooding can cause serious problems
on the railway
Network Rail has revealed why rain slows trains right down.
And the organisation which maintains the railway inf...