The Surf Line is a railroad line that runs from San Diego north to Orange County along California's Pacific Coast. It was so named because much of the line is near the Pacific Ocean, within less than in some places. The tracks are now owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority and the North County Transit District, and hosts Metrolink's Orange County Line and Inland Empire–Orange County Line, the San Diego Coaster, and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner passenger trains. The BNSF Railway operates freight over the line using trackage rights.
History
Construction of the Surf Line between Los Angeles and San Diego began on October 12, 1880, with the organization of the California Southern Railroad Company. On January 2, 1882, the California Southern commenced passenger and freight service between National City and Fallbrook Junction, just north of Oceanside. From Oceanside the line turned northeast for a winding route through the Temecula Canyon, and was finished on August 21, 1882.
The line became part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad's transcontinental rail line in 1885 via an extension of the California Southern from Colton north over the Cajon Pass to Barstow. From 1886 to 1888, the Riverside, Santa Ana and Los Angeles Railway built a branch from Highgrove southwest via Riverside to Santa Ana and from Orange (just north of Santa Ana) northwest to Los Angeles. Also in 1888 the San Bernardino and San Diego Railway completed its line from Oceanside north to Santa Ana, completing what was originally called the Los Angeles–San Diego Short Line. The now-downgraded old route was destroyed by floods in 1891 and the new line, later named the Surf Line, was now the only line to San Diego from the north.
In 1910, the Fullerton and Richfield Railway built a short cutoff of the San Bernardino–Los Angeles route from Atwood west to Fullerton, giving the Surf Line its northern terminus of Fullerton.
For much of the 20th century, the Surf Line (officially, the Fourth District of the Los Angeles Division) was to the Santa Fe what the New York City–Philadelphia corridor was to the Pennsylvania Railroad. Daily traffic could reach a density of ten trains (each way) during the summer months. The route hosted AT&SF San Diegan passenger trains, renamed the Pacific Surfliner by Amtrak in 2000. The Santa Fe installed centralized traffic control in 1943–1944 which increased capacity on the line.
Santa Fe sold the line to local transportation authorities in 1992, with ownership split between the Southern California Regional Rail Authority in Orange County and the San Diego Northern Railway in San Diego County.
Operations
The route is the southerly portion of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor between San Luis Obispo and San Diego. Local agencies along the route formed the Los Angeles–San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency (LOSSAN) in 1989. Commuter trains began operating in the 1990s, initially as an outgrowth of existing Amtrak services before assuming the identities of Metrolink and Coaster. Coaster runs within San Diego County, between San Diego and Oceanside, while Metrolink's services operate north of Oceanside. Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner travels throughout the corridor. The San Diego Trolley light rail shares the Surf Line's right of way in San Diego, running adjacent to the heavy rail tracks. For about a mile in Oceanside, the Sprinter service parallels the Surf Line before heading east on the Escondido Subdivision towards Escondido, California.
Freight traffic includes military vehicles and equipment to Camp Pendleton and the Navy ports in San Diego. Due to passenger trains running on a daily schedule, occasional BNSF manifest freight trains run through the Surf Line often at night, which is dubbed as the "Daygo".
About two-thirds of the segment from the Orange County line to the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego has been double-tracked. As one of the nation's busiest corridors, local transportation and planning agencies want to complete the entire section. A section of double track between Elvira (SR 52) and Morena (Balboa Avenue) was completed in July 2020. The $192 million project, which began in August 2015, completed of double track from San Diego northward.
The segment of the LOSSAN Corridor within San Diego County achieved full implementation of positive train control in December of 2018, for all passenger and freight trains operating on this segment.