Dockside Service Studied : Fears of Noise Raised at Port Rail Hearing

Southern Pacific is concerned that dockside rail yards would undercut its state-of-the-art container transfer center, which cost millions of dollars.

Gladys Gutierrez is concerned about the pictures that will not hang straight on the walls of her North Long Beach home.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners was asked to take both factors into consideration during a hearing this week on an environmental report for the first full-fledged dockside rail yard in the port.

If the board approves dockside rail yards, Gutierrez said she fears the increase in the number of container-laden trains would mean even more noise and vibration in her Raymond Avenue home along Union Pacific’s main rail line to the harbor.

Gutierrez said trains traveling within feet of her home have caused so much vibration that they have cracked her house and her swimming pool. “Pictures can’t stay straight on the wall,” she said.

The train noise starts at 4 a.m. and runs through 11 p.m., giving her and her neighbors along the residential street no more than five hours of peace a night, she said.

International Transportation Service wants to install about 7,500 feet of railroad track near its berths in the Port of Long Beach so that containerized cargo can be loaded directly from ship to train.

Dockside rails would eliminate the need to truck the 20- and 40-foot boxes several miles to Southern Pacific’s Intermodal Container Transfer Facility near Carson. They could be double stacked onto flatcars at the docks and assembled into trains for the long trips to the East.

Shippers would save up to $90 per container in trucking fees, and the plan also would eliminate an estimated 800 round trips by trucks on the Long Beach Freeway each week, environmental documents state.

But the price of efficiency would be more trains running behind Gutierrez’ back yard. The number of container trains from dockside rail alone, not counting other kinds of trains, would increase from the current two a week to seven a week.

And that is only the start. Long Beach Container Terminal has filed an application for its own dockside rail yard and other terminals are interested, too. If the ITS application is approved, other terminals are expected to join to avoid losing their competitive edge. A March report prepared by the port estimated that 28 trains a week could service the Port of Long Beach by 1993.

Southern Pacific, which could lose container business to dockside rail and arch-competitor Union Pacific, protested in a thick volume to the board that dockside rail is expensive and unneeded.

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have steadily cornered an increasing share of the West Coast container trade, surpassing the 50% mark in 1986, without dockside rail. The port of Tacoma, Wash., which has dockside rail, has remained relatively static, according to Southern Pacific’s official report.

Both ports supported the construction of the container transfer facility near Carson several years ago after finding dockside rail unfeasible, the report stated. Southern Pacific said it has pumped $36 million into the project.

The container center remains the most efficient way to move containers, Southern Pacific attorney Loyd Derby told the board.

Harbor commissioners have said they need dockside rail to stay competitive with other West Coast ports, but the projects have been delayed by residents’ concerns over noise and possible traffic tie-ups in the port.

Vice Mayor Warren Harwood, whose council district includes homes most adversely affected by train noise and vibration, said that the port needs to ensure that continuously welded track, sound walls and grade separations be built along the rail line through Long Beach if the board allows dockside rail.

“If the cumulative effects are not mitigated, our community will be blighted, economically disadvantaged, a tough place in which to do business and a place for drivers to avoid (rather than face) half-mile long traffic jams,” Harwood said.