Santa Fe, Transit Officials Reach Deal for Track : Commuting: The $500-million agreement for 336 miles of rail line ends years of heated negotiations.

Ending three years of bare-knuckle back-room negotiation, regional transportation officials agreed Thursday to buy 336 miles of track from the Santa Fe Railway needed for several vital trolley and commuter lines.

The $500-million deal will, within three years, create the nation’s sixth-largest commuter railroad and bring rail transit to large portions of Southern California that otherwise would probably never see such service.

Jubilant officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--which, along with Ventura County, make up the Southern California Regional Rail Authority--made no effort to contain their enthusiasm as they joined Santa Fe executives at Union Station to announce the agreement.

“There is a great deal of satisfaction knowing that something that was destroyed long ago--rail service for the people of Southern California--is going to be restored,” said Susan Cornelison, a Riverside County Transportation Commission member who helped negotiate the deal.

The track purchased Thursday will let the regional rail authority’s Metrolink commuter service extend from Los Angeles to San Bernardino and Orange counties, and between Riverside and Orange counties. The services, which should be in operation by the end of 1993, will be in addition to the existing Amtrak service in these areas.

Commuter trains, unlike subways or trolleys, are designed for long-distance commuting and have stations about five miles apart.

The deal includes land needed to extend the Blue Line trolley from Union Station in Los Angeles to Pasadena.

“It’s a historic breakthrough,” said Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, whose staff helped keep talks going during several impasses. “People said they wanted transportation, wanted an alternative (to cars), and said they were willing to tax themselves to get it. . . . Now they will get it.”

Several speakers mentioned the unusual degree of cooperation among the five counties, which they said will make it far easier for the region to coordinate cross-border bus services and countywide plans to ease congestion.

Securing the property also gives transportation officials a boost in the November election, when they will ask voters to approve another $1 billion in bonds to expand rail service. Bonds approved two years ago were used to swiftly buy the tracks, stations, locomotives and coaches that make up the Metrolink service, scheduled to start Oct. 26. That service will cover 132 track miles. Eventually, the system will span 448 miles.

The $500-million purchase price falls about halfway between the Southern California Regional Rail Authority’s $300-million bid made last summer and Santa Fe’s subsequent $800-million counteroffer. But the final deal involved far more than splitting the difference.

To reach a middle ground, the rail authority slowly added more money to its bid while Santa Fe added more properties to the package. The final agreement includes several assets--notably the Harbor subdivision track from Los Angeles to Long Beach through Torrance and the Escondido branch of track from Oceanside to Escondido in San Diego County--that were not involved in initial discussions.

“It lets them get more funds out of (the deal), but it lets us get more value,” said Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and one of the rail authority’s lead negotiators.

Santa Fe also was wooed with several things besides the $500 million. The counties, for example, have agreed to forgive millions of dollars in loans made years ago to Santa Fe to upgrade its track between Los Angeles and San Diego, and have promised to urge Sacramento to forgive the state’s share of the loans.

Those loans total about $50 million and were made to improve service on the commuter-style passenger trains being run by Amtrak.

In addition, the rail authority has promised to spend tens of millions of dollars to expand and upgrade Santa Fe’s remaining east-west line, which commuter trains and freight cars will share. These improvements, including new sidings and sophisticated signaling, will accommodate commuter trains without interfering with the railroad’s annual $1-billion freight business in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The first phase of the upgrade will cost $80 million. Subsequent improvements, which would be made only as traffic requires, would come in steps of $48 million and $85 million.

“We were able to assist the counties to put in commuter service, but also protect our freight business, . . . which is an important part of the local economy,” Santa Fe Pacific Corp. Vice President Robert L. Edwards said.

The deal was reached only after some unusually bitter name-calling that included a particularly colorful transit official accusing Santa Fe of attempting a “train robbery in reverse.” At several points, each side demanded that the other replace its negotiators.

Negotiations seemed so hopeless last fall that the rail authority filed a complaint with the federal Interstate Commerce Commission, asking it to order the railroad to cooperate.

It also enlisted California’s notoriously disjointed congressional delegation to band together and urge Santa Fe to ease its demand. Remarkably, the effort included such conservative Republicans as Carlos Moorhead of Glendale, Ron Packard of Oceanside, David Drier of Claremont and Jerry Lewis of Redlands, as well as San Bernardino Democrat George Brown.

Peterson said transit officials for a time considered asking those legislators to introduce a bill to modify ICC regulations, compelling railroads to cooperate with public-transit agencies.

Metrolink Moves Ahead

Plans for a five-county Metrolink commuter-train network--and a trolley line from Pasadena to Los Angeles--came closer to reality Wednesday when a regional transportation board agreed to buy 340 miles of track from the Santa Fe Railway. The sale will let commuter trains link Los Angeles County with San Bernardino, Orange and northern San Diego counties in 1993. By using track bought earlier from other railroads, Metrolink plans to start service to Union Station from Ventura County and the Santa Clarita, San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys on Oct. 26.

Source: Southern California Regional Rail Authority