Closed Rail Line Pinches Businesses : Storms: Deliveries are interrupted by massive slide on tracks in San Clemente. Cleanup may not begin until next week.

The unrelenting onslaught of Southern California rain is causing Carter Burruss, general manager of a poultry feed company, to reconsider his line of work.

“Only every damn night,” he snarled Wednesday, sounding like a man who hadn’t slept for a while. And, in fact, he hadn’t.

Burruss, who runs one of San Diego County’s leading producers of poultry feed, has seen his business come to a standstill because floodwaters have washed away railroad tracks that transport vital freight to keep his and other businesses going.

“We’re working night and day to keep the worst from happening--the chickens losing their feed supply,” Burruss said. “But frankly, it’s driving us all crazy.”

The news that a massive ocean-bluff landslide has, for the time being, eliminated all rail service between here and San Clemente came as a blow to Burruss’ firm and other feed distributors, as well as to lumber companies, rock carriers and even bakeries in San Diego County.

The problem threatened to reach crisis proportions, with rail officials saying Wednesday that the situation is so fragile on the bluffs overlooking San Clemente that crews will not be able to start repairs until Monday, meaning San Diego County and southern Orange County could be without rail service for at least a week.

Geologists worry that more removal of debris from the slide area could trigger further sliding or increase the danger to homes 75 feet above the tracks, on the bluffs of San Clemente. Five homes there were declared in ruins Tuesday after tons of rubble crashed down on Pacific Coast Highway.

Amtrak commuter ridership was interrupted Wednesday, and freight could not reach San Diego County for the second consecutive day. The 400- to 500-foot section of Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad track remained buried under mounds of dirt.

Mike Martin, spokesman for Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, said 18 Amtrak runs are shut down daily (nine from Orange County to San Diego and nine back, serving 5,000 commuters). In addition, two freight runs daily, one in each direction from San Diego and Barstow, have been shut down.

San Diego County has been effectively cut off from all railway freight since Monday night at 10:45, Martin said.

Perhaps worsening the outlook for a resumption of train service, a new storm is expected to bring more heavy rain to Southern California beginning tonight. Martin said city officials in Dana Point decided late Wednesday not to permit rail repair crews to begin work until early next week.

“It is a major inconvenience to our customers,” Martin said. “I’m talking about automobile dealers and auto manufacturers in San Diego who bring cars in and out, companies who receive general merchandise, steel, grain for feed mills for poultry and livestock, ranches in San Diego County. These people have supplies that last them a few days, but we have to do all we can do to get that track open.”

The situation was already bad in north San Diego County, where an east-west branch line between Oceanside and Escondido has been virtually unusable for two months. Rains have left portions of the tracks under water. Repairs have been hard to come by.

Burruss, whose company is the Escondido-based Hiett Manufacturing, said his firm depends on the east-west branch line to haul in the makings of poultry feed. He said millions of chickens are at risk.

“You can’t afford to let chickens run out of feed,” Burruss said. “If you do, it harms their reproductive cycle, and you then see a serious drop in production.”

Until the lines reopen, businesses such as Hiett Manufacturing must rely on trucking firms to move their goods, driving their costs higher.

Hiett Manufacturing brings in corn, milo and soy from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas, about 80% of which is hauled by rail and sold to ranches in Ramona, Alpine, Valley Center and rural hamlets throughout San Diego County. Having to haul by truck is costing the company an extra $5,000 to $7,000 a week--costs that could easily climb and that will ultimately pass to consumers, Burruss said.

Lumber dealers, also affected by the break in freight service, say the Southern California building slump has made the crimp in rail transport less of a problem than it would be otherwise, but that a one-week delay in service could pose major problems.

Harold Bell, an executive with the wholesale division of Dixieline Lumber Co. in National City, said Wednesday that if mudslide-related problems were to continue for a week, “then I’d be worried--really worried.”

Bell said his company imports 40% of its stock by rail, which is used to replenish a supply of about 15 million feet of lumber.

“We get five to 10 full (rail) cars in here a day,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be critical unless it lasted five days or more. Then it would be. And now, it looks like it may be. We’re not as much at risk as other companies, but if it goes much longer, it won’t be good. It hurts everybody, and could hurt a lot, depending on who you are.”

Times staff writer Len Hall in Orange County contributed to this story.