{"id":288053,"date":"2026-04-27T12:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/288053\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:36:19","slug":"midtown-sacramento-trains-delay-annoy-and-persevere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/288053\/","title":{"rendered":"Midtown Sacramento trains delay, annoy \u2014 and persevere"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Abridged version:<\/p>\n

Multiple trains have rumbled through Midtown Sacramento every day for decades, pulling hundreds of freight cars \u2014 and in a few years \u2014 passengers. They cause delays that disrupt urban mobility and sometimes frustrate motorists.<\/p>\n

Moving the tracks outside the central city, or putting them underground or overhead, has been pondered for generations.<\/p>\n

Reno built a downtown trench to underground its trains 20 years ago. Such an approach in Sacramento would be expensive.<\/p>\n

It seems to happen at the worst time: You\u2019re driving through Midtown Sacramento, late for an appointment, when you get stopped at the 20th street railroad crossing as a freight train rumbles through.<\/p>\n

And you wait and wait. And wait.<\/p>\n

Several minutes and dozens of cars later, the same thought always seems to surface: \u201cI\u2019m in the heart of a decent-sized city. Can\u2019t they reroute these trains or put them over or under the street?\u201d<\/p>\n

Passenger trains scheduled to join the freights <\/p>\n

For those who live or toil in the central city, it\u2019s not a once-in-a-while thought. In addition to the much shorter SacRT light rail trains that have their own tracks, five to 10 freight trains, which can include more than 100 cars each, run through Midtown daily.<\/p>\n

And in a few years, they will be joined by passenger trains, stopping at a new station scheduled for construction at Q Street. The San Joaquin Rail Commission has approved that plan<\/a> and hopes Amtrak trains begin rolling through \u2014 and stopping \u2014 by 2031.<\/p>\n

\"ProposedA new passenger train stop is set to be built at this site near 19th and Q streets in Sacramento. (Denis Akbari)<\/p>\n

Wait. It\u2019s Sacramento\u2019s identity<\/p>\n

In many ways, Sacramento\u2019s identity can be attributed to the railroad, as an early example when rail lines were built through the heart of cities to serve expanding urban centers \u2014 a common practice into the early 20th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that\u2019s interesting about Sacramento is that it has such a strong rail history,\u201d said Sacramento City Councilmember\u00a0Roger Dickinson, a former county supervisor and state assemblyman. He served on the Regional Transit board for 20 years, is a founding board member of Sacramentans for Metro Area Rail and Transit and serves on the Capitol Corridor board.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize that Sacramento was the terminus of the transcontinental railroad,\u201d Dickinson added. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t San Francisco, it was Sacramento, just as it was with the Pony Express. This was the place where you got to the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FreightA freight train heading west gets ready to cross the railroad intersection at 19th and L streets on April 9, 2026. (Steve Martarano)<\/p>\n

Relief is not on the way<\/p>\n

While sometimes annoying, trains splitting Sacramento\u2019s Midtown core won\u2019t change anytime soon. It\u2019s a vast and complicated network of tracks that run through and around the city, with the Union Pacific Railroad operating the tracks for passenger and freight trains, and SacRT, which was built in 1987, operating light rail.<\/p>\n

With all of that coming and going, there are limited opportunities to run both freight and passenger trains on the same track through a certain time and space, called slots, Dickinson said. This means making any changes to existing tracks extremely difficult, as well as costly.<\/p>\n

Can I get a free drink?<\/p>\n

Trains are a constant presence for businesses close to the tracks, such as the Old Spaghetti Factory at 19th and J streets (which was an actual Western Pacific train depot) or the Mercantile Saloon, an historic Victorian building located just feet away from the tracks at 19th and L streets.<\/p>\n

\"OldThe Old Spaghetti Factory at 19th and J streets was a Western Pacific train depot from 1910 to 1970. (Steve Martarano)<\/p>\n

At the Mercantile, patrons at the bar have grown accustomed to the rumble and screech of the trains, said manager Pedro Cervantes, who has worked there for 20 years.<\/p>\n

Cervantes said patrons can watch the trains from the saloon\u2019s back patio and often feel the building shake when a train roars by. \u201cSome will ask for a free drink (because of the disruption),\u201d he said, laughing. He recalled that on his first day on the job at the Mercantile, he was late for work because of a train delay.<\/p>\n

\"AThe backside of the Mercantile Saloon building abuts the tracks near 19th and L streets, where patrons can view the trains passing by from an outside patio. (Steve Martarano)<\/p>\n

The whistle doesn\u2019t blow <\/p>\n

Alternate route scenarios have probably been debated since the horse-and-buggy days, when the railroad system was first developed with lines running through the city and surrounding areas in the late 1880s, creating the first main hub of the transcontinental railroad.<\/p>\n

There have been recent changes made to trains going through the city regarding noise. Midtown Sacramento is now considered a no-horn zone, and train engineers must lay off the whistles.<\/p>\n

Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Justin Sylvia said the department has to make sure to launch emergency response from the correct side of the tracks. He said the department knows that the trains transport toxic cargo through a heavily urbanized area and has prepared to respond if a problem occurs.<\/p>\n

Alternative Western Pacific routes were considered in the 1950s during that key era of Sacramento development, said local historian William Burg, who has written several books about Sacramento\u2019s urban history. But no detailed analysis has ever really been done for around 75 years, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time there were any analyses and studies would have been the 1950s, and that\u2019s when they were still talking about demolishing the entire central city,\u201d Burg said.<\/p>\n

\"AA freight train heading west crosses the railroad intersection at 19th and L streets on April 9, 2026. (Steve Martarano)<\/p>\n

Reno threw money at its problem<\/p>\n

Putting trains in an underground tunnel or trench provides one alternative that Sacramento drivers ponder regularly, and local officials have discussed the issue on occasion. The \u201cBiggest Little City in the West\u201d \u2014 Reno \u2014 actually successfully accomplished it 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Project ReTRAC was Reno\u2019s largest ever public works project, costing close to $300 million when it opened in 2005. Federal grants and the Union Pacific Railroad paid the tab, with most funding coming from Reno through loans and bonds.<\/p>\n

The trench put trains underground through the center of downtown Reno along a 2.3-mile stretch, with the goal of improving public safety, reducing noise and helping drivers avoid lengthy traffic delays.<\/p>\n

\"TrainConstruction of the train trench in downtown Reno, Nev. (Schnabel Foundation Co.)<\/p>\n

\"TrainThe train trench in downtown Reno, Nev., on May 27, 2006. (Ken Lund)<\/p>\n

\u2018Eye-wateringly expensive\u2019<\/p>\n

Sacramento would face different issues were it to undertake a similar project. If a trench through Sacramento had the same goals as in Reno, the project would stretch around five miles and include the corridor stretching to the City College\/Curtis Park neighborhood, going through highly trafficked intersections like Broadway, P, L, J and I streets.<\/p>\n

Burg said such a trench would deny train riders the chance to see Sacramento as they passed through town. The route also has a higher water table than Reno, equaling a higher flood risk, and more historic infrastructure, which would make construction more complex and disruptive.<\/p>\n

It would also be \u201ceye-wateringly expensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hurry up and wait?<\/p>\n

Does that mean Sacramento drivers will just have to accept that trains might possibly disrupt their workday but could learn to enjoy their historical significance?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just want people to know, when we think about cars and planes and all this stuff, that trains are such an important part of our past,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cBoth our present and our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Martarano is a Sacramento-based freelance journalist whose father, Carmen, worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Jose and Sparks for 35 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: Multiple trains have rumbled through Midtown Sacramento every day for decades, pulling hundreds of freight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-288053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}