Alameda Corridor South

The South-End Project Area stretches approximately seven miles from the ports to the SR-91 freeway crossing in Compton, where the Alameda Corridor descends into the 10-mile-long mid-corridor trench.  The south end area is characterized by mix use industries, including port-related industrial businesses such as petroleum refineries, trucking companies, cargo storage yards, and various types of recyclers, a pleasure craft marina, multiple navigable and storm drain channels, residential neighborhoods and heavily traveled roadway intersections with personal vehicles and heavy-truck traffic.

The Alameda Corridor project improved rail and truck access to and from the ports by upgrading rail bridges over water channels and roadways to reduce bottlenecks and completely separate rail traffic from street traffic. The grade separations eliminate all vehicle conflicts reducing traffic congestion, delays and emissions. Street widening and improvement projects were also accomplished at Alameda Street, Anaheim Road, Pacific Coast Highway and Henry Ford Avenue, while improving numerous intersections.

Project descriptions can be found below.  A map depicting the various South End projects can also be viewed here.

The South-End resides in the historic Rancho Dominguez land grant property. This was the first Spanish Land Grant in Southern California bestowed in 1784 by King Carlos III to Juan Jose Dominguez, a retired Spanish soldier. Dominguez was a participant of the Portola Expedition with father Junipero Serra. The original grant covered 75,000 acres and included the entire Los Angeles Harbor and South Bay Cities. The current day ancestors of the Dominguez family continue the family legacy through the Watson, Del Amo and Carson families.

The Pacific Electric Railway:

When Phineas Banning opened the San Pedro to Los Angeles (SP&LA) Railroad, it was done with the assistance of the Dominguez family. The most efficient route from the port in San Pedro to the Pueblo Los Angeles was to pass through Rancho Dominguez. The Dominguez granted Banning’s railroad 77 acres of track right-of-way with the agreement to a Dominguez Junction at Alameda Street. The Corridor still travels over some of the same area granted to the SP&LA Railroad.

1910 Air Meet:

Behind the current day Claretian Seminary, stands Dominguez Hill. This is the location where the first International Air Meet in the United States was held in 1910. An estimated more than half-million passengers traveled by train to view the 10 daylong event. Glen Curtiss broke the air speed record during this event, flying 62 MPH above a six-hundred- foot- long grand stand. The flat plateau was provided free of charge by the Dominguez family.

The Claretians:

The Dominguez family were devout Catholics. In 1922, the last two remaining Dominguez daughters deeded 17 acres of land adjacent to the Dominguez family home to the Claretian Missionaries. By 1924, the Claretians were using their new facility as a graduate school and later as a seminary. The building still stands and can be visited by the public.

Native Americans:

During the construction of the Alameda Corridor, Native Americans were unearthed. It had been expected because records showed that Native Americans lived adjacent to the train tracks after 1869 to take advantage of tourists riding trains, farming cattle and the availability of water. Understanding the historical significance of these finds, ACTA engaged the services of the San Gabriel and Tongva Indian Nation as well as archeologists to assist with recovery of remains and properly reinterring the Native Americans to the land. The Native Americans were reinterred during a tribal ceremony along the Alameda Corridor. A large granite rock with a plaque commemorates their place of rest.

Previously, a single-track, open-deck, through-girder bridge crossed Compton Creek just south of the 91 Freeway. However, the Alameda Corridor required a three-track bridge to replace it. The track alignment and operations demanded that the new bridge be built in two phases, so the existing bridge could remain in-service while construction advanced.

Dominguez Seminary lies about a mile south of the 91 Freeway on the west side of Alameda Street. On the east side of the street, there are three ACTA mainline tracks and a UPRR lead track. An 1,600 foot-long, 16-foot-tall concrete block sound wall was installed by ACTA to reduce the noise impact on the seminary.

This project, which includes Segment 2 civil improvements, extends about 3 miles from the MTA Blue Line structure (located about a mile south of the SR-91 Freeway) to Sepulveda Boulevard. The Alameda Corridor right-of-way had to be improved to accommodate the three proposed ACTA mainlines, a new UPRR Drill Track, and two ACTA storage tracks between Laurel Park Road and Carson Street.

A half-mile-long bridge that carries Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) traffic over the Alameda Corridor mainlines, a branch rail line and Alameda Street in the Los Angeles community of Wilmington. The $107 million project was funded by Caltrans ($79 million), ACTA ($14 million) and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority ($14 million). The project was completed $20 million under-budget in March 2004.

Located in the community of Wilmington near the intersection of Alameda Street and Pacific Coast Highway, the project provides a direct track connection from the BNSF Railway’s Watson Yard to the former Southern Pacific Railroad’s San Pedro Branch.  The track connection includes; site civil, utility relocations and protection to existing trackage at the K-Pac warehouse facility.

About a mile south of the Pacific Coast Highway Crossing, the Corridor diverges east to the Port of Long Beach and south to Terminal Island. The branch to the east is the Long Beach Lead, which crosses Dominguez Channel. The crossing was previously a single-track steel bridge, but ACTA replaced that by a two-track bridge to meet traffic demand. Like other channel crossings by the Alameda Corridor, the new bridge had to be built in two phases to accommodate on-going rail operations during construction. Unlike the channel crossings to the north that used CIDH piles or precast driven piles, this bridge required Cast-in-Steel-Shell (CISS) piles due to soil conditions. Piles were installed, the cap beams were placed and the bridge set in-place with pre-fabricated steel stringer beam panels installed and then welded together. Once the first half of the bridge was put in-service, the old bridge was demolished and the second half built.

The Henry Ford Project is second to the Mid-Corridor Trench in terms of construction value. This mile long two-track elevated structure carries rail traffic to and from Terminal Island at the south end of the Alameda Corridor. Its purpose is to reduce delays at multiple existing roadway grade crossings in the area.

The Additional Control Points Project included the installation and modification of railroad signal and highway grade crossing systems to support the extension of Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) on Pacific Harbor Lines’ (PHL) Long Beach Subdivision track between Control Point Gaspur to a new Control Point near Ocean Boulevard; extension of CTC was also accomplished on the San Pedro Subdivision from the existing Control Points at Dominguez and Anaheim to the Transfer Junction switch.