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Back then it
was the banishment of steam locomotives from city streets, which required
the railroad to use a pair of electric freight locomotives to move trains
down the length of Ninth Street until 1946. When the railroad purchased
diesel locomotives.
For the last ten years the City government has been
in negotians first with the Southern Pacific and the Tidewater Southern's
new owner Union Pacific, then with the UP singly after it purchased the
SP outright in 1996. The City's press release says it all:
"In 1996 Modesto removed
from Ninth Street downtown, the "long" trains that run parallel to Ninth
Street. These trains are, on the average, over 100 cars long, filled with
grain for the Foster Farms chicken processing plant in Livingston. These
monster trains traveled the length of Ninth at a speed slower than an automobile
(15 mph), causing traffic jams and backups at peak rush hours. The shorter,
about 75 cars, trains are expected to be removed in 1997 or 1998-with complete
removal of the tracks to follow."
Modesto's single-mindedness is about to pay off! |