Passing Vanishing History. Amtrak's northbound Coast Starlight, No. 14, drops downgrade through Clear Creek Ravine and passes the ill-fated Tunnel 4 as it detours over Tehachapi Pass. Rocked by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake early on the morning of July 21, 1952, Southern Pacific's Tehachapi crossing was severely damaged between Bakersfield and Mojave; particularly at this hard to access location between Bealville and Cliff. It was reported that the quake moved the earth so forcefully that Tunnel 4 moved closer to Tunnel 3 - in turn pushing the rails between the two some 22 feet off center. In an effort to restore service to the line as quickly as possible, maintenance of way crews from the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and even Western Pacific descended on on the pass in groves. As work progressed and the toil of labor began to finish most of the clean up and rebuilding efforts on either side of this location, repairs on Tunnel 5 up at Cliff were proving to take longer than expected. Needing the vital rail line reopened, the decision was made to carve a shoo-fly into the side of the hill Tunnel 5 pierces through - still seen today at the center of the photo. In just 13 days the epic 2.37% alignment, consisting of a 14-degree curve on one end and a 15-degree curve at the other that was only able to be put in place thanks to a massive earth fill over Clear Creek Ravine, was in service. Today, the fill over the ravine seen here just to the left of the last car on No. 14, has almost entirely vanished, taking with it a little of the engineering marvel history that helped reopen this line more than 67 years ago.
Running daily between Seattle and Los Angeles, this train offers running alongside the Pacific Ocean and through the Cascade Mountains. It has been one of Amtrak's long-distance success stories.
